From Beyond the Frames

“Why won’t your grandmother sit for pictures with the rest of the family?”

My question was inconsistent with the bumping of the stereo, the tuneless crooning of my friends, and the bottles of burning liquor being passed around the room, but I couldn’t shake the image of the elderly Mrs. Kitagawa scurrying from the kitchen when we broke out the mobile phones for selfies after dinner.

“Because Grandma Kitagawa is a weirdo.” Slurred Brittany from her spot on the draped four poster bed which earned her a flying pillow to the face from the other side of the room.

I looked to Natsumi’s reflection in the full length mirror on the wall by the closet and noted with discomfort the flash of anger in her dark, almond shaped eyes. Shiloh followed up the pillow toss by telling Brittany to shut her drunk trap and I relaxed as I watched the ire drain from Natsumi’s face. But still, my curiosity over the old woman’s odd behavior burned.

“I really want to know,” I said from my perch on the chair in front of Natsumi’s makeup table, my chin resting in my hands and my body weight balanced by my elbows on the tops of my thighs, “when we were taking pictures earlier she looked really mad and maybe even a little bit scared. What is that all about?”

“She’s superstitious,” said Natsumi, her voice cutting through the Saturday night revelry, “it is an old belief that cameras steal a piece of your soul and trap it in the picture forever.”

I felt a chill go up my spine, but it lasted only a fraction of a second as Brittany’s inebriated voice pierced the air. “Wasn’t there a movie about that? Horror film. I think I watched it with Tyler. Or shall I say it was on in the background while we got busy beneath the blanket on his mother’s leather couch?” She winked luridly and we all rolled our eyes.

“Come on girls,” said Shiloh, “it is time to blow this joint, our public awaits!” Her finery glittered in the lamplight and her crimson painted lips curled in a smile, stark against the alabaster of her skin.

We all filed out obediently behind her for a night of fun. We had been looking forward to Senior Prom for years.

Too bad it didn’t live up to the amazing night of my dreams.

I watched in disgust as Brittany’s lips locked on the mouth of the boy I’d had a crush on since the first grade. It was small consolation to know that he was too drunk to know what he was doing. Judging by the smell rolling off him earlier he might be too drunk to recognize his own mother. Brittany’s behavior could not be excused, however, for no matter how drunk she got she was always in full command of her senses and she was always looking to one up her friends. An hour ago, she and Tyler got in a loud argument in the middle of the dance floor, something about a charming Freshman girl he had been tutoring over spring break. Following that public bust up, my crush had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and Brittany had been hungry.

I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, and my stomach rolled when Brittany opened her eyes and arched an eyebrow in my direction, her lips still pressed against his. It was a dare, a challenge to come out and claim what I felt was rightfully mine after so many years of waiting for this night, and it was one that she knew I would not take. Instead I gave her the finger and spun on my heel to get out of the building as fast as I could.

Prom was still held at our high school since not a single venue in the area could beat the beautiful architecture and stunning views of the building on the bluff. My family’s home was less than a mile from the front door, too, and rather than wait around for Brittany the backstabber to be done, or risk ruining Shiloh and Natsumi’s fun, I decided to walk home instead. My dress wasn’t suited for a journey of any length on foot, but at least I had opted for flats instead of heels, so the walk was not an ugly stumble. Once I was outside in the fresh air I realized for the first time how drunk I was and while I knew that my father would probably be mad, I also knew that my mother would forget it entirely once she heard what Brittany had done.

My neighborhood had been heralded as the safest in the city more for many years in a row and so I did not even think to be suspicious when a van cut in at the curb alongside me. Before I knew it, the doors were thrown open, I was grabbed from behind, and two pairs of strong arms manhandled me into the vehicle. My limbs were secured with duct tape, a reeking dark pillow case was jammed over my head, and when I wouldn’t stop screaming one of my assailants struck me hard on the back of the skull. I spiraled down into unconsciousness and the last thing I remember was the screech of the tires as the vehicle sped away.

When my eyelids fluttered open, I was on my back with my limbs spread out in a featureless gray room illuminated by strange, soft light. My prom dress was gone, replaced by soft charcoal leggings and a fitted cream tunic with long sleeves and a hem that reached almost to my knees. My hair was loose around my shoulders, falling in a cascade of copper and cinnamon down my back, and my skin felt crisp and clean which meant the pancake of prom makeup was gone just like the dress. My feet were bare, and I was struck by a wave of disoriented hysteria as I wiggled my toes and the glittery top coat over my nude pink polish winked back at me in the odd light. With herculean effort I tamped down my rising panic and rose to my feet, my body feeling detached and weightless in a way it certainly had not felt at the dance however many hours before.

