The Funeral Photograph
The storm arrived early that evening. Lights from the city were blurred.
Rain battered the tall windows of the Harrow house while distant thunder rolled beyond Blackwater Harbor. Amelia and her mother listened to the softly playing radio. Lightning created flashes of light on the faded wallpaper. It mixed with the constant weak amber light from sitting room lamps. It left most of the house in shadow, illuminating stretches of walls and smooth floors. The wear and tear filled the entire house.
Amelia sat curled at the far end of the sitting room sofa. She had a thick wool blanket gathered around her naked legs. The room smelled faintly of tea, old books and damp wood.
Across from her, her mother adjusted her reading glasses and squinted down at the open laptop balancing awkwardly on her knees.
“You’re certain you want me to read all of this?” she asked her daughter.
Amelia nodded. The question frustrated her.
After twenty-seven years of blindness, words still belonged to sound and touch rather than sight. She knew braille. Knew the rhythm of spoken books and recorded lectures. But the printed text didn’t belong to her. They were just meaningless lines.
Seeing wasn’t the same as understanding.
She felt helpless.
“Just keep going,” Amelia said quietly.
Her mother hesitated before scrolling down the page.
At first the articles sounded harmless. Society pieces going back years. Fundraisers. Opera benefits.
“Here’s one…BLACKWATER SOCIALITE EVELYN VALE ATTENDED THE WINTER ARTS GALA THURSDAY EVENING…”
The sound of the name on her mother’s lips tightened something cold inside Amelia’s chest.
EVELYN VALE
Even hearing the name felt strangely familiar and intimate.
Outside, rainwater streaked down the dark windows while thunder murmured somewhere far out over the harbor.
Eleanor continued reading.
“Miss Vale, known for her generous patronage of the Blackwater Opera Society, hosted guests at the Vale estate overlooking–”
“Wait.”
Her mother looked up.
“What?”
“Opera.”
Her mother frowned. “What about it? We’ve never been.”
Amelia shook her head slowly. Only the same faint impossible music lingering at the edge of her thoughts.
She pulled the blanket closer to her body. Tension in her head remained the same. The headaches had become a constant companion now.
Her mother started to read again.
“Evelyn Vale appeared in excellent spirits during the event…”
Amelia sat with her eyes tightly shut, her mother’s voice drifting softly through the room. She finished the one article before moving on to another.
“BLACKWATER SOCIALITE HOSTS WINTER BENEFIT YOUNG PATRON DONATES TO CHILDREN’S OPERA HOUSE EVELYN VALE ATTENDS SPRING MASQUERADE.” She read it aloud as her daughter listened as she so often did during sightless nights before.
Her mother continued to click slowly through the articles, reading and showing images to Amelia.
Every photograph was blurred, the woman avoided the camera.
Another strange pressure tightened behind her eyes. It came flooding back again.
As before, without warning, thunderous applause erupted around her.
Amelia gasped sharply.
The room vanished.
For one impossible instant she stood beneath burning golden stage lights while hundreds of unseen people clapped somewhere beyond the darkness. Heat pressed against her skin from above. Velvet curtains brushed her bare arm. Flowers struck the stage near her feet.
Nervousness twisted violently inside her chest. It wasn’t hers though. It felt distant, like someone else’s.
Just like before, the vision disappeared, bringing her back to the room.
The applause cut off instantly, leaving only the storm outside, the ticking of the grandfather clock, and the sound of her mother’s voice. Amela jerked upright against the sofa cushions.
“Amelia?”
Her mother’s voice sounded distant at first.
Pain had pulsed violently behind her eyes.
She rubbed her temples and blinked her eyes, trying to ease the pressure, forcing herself to focus on her mothers voice again, who had been reading another article. Her mother had paused and stared at her.
“I heard it again.”
“Heard what?”
But even before Amelia could answer, her mother’s expression had already tightened with the same forced calm she wore when Amela mentioned the visions.
“Applause,” Amelia whispered.
Her mother closed the laptop slightly. “Sweetheart–”
“No.” Amelia sat forward, the blanket fell to the floor. “It felt real.”
“You’re overtired.”
The response was quick and firm. Amelia looked away, into the dark window, the rain streaming down the glass.
“I think these memories belong to her. From HER eyes.”
Silence settled on them.
The grandfather ticked softly on the other side of the wall.
Her mother finally reopened the laptop with careful and deliberate movements.
“I am sorry, but that isn’t possible, sweetheart.” Her voice lacked conviction now.
