The Lantern in the Root Cellar

My three years in the old farmhouse on Cinder Lane had taught me to ignore the creaks and groans, the way the wind would sometimes mimic a child’s sobbing through the cracked window frames. This was October, and the house had a way of playing tricks when the dark came early. I was a tenant of the Guthrie place, occupying the east parlor, while the landlord, Old Man Halsey, lived in the back wing, which was half collapsed and never entered. He kept to himself, and our only communication was through a cracked bellows pipe that ran from his room to mine, meant for calling in case of emergency. It hadn’t been used in decades, and I had long assumed it was clogged with dust and dead spiders.

On the night of the last harvest moon, I was reading by the light of a kerosene lamp—the electricity had failed two days prior, leaving the house in a perpetual twilight of oil and candle. The book was a dry treatise on local geology, and my eyelids were heavy. Then, three sharp metallic knocks rang through the pipe, a hollow, urgent clang. I dropped the book, my heart hammering. Halsey had vanished a week ago, without a word, and the police had searched the grounds without finding a trace. I grabbed a heavy candle and hurried down the dark hallway to the back wing, where the pipe opened into Halsey’s room. The door was ajar, and inside, the dust was thick, undisturbed.

I crossed the room, stepping over a fallen stack of newspapers. The bellows pipe ended in a tarnished brass horn on the wall, and from its mouth, I could see something glinting—a glint of rust and glass. I reached in and pulled out a small iron lantern, its sides eaten with corrosion. It was warm, as if recently lit, though no flame burned inside. As I held it, I felt a faint pulse, like a slow heartbeat. And then the knocks came again, but this time from below the floorboards. Three distinct, deliberate raps. Instinctively, I tapped the floor three times with my walking cane, which I’d leaned against the doorframe.

In response, the floorboards beneath me shifted, and a trapdoor—which I had never noticed—creaked open, revealing a narrow stone staircase descending into darkness. The lantern in my hand flickered to life with a cold blue flame, casting a sickly glow down the steps. I heard a woman’s voice from below, singing a lullaby in a language I didn’t recognize. I should have called for help, but the lantern seemed to guide me, its light pulling at my arm. I descended, the stairs spiraling into a root cellar that was much larger than the house’s footprint should have allowed. The air was cold and smelled of wet earth and something sweet, like rotten apples. The walls were lined with glass jars, each containing a floating, phosphorescent mushroom that pulsed with light.

At the center of the cellar stood a wooden workbench, and on it lay a phonograph, its horn cracked. The record was spinning, but the needle was lifted, producing no sound. As I approached, the lantern’s flame grew steadier, and I saw that the record was not wax but a disc of bone, etched with a spiral that seemed to move if I stared too long. The singing stopped, and a voice spoke directly into my mind, not through my ears. ‘You are the third. The lantern is a key, but you must not turn it.’ I tried to look away, but my hands had a mind of their own. I turned the lantern’s base, and the flame inverted, sucking the light out of the room, leaving only the mushroom glow. The walls of the cellar began to writhe, and the jars shattered, spilling glowing slime onto the floor. The slime coalesced into a shape—a tall, thin figure with no face, only a large gaping mouth that opened like a hole.

I ran back up the stairs, but the trapdoor had closed, and the steps were slippery with something that felt like fat. Behind me, the faceless thing let out a sound that was both a sigh and a laugh. I threw the lantern at it, and it exploded into a thousand shards, each one becoming a tiny wisp of smoke that spiraled upward, through the ceiling, as if called. The cellar began to collapse, and I dug my fingers into the crumbling earth, clawing my way into a dark tunnel that led to the farmhouse’s old well, which had been dry for a century. I emerged into the night, covered in mud, and looked back at the house. It was standing, but now every window was lit, and in each one, a shadowy figure stood, watching me. They were motionless, but they were all missing their mouths.

I fled to the road and hitchhiked into town. When I told the sheriff, he said that Old Man Halsey had lived there for fifty years, and that no trapdoor or cellar had ever been found. He dismissed me as a drunk or a trespasser. But I know what I saw. That night, in my rented room in the boarding house, I noticed that my walking cane—which I’d left at the farmhouse—was standing in the corner of my room, covered in fresh soil. And on its handle, carved into the wood, was a spiral pattern I had never seen before. I’ve tried to throw it away, but it always finds its way back. And sometimes, at night, I hear that lullaby, faint and close, as if the woman is standing just outside my door, waiting for me to open it. I’ve stopped answering the knocks.