Shadows & Tall Trees, Volume 8

by Michael Kelly

  Though deflated by this lack of information, Haugland decided he would include images of the farmstead anyway, use them as a visual denouement to the book, with the added coda that not all mysteries need solving, that mystery was essential to the imagination. Still, Haugland could not help but wonder why the old woman had been so tight-lipped. Did she or her family have some connection to certain events (horrific or otherwise) that had occurred there? This seemed a possibility, and if so, Haugland need only dig elsewhere to obtain the information. Certainly, there were others in town who could flesh out the history of the place. But he wasn’t really sure he wanted to dismantle the mystery. At least not yet.

  For now, in this bittersweet finale to a project that had consumed so much of his time and energy, Haugland’s focus remained entirely on capturing the best possible image. The lighting was ideal at this hour, and as Haugland tinkered with the final settings and position of the camera, he felt pleasantly overwhelmed by both the landscape and the fact he was on the cusp of finishing his passion project. The camera was ready to go, and Haugland, taking a deep and steady breath, depressed the switch that activated both shutter and gears. The intricate internal tick-ticking was music to his ears, and as the century camera made its slow panoramic rotation, he eased himself to the gentle slope of the hill, flattening the tall grass beneath him. Hands beneath his head, he stared at the cloudless sky and revelled again in his accomplishments. He would spend the weekend obsessively developing the images captured from this final shoot. As hard as it was to admit, he was looking forward to returning to the city after spending so much time in the solitude of the natural world. He put everything he had into the project, and he knew it would take time to re-regulate himself to life in the real world. Mostly, he would miss these calm moments of communing with nature as the camera did its work. The mechanical whirr, strangely enough, seemed to belong to this environment. If he closed his eyes, Haugland could nearly convince himself he was listening to the hidden clockwork of the world.

  Haugland plucked a length of tall grass and stuck it between his lips, savoring these final moments. Even now he imagined the details slowly mirroring themselves to the dry-plate: it was a composition of crisp black and white beauty that in many ways was more powerful than the original landscape itself. Film images had the potential of outliving their real-life counterparts, and digital photos were ephemeral. Haugland’s work would be preserved long after these farmhouses deteriorated and became dust. He supposed this was part of the reason he afforded the project with so much reverence.

  His placid mood was abruptly shattered by an otherworldly and high-pitched scream. It seemed to emanate from the camera itself, and as Haugland sprang to his feet, the sound was replaced by another he knew all too well: the short, sharp shock of cracking glass. The camera continued along its interminably slow rotation, its broken eye already transferring a replica of its jagged wound to the dry-plate. The lens had functioned brilliantly for the entirety of the year, so why it should choose to fail now was beyond comprehension. Haugland voiced his frustration, nearly pushing the tripod over in his rage, but he contained himself enough to allow the camera to finish its course. Perhaps the tainted image would prove interesting and not a total loss. When the ticking gears ceased their full rotation, Haugland carefully detached the camera from the tripod to get a better idea of the extent of the damage. He upended the camera and laid it gently on the flattened spot of tall grass where he had been resting, and then twisted the lens from its wooden housing. A deep fissure bisected the glass, and Haugland felt a crack beginning to develop in him as well. He hoped the incident would not taint the project going forward.

  After packing his equipment, Haugland glanced a final time at the old Kolsrud place, a structure that continued to bewitch his imagination. He turned his back on it and carefully made his way down the hill to the dirt road where his Volvo was parked. The vehicle’s presence, as he homed in on its bright and boxy hull, made him slightly discombobulated, as though he were not perceiving things through his own eyes but rather through some past-century relative who could never have been witness to (or understood) such an advancement.

  *

  While Haugland had intended to begin work in the dark room upon his return, he made the mistake of resting for a time on the sofa before lugging his equipment to the basement. His eyes grew heavy and the next thing he knew it was half past noon of the following day. As he descended to his workroom through the stairwell—a narrow shaft covered with framed photos he considered his best work—Haugland was always left with the impression of exiting one reality and entering into another, which he supposed all creative spaces were designed for. The images on the wall were a visual trigger that redirected his frame of mind, and once he was in the depths of this self-made dream factory, Haugland found it difficult to leave when aboveground responsibilities demanded his attention. Ascending the stairs and resurfacing into the current century was always disconcerting, if not downright depressing. Perhaps this was the reason he relied on the photographic techniques used more than a century ago—he was not a man of his own time, never truly had been. There was a period of his creative life when he fully participated in the digital revolution, producing thousands of photos of the cityscape in which he lived, but in the end the images had left him feeling empty. Their sale had provided little else but a stable income, and in time he began obsessing to a greater extent about the past, going beyond the simple genealogical concerns that interested him from an early age. It had taken years of trial and error to feel comfortable with these techniques of the past, but in the end he found the results far superior to any image he ever produced digitally. And he had no intention of yet again allowing the modern to influence and infect him any more than it already had.

