The Stranger In Her Photos

Nico sat in his chair with sauce on his chin. Mom stood behind him, one hand on his shoulder. Mara’s father, Luis, leaned against the counter, laughing at something outside the frame.

And behind them, near the kitchen doorway, stood a man.

Mara’s thumb froze over the glass.

He was tall and narrow, dressed in a dark coat that reached his knees. His face was turned toward the camera, though the rest of him seemed angled away. He stood so still he looked pasted into the room.

She pinched the screen to zoom in. She held a flashlight in.

The picture sharpened.

The man’s face did not blur. His features stayed unnervingly clear: pale skin, deep-set eyes, a straight mouth. Not a face she recognized. Not anyone who had been in their kitchen.

Mara pulled the phone closer.

“No,” she whispered.

She swiped left.

The second picture showed the same dinner from a different angle. Nico was laughing now, his head thrown back. Luis had lifted his glass. Mom was looking straight at Mara.

The stranger stood behind them.

Closer.

In the first photo, he had been near the doorway. In this one, he was just behind Luis’s shoulder, one hand hanging beside the man’s arm.

Mara sat very still.

The photos had been taken seconds apart. She remembered them. She had been standing near the table, not hiding anyone behind her family. There had been no stranger in the kitchen.

Her phone vibrated in her hand.

A message from Mom appeared.

Are you awake?

Mara typed back with shaking thumbs.

Did you see anyone come into the kitchen last night?

The reply came almost immediately.

What kind of question is that? Come downstairs.

Mara swiped to the next picture.

It was not from dinner. It was a photograph of Nico at the county fair two summers ago, his face painted like a tiger. Mara remembered taking it from beside the funnel cake stand. Behind him, among the blur of bright rides and moving bodies, the same man stood beneath a string of lights.

Mara dropped the phone onto the blanket.

The screen went dark.

She snatched it up again and opened the photo. The stranger was still there.

Her bedroom door creaked.

Mara spun around.

Mom stood in the doorway wearing a robe and one slipper. Her dark hair was pulled into a loose knot, and a flashlight hung from one hand.

“What happened?” Elena asked. “Why are you yelling?”

“I didn’t yell.”

“You called me.”

Mara held out the phone. “Look at this.”

Elena crossed the room. The floorboards complained under her steps. She leaned over the bed, squinting at the screen.

“It’s a photo of dinner,” she said.

“Behind you.”

“Behind me is the kitchen.”

“No. The man.”

Elena looked again. Her expression shifted from irritation to confusion, then settled into something careful.

“What man?”

Mara enlarged the picture until the stranger’s face occupied most of the screen. “That man.”

Elena took the phone.

For a moment, nothing happened. The house ticked and creaked around them as the power settled back into its usual rhythm.

Then Elena’s mouth tightened.

“Mara, this is some kind of filter.”

“It’s not a filter.”

“Your phone could have glitched.”

“A glitch added a person?”

“Photos can be edited.”

“I didn’t edit them.”

“Maybe an app did.”

Mara grabbed the phone back. “I didn’t download anything.”

Elena reached for it again, but Mara pulled it against her chest.

“Show me the original,” Elena said.

“I am showing you the original.”

“The details.”

Mara opened the information panel. Taken yesterday at 8:43 p.m. Location: Home. Size: 3024 by 4032. No edits listed.

She shoved the screen toward her mother.

Elena stared at the numbers, then at the picture.

“Scroll,” she said.

Mara did.

The next image was from her eighth-grade graduation. Mara stood on the school steps in a blue dress, squinting into the sun. Mom and Luis flanked her. Behind the metal railing, half-hidden by a flowering tree, the stranger watched.

Another: Nico asleep on the couch when he was five. The stranger stood in the hallway behind him.

Another: Luis grilling in the backyard. The stranger waited beside the fence.

Another: a picture of Mom before Mara was born, holding a round-bellied version of herself in a hospital room. The stranger stood near the door.

Mara’s finger trembled as she swiped.

Every image changed in the same way. Family, friends, old places. The stranger remained behind them, always facing the camera.

Elena stopped breathing for a second.

“That one was taken before you were born,” she said.

“I know.”

“And the graduation picture was on Luis’s old phone.”

“I know.”

“You couldn’t have put him in all of these.”

“I know!”

