The girl in the photo on her wall blinked. Ava froze mid-step, sloshing tea across the carpet. Her eyes locked on the frame. The image looked the same: rusted gold trim, a colourful yet faded garden, a swing dangling from nowhere. And the girl, maybe eight, with porcelain skin, green eyes, a dirty pinkish-red dress, and corkscrew curls.

She hadn’t taken the photo. She didn’t know the child. The image came with the antique frame she found at the estate sale in Chester. An impulse buy, half curiosity and half unease. But the moment she held it, something clicked. Like déjà vu. Like recognition. She’d only bought it because of the rustic gold edging.

That, and the strange pull she felt when she first saw it.

She passed the photo every day and never looked twice. Not until the blink. She told herself it was imagination. Stress. She told herself it was fatigue, light distortion, her tired mind.

But as she turned away, her gaze flicked to her reflection. One eye blue, like cornflowers soaked in moonlight. The other deep brown, like burnt amber. A genetic fluke. A conversation starter. And sometimes, a reminder that her perception of the world was always split.

They’d made her feel unique growing up. Had always made her stand out. She’d grown used to the stares, the compliments, the questions. Sometimes admired, sometimes ridiculed. Lately, they made her feel watched.

That night, she dreamed of swings creaking in windless air. Of laughter that stopped too suddenly. Of something watching behind rippling glass.

In the morning, the photo had changed. The swing remained. So did the girl. But now she had a smile. Soft, but off. And now her hands were cupped in front of her, just below her waist, cradling something faintly blurred. Ava leaned in. The image sharpened slightly. A locket on a chain. It dangled from the girl’s tiny fingers.

She pressed a fingertip to the glass. Ice-cold. By evening, the photo had shifted again. The locket was clearer now, etched in silver, hanging from the girl’s tiny fingers. And her grin had curled higher. Unnatural.

The days blurred into static. Subtle changes each morning: grass darkened, her pupils dilated, green eyes unnaturally wide, the shadows thickened at her feet. Her dress dulled to pinkish grey. Her smile bent in on itself.

Ava started avoiding that wall. She hung a dish towel over the frame, but it always slipped to the floor, no matter how she pinned it. The air near the wall felt charged, heavy like the moment before thunder.

Sleep was a trick that unraveled the second she drifted off. Each time, the dream returned, sharper than the last. She lay beneath the swing, limbs heavy, staring up through a pane of clouded glass, the surface fogged from the other side. Something shifted behind her, close enough to feel its presence slide against her spine. She couldn’t see it, but she felt the icy pull, like a hook beneath her skin.

Three days later, she heard the voice. A child’s whisper, brittle and close. Near the wall. “Come play.”

Ava spun, heart stuttering. Empty room. The hum of the fridge. The shiver of dread.

She ripped the frame from the wall and stuffed it into the back of a kitchen drawer beneath old Tupperware lids. Weighted it down with a bag of dried beans and shut it hard.

That night, she dreamed of singing. A slow lullaby warped by static. When she woke, the frame was back on the wall. Dead center. Perfectly aligned.

She called her sister, tried to explain. “It’s the photo, Linds. It keeps changing. It won’t stay put. It’s watching me.”

Her sister suggested wine. And rest. and maybe deleting her horror podcast queue.

Ava hung up. Tears stung her eyes, a quiet desperation tightening her chest.

She grabbed the frame again. This time, she tried fire.

The edges blackened. The frame hissed. But the photo remained—pristine and glossy beneath the soot.

When laughter echoed faintly from behind her, she dropped it all and ran.

She packed a bag and fled to Lindsay’s. Two nights in the guest room brought her no peace. On the third night, Lindsay burst in.

“You came into my room,” she whispered, trembling. “You stood at the foot of my bed, whispering. You weren’t even blinking. Your eyes weren’t yours!”

Ava hadn’t left the futon. She left before sunrise.

At home, something inside her had shifted. She didn’t scream when she saw the new photo.

Two girls now. Both sat on the swing. One had tight curls and clutched the locket.

The other looked exactly like Ava.

Her jaw quivered. She couldn’t look away.

The girl with her face stared right at her.

Ava turned to her mirror. Stared at her reflection. Moved. It did not mimic her. The timing was off. Her hand rose slower than she moved it. A fraction too late.

Then the reflection smiled.

But Ava hadn’t.

Then, it blinked.

The moment shattered. Ava’s world peeled apart. Brittle wallpaper curling from rotted walls. She fell through. Into.

The sky above was gray and unmoving. The grass beneath her felt brittle, unreal. The swing creaked lazily in a windless world.

The girl stood beside it. Waiting.

Closer now. Pale skin, unblinking green eyes, the silver locket catching dull light. And her smile… even Ava’s worst dreams hadn’t captured the way it stretched.

She tilted her head. Her voice came out flat, devoid of breath, like a tape worn thin.

“Tag,” she whispered. “You’re it.”

Ava tried to speak. Move. Scream.

She couldn’t.

The girl stepped forward, unblinking. She placed the locket in Ava’s hand.

“Smiles make it easier.”

Then she back stepped through the floating frame behind her. Into Ava’s world.

The next morning, light spilled into the room. The frame hung undisturbed on the wall. Only one girl in the photo now.

Same swing. Same face. But her eyes didn’t match.

AmmieSue

@SchoonerPixie

Annapolis Valley, NS

AmmieSue has not written a story.