The Lantern on the Fifth Floor

My great-aunt told me this story when I was a child, and it has haunted me ever since. It happened in the old mountain lodge of Merroway, a crooked, timbered hotel clinging to a cliffside above a misty fjord. The lodge was known for its dizzying heights and its creaking, winding staircases that seemed to ascend into the clouds. A young girl named Elara arrived there with her parents, who had booked the highest room, the one with the round window overlooking the void.

They climbed the endless wooden steps, their footsteps echoing in the dusty silence, until they reached the top floor. The room was small, with a sloping ceiling and a single bed. As soon as they set down their luggage, her parents exchanged a glance. Her mother said, ‘Oh dear, we forgot to pack the wine for dinner. We’ll just pop down to the village and be back before you know it.’ And with that, they fled, leaving Elara alone, tears streaming down her cheeks.

They took the hotel’s rusty minivan down the winding mountain road. The fog was thick, and her father drove cautiously. At a sharp bend, they encountered a vintage car crawling along, driven by an ancient man with parchment skin and milky eyes. Her mother, suddenly gripped by a wild fury, seized the steering wheel from her father’s hands and wrenched it toward the old car, a deliberate smash into its front right door. The impact was catastrophic; the minivan careened off the cliff, and all three perished in the icy water below. The authorities called it a tragic accident, but the old man’s widow swore she saw her husband’s car swerve deliberately into their path.

Back at the lodge, Elara waited. The sun set, painting the sky in bruises of purple and red. The wind moaned through the timbers. She pressed her face to the round window, searching the dark road below for headlights. Hours passed. The other guests avoided her, whispering that the child’s parents had abandoned her. The staff brought her meals, but she barely touched them. She grew pale, her eyes hollow, her body wasting away.

On the third night, as the clock struck midnight, a soft knock came at her door. She opened it to find a lantern, floating at eye level, its flame a cold blue. It drifted down the hallway, and she followed, her bare feet padding on the cold wood. The lantern led her up a hidden stairwell she had never noticed, winding higher and higher, until she reached a dusty attic filled with old furniture. In the corner stood a full-length mirror, covered in a sheet. The lantern hovered before it, and Elara pulled the sheet away. In the glass, she saw her parents, not as they were, but as they had become: twisted, gray, their mouths open in silent screams. They reached out, their fingers pressing against the inside of the glass, and Elara realized that she was not alone in her grief—she was trapped with it.

She never left that attic. The staff found her crumpled on the floor the next morning, her heart stilled. They said she died of a broken heart, just as the old wives predicted. But sometimes, on foggy nights, hikers on the mountain road see a small figure standing at the lodge’s top window, holding a lantern that flickers with a cold blue flame. And if they listen closely, they can hear a faint, childish voice calling, ‘Mother? Father? Are you coming back?’ The lantern always leads them to a dead end, to a cliff, or to a deep, cold lake. And the door to the fifth floor, where Elara once stayed, is always found open, even though the lock is intact. No one ever spends the night in that room again. They say the girl is still waiting, and she will make sure no one ever forgets their promise to return.