The Lantern in the Attic

I never believed in ghosts, not really. I thought people saw what they wanted to see, especially children, with their vivid imaginations. But then there was Lily, my best friend’s daughter, and the summer she turned five. That was the summer the old farmhouse on Maple Hollow Road became more than just a house.

We’d moved there to escape the city, to give our kids room to run. Lily was a quiet child, with big grey eyes that seemed to take in everything. Her older brother, Max, was rambunctious, but Lily was more observant. She’d spend hours staring at the wallpaper patterns, tracing the grain in the wooden floors. Her mother, Sarah, joked that Lily was an old soul. I didn’t really understand what she meant until that summer.

The first time it happened, we were having a picnic in the yard. Lily was sitting on the grass, pulling at a dandelion, when she looked up at the house and said, ‘Who is the man in the attic?’ Sarah and I exchanged glances. We had no attic. The house was a single-story bungalow, with a crawlspace, not an attic. Sarah laughed it off, saying, ‘Maybe she saw a raccoon through the vent.’ But Lily was insistent. ‘He’s wearing a hat, and he’s holding a lantern.’

We didn’t think much of it, but a few days later, Lily started talking to someone in her room at night. Through the baby monitor, Sarah could hear her saying, ‘I know, I’ll tell her.’ When Sarah asked who she was talking to, Lily said, ‘The man in the hat. He says he’s lost.’

Curiosity turned to unease when we discovered an old photograph in a dusty book in the local library. It was a picture of the farmhouse, dated 1912. In the doorway stood a man in a wide-brimmed hat, holding a lantern. The caption read, ‘The Holloway Farm, home of the lighthouse keeper’s son.’ Sarah and I felt a chill. The museum curator told us that the son, a reclusive figure named Elias Holloway, had lived his entire life in the house, and was known for keeping a lantern lit in the attic window, a beacon for ships that never came this far inland. He had died in a fire, and it was said he still searched for his lost way.

Determined to debunk this, we decided to explore the crawlspace. We found a hatch under the floorboards in the hallway, covered by a rug. I’ll never forget the musty smell that wafted out, and the rusted ladder leading down to a dirt floor. There, in the corner, was an old trunk. Inside, we found a leather journal, a few yellowed letters, and a brass lantern, tarnished but intact. As I lifted the lantern, the glass felt warm, as if it had been recently lit.

That night, Lily woke up screaming. Sarah rushed to her room, and found Lily sitting upright, pointing at the ceiling. ‘He’s angry,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘He says we took his light.’ From below, we heard a sound, a heavy dragging from the crawlspace. I went to the hallway and placed my ear to the floor. I could hear whispers, faint, like the rustle of leaves, but through them, I could make out words: ‘My light… my light…’

We decided to put the lantern back, but when we opened the trunk, it was empty. The lantern was gone. We searched the house, but it was nowhere. Then, in the middle of the night, Sarah’s phone buzzed. It was a text from me, but I hadn’t sent it. The message read: ‘He’s in the walls.’

Days passed, and Lily stopped talking about the man. But she became withdrawn, staring at the corners of rooms, and she’d often hum a tuneless melody that made Sarah’s skin crawl. One evening, as the sun was setting, we heard footsteps from the attic above. We found another hatch, hidden behind a wardrobe, and climbed up to a dusty space we’d never known existed. There, in the center, stood a rocking chair, gently swaying. On its seat rested the brass lantern, glowing with an otherworldly light.

As we watched, the rocker stopped, and the light flickered. A cold breeze swept through, and we heard a voice, old and tired, whisper, ‘Thank you… for finding me.’ Then, the light went out, and the room plunged into darkness. When we found the light switch, the lantern was gone, and the attic was empty, as if it had never been.

Lily never spoke of the man again. But sometimes, late at night, I still smell smoke, and I see a faint glow through the window of that attic, a lantern that never belonged to us. And I wonder if some lights are meant to stay lost.