The Lantern Test

The night air was thick with the smell of wet leaves and rust. Our school, St. Aldric’s, was an old converted textile mill, its red brick walls stained dark with a century of coal smoke and damp. The science building, where we were supposed to meet, hunched at the edge of the campus like a sulking beast, its long windows black and blind. I was there with seven others—Mason, Theo, Priya, and the rest—our breath misting in the cold, our heartbeats loud in our ears. We were juniors, but we’d come for the same reason: to prove whether the stories about the Woman in the Music Room were true. It had started with a glimpse from Aisha and Lena during a music class, a figure in black by the old piano, but the boys had scoffed. Now, we were going to settle it.

We’d planned to meet at 7pm, but the girls never showed. By 8pm, we decided to go on without them. ‘They’re probably too scared,’ Mason had said, and we’d all laughed, but the laughter was thin. We entered through a broken side door, its rusted hinges groaning like a dying animal. The corridor inside was dark, lit only by the pale moon filtering through grimy windows. We had two flashlights between us, and their beams cut weak circles in the darkness. The air was stale, heavy, and it felt like the building was holding its breath.

As we moved deeper into the science wing, we passed the old biology lab. The door was ajar, and the smell of formaldehyde and dust seeped out. ‘Let’s check the audio-visual room,’ Theo said, his voice echoing off the tiled walls. It was next to the music room, and we’d heard it was where the Woman had been seen most often. We pushed open the door, and the room yawned before us. It was full of old projectors, reel-to-reel tapes, and metal cabinets. The floor was linoleum, cracked and peeling. I felt a chill run down my spine as I stepped inside.

The others spread out, their flashlights scanning the walls. I noticed something odd: a row of lockers along the back wall, padlocked and abandoned. ‘What are these doing here?’ I asked, but no one answered. Mason was already at the window, peering out into the courtyard. ‘I see something,’ he whispered. We all crowded to the window, and there, standing at the edge of the courtyard, was a figure in white. It was too far to make out details, but it was unmistakably human, and it was staring at us.

We froze. ‘That’s not her,’ Priya said finally. ‘She’s in black.’ But the figure turned and disappeared behind a low hedge. Theo shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s a student from the boarding house?’ But the boarding house was a mile away. We decided to investigate. We crept out through the same side door, careful not to make noise. The courtyard was overgrown, and the hedge was dense. We found nothing but a torn piece of white fabric caught on a branch. ‘This is fresh,’ Mason said, holding it up. ‘Someone was here.’

We returned to the building, but the air seemed even colder now. Our flashlights began to flicker, and we realized we were down to one working lens. We regrouped in the audio-visual room, nervous energy making us snap at each other. ‘We should go,’ I said, but Mason was resolute. ‘We came to see her. We’re not leaving until we do.’ He set up his phone to record, pointing it at the lockers, and placed a redundant lantern on the desk—he had brought it for just this purpose. ‘Let’s see if she’s real.’

We sat in a semicircle, our backs to the wall, trying to keep the one flashlight and the lantern steady. The minutes ticked by. There was nothing but the hum of the old fluorescent lights. Then, the lantern flickered. Just a little, then steady again. We exchanged glances. Then, from the direction of the music room, we heard a sound—a soft, melodic hum, like a lullaby. But it was too eerie, too tuneless. It grew louder, and the lantern flickered again. This time, the flame turned blue.

A cold draft swept through the room, and the door to the corridor slammed shut. The lone flashlight died. We were plunged into darkness except for the blue-tinged lantern. The hum stopped, replaced by a whisper that seemed to come from everywhere at once. It was unintelligible, but it grew into a murmur, like many voices overlapping. I felt a sharp pain in my temples, and I saw that the others were clutching their heads too. The murmur became a hiss, and then a single voice broke through, clear and cold: ‘You brought it.’

We didn’t need to know what ‘it’ was. We scrambled for the door, but it wouldn’t budge. The lantern’s flame grew tall, and its light cast a grotesque shadow on the wall—a shadow of a woman, but with arms too long, and hair that seemed to writhe. The shadow moved, detached from the lantern, and began to drift toward the lockers. It reached out a shadowy hand, and one of the padlocks clicked open, falling to the floor with a clatter. The locker door swung open, and inside, we saw a dusty, old videotape. The shadow pointed at it, and then the flame snuffed out.

We were in utter blackness, and we could hear the woman’s voice now, right behind us. ‘The lantern test is over. You will take my story.’ We screamed, and then, as if a spell broke, the door flew open, and we tumbled out into the corridor, running without looking back. We didn’t stop until we were outside, gasping in the cold, night air. We didn’t speak until we were all in Theo’s car, doors locked, still shaking.

We never went back inside. Mason played his phone recording, but it showed only static and a single frame of a woman in white holding that videotape. The next day, we heard that a new music teacher would be starting the following week. But that evening, I recieved a text from an unknown number. It was a photo of the music room, and in it, the Woman in Black was sitting at the piano, and she was holding the same videotape. The caption read: ‘Your turn.’ I never told anyone about that text. But I kept the videotape. I don’t know why. Maybe I wanted to know her story. Maybe I still do.