The Lantern Keepers

My best friend, Marisol, died on a rain-slicked Tuesday in November of 2002. A delivery truck ran a red light, and she was gone before the ambulance arrived. I was nine, she was twelve. I didn’t go to her funeral. My parents said I was too young, that it would be too much, and I believed them. For years, I carried that guilt like a stone in my chest.

The only time I saw her spirit was the summer after she died, at Camp Willowmere. I woke in the dead of night to find her standing at the foot of my bunk, her hair dripping with phantom rain, her mouth open in a silent scream. I let out a shriek that woke the entire cabin, and she vanished. She never came to me like that again.

But I felt her presence in smaller ways—a warmth on my shoulder when I cried, the scent of her mother’s lavender perfume in empty rooms. I told myself she understood, that she forgave me. Until last month, on the anniversary of her death, I walked the old Farmington Road to my sister’s house.

That road was always poorly lit, and that night the moon was hidden behind clouds. The streetlights flickered, dying one by one as I passed. I was about halfway when I heard the footsteps—slow, deliberate, matching my own pace. I turned, but there was no one there. The air grew cold, and my breath fogged in front of me.

Then I saw the lantern. An old-fashioned glass lantern, glowing with a soft, amber light, hovering a few feet ahead on the roadside. It was the kind you’d see in a period drama, with a handle and a chimney. I froze. The lantern bobbed, as if held by an invisible hand, then moved a few steps forward. It stopped, waiting.

I knew, with a sickening certainty, that it was Marisol. She was trying to lead me somewhere. My heart hammered, but I followed. The lantern drifted off the road and into the woods, along a path I didn’t recognize. It moved slowly, patiently, ever patient, and I stumbled after it, my shoes crunching on dry leaves.

We came to a clearing I had never seen before. At its center stood an old, moss-covered well, its stones ancient and crumbling. The lantern floated to the well and hovered over the opening, its light spilling down into the blackness. I peered in, but saw nothing. Then the lantern dropped.

It fell slowly, like a feather, and I heard a faint splash far below. The light vanished, plunging me into darkness. I cried out for Marisol, my voice cracking. No answer. Just the rustle of leaves and the distant hoot of an owl.

I stumbled back to the road, my legs shaking. I told myself it was a night terror, a hallucination from grief and guilt. But the next day, I went back to that clearing. There was no well there. Only bare earth and a single, dead tree. And yet, the smell of lavender hung in the air.

That night, I dreamt of Marisol. She stood at the foot of my bed, but this time she wasn’t screaming. She was holding the lantern, its light steady. She pointed toward the window, and I saw the road, the same streetlight that had flickered. She mouthed the words: ‘You left me.’

I woke with tears on my face. I called my sister, who still lived on that road, and asked if there was ever a well in the woods behind her house. She said no, but then added, ‘Funny you should ask. Old Mrs. Hargrove, the previous owner, said her daughter drowned in a well on this property back in the 1950s. They filled it in years ago.’

My blood ran cold. I realized then that the lantern wasn’t Marisol’s spirit. It was something else, something older, that had taken her shape to lure me. It knew my guilt, my regret. It used her to call me.

I haven’t walked that road at night since. But sometimes, when the lights flicker, I catch a glimpse of a figure holding a lantern, just at the edge of my vision. And I hear a whisper, not Marisol’s voice, but something deeper, older: ‘You should have come.’

I don’t know what it wants. I only know that the lantern is waiting, and one night, I might not be able to turn away.