The Lantern Man’s Apprentice

In the autumn of 2012, I moved from the dry plains of Kansas to the dense, wet woods of the Pacific Northwest, settling in a small town named Hollow Bend. I was 27, working as a night auditor at a remote motel on the edge of town. I didn’t drink, didn’t do drugs, and had no history of hallucinations. At least, not until the incidents began.

The first occurrence was on a Tuesday, past midnight. The motel was empty, and I was reading in the small office when a soft, rhythmic light played at the edge of the lobby window. It was a small, perfectly round orb, bright yellow, like a miniature sun, moving back and forth with a gentle pendulum sway. As it moved, it shed tiny, glowing particles, like dust motes caught in a sunbeam, only luminous. I watched, transfixed, for several minutes before it darted off into the dark tree line. I chalked it up to some kind of weird firefly or a reflected light from a distant car, though I knew neither explained it.

Five nights later, I saw it again, this time from my room in the staff quarters behind the motel. The same small, golden light, doing the same hypnotic dance just outside my window. This time, I had my phone, but by the time I fumbled with the camera, the light vanished, as if it knew. I waited hours, but it didn’t return. I told myself it was a trick of the eye, a stray reflection from the neon motel sign, but I didn’t believe it.

A week passed. I was curled in bed, reading a dog-eared collection of ghost stories, when the light reappeared in my peripheral vision. There it was again, but this time it wasn’t alone. For a split second, I saw a boy, maybe seven or eight, peering in through the window beside the light. His face was pale, almost translucent, and his eyes were wide with a desperate, yearning look. He pressed a hand against the glass, and the moment I met his gaze, he vanished, taking the light with him. My blood ran cold. I didn’t sleep that night.

Over the following weeks, I saw the boy several more times, always accompanied by that same will-o’-the-wisp. He never spoke, but he seemed to be trying to tell me something. He’d point frantically at the woods behind the motel, then back at me, his expression shifting from desperation to fear. Once, he mouthed the word ‘run.’

The motel had a history, I’d heard whispers from the few locals who’d stop in for coffee. There were stories of a traveler who’d disappeared in the woods decades ago, and of his son who’d gone looking for him, never to be seen again. I’d dismissed them as ghostly folklore, but now I wasn’t so sure.

One moonless night, I decided to follow the light when it appeared. I grabbed a flashlight and crept out into the chill air, trailing the bobbing orb through the underbrush. The light led me to a decaying cabin, hidden among the firs, its windows boarded, the roof sagging. As I approached, I saw the boy again, standing at the threshold, his face lit from below by the yellow glow. He pointed inside, then vanished.

I stepped through the broken doorway. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the smell of decay. A single lantern hung from a rafter, its glass cracked, the flame long dead. On the floor lay a child’s shoe, weathered and worn. And in the corner, half-hidden by a fallen beam, was a skeleton, small and brittle. A cold understanding seized me. The boy wasn’t a ghost; he was a beacon. The light was his lantern, and he was trying to lead me to his remains.

I called the authorities the next day. They found the bones, and through dental records, they identified the remains as a boy named Daniel, who went missing in 1989. His father, a recluse, had died in the cabin a few years later, never revealing the truth. The case was closed, but I never saw the light or the boy again. Sometimes, on quiet nights, I think I see a faint glow in the trees, and I wonder if Daniel’s spirit is finally at peace, or if he’s still out there, searching for someone else to guide him home.