No Filter, page 6
She can’t finish. So close, but it’s too much. Thankfully, she doesn’t need to.
“If it’s him?” asks Blaine.
“It was his camera after all. So maybe …”
She takes a bite of Italian ice so she won’t have to continue. She knows the idea that her father might try to come back to her through the camera is ridiculous, childish, fairy-story kind of stuff. She wishes she could rid herself of it. But she can’t.
They eat their Italian ice and frozen custard in silence. Jinx listens to the other people chat as they eat their own frozen treats. Their voices have a lightness and ease that Jinx doesn’t feel. Maybe has never felt.
“Have you …” Blaine pauses, like he’s trying to figure out the best way to say something. “Have you ever told anybody what you saw? That day?”
Jinx slowly pushes her spoon through the remaining red slush in her paper cup.
“They all know what I saw.” The anger in her tone surprises her. “They just want to hear me say it.”
“Maybe they think it’ll make you feel better?” suggests Blaine.
She gives him a bitter look. “Maybe it’ll make them feel better.”
Blaine doesn’t respond. Instead, he goes back to his frozen custard, which is a relief. Jinx knows she can count on him not to press her too hard on the thing that everyone else seems completely obsessed with. Like, if she just talks about it, that’ll somehow make it all better. It won’t make anything better. And even worse, she’ll have a new memory of seeing their reactions. She’ll have to witness it all over again through someone else’s eyes.
“Okay,” Blaine says finally. “I honestly don’t know if I believe in ghosts or whatever. But just for a moment, let’s say it is him. What do you think he wants?”
“Wants?” Her hand grips her spoon hard.
“That’s the deal with ghosts or spirits, right?” points out Blaine. “They’ve been wronged somehow in life, so they come back to haunt people until that wrong is made right.”
“I … guess.” She stabs the red slush with her spoon.
“So who wronged your dad?”
She stabs it again. And again. And again …
“Jinx?”
Jinx: a person or thing that brings bad luck.
“You okay?”
A person who brings bad luck.
“Whoa, seriously, Jinxie, what’s going on?”
Jinx continues to stab the dripping red slush as she whispers, “I know who wronged my dad.”
“Forget about that,” Blaine says hastily. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
She suddenly stops stabbing and looks at him. Her eyes are wide, and her next words come out like a strangled hiss through clenched teeth.
“It’s me. I wronged him.”
This is Jinx’s first day without her camera since her father’s death. She doesn’t like it. She doesn’t know what to do. She feels anxious, like something bad is going to happen but she can’t predict what.
She goes to Joey’s and apologizes to Ms. Lombardi for running out in the middle of the shoot. The pizza shop owner seems more concerned than mad. Jinx almost wishes she was mad, because the worried look in her eyes makes Jinx even more uncomfortable. People often give her that look, usually when they think she won’t notice. She always notices, but usually, she can ignore it by focusing on camera stuff. Now her hands are distressingly empty.
After she leaves Joey’s, she decides to see a movie. Maybe it will distract her from how much she misses having her camera. The local theater looks just like it did in the 1930s on the outside, including the original sign, which spells GREENBELT down the front in vertical neon letters.
Since it’s the middle of a weekday, there’s no one at the box office window. Jinx walks into the lobby, where she’s greeted by the smell of fresh popcorn, and Ms. Linkenholker behind the concession counter.
“Hey, Jinx. It’s been awhile,” she says. “How are you?”
“Oh, uh, okay I guess.” That’s not true, of course, but she’s trying to distract herself from her problems, not talk about them even more. “Is there a movie soon?”
“Yep. North by Northwest starts in about thirty minutes.”
“Cool, I guess I’ll see that.”
“It’s kind of an old movie, but Hitchcock was one of the greats. I think it holds up pretty well.”
Jinx nods. She thinks she’s heard that name before, although she can’t really remember from where.
“You want some popcorn?” asks Ms. Linkenholker.
“Sure.”
Ms. Linkenholker fills a small bag and hands it to her. “Enjoy!”
“Thanks,” Jinx says, then walks through the lobby and into the auditorium. While the outside looks old-fashioned, the inside is more modern, with comfy red seats and a giant screen. But there’s still some vintage touches, too, like the curtains along the sides.
There aren’t many people, which makes it easy to spot Swapna sitting in row G near the center. Jinx decides she might as well say hi, and heads over.
“Hey,” she says as she sidles down the row.
“Hey,” says Swapna. “You’re a Hitchcock fan, too, huh? I guess that makes sense, since you like horror movies. I don’t normally like slasher movies or any of that, but I mean, Hitchcock is like a whole different level, right?”
“Oh, I don’t really know Hitchcock,” admits Jinx as she settles into the seat next to her.
“How can you not know Hitchcock?” asks Swapna. “He’s like one of the most famous filmmakers ever.”
Jinx shrugs. “You said it’s horror?”
“Well, North by Northwest is more suspense than horror, but Hitchcock did some proper horror movies, too, like The Birds and Psycho.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of Psycho,” says Jinx. “Norman Bates, right? Ran a hotel and stabbed his customers while they were in the shower?”
