The Lantern Room’s Geometry

When I was six, my family lived in the top half of a subdivided Victorian house in the seaside town of Saltmarsh. Our flat, Number 3, was a labyrinth of narrow corridors and sloping ceilings, and my bedroom was a cramped space under the eaves, always cold even in the height of summer. I called it the Lantern Room because a single, gabled window faced the sea, and at night, the glow from the town’s old lighthouse swept across the walls like a pale, searching finger.

I was a fearful child. Every night, I would lie in my narrow bed, listening to the groan of the house settling, the distant crash of waves, and the occasional cry of gulls. The door to my room was always shut, and I would keep the small lamp on my bedside table burning until I drifted off. But almost every night, I would wake in the small hours, my heart pounding, and I would creep out of my room, down the short hallway, to my mother’s bedroom. She would sigh, shift over, and let me climb into the warmth beside her. It was in her room, in those small hours, that I saw the colors.

It would begin with two pinpricks of light, one red, one blue, dancing near the ceiling, near the tall wardrobe. They would circle each other like fireflies, leaving faint trails that lingered in the air. Then, as if by some unseen signal, they would change—red would bleed into green, blue into gold—and now there were more dots, a dozen, then a score, filling the air above the bed. They wove with a purpose, looping and knotting, and finally, they would turn white, and the white strands would stretch and connect, forming a complex web that hovered just above the duvet.

The web was not random. It had a geometry that seemed almost alive, like a drawing of some alien constellation. And then, as if it had completed its purpose, the web would dissolve, and the room would be dark and still again. I never felt fear during these displays; they were strangely beautiful, even comforting. But I knew they only happened in my mother’s room. When I was seven, we moved to a new house inland, and the colors never came again. I put it down to the vivid imagination of a child, until years later, I remembered another detail: during those nights, I would sometimes hear a faint humming, like a voice singing a single, low note, coming from the direction of the bathroom—the bathroom that sat between my mother’s bedroom and the spare room, a room we never used.

There were other oddities about that flat. My own room, the Lantern Room, was always cold, even in July when the sun beat down on the slate roof. The cold was not a natural chill; it was a localized pocket of air that seemed to seep from the walls, and it would settle around my bed like a shroud. And there was a presence in the hallway between the two bedrooms and the bathroom. It was not a shape or a sound, but a weight in the air, a pressure that made the hair on my arms stand up. I would run past it, never looking, holding my breath until I reached the safety of my mother’s room.

The night I remember most clearly was a winter night when the storm raged outside. I had woken as usual and made my way to my mother’s bed. She was snoring softly, and I slipped under the covers, watching the ceiling. The colors began as they always did, but this time, they did not stop at the white web. Instead, the web thickened, became a solid sheet, and then the sheet took on a shimmering quality, like a film of oil on water. And within that shimmer, I saw a face. It was not a human face, but a mask of something ancient and patient, looking down at me with empty eye sockets. The humming grew louder, and I felt a cold draft from the hallway, as if the door had opened. I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I opened them, the face was gone. The colors were fading, and my mother stirred, murmuring, ‘It’s just a dream, love.’

We moved out two weeks later. I never told my mother about the face. I grew up, and for a long time, I pushed those memories aside. But sometimes, on quiet nights, I think about that flat, about the geometric web and the humming. I wonder if the new tenants see the colors too. I wonder if they have a child who sleeps in the Lantern Room, or if they have the courage to open the door of the spare room—the room that was always locked, the room that my mother never mentioned, the room that I once, in a moment of foolish bravery, pushed open to find nothing but a dusty floor and a mirror facing the wall. And in that mirror, I saw my own reflection, but it was not me. It was a figure in a hooded coat, standing behind me, and it was only a child’s trick of light that made me think it moved. But I knew, even then, that the mirror was wrong, because I was standing still, and the reflection’s arm was not in the same position as mine.

Now, as an adult with a child of my own, I have made a point of never moving to a house with a spare room that faces the bathroom. But the past has a way of finding you. Last week, I received a letter from a woman who now lives in that top flat in Saltmarsh. She wrote to ask if I had ever experienced any ‘unusual phenomena’ while living there. She mentioned that her young son refuses to sleep in the small room under the eaves, and that he has taken to sleeping in her bed. She says he tells her of the colored lights that dance on the ceiling and weave a web above the bed. She also says she has heard a humming from the bathroom, and that sometimes, when she walks past the spare room, she feels a presence, menacing and cold.

I have not written back. I don’t know what to say. I want to tell her to move, to pack everything and leave that place behind. But I also know that it will follow her, just as it followed me, because the geometry of that web was a pattern, and patterns repeat. The only way to break it would be to face the figure in the mirror, to open the door of the spare room and confront what lives there. But I was too afraid as a child, and I am too afraid now. So I will let the silence continue, and I will try to forget, even though I know that somewhere in that flat, a new child is lying awake, watching the colors begin to swirl above his mother’s bed, and wondering if the face will appear tonight.