As I walked around I noticed a depression in the wall framed in gold. I thought it might be a window looking out, so I rushed forward to investigate. What I found was even stranger than the sight that greeted me when I woke up. A scene was staged within, two adults in formal clothes and three young children all seated around a huge pile of leaves. They looked like a cross between two dimensional cardboard cutouts in a comic store and digital holograms in a science fiction film. The little girl in the foreground between the two grinning boys looked unaccountably familiar.

Torn from my strange surroundings, my focus was claimed by the scene beyond the glass which comprised the fourth wall of the room in which I stood. Beyond the barrier was a living room which bore an uncanny resemblance to the one in my parent’s home. Same three piece living set, same grand curio cabinet against the back wall, same formal dining room visible in the far right hand corner. This view of the room was bizarre, however, as though I was seeing it from a spot on the wall more than seven feet up in the air.

I wandered back out of the room with a last glance at the people around the pile of leaves, back into the gray, featureless space in which I woke up. It was then that I noticed there were dozens of similar rooms framed in against the featureless gray walls, perhaps even hundreds of them, each one bordered in gold. Sometimes they stood alone and there was not another one near them for what could have been miles, and other times they were clustered so close together that their edges overlapped. There were no other distinguishing features in this space. Just one gold-framed room after another with the bowed fishbowl façade of the glass visible beyond.

The next room I wandered into was just as queer as the first. Three little kids sat shoulder to shoulder, creepy two-dimensional holograms just like the first room, their faces locked in cheesy, false grins. One boy was missing both his front teeth and I could have sworn I had worn the same outfit on the first day of school when I was little as the girl seated in the middle. The scene beyond the glass was bizarre just like the last room also. We might have been seeing the room from the vantage point of the refrigerator, but from a spot only two or three feet from the floor. I could see a bright red tea kettle perched on the stove over the edge of the counter top. Didn’t my mother get one just like that from the department store last week? As I turned to exit that room, it was then that I heard voices.

I rushed out into the gray space and followed the sound of people talking in hushed tones to another framed room several paces down. I entered this third framed room to discover people filling the scene beyond the glass and my heart began to hammer with excitement as I realized that I recognized them. My father was standing near the door with his hands on his hips, my eldest brother was sitting in the brown leather chair to the right, and my mother was sitting in the one to the left, her nose red and a tissue clutched in her hands. Was she crying? That was odd. My mother never cried.

It was then that I noticed the mascara streaked down her cheeks. She would never allow anyone to see her like that. Her makeup was always perfect. My brother’s face looked strained as well and he was worrying at his lip in that way of his that indicated he was stressed. Dark circles stood out on my father’s pale face and his shoulders were curved in towards his sternum as though the weight of the world was sitting upon them. What had happened? Why did my family look so upset?

I looked around at the scene in this third strange fishbowl room and realized that I recognized it instantly as well. It was from a family trip we had taken only just last summer, and we were all standing shoulder to shoulder with a gleaming silver salmon in each hand and huge smiles on our faces. My father had loved it so much that he got it sized and framed to hang on the wall behind his desk. It had only just arrived from the printers last week. I felt my brow furrow in confusion; what was going on?

“I need to you try again, Mr. and Mrs. Bristow. Is there anywhere else she might be, anywhere else we have not looked?” A man was speaking from somewhere in the room. I couldn’t see his face, so he must be sitting at my father’s desk directly below me. I thought I could just make out the top of his head when I pressed my face against the glass.

My mother sobbed, and my brother reached over to put an arm around her shoulders. My father ran his fingers through his hair and it stood on end to give him a wild and frenzied look. “We have told you everything we know,” he snapped, his voice strained, “we cannot think of anywhere else she might have gone, and even if she had she would have called by now.”

“Our forty eight hour window is closing, Mr. and Mrs. Bristow, and soon we will have to start accepting we may be looking for a body. I am going to get in touch with our team down at the station and update our status, so we can begin the search with a different perspective.” The man’s voice blanketed the room like a cold frost and my family stood in shocked silence. “I am very sorry,” he said as an afterthought.

As the man spoke I watched my father’s face. His eyes kept flickering upwards. At first, I thought he was looking at me, but then I realized he was looking at the scene around me instead. I had caught him gazing up at the picture on the wall behind his desk often since he brought it home. It was a scene that made him feel so proud of his family. It was then that a chilling thought crept its way into my brain and the whole of my perceived reality came crashing down.

My grandmother will not pose for pictures. She believes that each one steals a piece of your soul and traps it in the frame forever. If your soul is caught in too many pictures, it cannot rest in peace after you die.

Natsumi’s more detailed explanation of her grandmother’s fear of pictures played over and over in my head as I stumbled away from my grief stricken parents beyond the glass and the scene of our family fishing in the odd framed room.

I had disappeared on prom night as I walked home by myself from the school. Almost forty-eight hours had passed and still no sign of me. According to the man speaking with my parents, they were running out of time to bring me home safe. As an endless scream erupted from my chest and I sunk to my knees in my landscape of gray, I feared it might already be too late.