  The walls of the work room were once covered by a plethora of city images, but Haugland long ago stripped and replaced them with the bulk of his current project. There would, of course, be a limit to how many images he could include in the book, and he was still on the fence about which ones, in the end, would make the cut. Even the images he considered flawed held a special meaning, resurrecting fond memories of a particular shoot. Some impressions were so powerful that for long moments Haugland felt himself literally transported into the landscape, so much so that at times he could almost feel the heat of the sun or the soft prairie breeze.

  Haugland proceeded to the supply counter along the far wall, setting his thermos to the side. He fanned through the selection of vinyl records stacked near the turntable. Most were composers of Scandinavian origin, and Haugland wavered between Sibelius and Grieg before finally withdrawing the latter and setting it with utmost care on the turntable. He adjusted the volume and then poured himself his first cup of coffee. “In the Hall of the Mountain King” built gradual momentum in the small space, putting Haugland in the proper mood. After the red lights were lit, his eyes adjusted quickly to the womb-like setting. Such a comparison became even more apt as selected images slowly came to life in the shallow amniotic of the developer. This was magic hour for Haugland, and once he started working, he always had difficulty calling it quits. He had a timer on the counter, but he purposefully avoided tacking up a wall clock. Under the red light, time for the most part ceased, and when all was said and done and the space returned to blinding white, Haugland was often surprised by how many hours had passed. The early mornings transitioned in no time to deep night, but fatigue was never a factor and sleep was the furthest thing from his mind. He figured this was due to having spent so much time in the womb, as it were, dreaming in his own delectable way, that the real shore of night had no pull. Most evenings he’d be cast adrift, cleaning his cameras for the umpteenth time, perusing his catalog of photos, revising detailed impressions of each, and maybe, if he was lucky, catching an hour or two of sleep at midafternoon the following day.

  Haugland’s first image developed beautifully, light and shadow approximating what he imagined while initially laboring over the shot: a
slight rise in the prairie, the sea of tall grass arching toward a dilapidated island home. In many ways the image drew all the important details out of the physical setting, captured the very character of its soul. The black and white composition lent an air of mystery, stripped away reality’s harsh glare. Additionally, Haugland could (like an alchemist) manipulate the scene even further if he wished, heightening its emotions through experimentation. This first image seemed to him as close to perfection as he could hope for. Usually he nitpicked images as they went through processing, but as he pulled this one from the fix and clipped it to the drying rack, its beauty overwhelmed him. It was only as he was turning away to begin work on the second exposure that he noticed a small blemish on the print. A shadowy presence, for lack of a better term, stood just beyond the broken porch, and for the life of him he could not help but think he had captured a ghostly resident standing proudly before its domain. No, the only logical explanation was that the blemish was a bit of soil adhered to the lens. It in no way lessened the impact of the image, and in a sense added a bit of intrigue. The “individual” was blurred and ethereal, giving the impression of a ghost caught in a haunted landscape. Haugland would crop and enlarge the image later on, after making initial prints of the other images. He wondered if he would be able to draw out more detail, or if the blemish would simply collapse in upon itself.

  All these suppositions were thrown to the wayside when he developed the second, third, and fourth images: each contained the self-same blemish, though not in the exact position as the first. The shift in the second photograph was hardly discernible, and Haugland carefully compared the new image against the first to realize that, yes, there had been movement, accompanied by what appeared to be a slight raising of one hand, as though the specter were attempting to gain Haugland’s attention. In the third shot the willowy defect moved closer still, and, unbelievably, became more defined. When Haugland closed his eyes, his mind’s-eye fleshed the ghostly imperfection into a long-haired young woman, her sleek nose and shapely chin suggesting an overall poetic litheness. All was not lost when he opened his eyes, for the fantasy behind his lids seemed to resolve the flaw even further, leaving Haugland slightly embarrassed by a kind of sexual reverie that spoke volumes to his current companionless state. Indeed, if he remembered back to the last fling he’d had—one in which he hoped to achieve a more lasting relationship—the individual in question (Freya had been her name) more than a little resembled this specter. And while his initial reaction to the flaw had been one of dismay, he grew to appreciate the unexpected (and quite beautiful) detail. He thought the series of ghostly photos might be unified into another smaller-scaled project, and he planned to pitch this idea to his editor the next time they met.

