I returned to the house a few times, lamenting the building as it vanished. The piano, however, was a consolation for it conjured up my paternal grandmother, Evelyn, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, folding her body over her keyboard, her fingers spanning and soaring on its keys. Knowing the piano was destined for the landfill, I cajoled my husband to the house to retrieve its piano keys; the man happened to be there and helped as we pried out keys and hammers. As we disentangled them from the soundboard, the wires eventually loosened and an interwoven photographic negative was released. The darkness of the negative made it difficult to see, but I could make out human figures. Returning home, I found an online app to reverse it. The photograph reveals a family preserved, a woman smiling with her children, a gathering of men standing around on the Nova Scotia beach; a century onward, we can feel the sun’s warmth. Despite the lack of folkloric objects hidden in the walls of this house, the negative is a fortuitous talisman. o
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all images Angela Silver
found negative, collection of Angela Silver
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