Swapna rolls her eyes. “I mean, technically, yeah, but it’s way more than that. Psycho is a classic. I mean, all Hitchcock films are classics, I guess. But that’s definitely a big one. Like, he pioneered so many film techniques that today we just kind of take for granted, you know?”
She seems a lot more excited to talk about filmmaking than she did about acting, which makes Jinx wonder something.
“You really get into movies, huh?”
Swapna looks embarrassed. “Yeah, I guess I’m like a film nerd or something.”
“Would you rather make movies than act in them?”
The question seems to surprise Swapna. “Well, I mean … eventually, sure. But even if I don’t really want to be an actor, I think it’ll be a good experience because a director needs to be able to talk to her actors. It’ll help if I have some acting experience myself.”
“That makes sense,” says Jinx. “I was honestly kind of confused about the whole acting thing because you’ve never talked about it before, but now I get it.”
“Well, also my mom wants me to do it,” says Swapna. “I think because she wishes that she was an actress.”
“What’s that got to do with you?” asks Jinx.
Swapna laughs. “Right? Ugh. It’s like some weird mom thing, you know?”
“Not really.”
Jinx didn’t mean to say that. It just kind of slipped out. And she definitely didn’t mean for it to sound so … harsh. But Swapna flinches a little, like it actually hurt.
“Sorry, I just—I wasn’t thinking,” she stammers.
It was an accident. Jinx knows that. People love to complain about their moms for some reason. Maybe because they can bond over it. Everybody has a mom, right? Well, except Jinx. She’s never even met her mother. But she can’t expect people to always remember that. This isn’t the first time it’s happened to her. In fact, she’s lost count how many times. Once is whatever. A drop. But it keeps happening, over and over, with all different kinds of people. Each drip adds a little more, spreading out a bit further each time. Like dark ink on parchment.
Not that she can tell people that, of course. They’d either worry about her even more or decide they don’t want to be around her. Probably both.
So she just says, “It’s fine.”
And she means it.
Or, well, she wants to mean it. That’s what counts, right?
After that awkward exchange, they sit in uncomfortable silence, waiting for the suspense movie to begin.
Jinx has a hard time getting into the movie. She doesn’t really understand why it’s called suspense when it’s mostly just some adults standing around talking. She starts wishing she had her camera again. She wants to hold it. To look through it. To focus on it, not on this dull, black-and-white movie. She gets restless and fidgety, and she can tell that’s bothering Swapna, who is trying to focus on the movie. So after a half hour or so, she gives up and quietly slips out of the theater.
As she walks through the lobby, Ms. Linkenholker asks, “Not feeling it, Jinx?”
Jinx doesn’t want Ms. Linkenholker to think her movies are boring, so she says, “Oh, uh, it’s great. I just remembered I need to do something.”
“Okay, well, you’re always welcome.”
“Thanks, Ms. Linkenholker.”
Of course the problem is, Jinx doesn’t actually have something to do. So now what?
Well, she tried distracting herself from her camera problem, and that didn’t work. Maybe, since she can’t stop thinking about it anyway, she should learn more about it instead. And she knows that the best place to learn about stuff is the library.
The Greenbelt Public Library is pretty small, but it has a nice “Teen Zone” section with some tables and chairs surrounded on all sides by YA books. There’s also a kids area that she used to love when she was little. Sometimes, she would show up for the reading times even when she was a little too old for them, just because she liked listening to the librarian’s soothing voice. And before Blaine built her computer, she would often use the library computers to watch videos about photography and learn how to edit images.
Now she goes up to the information counter, where an older man with a beard sits typing on a computer.
“Good morning, Mr. Humphries.”
He looks up, and his face brightens. “Jinx! Good morning! What can I do for you?”
“Do we have any books about spirit photography?”
“Oh, looking to learn some new creative techniques, huh?”
“Sure,” she says, because she doesn’t want to get into the real reason with him.
“Such an interesting trend, wasn’t it?” he says as he begins searching on his computer. “I read somewhere that the reason seeing spirits became so popular was because of all the death and horror that people witnessed during World War I. They were looking for some kind of comforting, tangible assurance that their deceased loved ones were okay.”
“I can understand that,” Jinx says truthfully.
Mr. Humphries pauses a moment in his typing, and the concerned expression flashes across his face. Then he goes back to looking at the monitor, and his face brightens.
“Ah, here we are. It’s called The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult by Clément Chéroux. It’s in the photography section. Want me to write down the number for you?”
She shakes her head. “I know that section pretty well.”
He smiles. “I’m sure you do.”
Jinx goes back to the photography section, where she’s spent a lot of time over the past couple of years. Her fingers slide gently across the spines as she searches for the book. Today her Band-Aids are yellow to match her T-shirt, which has the album cover for Sailing the Seas of Cheese by Primus on the front. The cover image is exactly what it sounds like: a Claymation-style picture of a pirate ship sailing through a yellow sea of cheese, with a shark, an octopus, and a bearded merman swimming around it.
She spots the heavy, hardbound photography book and takes it over to a table. Somebody at the library appreciates symmetrically placed seating, and she savors that for a moment. Then she slips into a chair and begins to read.
