The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2320 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“What’s this light thing?” asked Simon looking at the pictures.

“I have no idea.”

“Is it worth getting the camera checked—which one was it?”

“The little Pentax.”

“They’re usually pretty good.”

“As any other make.”

“Wonder if the mark can be photoshopped?”

“You’d have to ask Sammi about that.”

“This one of the group is pretty good pity about the light thing again.”

“I thought the light thing looked like a face to me.”

He stared at it for several minutes. “Just marks in the background behind it.” I looked again and what he’d said seemed to be the case. Perhaps I’d imagined it.

By the time Sammi came to look at them they’d all faded to practically nothing and she didn’t consider it worthwhile to try and alter the pictures, they were then likely to look artificial, whereas now they didn’t. Some were actually quite good.

I printed them off and showed them to the girls. They recognised all of them liked the one with the group photo. There was now no light distortion or anything else irregular. How could something like that fade?

After dinner and we’d all enjoyed seeing the photos, I went back to the study and Trish followed me. “Did you see Billie in the picture?”

“Where?” I challenged and she indicated exactly where the face in the light had been. “You can see her?”

“It’s a bit hazy but she’s there all right.” She took the photo and held it under the desk light twisting it to get different angles of light. “Yes, look here, Mummy, the pale blue figure.

I tried to see what she was but for some reason I couldn’t. We went onto the computer and even she couldn’t see them there and finally when she examined the photographs again, she couldn’t see it either.

“I’m sure I saw her at the centre, I know I did. You’ve messed with the photos haven’t you? You don’t believe in any of this stuff do you? Well I saw her, she was there with us.” Following the outburst, Trish fled the study. I was tempted to go after her but I didn’t, anything I said now was unlikely to help anything but reinforce her doubtfulness about me. Had my scepticism caused the energy in the photographs to fade? Pretty clever if it were true. Of course it isn’t.

I called Sammi down to look again at the pictures and those on the computer. They now showed no sign of light balls or even heavy ones. The photos were quite normal. Sammi went into photoshop but couldn’t make the images appear as I’d originally seen them or how they’d been when she’d first seen them. “That is weird, seriously weird.”

“I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t do it deliberately.”

“Mummy, seeing how rubbish you are at computers, I know you didn’t.”

I smiled, “You say the loveliest things, darling.”

“Whatever,” she muttered and retired back to whatever she’d been working on upstairs.

Vindicated by my incompetence—has a lovely ring to it especially if applied to politicians.

I went up to see Trish who was lying on her bed reading. “I believe you either saw or thought you saw Billie.” I told her.

“But what happened to the photographs if you didn’t alter them?”

“I don’t know, Trish, you probably have as much of an idea as I do.”

“But she was there.”

“I admit I thought I saw something too.”

“But you didn’t say that earlier.”

“I didn’t want to influence anyone else, I wanted them to say what they thought. Daddy thought the face on the last one was just the background showing through the light thing.”

“What did you think it was?” asked Trish.

“I thought it could be a face, but I can’t be certain.”

“I saw her, she walked all round the centre with us, she was so excited about everything, especially having it called after her.”

“Did she say that to you?” I asked.

“She didn’t say anything, she didn’t need to, she seems to be able to make me feel what she feels without saying anything.”

I shook my head. I’d have loved to have seen her again and better still to talk with her or hold her. But she never appears to me, or rarely.

“She’s worried that if you saw her you’d be upset.”

“How d’you know that?” I asked.

“She told me it ages ago.”

Was that a valid reason? I suppose it was as good as any, did my disbelief in things paranormal make a difference as well? I liked to think it was a healthy scepticism that didn’t accept things at face value because they frequently weren’t as they appeared. Quantum Mechanics shows us about such things at a sub atomic level, so why not on the macro scale? I wasn’t enough of a physicist to consider that in sufficient depth to have a valid opinion.

“Did you agree with her?” I asked Trish hoping I wasn’t distressing her.

“Sort of.”

“So you think I’d be upset if I saw Billie again?”

She shrugged non-committally.

“If I was it would only be because I love her and miss her.”

“She knows that, Mummy.”

“Have you seen Grampa’s late wife and daughter?”

Her facial expression tended to make me think she had. “I might a done,” she said, “when we’ve up at the graveyard place.”

I wondered if she was reading Tom’s mind, seeing what he was seeing in his head when he was at the grave, but that is just as fanciful as suggesting there’s some sort of life after death. There isn’t any real evidence to show it, just subjective stuff which can’t be tested.

Until it can be demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt, I can’t believe it so my previous experiences of seeing dead people are probably explained by some sort of emotional need which created it inside my head and made me feel it was happening outside. Effectively some sort of hallucination—yeah, that was probably it.

“Would you like a drink of milk before you go to bed?” I asked my daughter.

“Yes please, Mummy, oh please may I have a biscuit, too.”

“I expect so.” She followed me down and before long I was making drinks for everyone.

Sammi came down for a coffee and asked me if the pictures had come back and I said as far as I knew they hadn’t. “Weird that, I’ve never known that happen before and have no idea what it could have been. Can I see the camera and the card.” I collected them and gave them to her, she took her coffee and both of them up to her room with her.

An hour or two later Simon and I were going to bed and I saw her light still on. I tapped on her door and asked if she had any answers.

“About your disappearing face?”

“Yes, why what did you think I meant?”

“Oh, I wondered if you meant about the unicorn.”

“Unicorn? What are you on about.”

“A unicorn you know, single horned animal, usually white and only seen by the pure in heart.”

“So how did you see one then?”

“Oh mother, you cut me to the quick.” She feigned severe hurt.

“Stop fooling.”

“How did you know I was fooling?” she said keeping a dead pan face.

“Uh? How about unicorns?”

“Well I thought it was better than the gorilla in the forest behind you.” She showed me the photo and sure enough just behind us was a seven foot tall gorilla.

“They don’t grow that tall, so I know you photoshopped it.”

“Yeah, but the others won’t, will they?”

“You be careful, if you frighten Meems I’ll be less than pleased.”

“I won’t don’t worry.”