The Lamps of the Foundry

My girlfriend, Mara, and I took a trip to the old industrial district of Verdigris City for our anniversary. We booked a room at the Ironclad Grand, a hotel that once housed the machinery for the city’s largest brass foundry. The foundry had been in operation from the 1880s until a devastating fire in 1962, and the hotel was converted from the original workshops, with the massive smokestack still looming over the courtyard. Mara, a historian, was thrilled; I was more interested in the weekend getaway and the hotel’s famous infinity pool.

On the first evening, we decided to explore the hotel’s many nooks. In the basement, we found a small museum dedicated to the foundry’s history. The walls were lined with sepia photographs of workers, many of them bare-chested and glistening with sweat, standing before glowing furnaces. The centerpiece was a massive gear, perhaps ten feet in diameter, that had been salvaged from the original machinery. It was polished to a mirror shine, and I could see my distorted reflection in its surface. Mara pointed out a plaque that read: ‘The Foundry of the Lost: In memory of the twenty-three workers who perished in the Great Fire of 1962.’ The names were listed below, and I noticed that all of them were men. I felt a chill, but we laughed it off and went to dinner.

That night, I woke to use the bathroom. The room was dark, but a faint amber glow pulsed from the window, casting shifting patterns on the ceiling. I parted the curtains and saw that the courtyard was bathed in a warm, flickering light, as if massive fires burned somewhere beyond the hotel walls. But there were no flames, only the glow, and it seemed to emanate from the ground itself. I tried to wake Mara, but she was deep asleep. I assumed it was some atmospheric trick from the city lights or maybe a hidden light show.

In the morning, I mentioned it to the front desk clerk, a young man with tired eyes and a name tag reading ‘Elias.’ He barely looked up and said, ‘That would be the old foundry fires. They say the ground is still hot. Don’t mind it.’ I thought he was being sarcastic, but when I pressed for details, he just shook his head and walked away.

Our room had a balcony that overlooked the courtyard. The next afternoon, I was out there with my camera, taking shots of the hotel’s architecture. Mara was napping inside. I snapped a few photos of the courtyard below, which was filled with tourists and a food truck. I didn’t think much of it, but when I reviewed the images on my camera’s screen, I noticed something odd in three of them. In each photo, there was a small, glowing orb, like a floating firefly, but with a humanoid shape. It appeared near the ground, as if a tiny person made of light was standing there. In one shot, it seemed to be holding a tool, like a hammer. I showed Mara when she woke up. She squinted and said, ‘Looks like dust or a lens flare.’ But I wasn’t convinced.

That evening, we decided to take a walk around the old foundry grounds, which were now a public park. The park was beautiful, with walking paths and manicured lawns, but at its center was a large bronze statue of a founder, holding a crucible. As dusk fell, the park lights came on, but they were dim and yellow, casting long, wavering shadows. I took more photos, mostly of the statue and the sunset, when I noticed the same orbs again, this time without even using the flash. They appeared in five consecutive shots, always near the statue, always with that same little humanoid shape. I told Mara we should leave; she laughed and said I was getting creeped out by my own camera.

That night, I had a dream. I was standing in the foundry as it was in its heyday, the air thick with soot and heat. Workers moved around me, their faces streaked with grime, their bodies drenched. They didn’t seem to notice me. One of them, a burly man with a beard, walked straight through me and picked up a huge hammer. As he swung it against a glowing anvil, a shower of sparks erupted, and the sparks formed into a small, glowing figure that ran off into the darkness. I heard a voice behind me, scratchy like old machinery: ‘They’re not lost. They’re still here.’ I turned and saw a man made entirely of fire, his eyes like molten iron. I woke up with a start, my heart pounding.

I told Mara about the dream, and to my surprise, she looked genuinely uneasy. She said she had her own dream, where she was walking through the hotel’s hallways, and all the doors were open, and inside each room was a family of glowing figures, going about their daily routines as if stuck in a loop. One of them, a woman, turned to her and said, ‘Help us find the way.’ Then she woke up.

We decided to research the foundry fire. We found old newspaper articles in the hotel’s archives, thanks to a helpful librarian who overheard us asking. The fire had started in the crucible section, and the workers who died were trapped in the main forge room. But the most chilling detail was that the fire was not an accident. A disgruntled employee named Isaiah Vane had deliberately sabotaged the foundry’s exhaust vents, causing the gas to build up. He was the only survivor, and he died in a mental asylum five years later, always claiming the ghosts of his coworkers haunted him, calling him a murderer.

On our last night, I couldn’t sleep. I went down to the museum again. The lights were off, but I used my phone’s flashlight. I took a photo of the gear, just to capture the reflection, and when I looked at the photo, I saw not my reflection, but the face of a man, riddled with soot, screaming. The orb I had seen before was now behind him, as if the man was being consumed by it. My hand trembled. I heard a clanking sound, like metal on metal, and then the lights flickered on. I saw a small, glowing figure standing by the gear, resembling a person but with elongated limbs. It raised a tiny hand, and I could have sworn it pointed towards the exit door. I bolted.

The next morning, as we were checking out, Elias, the desk clerk, handed me an old photograph he said he’d found in the back office. It was a sepia image of the foundry workers, and in the foreground, a man was holding a placard that read: ‘The lamps of the foundry never die. They burn in the memory of the foundry.’ I turned the photo over, and on the back, written in fading ink, was: ‘For Isaiah, who turned on us. We’ll keep his name burning.’

I don’t know what to make of it. But I’ve deleted my photos. Some things shouldn’t be captured. The orbs, the glowing figures, the dreams—they all point to something that lingers. The city may have built a hotel over the foundry, but the foundry’s heart still burns beneath the ground, waiting for an outlet. And I fear I’ve let it out.

We left the Ironclad Grand, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve brought something back with us. Last night, I took a picture of Mara to test my camera, and there it was again: a tiny, glowing figure, this time in the corner of our bedroom, holding a hammer. Mara thinks I’m just tired, but I know what I saw. The foundry’s lost workers haven’t crossed over. They’re anchored to this world, and I’ve unwittingly become their beacon. They want someone to see them, to acknowledge their existence. But I’m not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. Either way, I’m throwing the camera away.

Maybe I’ll stick to painting.