The book shows page after page of old-fashioned people posing with ghostly apparitions floating around them. The ghost is sometimes a child, other times an old person. One strangely meta image depicts a table with a framed photograph on it. And surrounding the table are four child spirits that seem like they could also be the children in the photo. Jinx gazes at it a long time, unsure exactly why she feels so drawn to it. Maybe it’s like Mr. Humphries said. People who have seen horror and death want tangible proof that their loved one is okay.
For just a moment, Jinx imagines herself sitting on a stool in an empty white room. The light is soft. The floor is hardwood, like her home. Someone is taking her picture. She doesn’t know who, because she can’t see them. She’s the camera looking at herself sitting on the stool. And behind her, pale and wavering like drifting smoke, is her father. A little heavyset, with spiky dark hair, a goatee, and silver hoop earrings. His expression should be too ghostly to discern. But she can. She can see it. The quiet, weary despair of a man who did not like his life, and ultimately decided to leave it.
This imaginary image was supposed to comfort her, like it comforted all those people long ago. But it doesn’t. It sends a corkscrew of dread down into her. She can taste it, like a metallic tang on her tongue. She wraps her arms around her torso and squeezes as hard as she can, but it doesn’t lessen the twisting pressure. She only knows one true escape from this feeling.
Jinx slaps the book closed loud enough that people look up. But then they see that it’s her, and they all look concerned because everyone knows what happened, and that just makes it all worse. She keeps her eyes fixed to the floor as she hurries toward the front door.
“Jinx? You okay?” she hears Mr. Humphries ask, but she keeps going.
Why does everyone ask her that question? What makes them think she might be okay? What makes them think she will ever be okay? What makes them think she deserves to be okay?
Jinx staggers out of the library, fumbling for her phone. It’s not her Canon 5D Mark III DSLR, but at least it takes pictures, so maybe it will relieve some of this pressure.
“I am a camera,” she whispers as she presses the phone to her forehead. “That’s all that I am.”
She starts taking pictures. The flowers in front of the library, the memorial bench, people walking past, a ladybug on a leaf. It doesn’t matter. The point is to put her focus out there rather than let it continue to twist within her chest. To make it about some thing, and not about her. And while she hates the phone’s photo settings, the meager heft, and the lack of a proper viewfinder, taking pictures with it does make her feel a little more at ease—a little less like the world is crumbling beneath her feet.
Once she’s feeling better, she sits on the steps of the Community Center Building to collect herself. Out of idle curiosity, she decides to check if anything she took is halfway decent. But then her breath catches in her throat.
The most recent image shows the community center, which has a bas-relief sculpture depicting all different kinds of workers, united, marching in a line. But something is wrong with them. Instead of looking noble and proud like normal, in this picture their eyes are narrow and smeared with soot. Their mouths are also blackened, and curled into sneers.
And hovering above them is the specter.
Jinx stares incredulously at the image. She closes her eyes and opens them again.
It’s all still there.
She flips to another image. It’s a picture of a bird sitting in the thick branches of one of Greenbelt’s largest, oldest trees. But now, obscuring the bird is the specter, perched on the branch like a giant, murky raven. Thin black tendrils snake down from the branch, reaching forward, toward the camera, toward her …
Jinx lurches up from the bench as if she can feel those tendrils touching her feet. That’s not possible of course. They aren’t really there. She looks down to make sure and doesn’t see them. But she can still feel them coming for her.
She stumbles across the wide grass lawn in front of the library. She imagines them snapping at her heels, threading, groping, wanting to pull her down. The twisting in her stomach is worse. So much worse. Like something is pressing on her insides. Like something wants to escape.
Why is this still happening to her? She wasn’t even using the camera. It doesn’t make sense because it’s the camera that’s haunted, right?
Wrong.
Now she understands. Now she finally gets it. The camera isn’t haunted.
She is.
Jinx jerks to a sudden stop in the middle of the lawn. She stares up into the blue skies above, directly at the sun. It blinds her, makes her unable to see this thing that’s coming for her. Despite the heat of the day and the sweat soaking into her hair, her skin feels cold and clammy. Her brain is a mess of static and endlessly looping questions: Why is this happening? What should she do? What can she do? If it’s not a problem with the camera, then it’s a problem with her. And if she’s the problem, then there is no escape. No release from this horrible, awful feeling.
No escape … except … except—
“Jinx!”
Monica’s voice splashes into the noise in her brain like a rescue float. Jinx blinks, her vision now filled with spots from staring into the sun. She looks around as her heart slows, the dark spots fade, and the world gradually stabilizes into something that at least appears to make sense.
Monica is stretched out on a blanket at the edge of the lawn, under the shade of a tree. Seth sits next to her, the remnants of a picnic lunch between them. They’re both dressed in regular shorts and T-shirts now. Monica props herself up on her elbow as she smiles and beckons Jinx over with one slim brown arm.
Not knowing what else to do, Jinx walks over to them.
“Hang with us a bit.” Monica pats the blanket beside her.
Jinx obediently sits.
“What’s going on, Jinxie?” Monica’s tone is cheerful, but it’s clear by her serious brown eyes that this is not an idle question. “Talk to me.”
