The Lantern of the Fallen Star

I was eleven when it happened, not nine, and the place was not a mountain village but a lowland settlement bordered by a marsh. My name is Lito, and I am now twenty-five, but the memory is as sharp as the reeds that cut my arms that night.

Our barrio, San Isidro, was a thin ribbon of houses strung along a dirt road that ended at the swamp. The older folks warned us kids about the ‘Bulan-bulan,’ a creature that wore a human face but had long, spindly arms that could reach you from across a field. They said it came out when the moon was full and the marsh was quiet. I never believed them, of course. I was a boy who liked his games more than ghost stories.

That night, I had been playing a fighting game at Mang Ben’s store, the only one in the barrio with a television and a console. My mother was at the karaoke shed, drinking and singing with her friends, and had given me a few coins for the game. When the store closed, I knew I had to walk back alone through the marsh path to our house. The moon was bright, but the path was flanked by tall, swaying grasses that whispered in the breeze.

I was halfway through, my mind still on the game, when I saw it: a small, bluish light bobbing among the reeds, about a hundred meters ahead. My first thought was a firefly, but it was too steady, too deliberate. It moved as if someone was carrying it, level and unhurried. I called out, ‘Hello? Is someone there?’ The light paused, then seemed to shrink, as if it was crouching down. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air.

I should have run back, but my house was closer, and the light was between me and home. I took a step forward, and the light rose again, this time higher, as if the bearer was standing up. It began to move toward me, swaying slightly. I realized with a jolt that it wasn’t a torch—it was a lantern, an old oil lamp like the ones my grandmother used before electricity. But the flame inside was not orange; it was a pale, sickly blue.

As it drew closer, I saw the silhouette of a man, or something like a man, but his limbs were too long, and his head was tilted at an unnatural angle. He wore a wide-brimmed hat that cast his face in shadow, but I could see a grin that was too wide, with too many teeth. He stopped about ten paces from me, and the lantern swayed. I heard a sound, not a voice, but a wet, sucking noise, like mud being stirred.

I wanted to scream, but my throat was tight. The man raised his free hand—it had too many joints—and pointed at me. Then he spoke, and his voice was like gravel scraping against a coffin lid. ‘You have seen the light,’ he said. ‘Now you must carry it.’

I didn’t wait to hear more. I turned and ran, crashing through the reeds, the path forgotten. The marsh water soaked my legs, and the mud tried to pull me down. Behind me, I heard the lantern’s soft glow following, never fast but always keeping pace. I burst through my front door, slammed it shut, and leaned against it, panting. My mother was not yet home, and the house was dark.

I peeked through the window. The light was still there, at the edge of our yard, but it began to fade, like a star being swallowed by clouds. I didn’t sleep that night. I heard my mother come home, humming a song I didn’t recognize, and the smell of burning oil followed her to her room. The next morning, I found a lantern made of cracked glass and rusted tin on our doorstep. It was cold, but the wick was wet with something like honey.

I never told anyone, not even my mother, but from that night on, I began to see things others couldn’t. Shadows that moved against the wind, faces in the mud, and always, at the edge of my vision, a faint blue light bobbing among the reeds. I know now that the lantern was an invitation, and I refused it. But the Bulan-bulan, the bearer of the blue flame, he never left. He just waits.

And sometimes, on moonless nights, I find myself walking toward the marsh, my feet moving of their own accord, and I see the lantern waiting for me. I am twenty-five now, and I have accepted that I will carry it someday. But that is the nature of the light you see and do not take—it claims you little by little, until you are the bearer yourself.