The Lantern Loop

The summer I turned twelve, my family moved to a converted lighthouse on the coast of Maine. The place was called the Weymouth Point Light, and it had been a working beacon until the 1960s, when a new automated tower on the mainland made it obsolete. The house was built into the old keeper’s quarters, with the spiral staircase leading up to the lantern room as the centerpiece. My bedroom was on the second floor, in what used to be the assistant keeper’s room. The walls were painted a dull yellow, and the ceiling had a strange, rippled texture, like the surface of the sea frozen in time. There was an old, walk-in closet that had no door, just a gaping archway, and I could see my clothes hanging in the dim light from the hallway.

On my first night there, I couldn’t sleep. The wind howled around the lighthouse, and the constant groan of the structure made me feel like it was alive. Around midnight, I felt a presence in the room, a weight in the air, as if someone were standing just behind me. I turned to look, and the closet was shaking. Not violently, but with a rhythmic, purposeful motion, like something was pushing against the walls from the inside. I froze, waiting for a shadow to emerge, but nothing came. The shaking stopped as suddenly as it had started, and I pulled my blanket over my head, trying to convince myself it was the wind.

I didn’t tell my parents. They were already on edge, dealing with the stress of the move, and I didn’t want to worry them. But the next night, I saw it happen again, and then the night after that. The closet would tremble, and sometimes I’d hear a faint, rhythmic tapping, like a finger on glass. I started to dread going to bed, but I refused to be scared. I was twelve, after all.

A week later, I found a small, round mirror in the back of the closet, tucked behind my shoes. It was old, with a tarnished silver frame, and the glass was warped. I brought it to my nightstand, and that night, I propped it up against the lamp. When I looked into it, I saw something that made my blood run cold. The reflection showed the room, but the closet was open, and standing inside was a girl about my age, wearing a white dress that seemed to glow. She was holding a lantern, and the light from it cast long shadows across the room. She was looking directly at me, and her lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear anything.

I dropped the mirror, and it clattered to the floor. When I dared to look again, the closet was normal, and the mirror was just a mirror. But I knew what I had seen. I put the mirror in a drawer and tried to forget about it, but the next night, I woke up to find the mirror sitting on my pillow, facing up. I screamed, and my parents came running. They found me sitting up in bed, pointing at the mirror, but when they looked, it was just a mirror. They thought I was having nightmares, and they took it away, throwing it in the trash.

For a while, the closet was still. The shaking stopped, and I started to feel safe again. But then, one night, I woke up to find the room bathed in a strange, yellow glow. I turned, and the girl was standing at the foot of my bed, holding her lantern. Her face was pale, and her eyes were dark, like empty sockets. She didn’t say a word, but she pointed at the closet. I looked, and I saw a door that wasn’t there before, a small, wooden door set into the back wall, barely visible in the dim light. I knew, with a certainty that made my stomach drop, that I had to open it.

I got out of bed, my feet cold on the floor, and walked to the door. The girl followed, her lantern swinging gently. I reached for the brass knob, and as I turned it, I felt a surge of static electricity in my fingers. The door creaked open, revealing a dark, narrow staircase that spiraled downward, into the heart of the lighthouse. The girl gestured for me to descend, and I did, step by step, into the darkness. The lantern light cast my shadow ahead of me, and I could smell salt and old dust.

The stairs led to a small, circular room at the base of the lighthouse, where the old fuel tanks used to be. It was empty, except for a single, rusted iron ring embedded in the floor. The girl stopped, and for the first time, she spoke. Her voice was a whisper, like the wind through the cracks.

‘This is the door to the past,’ she said. ‘You must never open it again. The loop is broken now, but it will try to mend itself.’

I woke up in my bed the next morning, the door to the closet closed, and the room bright with sunlight. I never saw the girl again, but the closet still trembles sometimes, and I have never been able to throw away the mirror. It sits on my nightstand to this day, and sometimes, late at night, I catch a glimpse of a flickering light within its depths, a reminder that some doors are better left unopened.