The Lantern Keeper’s Invitation

Three nights after the funeral, the dream came. I was standing in a vast, dimly lit hall, the kind you’d find in an old railway station, but the walls were lined with bookshelves that reached up into darkness. The air smelled of dust and old paper, and there was a low hum, like a distant crowd. People moved around me in a slow, aimless drift, their faces pleasant but blurred, like portraits painted with a thumb smudge. I felt a strange familiarity with all of them, as if we’d shared a lifetime of conversations, yet I couldn’t name a single one.

A woman approached me, her smile wide and knowing. She wore a deep green dress, and her hair was pinned up with a silver comb. ‘Mara, it’s been so long,’ she said, and I knew her as Elspeth, a girl I’d once sat next to in a literature class, who’d died in a car accident five years ago. She asked how I was, and I said fine, though my voice felt like it came from somewhere else. When I asked what she’d been up to, she tilted her head and said, ‘I’ve been tending to my family’s old orchard. The apples are bitter this year.’

Before I could ask more, a young man broke through the crowd, his face bright with recognition. He had the same laugh lines as my husband’s late cousin, the one I’d only seen in photographs. He hugged me like we were old friends, and I felt a warmth that chased away the chill of the place. He told me his name was Theodore, and he talked about the sea, how he’d spent his summers on the coast, collecting glass bottles that the waves brought in. His voice was so gentle, so kind, that I let myself forget the strangeness.

Near the end, he took my hand and led me to a window that wasn’t there before. Outside, a field of lanterns floated upward, each one a tiny flame bobbing into the night. ‘Mara,’ he said, his eyes never leaving mine, ‘I have to go now, but I’ll see you again very soon. We’re all waiting for you on the other side.’

I woke with a jolt, the taste of salt on my lips and the image of those lanterns burned into my mind. I told myself it was just a dream, a weird echo of grief. But over the next week, the dream returned, always the same: the hall, the people, Elspeth’s cryptic words, Theodore’s warning. Yesterday, I received a letter in the mail, postmarked from a town I’d never heard of, and inside was a single polaroid: a photo of me, standing in that hall, surrounded by the smiling faces of strangers. On the back, written in pencil, were the words: ‘The orchard is ready. We saved you a seat.’ I haven’t left my house since, but last night, I saw a lantern drifting past my bedroom window, and I know, with a dread that sits like a stone in my chest, that Theodore meant every word.