The Lantern Room

When I was eight, my family moved into my grandmother’s old farmhouse after she passed. It was a sprawling, creaking place with a room at the end of the upstairs hall that my mother declared off-limits. She said it was filled with my late grandfather’s hunting gear, including a loaded shotgun, and that we were never to go in there. I had no interest in guns, but the room held a strange allure, a locked door with a brass knob that seemed to glint even in dim light.

One summer afternoon, while my mother was outside tending her tomato plants, I crept up the stairs. The door was unlocked. Inside, the room was stuffy, with heavy curtains half-drawn, casting everything in a sepia gloom. Dust motes danced in the faint light. I found an old photo album on a dusty nightstand, and I sat on the floor, flipping through its pages. There were pictures of my grandmother and grandfather, and of me as a toddler, playing with my beagle, Marmalade. In one photo, I was sitting cross-legged on the floor, Marmalade licking my face, and behind us, near the window, there was a shape. It looked like a tall, thin person made of mist, with elongated arms and no discernible features. It was just a distortion in the photo, but it made my skin crawl. I turned the page, and in the next few pictures, there were dozens of small, glowing orbs floating around me and Marmalade, like fireflies trapped in the print. My heart hammered. I slammed the album shut and fled, leaving the door ajar.

That night, I told my mother what I saw. She frowned, said it was just dust or lens flares, and told me to stay out of that room for good. But I couldn’t shake the image. Over the next week, I noticed small changes in the house. The old grandfather clock in the hall would chime at odd hours. My dog, Marmalade, would growl at empty corners. And the door to that room, which I had left open, was always closed when I passed, even though my mother swore she never touched it.

A few days later, my mother had to go into town for groceries, leaving me alone in the house. I was watching cartoons in the living room, Marmalade curled at my feet, when I heard a click from upstairs. I froze. Then, from the doorway of the forbidden room, a pale green light pulsed. It flickered on for a few seconds, then off, then on again, in a steady, rhythmic pattern. I counted: four pulses, a long pause, then four more. Marmalade started whimpering, his tail tucked. I grabbed my jacket and bolted outside, stumbling into the garden where my mother was picking cucumbers.

‘Mom! The room! It’s glowing!’ I gasped.

She looked up, alarmed. ‘What room?’

‘The one you said to stay out of! There’s a green light coming from it!’

She dropped her basket and hurried inside. I followed hesitantly. When we reached the top of the stairs, she pushed the door open. The room was dark, but as she stepped inside, I saw a dozen orbs of soft white light settle onto her shoulders and back. They clung to her like moths, brightening and dimming in a slow, synchronized heartbeat. She didn’t notice them. She stood there, hands on her hips, scanning the room. ‘I don’t see anything,’ she said, and walked out. The orbs stayed with her, hovering like a shroud, until she passed through the hallway and into the sunlight of the kitchen, where they vanished.

I never went back into that room. I asked my mother to nail the door shut, but she refused, saying it was just an old house settling. Still, she started avoiding that hallway. And sometimes, late at night, I’d hear the faint click of a light switch from up there, and the floorboards would creak under a weight that wasn’t ours. The last time I walked past the door, I saw a thin line of green light under the threshold, pulsing like a slow breath. I whispered to Marmalade, ‘We don’t speak of it.’ He just whimpered, and we both knew the room was waiting.