The Vampire's Photograph by Kevin Emerson Page B

around.
    â€œMe? What?”
    â€œTo kill us?” Emalie stood up from the sink.
    â€œNo,” Oliver stammered, “I…I just came to tell you to stop.”
    â€œWhy?” Emalie asked, turning around finally. She looked at him seriously. Her eyes were startlingly clear. Whatever trace of fear Oliver thought he smelled wasn’t showing on her face. And her gaze was making him feel weird.
    â€œUm…” He wasn’t sure how to answer her question. Telling her that he’d only come to save his own neck would make him sound selfish. Wait, why did he care how he sounded to these humans? This was ridiculous! But when he didn’t answer, Emalie started talking again.
    â€œWell, it doesn’t matter,” she said, holding up the photo from the sink, her face falling in frustration. “There is no picture. See?”
    Oliver studied the photo in Emalie’s hand. It showed his ceiling, with the cockeyed chandelier in sharp detail, but with only a big blurry spot beside it, where Oliver should have been.
    â€œJust like all the others.” She pointed to the string of hanging photos. “Every time I try to print it, you just come out all blurry.”
    Oliver studied the photos. Among a number of shots of other places around town that Oliver knew to be vampire hangouts were five copies of the photo that should have been of him. In every one, the area exactly where Oliver should have appeared was a wispy gray blur.
    â€œI’ve tried printing it really dark,” Emalie explained, “Overexposing it, changing the filter, the amounts of the chemicals…nothing works. There’s something wrong with the negative.” She tossed her tongs back into the sink with a splash. “So, I guess you’ll get your wish.”
    â€œNot to mention we’ll get to stay alive,” Dean added, optimistically.
    Oliver stared at the photos. “It’s weird,” he said quietly.
    â€œWhat?” Emalie asked.
    â€œVampires don’t really use cameras,” he said, thinking aloud. “It’s usually drawings or paintings. I don’t think I’ve ever had my picture taken before. I remember one time, my dad pulling me out of the way of a human camera.”
    â€œWhy?” Dean asked.
    â€œI don’t know.” Oliver had been too young to think to ask.
    â€œSo maybe cameras don’t work with vampires. Like mirrors,” Emalie offered.
    â€œMaybe.” But then Oliver thought about what he’d just said. He knew of people, like Mr. VanWick, or Ken Tempest, who’d been in movies or on television. They showed up on film. Unless video was different—then again, he’d never looked for vampire photographs. He didn’t know for sure that it didn’t work. But why would his parents tell him cameras were dangerous? Was it that they were dangerous only for him ?
    â€œMaybe,” Oliver found himself saying, “you need some ingredient you don’t have.”
    â€œLike what?” Emalie asked. Her eyes narrowed with interest.
    Oliver hesitated. He hadn’t really thought through what he was saying, but when he met Emalie’s gaze, he found that he wanted to continue. “I don’t know, there might be a special chemical—an enchanted solution or something.”
    â€œEnchanted?” Emalie looked even more curious. “What are you talking about?”
    â€œWell,” Oliver said. “I mean, vampires have access to science from the other worlds. I bet Dead Désirée would have something.”
    â€œOkay, wait,” Dean said. He was squinting like his head was about to burst. “‘Worlds,’ with an ‘s.’ Like more than one?”
    â€œYeah.” Oliver tried to think of how to make sense of this for a human brain. “This”—he flicked his hand to indicate the world they were currently in—“is a middle world. There are higher and lower