The Hour the Lantern Burned

The old farmhouse on Cedar Hollow Road had been in my mother’s family for generations, but we only moved in after my father lost his job in the city. I was fourteen, and my sister, Lily, was nine. The house was a sprawling, drafty thing with tilting floors and a smell of mothballs and old wood. My parents took the master bedroom downstairs, while Lily and I shared a room at the top of the stairs, a long, narrow space with sloped ceilings and two small windows that faced the overgrown field behind the house.

Our beds were pushed against opposite walls, with a single window between them. At night, the wind would moan through the loose panes, and the bare branches of the ancient oak outside would scrape against the glass like bony fingers. We kept the curtains drawn, thick, heavy velvet that had faded to a dusty mauve, and we joked that they were so heavy they could block out the world. We were wrong.

One night, I woke from a dreamless sleep to a stillness in the air. The house was silent, not even the usual creaks and groans. The clock on my nightstand glowed 3:33 a.m. I lay there, half-awake, wondering what had pulled me from the depths of sleep. Then I saw it: the curtain on the window between our beds was billowing outward, as if a strong breeze were pushing it into the room. But the window was closed, and the night was cold and still outside. I could see the glass was frosted over, and the pane itself was sealed with years of paint.

I sat up, my heart thumping. ‘Lily?’ I whispered. No response. She was a lump under her quilt. I swung my legs out of bed, my bare feet meeting the icy floorboards. The curtain continued its slow, deliberate dance, as if something unseen was playing with it. I reached out to touch the fabric, and it was cold, colder than the room should have been. As my fingers brushed the velvet, the billowing stopped abruptly, and the curtain fell limply against the window.

I stood there, staring at the curtain, trying to rationalize. A draft? But the window was sealed. I pulled the curtain aside, revealing the glass. On the other side, pressed against the pane, was a face. Not a human face, but something pale and gaunt, with wide, black eyes that seemed to drink the darkness. It was smiling, a thin, lipless grin that stretched too wide. I stumbled back, a scream caught in my throat. The face didn’t move; it just stared at me, and then slowly, it began to dissolve, like smoke, until only the frost remained.

I didn’t sleep that night. I stayed awake, watching the window, but nothing else happened. In the morning, I tried to tell my parents, but they dismissed it as a nightmare. My father said it was the ‘old lantern oil’ in the walls, a family story about the original owner who had gone mad. He told me to stop letting my imagination run wild. But I knew what I had seen.

The next night, I was determined to stay awake. I propped myself up with pillows and read a book, but drowsiness crept in. I must have drifted off. I woke at exactly 3:33 again, to the sound of a low, rhythmic humming. It was coming from below, from my parents’ room. I crept down the creaky stairs, my heart pounding. The door to their room was ajar. A dim, orange light flickered from within. I pushed the door open and saw my parents standing at the foot of their bed, facing the far wall, where an old, iron lantern hung, unlit. But it was glowing with an eerie orange flame. Their faces were blank, eyes open but unseeing, and they were humming in unison, a tuneless melody that made my skin crawl.

‘Mom? Dad?’ I whispered. They didn’t respond. I took a step closer, and the lantern flared, casting a long shadow on the wall. The shadow wasn’t of the lantern, but of a tall, thin figure with long arms. It swayed as if dancing with the flame. My parents stopped humming and turned to me, but their eyes were black, completely black, like the face I had seen at the window. I screamed and ran back to my room, slamming the door. Lily was still asleep. I climbed into her bed and shook her, but she wouldn’t wake. I held her, shivering, until dawn.

The next morning, my parents were normal, puzzled by my fright. But the strain was telling. There were dark circles under their eyes, and they spoke in hushed, clipped tones. I tried to tell them again, but they looked at me with that strange blankness, and I saw a flicker of the black eyes, and I stopped talking.

For several nights, I tried to keep watch, but sleep always claimed me. And each time, I would wake at 3:33, and the lantern would be glowing, and my parents would be humming. The figure in the window appeared more often, sometimes at the foot of my bed, sometimes at the top of the stairs, always smiling that grotesque smile. It never spoke, but I began to understand it was waiting.

One night, I woke, and instead of the humming, there was silence. The room was colder than ever, and my breath frosted. The window was open, the curtain billowing violently. The face was there, pressing against the glass, but it grew larger, as if it was coming through. I watched in horror as the glass began to crack, and the face pushed forward, breaking through the pane. The figure emerged, tall and gaunt, its black eyes fixed on me. It was made of shadow and cold, and it reeked of rotting earth. It reached out a long, clawed hand, and I couldn’t move.

Then I heard Lily scream behind me. I turned and saw her sitting up in bed, staring at the window, her face twisted in terror. The creature paused, turned its head to look at her, and then dissolved into a wisp of smoke, leaving the broken window and the cold night air.

I grabbed Lily and ran to my parents’ room, but they were not there. The lantern was gone, and only a dark stain on the wall remained. We searched the house, but they were nowhere. We ran outside, into the frosty dawn, and saw the barn door hanging open. We found them inside, sitting on bales of hay, their faces serene, their eyes glassy and black. They were humming that same melody. They didn’t recognize us.

The police and doctors were called, but they saw nothing physically wrong. They called it a shared dissociative episode, but we knew the truth. They took my parents away to a facility. Lily and I were sent to live with our aunt in another state. But the figure followed. It would appear at the window of our new room, always at 3:33, always smiling. And I knew that someday, it would take us too, into that silent house beyond the glass, where the lantern burns with an unearthly light.

The house on Cedar Hollow Road still stands, abandoned. Locals whisper about the lantern that glows in the upper window, and the humming that drifts on the night air. They say if you look closely, you can see a face in the glass, waiting. Waiting for the hour to strike.