The word cracked out of Mara. She heard the fear inside it and hated that her mother heard it too.

Elena sat beside her on the bed. The mattress dipped.

“Okay,” she said, quieter. “We’ll figure out what this is.”

Mara swiped back to the dinner photographs. “Look at where he is.”

Elena did not answer.

“In the first one, he’s by the doorway. In the second, he’s behind Dad. There’s another one.” Mara swiped again. “This was the last picture I took.”

Nico’s face filled the frame, blurred because he had turned away. Mom’s hand was lifted, palm out, telling him to stop making faces. Luis was cut off at the edge.

The stranger stood directly behind Mara’s mother.

His face was larger now.

Close enough that his coat collar reached Elena’s shoulder.

Mara’s skin prickled.

Elena leaned toward the screen. “That’s just the angle.”

“No.”

“The pictures aren’t taken from the same place.”

“He moved.”

“Mara.”

“He moved closer.”

The lights flickered.

Both of them looked up.

The bedroom lamp went dark, then returned. The phone screen dimmed in Mara’s hand. For one instant, the stranger’s face seemed to sharpen beyond the limits of the picture, his eyes black and wet, his mouth almost open.

Mara pressed the phone’s side button.

The image vanished.

“Stop it,” Elena said.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Give me the phone.”

Mara stood. Her knees felt loose. “I’m going downstairs.”

“Why?”

“To check the kitchen.”

Elena caught her wrist. Her fingers were cold.

“There’s no one in the kitchen.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I was downstairs when the power came back.”

“Then come with me.”

Elena stared at her daughter. The flashlight in her hand clicked on, casting a pale circle across the bedspread.

Mara opened the camera roll again. She wanted to prove it before the phone changed, before the stranger disappeared and left her looking hysterical. She swiped to the oldest picture she could find.

It was a photograph of their first apartment, taken before Mara was born. Luis stood in the doorway holding a cardboard box. Elena sat on the floor beside a stack of dishes, younger and smiling.

The stranger stood behind them in the narrow hall.

Mara zoomed in.

The image did not soften. The pixels did not break apart. His face remained clear, every feature fixed and watchful.

Then Mara noticed the wall behind him.

A dark vertical line ran from the floor to the ceiling. A doorway, maybe. But their first apartment had never had a doorway there. She knew because Mom had shown her pictures of the place when they moved out. The wall had been solid.

“What is it?” Elena asked.

Mara turned the phone toward her.

Her mother’s face drained of color.

“I don’t remember that,” Elena said.

“You said photos could be edited.”

“I said maybe.”

“Then edit this one.”

Elena looked at her.

Mara’s hand tightened around the phone. “Delete him.”

“I can’t delete something that isn’t there.”

“He is there.”

“Give it to me.”

This time Mara handed over the phone.

Elena pressed the image, opened the editing tools, and tried to crop the stranger out. The box appeared around the photo. She dragged the corner across his shoulder.

The image shifted.

The stranger remained centered.

Elena tried again, cropping tighter around Luis and the box. The stranger’s face stayed just beyond the edge, visible in the sliver of hallway that remained.

She dropped the phone onto the bed.

Neither of them spoke.

From downstairs came a soft sound.

A footstep.

Mara looked at the door.

Elena rose so fast the flashlight slipped from her hand and struck the floor. “Nico,” she called.

No answer.

Another footstep sounded below them.

Mara reached for her mother’s arm. “Don’t.”

Elena stared toward the hall. “He may be awake.”

“He would call us.”

The house went quiet.

Mara picked up her phone. The oldest picture was still open. The stranger stood in the impossible doorway, his face turned toward her.

She pressed the lock button.

The screen went black.

For half a second, she saw only her own reflection: frightened eyes, loose hair, Mom’s pale shape behind her.

Then the locked screen appeared.

The time read 2:24.

Behind the numbers, faint but unmistakable, the stranger stood over Mara’s shoulder.

He was no longer in the photograph.

Elena saw him too.

Her hand closed around Mara’s wrist.

“Mara,” she whispered.

The phone locked fully, but the image did not disappear. The stranger remained beneath the glass, standing behind them in the reflection, close enough that Mara could make out the seam of his dark coat.

Downstairs, something moved again.

This time, it sounded like a hand sliding along the kitchen wall.

End of chapter one. 39 more chapters and about 69,570 words in the full book.