Pictures of You
TJ Alexian
Author Bio
T.J. Alexian is the author of four novels and twelve plays, and is an award-winning communications specialist. He lives in Attleboro, Massachusetts in a renovated green Victorian, along with seven ghosts and his long-time (and long-suffering) partner. He also has three kids and one spiritual kid, and their stories and their spirit form the heart and soul of Pictures of You.
Alexian has been writing since the first grade, ever since his father tucked him to bed with stories about Nancy Drew’s younger brother and the Lone Ranger and Tonto. And T.J. first thought: “I don’t want these stories to ever end.” As a result, the stories kept going.
A profiled author in Writer’s Digest book Writer with a Day Job, Pictures of You is Alexian’s first self-published work, although he has two more novels being prepared for distribution: The Late Night Show and Confessions of a Diva Rotundo, which is an outrageous mystery penned by an egotistical thespian that is based on Alexian’s experiences as an actor and director of regional theater.
Pictures of You, in contrast, is a young adult thriller that takes a more serious tone, combining Alexian’s love for social media with the macabre. A ghost story for the dispossessed, the novel tells the story of a young girl haunted by events in her past that never seem to die. But more than that, the novel is about being heard, about giving voice to voices that don’t fit the norm–some that lack the courage…and some, that hide in the shadows.
Description
A story of a haunting. Of a memory that lingers. Of voices that hide in the shadows.
Living your life on video is fine, as long as you’ve got complete control. But what happens if one day you wake up and discover videos you didn’t know existed have gone public? That’s what happens to self-professed video geek, Ashes16, whose real-world past begins to haunt her when a strange video pops up on her YouTube account one day. Others soon follow, bringing back vivid memories of her older brother’s grisly death and forcing Ashes to relive over and over again a nightmare scene she witnessed first-hand. And worse yet, the videos seem to be coming from him.
Who can Ashes talk to about these pictures from the past? Her mother is too absorbed in dealing with her own grief to be of much use to anyone, and she hasn’t been allowed to see her stepfather since the divorce, which came (no surprise) just weeks after the death of her brother. And Ashes doesn’t have too many friends to confide in, because she’s different than the others: a girl who resembles a boy. A girl in the present obsessively wearing the remnants of a boy from the past, the clothing of her dead brother. Her one link to the memory of what he was.
There is her best friend and cousin Michele, whom she finally does confide in. But giving voice to the past that haunts Ashes16 leads to the discovery of something that’s been kept hidden for years, something that may provide a clue to what actually happened to her brother so many years ago. This knowledge comes at a price, however, as the messages she keeps receiving start getting stranger and the danger she feels starts getting real. And that’s when she discovers that no one in her life can really be trusted, not even the ones she holds closest to her heart.
Are these really messages from her dead brother, asking her to uncover dark family secrets some people want to keep hidden? And what happens when Ashes finally starts to understand the meaning behind these messages? That’s the chilling secret behind Pictures of You.
Book excerpt
I sit at my computer and type in my YouTube username.
Ashes16
I scroll through my list of videos.
YOU.
Still there. This memory I have no memory of. This memory, with that laugh at the end. This memory of him.
I scroll down farther. And stop, the cut on my knee completely forgotten. This isn’t possible.
All at once, it’s like I’m still running through the woods, as if I still hear that sound of footsteps moving softly behind me. A crackle of twigs. Once again I feel the whisper of someone’s presence in the air. I stare at the screen, in complete disbelief.
YOU, but also…
YOU2.
I can’t believe it’s there, but also, I can’t wait to see it. I click on the video, to bring it to life.
There I am, sitting in front of my pink dressing table, the one that was in my bedroom at the old house, and is probably still there since we didn’t have room for it in the condo. I’m sitting with my back to the camera, brushing my long, straight hair. I’m talking to myself, into the mirror on top of the dresser. I can’t hear a word of what she/I’m saying, so I turn up the volume.
“But of course, I can’t get my hair cut,” I’m saying, and I hate my voice even more, because I sound like such a little girl. “Mommy won’t let that happen. Your hair’s so beautiful, so straight and long…”
Present day, I reach my hand up to touch the back of my head. So much shorter now, practically like a boy. No, no. Like a boy.
Back in the past, on the video, I keep brushing. “I’m so sick of straight and long! I’m sick of snarls in the morning. I’m—”
The person I was pauses, stops brushing. “I see you,” she says, but doesn’t turn around.
See? Oh, yes. In the mirror.
There’s a laugh, muffled and indistinct. His laugh, once again.
The person I was turns around, looks right into the camera. “Come on,” she says. “Why are you doing this?”
And I hear his voice again. The way I remember, kind of deep, but with that smile in it, that lightness. That teasing quality he always has. Had.
“To bug you,” he says.
I shake my head, and my bangs go in different directions. “You’re not, you know.” I sounded pouty, and I could almost hear him saying, at least in my head, that I always was a bad liar.
There’s movement, in the mirror that she/me is staring into. It happens in an instant, and then I see myself stand. “Daniel!”
Just like that, the video’s over.
That movement. It goes by so fast, but…
I use my mouse to move back in time, to the point where I turn around.
“You’re not, you know,” I say again, still sounding pouty.
The movement starts. Quickly, I hit pause.
Daniel comes into view, a reflection in the mirror. Daniel, with his skinny body and his pitch black hair, with bangs cut straight as mine are now. And his dark eyes, which always seemed to twinkle just a little when he was up to no good.
Daniel. I want to touch the screen. I push my fingers forward, and feel a bit of static from the monitor. But more than that, there’s a chill in the air, over my shoulder. I break from the video, turn around.
No one’s there.
Author Website
http://snapshotsfromeldredge.blogspot.com/