The Lantern Room

I never told anyone about what happened that summer at my aunt’s lighthouse cottage. It wasn’t my aunt’s, really; it was a friend of the family who let us stay there for two weeks. The place was called Gull Point, a crumbling stone structure on a rocky outcrop, with a lamp room that hadn’t been lit in decades. My cousin Wren and I were fifteen, and we thought we were too old to be scared of a damp old tower. But we were wrong.

It was the last night of our stay. My aunt and her friend had gone to the mainland for supplies, leaving us with a bag of groceries and strict instructions not to touch the lantern. The wind howled outside, rattling the windows, and the sea crashed against the rocks below. We’d spent the day exploring the tide pools, and our legs ached. We fell asleep in the small sitting room, on a lumpy sofa and a cot, listening to the storm.

I woke to a strange stillness. The wind had died, and the only sound was the drip of water somewhere. I lay there, trying to figure out what had disturbed me. Then I heard it: my name. ‘Maren.’ It was soft, like a breath, but clear as a bell. It came from the direction of the spiral staircase that led up to the lantern room. I froze. Wren was snoring softly on the cot. I wanted to shake her, but I couldn’t move.

‘Maren,’ it came again, a woman’s voice, but not my aunt’s. It was sweet, almost lullaby-like, but with an undercurrent of something wrong. I thought of the old stories about the previous keeper’s wife, who had disappeared one stormy night. They said she fell from the gallery, but some folks whispered she was pushed. I’d laughed at those tales. Now, I wasn’t laughing.

The voice kept calling, patient and insistent. I finally managed to sit up. The stairs were cloaked in shadow. I could see the faint glimmer of the moon through a small window, but the lantern room was pitch black. My heart hammered. I knew I should wake Wren, but my mouth was dry, and my limbs felt heavy. Instead, I found myself walking toward the stairs.

Each step I took, the voice grew clearer. ‘Maren, come up, I have something to show you.’ It was the voice of a woman I didn’t know, yet it felt familiar, like a memory from a dream. I gripped the cold iron railing, my bare feet on stone. The air grew colder. I reached the top, and the door to the lantern room was ajar. Inside, the great lens was covered in a dusty cloth, but a sliver of moonlight cut through a crack in the shutters, illuminating a figure.

She stood by the window, her back to me. She wore a long, old-fashioned dress, the kind in sepia photographs. Her hair was dark, pinned up. She didn’t turn. ‘Maren, you’ve come,’ she said, and her voice was right next to my ear, even though she was across the room. ‘I’ve been waiting so long for someone to listen.’

I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn’t obey. She began to turn, slowly, and I saw her face. It was beautiful, but pale, and her eyes were dark voids. She smiled, and her lips didn’t move. ‘You can free me,’ she said. ‘You can tell them I didn’t jump. I was pushed.’ The room grew colder. I felt a hand on my shoulder, but when I looked down, there was nothing. The lantern behind her suddenly flared to life, casting a beam across the sea, and she vanished.

I stumbled backward, down the stairs, tripping over my own feet. I burst into the sitting room, gasping, and Wren stirred. ‘What’s wrong?’ she mumbled. I couldn’t speak. I just pointed at the stairs. But when we both looked, there was nothing there. The lantern was dark, and the voice was gone.

The next morning, I told my aunt, who exchanged a knowing glance with her friend. They told me the story of the keeper’s wife, Elspeth, who had been haunted by loneliness and despair. Some say she threw herself, but others say her husband, a jealous man, did the deed and made it look like an accident. I don’t know what to believe. But every time I close my eyes, I see that pale face, and I hear her calling my name, even now, years later, in the quiet of my own home. And sometimes, when the wind is just right, I think I see the glimmer of a light from Gull Point, flashing a pattern that spells ‘HELP’ in the old code. But no one else can see it. They just think I’m haunted.

I am.