The mother lived three more weeks. Long enough to hold the album every night.

When he delivered the album to Elara, she opened it on her mother’s hospital bed. The dying woman’s eyes, dull for weeks, sparked. "That's my mother," she breathed. "And look—she’s taking a picture of her favorite rose bush. She always said, 'If you love something, make it last.'"

Then, on the fourth morning, as dawn broke the color of a bruised peach, he saw her.

He pressed the shutter. Clack.

He waited.

Marco’s hands, steady as stone for two decades, trembled. He remembered his rule. But he also remembered the girl’s voice: She danced.

He printed the photo. He printed all thirty-seven. In each one, the ghost was doing something different—not just dancing, but photographing . Photographing the roses. Photographing the sunrise. Photographing the empty spot where Marco stood.

The next morning, he arrived at the crumbling villa. The garden was a wilderness of overgrown roses and wet cobblestones. He set up his large-format camera on a tripod—the same one his grandfather used. He calibrated for the golden hour light, the dew, the faint mist rising from the pond.