Snapshot

He liked coffee, the richer and nuttier the better. No sugar or milk. They bury the taste, he’d say. Steal its spark. When Magda would visit, his whole house would soon swell with the sweet aroma. Before Grandad even produced the steaming cafetiere and fine bone china, her spirits would be lifted, her dramas unravelled and ready to spill into his welcoming ear. And what he lacked in wisdom, he made up for with jokes and games. Either way, he always knew what to say for a smile, a boost in confidence, an eye-opening truth.

This silence did not suit him. Magda scrunched up her nose, in protest to the fresh woodland smells as much as the cemetery’s mellow atmosphere, all too soft and sickly for flamboyant Grandad Rich. The gravestones looked like bad teeth jutting out of the earth. Grey and black slabs. Bird droppings had stained some white. Others were yellow from pollution or the elements. Moss and lichen had drawn green abstract shapes across many of them. Crosses and angels loomed, the no less rotten canines in the cemetery’s jaws. So many people swallowed up over the ages, Richie most recently.

She’d never felt uneasy here before. Quite the opposite. Instead of eeriness, she’d see tranquillity. Instead of hating the quiet, she’d love exploring the hushed wilderness, camera in hand, senses tingling with every whisper of wind, every rustle, every glint or interesting curve of a graveside feature.

Even with Grandad lying beneath his own grey slab, Magda still saw the markers as pages – solid, durable, made to last and summarise their wards’ existence, keep their memory alive. She couldn’t begrudge them that. But Grandad was more than a few dates and titles: husband, father, grandfather… He was unique. His passing should have been just as special. Or never happened at all.

Magda stepped softly, reverently, between the pines and ash trees flanking the path, more of a wide dirt road that ran on forever through a grand autumnal archway. The sun couldn’t break through the canopy to offer its full warmth, but it did set the woods and gravestones aglow.

The camera’s shutter snapped, capturing sunlight refracting off a blue glass bauble decorating a grave. Magda preferred strange or wild compositions – the worn doors of abandoned houses, gnarled fallen trees covered in mushrooms – but anything that caught her eye was welcome today. This week. This awful year.

A few feet along, she turned off the dirt road and into a narrower path through a cluster of trees and graves. She took a picture of the obscure passage, its shadows inviting like little else in her life. What secrets lay in there? It was a sense of purpose she sorely missed after losing her job. Then her dog. Then her car. And lastly her beloved grandfather, a rare ray of sunshine in a soul-crushing world.

The deeper shadows of the path made Magda zip her jacket up to fend off the cold, but she continued unfazed. A good photo was worth any discomfort. And it wasn’t like she had a job or any other reason to stay healthy. Right now, all that mattered was the ghost of a thrill she felt as her camera captured what her eyes roamed to – leaves of ruby and gold, peculiar patterns on gravestones, a solitary stone cupid sleeping in the grass with no name nearby to identify who it was for. With the shutter’s every immortalising wink, Magda’s broken heart calmed. Another realm made of snapshots, ethereal and curious, superimposed itself over reality. And Magda was content. Sometimes that was as good as happy.

The last thing she expected to burst her serene bubble was a punch. She grunted. Pain rippled through her stomach as she staggered backwards, blinded, catching her breath. She clutched at branches to stay upright and looked at her assailant. Furry. Brown. The size of a Great Dane. Short horns between pointed ears, flicking as the creature shook its head. One moment, Magda dove into a pair of wide eyes – glistening pools of coffee. The next, the muntjac bolted sideways through the pines on delicate soundless hooves.

Disappointment replaced Magda’s amazement as she glanced at the camera sitting in her hands, useless. She forgot to take pictures. She bumped into a wild animal and forgot to press a little button, the simplest move. But this was the most exhilarating thing to happen in a long time. She would see it through to a more fulfilling ending – if she caught up with the deer.

Magda trotted after it, through the same trees. She winced as branches snagged her hair and nicked her ears, scraped her jacket and backpack. She pushed through to a new path, where she looked around for any sign of the muntjac. A soft rustling came from the right, and Magda stepped towards it, hunched, her steps slower, more precise.

Avoiding sticks and dry leaves, she neared a wide opening in the left-hand trees, camera poised before her nose, ready to snap away. Rounding the corner, her eyes latched onto every feature near and far. A fenced-in grave just past the opening. Rows of stones beyond. A building in the distance. Another visitor strolled across it. Flowers everywhere. But no deer.

Magda tiptoed through, slowly peering from side to side. The grove was denser to the right, so she veered in that direction, imagining that a skittish animal would feel safest among thick greenery. She was right. A hoof and a stubby white and brown tail vanished just past another corner.

She rushed after it, trying not to make too much noise. This time, her camera rounded the corner first, scanning for the animal while she watched the screen. As soon as the muntjac appeared on it, Magda snapped a picture. Too rushed. Too blurry.

She steadied the camera with both hands and let the lens follow the animal’s movements as it half hid behind an angel, dipped its head to nibble a flower, and moved on with calm yet calculated steps. Magda zoomed in and out, feeling her breathing and heartbeat settle into a placid rhythm. The next picture was clearer with the deer small but distinct in the frame.

She could do better. She just needed to sneak closer. There was a black marble gravestone a few feet away she could hide behind. Taking a deep breath and steadying her legs, Magda crouched and drifted forward, watching for any alarm in the muntjac. Its head shifted slightly in her direction. Its ears twitched as it stopped between the angel and a hedge bordering another section of the cemetery. But it didn't run.

