The Lantern on the Wall

Elena had never believed in ghosts. Growing up in the flatlands of Saskatchewan, she had seen nothing but wheat fields and endless sky, and her imagination was as practical as her mother’s canning jars. When she moved to the old mining town of Grey Hollow, pregnant and alone, she chose the sandstone cottage on Birch Lane because it was cheap and close to the clinic. The town itself felt like a museum piece, with its rusted headframes and a cemetery that climbed a hill behind the church. The realtor, a woman with a tight smile, had said, ‘Every house here has a story. This one’s just quiet.’ Elena had laughed, but she didn’t really listen.

For the first few weeks, the cottage was just a house. The floors creaked, the wind found its way through the window frames, and the furnace rattled in the basement. But then little things began to happen. A hairbrush would be on the floor when she knew she’d left it on the dresser. Her straighteners would heat up on their own, one time melting a black scar into the vanity top. She blamed faulty wiring, bought new ones, but the same thing happened. She chalked it up to old plumbing, old ghosts of electricity, anything but something watching.

After her daughter, Maren, was born, the occurrences grew bolder. One night, she put Maren down in the nursery, a room she rarely used because the baby slept in a bassinet by her bed. As she walked past the doorway, she saw the mobile above the crib swaying, though no window was open. She froze, then laughed it off as her own footstep vibrations. But then the lantern on the wall began to flicker.

It was an antique brass lantern mounted on the wall above the changing table, left by the previous tenants. She had never lit it, never even touched it. That night, the flame inside it sputtered to life, casting a warm, dancing glow that seemed to pulse in rhythm with her heartbeat. She tried to extinguish it, but the glass was cool to the touch, and the flame didn’t flicker when she blew at it. She felt a cold draft curl around her ankles, and she ran back to her bedroom, clutching Maren against her chest.

The lantern stayed lit for three days. Elena avoided the nursery, but she could see the glow through the crack under the door at night, a steady, amber eye. She called the landlord, who sent an electrician. The man checked the wiring and shrugged, ‘No logical explanation. Maybe it’s just a draft.’ He left, and the light continued to burn. On the third night, she finally crept into the nursery, her heart hammering. The lantern was not only lit, but the glass was warm to the touch, and the flame formed a shape, a thin, elongated figure that seemed to sway like a reed in water. She heard a whisper, not in words, but in a feeling: a longing, a need.

That night, she had a dream. In it, a woman with a face like cracked porcelain stood by the nursery window, holding a bundle of cloth. The woman turned to Elena, and her eyes were hollow, but she smiled. ‘You see, they always take my children.’ Elena woke with a scream, drenched in sweat. Maren was crying, and the lantern was out, the glass cold. But on the window sill, there was a small handprint, as if a child had pressed its palm there from outside.

Elena decided to research the house. She went to the town’s only library, a dusty room in the old courthouse. An elderly librarian, Mr. Whitmore, listened to her story without judgment. He pulled out a leather-bound ledger of deaths in the area. ‘This street, Birch Lane, used to be a wagon trail to the mines. There was a family, the Harlowes, who lived in a cabin on this spot. The mother, Sarah, lost three children to a fever in one winter. She went mad, and one night, she walked into the river. Some say she still looks for her little ones.’ Elena felt a chill. ‘But that was a hundred years ago,’ she said. Mr. Whitmore nodded. ‘And some places just hold onto sorrow.’

Back home, Elena tried to reason with herself. It was grief, not ghosts. But the lantern would not stay extinguished. She removed it from the wall, intending to throw it in the trash, but as she carried it to the bin, it grew cold and heavy in her hands. That night, she felt a presence in the nursery, a cold spot near the crib. She stood in the doorway, her hand on the light switch, and saw a shadowy form crouched by Maren’s bassinet. It was reaching out a long, thin arm toward her daughter’s face. Elena stumbled forward, shouting, ‘No!’ The shadow vanished, but Maren was unharmed.

She knew she had to leave. She packed her things in a frenzy, but when she tried to start her car, the engine wouldn’t turn. The batteries in her phone died within an hour, and the landline was dead. She was trapped. That night, the lantern glowed brighter than ever, and the handprints began to appear everywhere: on the mirrors, on the walls, on the crib rail. They were small, child-sized, but the fingers were too long. She found a lock of dark curly hair in the nursery, though neither she nor Maren had hair like that.

The final night, she heard a child’s voice singing a lullaby, soft and off-key. It came from the nursery. She crept to the door, and through the crack, she saw the lantern now burning with a blue flame, and the figure of a woman seated in the rocking chair, cradling something that was not a baby but a tangle of roots and clay. The woman turned to look at Elena, and her face split into a wide, horrific grin. ‘Take it,’ she said, holding out the thing. ‘Take my baby.’ Elena screamed and slammed the door. She grabbed Maren and ran outside into the stormy night, barefoot, the cold rain lashing her skin. She ran to the nearest neighbor, hammering on the door, and a frightened farmer let her in. She never returned to the cottage.

Months later, she and Maren lived in a different town, hundreds of miles away, in a sterile apartment with no history. But sometimes, at night, Elena would wake to find a faint, warm light in the corner of the ceiling, and she would hear a soft humming, like a mother comforting a child. She would hold Maren closer, and the light would fade. She never spoke of it, but she knew the lantern was still burning somewhere, and that part of her had been left behind in that cottage on Birch Lane.

Years later, when Maren was five, she looked up at her mother with wide, serious eyes and said, ‘The lady with the kind face comes to play when you’re asleep.’ Elena’s blood ran cold. ‘What lady?’ she asked, her voice barely a whisper. Maren smiled. ‘She says she wants me to meet her babies. She says they’re lonely.’ That night, Elena found the small brass lantern in which she had thrown away, sitting on the kitchen counter, its flame flickering gently, casting a warm, accusatory light. And from the nursery, she heard the sound of soft, childish laughter.