She began to scroll farther down the page of results.
Their tone began to change. Shifting into darkness.
The blurry photographs disappeared first.
Then the society pages stopped altogether.
Her mother’s expression began to change subtly as she continued reading.
“What is it?” Amelia asked quietly.
Her mother hesitated. Then reluctantly read aloud:
“SOCIALITE FOUND DEAD.”
The words seemed to darken the room instantly. Amelia’s stomach tightened instantly.
“Keep reading.”
Her mother exhaled softly before continuing.
“‘The body of Blackwater philanthropist Evelyn Vale was recovered near the harbor district late Tuesday evening under tragic circumstances…’”
The moment Eleanor spoke the word harbor, icy panic surged through Amelia.
Water.
Black endless water.
Rain hammered harder against the windows.
The opera music returned, faint at first, somewhere deep inside her mind.
Amelia gripped the edge of the sofa hard enough for her knuckles to ache.
Another flash struck violently –
Wet pavement gleaming beneath streetlamps.
A woman running breathlessly.
Pearls scattered across the stone.
Then freezing black water swallowed the darkness whole.
Amelia gasped and struggled for breath, whole body trembling.
“Amelia!”
“I saw something. Something dark…” Her breath quickened, eyes wide open. “Not imagination. Memory.”
Her mother shut the laptop completely. “I think that’s enough for tonight.”
“NO.” Amelia reached toward the computer. “I need to know what happened to her.”
Her mother’s face tightened.
“Sweetheart–”
“Please,” she pleaded, her desperate voice making the room silent.
For several long seconds only thunder and rainfall filled the space between them.
Her mother sighed and reopened the laptop. Her eyes scanned the page, scrolling further. Suddenly she stopped.
“What did you find?” Amelia whispered.
Her mother stared at the screen without a word.
Amelia repeated her request.
“I am just reading.”
Amelia’s pulse quickened.
“And…what does it say?”
Her mother looked strangely pale beneath the lamplight.
Very quietly, she read:
“FUNERAL SERVICES HELD FOR EVELYN VALE.” she read.
Accompanied by a photograph, one not blurry this time…Amelia could hear the hesitation in her mother’s voice.
“What’s wrong?” she asked and stared at her.
Eleanor looked up quickly. “Nothing.”
“You’re lying…I hear it in your voice.”
Her mother swallowed hard once before glancing reluctantly back toward the laptop.
Something cold settled heavily on Amelia as she sat on the deep sofa.
“Read it.”
“Amelia–” she replied.
“Please.” The sound of desperation on her voice even startled her.
Another roll of thunder moved across the Blackwater Harbor, rattling the windows.
The room began to feel darker and smaller, like the walls closed in on Amelia.
“She was buried at the Saint Brigid’s Cathedral,” her mother read softly. “Attendance included members of the Blackwater Opera Society, city officials, and the Vale family estate trustees…”
Amelia leaned forward and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.
“What?” she asked her mother.
“There’s a photograph…one where we can see what she looks like.”
A sharp pulse of pain bloomed behind Amelia’s eyes.
“Show me…”
Her mother turned the laptop around and Amelia slipped off the sofa and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the glowing screen. Her eyes squinted with the powerful light. The lines of words danced on the screen.
The image was in black and white. Lilies circled the casket and candles. People were dressed in black standing nearby.
Amelia could smell the flowers and candle wax. The sensations arrived so vividly her breath caught painfully in her throat. She tightened her fingers against the blanket.
Beneath that image was another. A portrait of a lady. Evelyn Vale was typed beneath.
Something cold moved through the room.
Amelia felt it.
Someone stepped quietly into the house.
“She looks…”
Her mother turned the laptop back toward her.
“She looks like you.”
Amelia nodded.
“The eyes, your eyes, they’re both yours and hers.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Amelia became unable to breathe.
The pain swept through her body. A flash exploded. She could see a woman, standing in front of a mirror, fastening pearls to her ears, fingers trembling. Her dark hair was pinned carefully off her face, soft under the golden light. Gray-blue eyes stared back at her.
Her eyes.
Her new eyes…
The vision vanished as her mother called her name firmly. The room tilted sickening around her.
“She’s in my head and won’t leave,” Amelia whispered hoarsely.
“No.” Her mother got up and took the laptop with her. “No, sweetheart, you’re just overwhelmed.”
“But you saw it too.” She pointed the laptop.
Her mother froze as she looked at her daughter.
