The Lantern Room’s Guest

In the autumn of 1999, our family moved into the old Harbinger House, perched on a cliff overlooking the gray North Sea. The village below, Saltwick, was a place where the fog rarely lifted and the fishermen told tales of the sea claiming more than ships. I was eight, and my older brother, Callum, was eleven. Our parents had inherited the house from a distant aunt, and they were eager to escape the city, but the house had a reputation: the previous owner, a lighthouse keeper named Mr. Thorne, had vanished one stormy night, leaving the lantern room dark and the door ajar.

Our first week was filled with unpacking and exploring. The house was a maze of creaking corridors and cold draughts. The most intriguing part was the old stone tower attached to the west wing, topped with a glass lantern room that overlooked the churning sea. Though the lamp was long gone, the room still held an old brass telescope and a spiral staircase that groaned with every step. My brother and I were forbidden from going up there, but of course, that only made it more enticing.

The first incident happened on a damp October evening. Mum had sent me upstairs to fetch a blanket from the linen cupboard, and I was uneasy because the upstairs hallway had dark corners and the gas lamps flickered. As I climbed the creaky stairs, I thought I heard soft footsteps ahead of me. I paused, and they stopped. I continued, and they started again, just out of sight. I reached the landing, and the corridor stretched before me, lined with four doors. The second door, which led to the room Callum and I shared, was slightly ajar, and a slice of warm light spilled onto the floorboards. I could have sworn I saw a shadow pass across the light, and I called out, ‘Callum?’ But there was no answer. Assuming he was playing a trick, I pushed the door open wide. The room was empty, the curtains billowing in the wind from a window I thought was closed. A chill ran down my spine, and I ran back downstairs, to find Callum in the kitchen, eating a biscuit, with no way he could have reached the room without passing me. I told my parents, but they dismissed it as my imagination.

The second incident occurred a fortnight later. Dad had gone to the mainland for supplies, and Mum was in the garden, leaving Callum and me alone. We decided to explore the tower, which we had been forbidden from entering. The wooden door at its base was heavy, but we managed to push it open. Inside, a spiral staircase wound up into darkness. We crept up, our hearts pounding. At the top, we found the lantern room, filled with dusty furniture and a cold fireplace. An old armchair faced the window, as if someone had been sitting there, looking out at the sea. On a small table beside it lay a tarnished brass key and a logbook. The last entry was in Mr. Thorne’s handwriting, dated years ago: ‘The light is out, but I see a ship far out. It signals with a lantern. I answer, but they do not approach.’ We were so engrossed that we didn’t hear the door below slam shut. The wind had caught it. We were trapped.

I panicked, but Callum found a way to wedge the door open using Mr. Thorne’s key. We scrambled down, and as we reached the bottom, we heard a low, humming sound from above, like a wind chime, but deeper. We fled, and for days, we saw that at dusk, a strange glow would emanate from the tower windows, though no lamp was lit. I began to have nightmares of a man in a yellow raincoat standing in the lantern room, watching the sea, and then turning to stare at me with empty eye sockets where his eyes should be.

The third event happened in March, during a storm that battered the coast. The windows rattled, and the power flickered. I was alone in the living room, reading by candlelight, when I heard a distinct knock on the front door. I called out, but Mum and Dad were in the basement, checking for flooding. I opened the door, expecting a neighbor in need, but no one was there. The wind howled, and a sheet of rain blew in. I closed the door, and as I turned, I saw a figure in the hallway, dripping water onto the floorboards. It was a man in a yellow raincoat, but his face was a blur, like something out of a reflection in a moving stream. He raised a hand, pointing toward the tower. Then he vanished, leaving a puddle of seawater and a strand of seaweed. I screamed, and my parents came running. They found me shaking, and though they tried to calm me, the smell of brine lingered in the hallway for days.

After that, I refused to go upstairs alone. I slept in my parents’ room, and Callum mocked me, but I saw his own fear when he looked at the tower. One evening, he confessed that he had seen the same figure from the window, standing on the cliff edge, watching the house. He had been too ashamed to tell anyone. We decided to investigate together.

We gathered our courage and one afternoon, when the fog rolled in, we climbed the tower once more. This time, we brought a flashlight and a set of keys from the kitchen cabinet, hoping to unlock the small door at the top of the lantern room that led to a small observation deck. We found the door, and the key from the table fit. We stepped outside, into the thick fog. The sea was a muffled roar below. On the railing, we found a small brass lantern, tarnished and dented. It was unlit. As we picked it up, the fog seemed to part, and we heard a distant cry, like a seagull, but human. Callum dropped the lantern, and it clattered to the floor, and out spilled a coil of old rope, stained with something dark. And among the rope, we discovered a locket. Inside was a photograph of a woman, and on the back was written, ‘For the keeper, who waits.’

We never spoke of it to our parents, but we returned the locket to the table in the lantern room, hoping to appease whatever was there. The strange occurrences didn’t stop, but they became less malevolent: a cold spot in the hallway, a faint humming now and then. Before we moved away the following year, our father found an old logbook in the attic, hidden behind a brick. It was Mr. Thorne’s journal, and the final entry read: ‘They said I was mad, but I saw her ship sink. I kept the light burning for her, but she never came ashore. Now I must go to her. If you find this, do not light the lamp. Let the sea take what is hers.’

The house is still there, I hear, empty and facing the sea. Sometimes, at dusk, you can see a figure in the tower, holding a lantern, as if waiting. But I know better than to go back. Some waitings are eternal, and some ships never come home.