Magda knelt behind the gravestone and rested the camera atop it. The cold marble against her hands was a shock, but she kept a relaxed hold of the camera, angling it just right. The deer occupied the middle of the screen. While not as large or regal as a stag, this creature stood out from the mundane nature around it, the expected forms and colours. Its horns were almost t-shaped. Its curved flanks stood taller than its shoulders, giving the animal a stooped look. But it moved with the same grace as its bigger cousin. Its head was no less beautiful, its eyes no less spellbinding. The muntjac stood proud, powerful in its uniqueness.

The shutter clicked as Magda glanced at the animal to make sure the sound hadn't spooked it. But it was she who gasped at the screen a moment later. Shuddered. Jumped away. The camera slid off the grave and clattered to the ground. The muntjac fled, but the animal was no longer of interest. What mattered now was the figure that replaced it in the picture.

Maybe she saw wrong. Maybe her eyes played a trick on her. She picked up the camera with shaky hands and found the photo again. Her eyes bulged and her breath caught when she confirmed what she'd seen. Instead of a small deer, a human stood between the hedge and the angel. But not just any human. It was her. Magda was staring at Magda.

As she gawked, she noticed that her other self was a carbon copy, from the dishevelled flaxen ponytail to the green hooded jacket over blue jeans and hiking boots. Even her expression, directed straight at the camera, looked as perplexed as Magda felt.

Blood cold. Heart racing. Mind numb. Magda couldn't explain what she was looking at. If it had been her granddad's ghost, she could have made some sense of it, felt comforted even. But this was a different level of bizarre.

She rushed across the rows of graves to where the muntjac and her photographed self had stood. She found hoof prints. The animal was real, at least. But the dirt bore no fresh signs of being disturbed by human feet. It was an area off the beaten track that clearly saw little traffic.

She brought the picture up again and positioned herself exactly where the other Magda had stood, studying the earth and her surroundings for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing jumped out, ghost, mysterious object, or otherwise. Until motion caught her eye.

Magda looked across to where the real she had crouched moments ago. But a stranger was there now, their camera’s lens pointed at her. She frowned as her brain tried to grapple with this new paradox. The unknown woman lowered her camera and raised a gloved hand.

‘Sorry,’ she chimed with a sheepish smile. ‘Didn't mean to intrude. Are you okay? You look upset.’

Magda didn't know where to begin. A complete stranger couldn't resist taking a snapshot of her discomfort. Her own desire for a picture of a muntjac led her to a distortion of reality, which was a nightmare to begin with. But then a question fluttered through her and out of her mouth before she could stop it.

‘What did you capture?’

Magda ran to the stranger, who flinched, hugged her camera, and leaned away.

‘Hey, hey, hey. What are you doing? I'll delete the photo, okay? I said I was sorry.’

‘Don't delete it,’ Magda yelped and halted.

The stranger flinched again, green eyes wide. She looked ready to bolt like the deer.

‘Let me show you mine. And the reason I'm upset,’ Magda said. ‘I took this from where you're standing not three minutes ago. I was aiming for a muntjac and snapped this instead.’

Magda turned the camera’s screen towards the stranger, who frowned, looked closer, and brought her own device up next to Magda’s. Her jaw slackened. Her furrowed brow loosened and rose. Her eyes jumped from screen to screen.

‘How similar are they?’ Magda asked.

The woman fixed her with a searching stare, its astonishment closing into suspicion.

‘They're identical,’ she said. ‘How did you do this? What are you up to?’ She glanced around, probably searching for Magda’s accomplices or hidden cameras.

‘It's not a trick, I swear. I'd suspect that too, but it's not the case. Something very weird happened. I was just walking through the cemetery taking pictures when I was practically run over by a deer,’ Magda explained, and the rest of the story rushed out, ending in a breathless statement. ‘My camera pierced time and space.’

They gaped at each other. The silence stretched out as they studied the photos and made faces, a sequence of masks displaying awe, doubt, fear, existential dread. But it was laughter that broke the emotionally charged stillness. The stranger's hands were on her hips as she chortled and shook her head, burgundy curls bouncing.

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ she said and offered her hand. ‘I'm Olive, by the way.’ A name that matched the shade of her eyes.

‘Magda.’ She shook Olive’s hand.

‘Do you hang out in cemeteries often?’ Olive sounded genuinely curious.

‘Not often. Only when I need peace and quiet or something interesting to shoot. But I have more reason to come here now. My grandfather’s buried here.’

‘Oh, I'm sorry.’ Olive's face and arms dropped, but then she squinted and whispered. ‘Is there a connection do you think?’

‘To the pictures?’ A shiver ran through Magda. ‘I don't know.’

The situation did feel like one of old Richie's games but with a magical twist.

She looked at Olive. ‘What are you doing in a cemetery?’

‘Looking for lost faces.’ Olive wiggled her eyebrows cryptically. ‘I'm creating a portfolio, see? Maybe an exhibition down the line. Of people lost in society or failed by it. I felt compelled to document them. And a cemetery, I thought, is a great place to find…’

‘Lost faces.’ Magda nodded.

‘And you looked very lost.’

‘You have no idea.’ Grief squeezed a ragged sigh out of Magda.

Her head dropped to face the camera in her hands, a box of plastic and glass, her sole solid comfort for months on end.

Tears burned in her eyes, but she sniffed them back. ‘I'm sorry.’

‘Don't apologise. Wanna talk about it? I'm a stranger with a good ear.’

‘Thanks. Maybe another time though.’

‘That's fine. Wanna tell me about your awesome grandfather who plays tricks from the grave?’

Magda laughed, a sound at odds with the cemetery’s gloom. ‘I'd love that. But I wouldn't mind a coffee too. Would you like to…?’

She trailed off when Olive produced a large violet thermos from her bag, unscrewed the top, and held the container under Magda's nose. Steam coiled up with the deep earthy scent of Colombian coffee. Her nose tickled as her heart soared and Olive grinned.

‘Will wonders never cease?’