“You said she looked just like me.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.” Her mother had a denial that came out fast and sure. It’s been too fast since the beginning. But, Amelia noticed a new symptom, trembling and cracked composure. It was in the silence that followed.
Another rumble of thunder rolled that seemed like it was just overhead and the light flickered.
Eleanor forced herself to smile at her daughter. She no longer sounded convinced.
“People resemble each other all the time.”
Amelia barely heard her mother, her attention had been drawn to the darkened hallway mirror just beyond the sitting room. Even across the room, she could see the faint reflection of lamplight shining across the old glass.
For one terrible second—she thought she saw another woman standing there.
Tall. Pale. Motionless. Her dress dripped. Her eyes stitched shut. It vanished immediately. Only the emptiness remained.
Her heartbeat thundered painfully. Amelia kept staring at the mirror. Somewhere deep beneath the storm outside, music, faint and mournful.
Her mother insisted she had an early night. Amelia dragged the blanket behind her and went up the stairs.
The storm seemed to swallow the city of Blackwater, whole. Rain continued to hammer the windows, the wind moaned through all the recesses and corners. Even the old house seems to groan beneath the weight of it, every settling floorboard and rattling pipe carrying through the darkness like distant movement.
Amelia laid awake listening to all the sounds, overwhelmed and uneasy.
She had avoided the mirror as she headed up the stairs. She couldn’t go inside her bathroom until her mother covered the mirror over the vanity. She didn’t even look at her reflection in the window glass. Every reflective surface felt dangerous. Like something, or someone, waited patiently behind everyone.
Beside her bed, the lamp cast a weak amber glow across the room. But, sleep refused to come so easily.
Every time Amelia closed her eyes she saw the funeral photograph again.
The lilies. The candles. And Evelyn Vale’s eyes staring back from another woman’s face with terrifying familiarity.
Her own eyes. Her new eyes.
Thunder rolled. Lightning flashed at the same time.
Amelia turned onto her side beneath the soft blankets and squeezed those eyes tighter.
“You’re exhausted,” she whispered to herself.
But the words sounded hollow in her dark room.
The grandfather clock struck midnight. Each chime echoed through the house…
…then came the dripping. Strange, Amelia thought to herself. It was soft and irregular.
Drip.
Silence.
Drip.
She figured it was her window. The rain finally found its way inside.
Amelia opened her eyes and sighed with irritation.
The room was dark except for the pale silver moonlight that filtered through the rain-streaked curtains. Shadows stretched long across the walls and ceiling as the wind rattled the branches against the outside of the house.
Drip.
Closer now.
Amelia pushed herself upright slowly.
But the sound now was inside her bedroom.
Drip.
Drip.
A cold sensation crept slowly up her spine. The air changed. Cold, carrying a damp chill that smelled of seawater and floral in its undertone.
Lilies.
Amelia’s pulsed quickened.
Very carefully, she turned toward the sound…and froze in place.
Someone stood beside her bed.
The scream got caught in Amelia’s throat at first.
The woman was pale. Almost bluish.
Dark wet hair hung heavily around her face and shoulders while water dripped steadily from the hem of her white dress onto the wood floor.
Drip.
Drip.
The sound Amelia had heard.
She couldn’t move. Could hardly breathe.
Black stitches sealed the woman’s eyes shut in thick uneven lines, as though someone had crudely sewn them closed after death. Water clung to her skin and clothing, glimmering when the lightning flashed beyond the windows.
But it wasn’t the stitches that terrified Amelia, it was the expression on the woman’s face. Not rage. Not hatred. It was grief. Grief so deep it seemed to hollow the room itself.
The opera music started again. Faint and mournful. Echoing softly through the dark room like it carried up from deep under the bay.
Amelia’s hands trembled as it gripped the blanket, staring at the woman who didn’t move. The woman only watched Amelia. She didn’t try to move. The stitched eyelids twitched fairly.
Amelia realized to her horror that something beneath them was moving. Trying to open.
Lightning flashed, the room was ablaze in white.
Amelia saw the pool of water beneath the woman’s bare feet. Bruises darkened the pale skin around her throat.
Darkness swallowed the room again.
The woman lifted one trembling hand. Water dripped from her fingertips. And finally she spoke. Her voice sounded drowned.
Broken.
As though forced upward through deep water.
“She still sees through them.”
Amelia’s breath hitched painfully.
The woman took a step closer, opera music swelled, and the stitched eyelids began to split apart.
Amelia’s own scream broke through like water through a dam’s spillway.
Copyright © Rachel D. Knepp 2026