The Lantern in the Courtyard

In the summer of 2013, I was living with my family in an old colonial bungalow on the outskirts of a small town in Kerala. The house was grand but weathered, with high ceilings, creaking wooden floors, and a long veranda that wrapped around the entire structure. My bedroom was at the far end of the east wing, and the only bathroom was just outside my door. The courtyard, overgrown with moss and wild hibiscus, lay directly behind my room, and a rusted iron gate led to the abandoned well that had been sealed years ago.

My grandfather had passed away in 2007. He was a gentle soul, a retired botanist who spent his last years tending to the garden. My sister and I adored him. He would tell us stories of the forest spirits and the old ways, and he had a habit of leaving a brass lantern lit on the windowsill of his study every night, even in the daytime. ‘For the ones who walk between,’ he would say with a wink. After his death, the lantern was stored in the attic, and the study remained locked.

It was the eve of his fifth death anniversary. My parents had gone to the nearby town to buy flowers and incense for the morning rituals. My aunt, my father’s younger brother’s wife, was in her room at the other end of the house, giving private tuition to a few local children. My grandmother was visiting her sister in the next village, so we were essentially alone except for my aunt and the students.

I was sitting on my bed, the one closest to the window that overlooked the courtyard, and my sister was on the floor, cross-legged, fiddling with a deck of cards. We were gossiping about a boy in our college when the lights flickered. The bulb above us buzzed and then steadied. We didn’t think much of it. But then, from the corridor outside my room, we heard a faint scratching—like fingernails dragging across the wooden floor. I turned to my sister, and she looked up, her eyes wide.

‘You heard that?’ I whispered. She nodded. We both froze, listening. The scratching stopped. Then it started again, but this time it was closer, just outside my door. The door was ajar, and I could see a sliver of the dark corridor. A cold draft swept in, carrying a faint smell of damp earth and old spice—the same smell that clung to my grandfather’s coats.

My sister gripped my arm. ‘It’s him,’ she said. I shook my head, trying to be rational. ‘It’s just the wind,’ I said, but my voice trembled. The scratching turned into a soft tapping, rhythmic, like someone knocking on wood. Then, from the end of the corridor, we saw a faint, flickering light. It was a lantern, but not any lantern—it was the brass one from the attic. The light it cast was not warm or steady; it pulsed with a sickly, greenish glow, and it was moving toward my door.

I wanted to scream, but my throat was dry. My sister hid her face in my shoulder. The lantern stopped at my doorstep, hovering about a foot above the ground. The door creaked open wider, and I saw a silhouette behind the light—a tall, thin figure in a dhoti and a shawl, just like my grandfather used to wear. His face was obscured, but I felt his gaze on me. The light of the lantern illuminated the floor, casting long shadows that seemed to writhe.

The figure stepped inside. My sister sobbed, ‘Thatha?’ But the figure didn’t respond. It walked past us, toward the window, and placed the lantern on the sill—exactly where my grandfather used to keep it. Then, slowly, it turned to face us. I could now see its eyes, two hollow pits of darkness, and its lips moved as if speaking, but no sound came out. Instead, a whisper filled the room, not from the figure, but from all around us, like many voices overlapping.

‘Remember… the well…’ The whisper was faint but clear. Then, the figure vanished, leaving the lantern burning on the sill. The scratching and tapping ceased. My sister and I stared at each other, shaking. We both had seen it, but we couldn’t process what it meant.

That night, we didn’t sleep. We huddled together until dawn. In the morning, we told my aunt, but she dismissed it as a nightmare. However, when I went to the well behind the house, I noticed that the old iron lid had been shifted, and there was a small, decaying cloth bundle lying beside it. I picked it up with trembling hands. Inside were a few old letters, a photograph of my grandfather as a young man, and a key.

The key was to the study. We unlocked it for the first time in years. The room was dusty, but on his desk, there was a ledger. The last page had an entry, dated the day before he died: ‘They still owe a debt. The well must be opened on the night of my fifth anniversary. The lantern will guide them.’

We never understood what the debt was. But for weeks after, every night, we would see the lantern’s faint glow outside our window, even in the rain. And sometimes, the whispers would come again, saying, ‘Soon.’

The anniversary came and went with no catastrophe. Yet, I cannot shake the feeling that my grandfather was trying to warn us, not about the well, but about something else—something that had been waiting for the right time to resurface. We moved away that autumn, but I still dream of the lantern and the hollow eyes. And I know, deep down, that the debt is never truly settled.