Secrets in a Still Life by Kari Ganske (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📕

to get the full scene in the frame. She stood to the side of the well, leaned a hand on the stone edge, and raised a leg like she was kissing a lover. She looked down in the well and made a little “o” with her mouth. I may be bias because she is my Nana, but it was the cutest thing ever.

Until she turned, crossed her eyes, and stuck her tongue out.

“Nana K! You’re worse than the preschoolers!” I scolded.

I’d photographed the end of year picnic for the preschool where my best friend, Colleen McMurphy, worked. Anytime one of the little rascals saw me shooting their way, they made a face. That group made me work for the handful of candid shots I felt were salvageable. Very rarely did the “outtakes” folder contain more than the final edits, but it did that day.

“Get one of me doing that duck face. It’ll make my cheekbones look fierce.” Her duck face more resembled my betta fish, but I snapped away to make her happy. And made a mental note to check who she was following on social media.

“Okay, Nana. I think we got a keeper in that bunch.” I wasn’t going to tell her it was the first shot I took.

“Let me see ‘em,” she said. Her deluge of costume jewelry jangling as she tottered toward me. I held my camera out of her reach.

“Oh no. I have a strict policy. Clients do not peep at the back of my camera.”

“I am not a client, Alexandretta Lightwood. I’m your grandmother! The matriarch of your family. The life blood of your lineage.”

“All true. But today, you’re also a client. So, hands off.”

She crossed her arms like a petulant child again. I giggled remembering my earlier comparison to the preschoolers. Life really was a cycle.

I swear I looked down for one second to pack up my gear in anticipation of meeting the next client in her room as we’d arranged—she was going to pose by her collection of porcelain cat figurines—only to glance back up and see Nana K with her head in the well again. Both feet were suspended in the air.

“Nana K!” I shouted.

She startled, tipped precariously forward, but managed through some miracle of physics to right herself, thank goodness.

“What were you doing?” I admonished.

“I dropped my glasses down there,” she said. “And I wanted to see if I could reach the pennies. We’ve got Bridge tonight. It would teach those card sharks a lesson if I used their own wishes to bet against them. Half of them pretend to be senile just to get away with things.”

“I’m sure you’ve never done that,” I said sarcastically.

“Who me?” She batted her eyelashes. Wait a minute, were they fake? I didn’t even wear fake eyelashes.

“So, you gonna get my glasses or what? I paid two bucks for those suckers at the Dollar Store,” Nana K said.

I didn’t think I’d be able to reach them either. I may have three and half inches on her in height, but my arms were just as stubby. Still, it was easier to pretend to try than to argue with Nana K. I put my camera bag beside the well and peered into the darkness. It was deeper and darker than I thought. I leaned over the edge in a half-hearted effort to reach the bottom, which I couldn’t see.

But Nana was hip to my game. She pulled my feet up and pushed me forward until my entire upper body was down in the well.

“Pull me back up this instant!” I shouted, trying to push against the wall of the well with my hands. The kept slipping on the damp and mossy surface. It smelled terrible in there.

“I got you. Just reach a little further. I think I almost had them before.”

“I’ll buy you new ones. Just pull me up.”

“See if you can grab some change while you’re down there too,” she suggested.

Completely at her mercy, I sighed and slowly reached down toward the dark abyss. My fingers felt nothing but air. As a passing cloud revealed a bit of sun, something shone from the side of the well just opposite me.

“I think I actually see them on a little ledge. Can you push me just a smidge forward without dropping me?” I asked. I suddenly flashed to the scene at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Indy was reaching for the cup of Christ in the ravine. Luckily, Indy’s dad was able to pull him back to safety.

My grandmother, on the other hand, dropped me.

Chapter 2

There are not many times that being short has been to my advantage. In fact, I could probably count them on one hand: when playing hide-and-seek—I can squeeze into impossibly tight spots; when buying clothing—my size is always in stock; when flying on an airplane—I don’t mind a middle seat; and when falling down—I’m closer to the ground, so it doesn’t hurt as much.

I could now add “when being pitched down a well” to the list. Like a cat, I somehow managed to curl myself into a ball and land more on my hands and knees and pretty much avoid the rocky edges with my head.

“Kurwa!” Nana K’s voice echoed down the well. I don’t know a lot of Polish, but I know I got my mouth washed out with soap for saying that one when I was younger. Grampa K thought it was hilarious to teach me. I thought he should’ve been the one eating Ivory.

“I’m okay,” I said, when I got my breath back. Marginally okay anyway. It was darker than midnight in a jungle cave and smelled just as bad. At least I landed on soft dirt and not in a pool of stank, old water. Only about an inch or