The final bell rang, yet Mara remained in the darkroom. Over the past few nights she'd taken even more pictures out in the forest, and she knew she had some kind of wild animal. But the green eyes barely showed up. Her night photography photos had come back from the developers, but the grainy color-processed four-inch glossies didn't show the detail she imagined was there. With the school equipment she could see more detail.
Mara placed a strip of negatives into the enlarger and projected the image as large as it would go. The two eyes showed up as black. Clicking off the light, Mara slipped a piece of photo paper under the enlarger, then clicked the light on again. An egg timer ticked off the requisite number of seconds. Mara hurried to the tray of developer and slid the photo paper in.
The image began to develop.
Gray crowded in almost immediately, leaving a white ring around where the pair of eyes shone among the trees. As Mara continued to wash the solution over the light-sensitive paper, the details came in: differentiated trees, becoming blacker and blacker. And a gray outline around the white eyes.
In the red light, Mara leaned close to see what this gray shape was. Too stocky for a deer, and besides the eyes were forward-facing, which meant a predatory animal of some kind. It looked big. A nose and lolling tongue appeared dark among the gray, then Mara could make out the ears and face of a wolf.
A wolf!
A big one, too.
Mara continued rocking the tray of developer, but no further details showed up. She put the picture through the stop bath and left it in the fixer. Her mind wandered while she moved the tray so the fixer washed over the photograph.
A wolf, in her backyard. She had never heard of wolves in the area at all. There had been the occasional sighting of a deer or moose, and of course smaller animals like rabbits or foxes. But a wolf, that big? After the photograph was completely fixed, and Mara could examine it in the light outside of the darkroom, she knew she had found a wolf. Her mind took hold of an idea, and suddenly she couldn't wait to get to Animal Rights Club.
YOU ARE READING
Animal Nature
WerewolfVegans turned carnivorous... Shyanne and David are dedicated animal lovers and vegans... until David goes missing on a camping trip. His friends describe a huge beast that attacked their campsite. Then David shows up out of the blue, much changed...
