The Lantern of the Weeping Fern

When Lola Ising was a small girl, she lived with her family in a sprawling ancestral house in the Visayan lowlands, a two-story wooden structure with a steep, corrugated iron roof and a wide balcony that overlooked a river of fireflies. The house had been in the family for generations, and its walls were steeped in the scent of old wood, dried herbs, and the lingering ghost of a kitchen fire. They had a housekeeper named Aling Rosa, a silent, stooped woman who had served the family for decades. Aling Rosa had a peculiar habit: she kept a small, clay lamp in her room, which she lit every evening at dusk and extinguished only at dawn. When she fell ill with a wasting fever that no herb or prayer could cure, the lamp remained unlit, and the family found her one morning, cold, her hands clasped over her chest, her lips slightly parted as if she had been about to speak. The week before she died, she had washed and hung the family’s clothes, but the pile of laundry in the basket grew dusty and untouched, and the kitchen pots sat unscrubbed. Once, Lola Ising found Aling Rosa standing in the kitchen, staring at the stove, and she turned and smiled with sunken eyes, saying, ‘Child, the lamp must be ready for the night.’ Lola Ising did not understand. That was not her story.

A week after Aling Rosa was buried in the town cemetery, the strange things began. It was a hot, heavy night, and Lola Ising shared a small room with her two younger sisters, their beds draped in white mosquito nets that swayed with the faint breeze from the window. She woke with a start, her heart drumming, and saw a soft, orange glow hovering near the doorway. It was a ball of fire, about the size of a grapefruit, but it did not burn or flicker like real flame; it pulsed with a steady, breathing light, and as she watched, it drifted into the room, low to the floor, moving as if propelled by an invisible hand. Lola Ising clutched her blanket, her eyes wide, and she wanted to scream but her throat closed. The ball of fire moved closer, weaving between the beds, and then it paused at the foot of her bed, hovering just above the edge of the mosquito net. She watched, frozen, as the net, which was tucked tightly under her mattress, began to lift at the corner, as if the fire had fingers, and it rose slowly, the white film billowing, until a gap opened near her knees. The ball of fire then glided into the space, and she felt a warmth that was not unpleasant, but suffocating, like the air before a storm. It moved up her body, past her legs, her stomach, her chest, until it stopped inches from her face. She could see into its core, a swirling vortex of ash and ember, and she thought she saw a face there, the face of Aling Rosa, but young, with laughing eyes. Then it spoke, not with a voice, but with a vibration that she felt in her bones, ‘The lamp is out. The lantern must be lit.’

Lola Ising wanted to wake her older brother, who slept in the room across the hall, but she could not move, as if her limbs were made of stone. The ball of fire withdrew, the net fell back into place, and it hovered for a moment at the window, then vanished, leaving a faint smell of burned jasmine. She lay awake until dawn, trembling, and when the morning light came, she told her mother, who laughed and said, ‘It was a dream, child, a stray firefly caught in the net.’ But Lola Ising knew it was real. The next night, the same thing happened, but this time the ball of fire was larger, and it lifted the entire net, and as it hovered over her face, she heard a whisper in her mind, ‘Suche, suche, the lantern in the attic, the lantern with the weeping fern.’

On the third night, Lola Ising did not wait for it to come to her. As soon as the house fell silent, she slipped out of bed, careful not to wake her sisters, and crept to the attic, a dusty, cobwebbed space that no one visited except to store broken furniture and old trunks. She carried a candle, and its flame was the only light in the dark. She searched, her heart pounding, and behind a stack of moth-eaten curtains, she found a small wooden box, carved with ferns and vines, and inside, wrapped in an oily cloth, was an old brass lantern, its glass blackened with soot. She recognized it as the lantern that used to hang in the kitchen, but it had been missing for years. As she held it, she felt a warmth, and she saw that the wick was still intact, and there was a small tin of oil beside it. She filled the lantern, lit it, and the flame was steady and calm, not the eerie ball of fire. She brought it to her room, placed it on her bedside table, and left it burning all night. The ball of fire did not come.

The next day, she told her mother about the lantern, and her mother’s face went pale, and she took the lantern from her, saying, ‘That is Aling Rosa’s. She always said it was her guardian. She would light it for the dead.’ Lola Ising demanded an explanation, and her mother, with a heavy sigh, confessed that Aling Rosa had not died of an ordinary illness. She had been a woman who could see and speak to the spirits of the place, and she had kept the lantern burning to keep them at bay, especially the spirit of an old ancestor who had been wronged. The ancestor had been a woman who was denied a proper burial, and her ghost haunted the house, seeking a vessel. Aling Rosa had been its vessel for years, but she had grown too weak, and she had been trying to pass the duty to the child, to Lola Ising, by leaving the lamp unlit and appearing in dreams. ‘But you are too young,’ her mother said. ‘I will burn the lantern myself.’

That night, Lola Ising’s mother lit the lantern and kept it in her room. But at midnight, the ball of fire appeared again, and this time it was not a ball, but a tall, wavering pillar of flame that filled the doorway. It moved toward her mother’s bed, and the net lifted, and the flame enveloped her, and she screamed, but the fire did not burn; it was cold, and it held her in a shadowy embrace. When it withdrew, her mother was pale and trembling, and she said, ‘It is not for me. It is for you.’

Lola Ising, now terrified but resolute, took the lantern from her mother’s shaking hands. She carried it to the attic, to the small window that faced the river, and she saw outside, standing among the fireflies, a figure wrapped in black, with long hair that moved as if underwater. It was the ancestor. The figure raised its hand, and the lantern in Lola Ising’s hand grew heavy, and the flame turned green, and she saw the weeping fern painted on the glass glow with a living light. The figure spoke, not with words, but with images: a woman drowned in a well, a family that forgot her, a promise made and broken. The lantern was to be kept burning until the spirit was granted peace, and only then would it depart.

Lola Ising did not sleep. She sat by the window, the lantern beside her, and as the sun rose, the figure faded. She kept the lantern lit for seven days and nights, without eating, without sleeping, and on the seventh night, the ball of fire appeared one last time, smaller and dimmer, and it floated toward her, and instead of fear, she felt a sense of peace. The ball of fire merged with the flame of the lantern, and for a moment, she saw Aling Rosa’s face, smiling, and she heard, ‘You have done well, child. Now let it rest.’

The lantern’s flame extinguished by itself, and the room fell dark. Lola Ising fell asleep, and when she woke, she was in her bed, the mosquito net tucked, the room cool. She never saw the ball of fire again. But she kept the lantern, and she learned to light it on the nights when she felt a chill in the air, and she would talk to the fire, and the fire would answer with a gentle flicker. She never told this story, not even to her children, because she knew that some stories are not meant to be spoken. But she would, in her old age, on certain moonless nights, light a small lamp by her window, and she would smile, as if listening to a long-absent friend. And that is all.