  While the specter continued to creep closer in subsequent images, it was only when Haugland examined the tenth that a strange new detail emerged. Nothing yet had come into true focus, all the result of the subject’s continual movement. This was part of the charm of using the old technique. Exposure time was much slower than modern film, which could capture most movement with crystal clarity. In this instance, the subject’s long hair and what appeared to be a flowing white gown were accompanied by a ghostly trail of smoke that seemed to emanate from her lower back and curl downward around her leg, a kind of spectral tail. Haugland didn’t think much of this at first, figuring it was no more than a portion of the prairie grass she was wading through, but when it came into greater focus in subsequent images, he could not escape the impression this wispy appendage was an essential part of the specter herself. And thus the “ghost book” took another route entirely: one along a more folkloric path involving the Norse figure of the huldra, that tail-bearing deity of the forest known for duping men with her beauty, first seducing and then luring them to her mountain home. This and numerous other folk tales had first been related to him by his beloved grandfather Ingemon (or “Ing” as he liked to be called), whose powers of description were so keen that for years afterward Haugland’s boyhood dreams were haunted by various incarnations of the huldra; dreams that started with seduction and ended, after the creature’s warm embrace had run its course, in paralysis and regret. Whether he liked to admit it or not, these encounters had had a lasting effect.

  As Haugland continued to develop the final images, he focused less and less on the Kolsrud place and more on the mysterious figure as it continued its slow approach. By the third to last image, facial details were finally beginning to emerge, and as the second to last rose from the depths of the developer Haugland’s eyes widened. The Kolsrud place was nowhere to be seen, the entirety of the frame having been permeated by the countenance of the so-called specter, a term that proved inadequate to describe the ethereal beauty of the woman’s features. The print was incredibly detailed, so much so that Haugland half expected the subject to part her lips in either pleasantry or kiss. All through the development process, Haugland could not remove his gaze from the image, and stared at it long after he clipped it to the drying rack. Hours might have passed for all he knew or cared. It was the most beautiful portrait photo he had ever captured, and it took him an eternity to draw his attention away and realize a final image still needed to be developed.

  The resulting photo turned out to be the antipode of the previous. As the picture drew into focus in the developer tray, Haugland recalled the moment the century camera’s lens cracked. The shock he’d experienced was replicated now as he gazed in semi-horror at another portrait, this one cracked and blemished beyond all reason, shattering the woman’s previous beauty and revealing a kind of bark-like decay just beneath the surface. Haugland wondered if this was merely the result of the cracked lens, or if the transformation occurred within the figure itself. Of all the wondrous images he captured over the course of his last shoot, this alone was the one Haugland felt no compulsion to keep. He halted the process at the developer and tossed the grotesquerie into the trash.

  He quickly cleaned up, and by the time he withdrew from the red-light womb and collected the images from the drying rack, he was already well on his way to forgetting about the final portrait. The undeniable beauty of the second to last image made sure of that.

  *

  Two days later, Haugland retraced his route to the Kolsrud place. It was an exhausting drive and the passage of time (at least how he normally perceived it) seemed oddly quite distorted. He supposed part of this had to do with his obsessive work schedule, but the overcast sky was as much to blame. After fifty miles he nearly called it quits and returned home, wishing he’d checked the weather forecast before venturing out that morning. Not that he couldn’t capture some stunning black and white imagery on such a gloomy day as this, but quite frankly he wasn’t in the mood. The thing that pushed him forward now was a new obsession, the uncovering of a mystery.

  The impossible portrait of the woman would not leave him. Indeed, he focused on nothing but fashioning hundreds of prints of her in various modes, cropping out her eyes, her lips, her nose, and exposing the image as a whole with various contrasts and shadings. That single image opened up the possibility of an entirely new project, but for the time being he enjoyed swimming timelessly in the depths of each incarnation, capturing not only crisp details but a multitude of abstract variances as well. Had he been able to sink bodily into the development process itself, he would have done so, becoming one with this mysterious Madonna. All fantasies considered, the only realistic option that remained open to him was a return to the source of origin, though even this seemed no more than an impulsive act whose foundation would, in the end, crumble under false reverie. The logic of this inevitable outcome, the surety of it, had not been enough to make Haugland redirect his obsessional thinking.

  By the time he pulled to the edge of the country road at the bottom of the long rise that led to the Kolsrud place, Haugland felt worse for wear. He stepped from the Volvo a bit too abruptly, his stiff legs nearly pitching him into the narrow culvert at the side of the road. He withdrew his gear f
rom the back seat, and slowly ascended the sun-dappled rise, grateful the weather seemed to be shifting from its previous gloominess. Whether or not it would last, Haugland sensed he would at least be afforded a clear enough window of time to capture a few more images, his intent being to again lure the mystery out of hiding.

  He positioned the tripod in the same spot as his last outing, locating, to his immense pleasure, the deep indentations the steel-tipped implement had previously marked in the soil. He figured the land would have healed over a bit, but the marks seemed as fresh as he had left them, as though the land foresaw his return, retained this sigil upon its skin just for him. While his first impulse was to rush through the process of set-up, Haugland did his level best to put as much care into his efforts as always, and by the time he attached the camera to the base of the tripod, adjusted the new lens, and inserted the first slide of film, he was confident he had replicated the conditions of his previous shoot.