The Lantern in the Loft

At six, I knew the shape of every crack in the ceiling of my new bedroom. They were rivers and roads, and I would trace them with my finger before sleep, mapping a world that was mine alone. The house in Millbrook had been a church once, long before my parents bought it, and the high, peaked windows still held the gold of old sermon light. My father said it was a good sign, that light. My mother, forever practical, said it was the reason our heating bill would be a nightmare. We moved in on a day in late August, when the air was thick with the smell of cut grass and the promise of autumn. My sister, Lena, was eight, and she took one look at the steep stairway to the attic and declared it the lair of a dragon. I believed her.

The attic itself was a forbidden place, a tangle of old pews and forgotten hymnals, and my parents warned us to stay out. But rules are slippery things, like wet soap, and curiosity always gets its fingers wrapped around them. One afternoon, when the house was silent and the sun painted long shadows across the floorboards, I climbed the pull-down ladder and slipped into the dust-laden dimness. The air was thick with the ghosts of incense and candle smoke. I found a trunk, leather and brass, with a smell of old books and something else—something sharp and metallic. Inside, nestled in a bed of faded velvet, lay a lantern. It was not like the ones we used for camping. This one was heavy, made of brass, with a glass chamber etched with intricate symbols, like a language I almost knew. I took it back to my room, hidden under my sweater, and that night, I lit it. The flame that rose from its wick was not yellow or orange, but a cold, blue-white, and it cast shadows that did not obey the laws of light. The walls of my room seemed to breathe in and out, and in the center of that eerie glow, I saw a shape—a tall, thin figure with long, gray fingers and no face, just a smooth, blank expanse where a face should be. It stood at the foot of my bed, and I felt its eyes on me, though it had none. I cried out, and the flame guttered, and the shape dissolved into the dark. I hid the lantern under my bed, swearing I would never touch it again.

But the house began to whisper. Not with voices, but with creaks and groans that had a rhythm, and footsteps that stopped right outside my door. My parents blamed the old pipes, the settling wood, but I knew better. The lantern called to me in my dreams. I saw it in a field of yellow grass, and the faceless figure was there, beckoning. It was reaching for something, holding out its long, pale hand. I woke up screaming, and my mother held me, but there was a coldness in her touch that hadn’t been there before. She looked at me with eyes that were not quite her own, and she said, ‘You must not listen to the lantern. It is a thing of the past, a keeper of truths that should remain buried.’ But I didn’t understand. What truths?

Then Lena started talking to herself in the attic. I would find her sitting in the shafts of light that fell through the grimy windows, her lips moving in a silent conversation, her eyes fixed on a point above my head. When I asked her who she was talking to, she smiled a smile that was too wide, and said, ‘The man in the tall hat. He says he wants to play with you.’ I told my parents, and they exchanged glances, and I saw fear in their eyes for the first time. That night, my father climbed to the attic, and I heard him moving things around, and then there was a clatter, and a crash, and he came down with a box of rusted tools and a look of pale determination. ‘There’s nothing up there,’ he said, but his voice was shaking. He took the lantern from under my bed and threw it into the bottom of the trash can in the garage.

For a week, we were fine. The house settled back into its quiet, and the footsteps stopped. But then the snow came, early and heavy, and I had to help my father dig out the driveway. As I shoveled, I felt a presence behind me, and I turned to see the faceless figure standing at the edge of the yard, its head tilted, its long fingers reaching toward me. It was not in my house. It was outside, and it was patient. I ran inside, shaking. My mother was in the kitchen, and she looked at me with a weary sadness. ‘It has found us,’ she said, and I didn’t need to ask what she meant. She told me then that the lantern had been in our family for generations, passed down from a great-great-grandmother who had used it to call back her dead children. But each time it was used, it left a door open, and something came through. Something that wore the shapes of those we loved. She said, ‘We have to give it back. We have to burn it.’ But when we went to the garage, the trash can was empty, and the lantern sat on the workbench, its glass glowing softly, as if it had a heart of its own.

That night, I took the lantern back. I don’t know why. It was like a compulsion, a pulling in my chest. I climbed the stairs to the attic, and the ladder was already down, and the room was lit with a cold, blue light. The faceless figure was there, standing in the corner, and for the first time, it spoke. Its voice was like the sound of wind through dead leaves, and it said, ‘I have been waiting for you. Finally, someone who can see.’ It held out its hand, and in its palm was a small, white object. A tooth. My tooth. From the one I had lost last year, which had gone under my pillow and never been touched by the tooth fairy. ‘You were meant to be a lantern bearer,’ it said. ‘To light the way for those who are lost. But you must be willing to forget the world of the living.’ I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. My feet were rooted to the floor.

I don’t remember what happened next. I woke up in my bed, the morning sun streaming through my windows, and for a moment, I thought it was all a dream. But then I looked at my nightstand, and there was the lantern, gleaming, its flame steady and blue. I picked it up, and I felt a warmth, a strange comfort, like it was a part of me now. My mother came in, and she looked at the lantern, and her face crumpled in fear. ‘Oh, no,’ she whispered. ‘What have you done?’ I opened my mouth to speak, but the words that came out were not my own. ‘I am the keeper of the threshold,’ I said. ‘The one who walks between worlds.’ And in the reflection of the lantern’s glass, I saw that my own face was gone—smooth, empty, waiting for a new one to be written. I have been in Millbrook for thirty years now. My parents moved away, but I stayed. I tend the lantern, and I light it for those who come to the house, seeking the ones they have lost. They see a kind woman with a gentle smile, and they trust me. But there is a room in the attic where the ladder is always down, and the lantern sits in the window, waiting. And sometimes, I look at the faces of the living, and I remember what it was like to have one. But mostly, I just wait.

I wait for the next child with a curious heart, the one who will climb the stairs, drawn by the glow. And I will offer them the lantern, and I will tell them of the worlds beyond, and I will watch as their face melts into the beautiful, terrible blankness that is my own. For I am the lantern now, and the lantern is me, and we are hungry for company.