The Lantern Tree

In the low, damp hamlet of Harrowfen, where the river bled rust into the reeds and the willows wept perpetual drizzle, my family kept a sprawling, crooked house at the edge of a fen. The fen itself was a bog of black water and skeletal alders, but beyond it rose the Timber—a vast, ancient woodland that swallowed light and sound. The locals called it the Lantern Wood, for during certain twilights, pale green lights flickered among the trunks, no larger than a thumbnail, like the lanterns of drowned saints. I was eleven when I first saw them.

It was a late autumn afternoon, the sky a bruised purple, and I was alone in our vegetable patch, pulling carrots for supper. A chill settled on my neck, and I looked up. There, among the bog oaks, the lights swirled—hundreds of them, a nebula of cold embers. And at their center, a figure. A woman in a gown of wet lace, with a shawl the color of old tobacco, her hair hanging like strands of blackened silk. She did not walk; she drifted, her bare feet never touching the moss. She seemed to be beckoning to something—or someone.

I was entranced. Over the following weeks, I would steal to the fen’s edge each evening, watching her glide between the trees, the lights gathering around her like a living shroud. She never looked at me, not once, but I felt her presence like a damp weight on my chest. I told no one, not even my brother Finn, who was older and would have laughed. But I began to keep a secret journal, noting the patterns of her movement, the way the lights pulsed in unison with her steps.

One night, the full moon rose fat and low, burning through the mist. I crept closer than I ever had, my boots sinking into the fen’s spongy earth. The woman paused at the base of a colossal, gnarled tree—the Lantern Tree, they called it, though no one could say why. On its bark were carved strange, spiraling glyphs, wet with sap that glowed even in darkness. She placed both hands on the trunk and whispered—a sound like rustling leaves, but with a human cadence. The lights around her dimmed, then flared, and the tree’s branches began to writhe, as if in pain.

My breath caught. I took a step back, and my foot cracked a fallen branch. The woman’s head snapped toward me. For the first time, she saw me. Her face was pale as river mist, and her eyes were not eyes but pits of swirling green fire. She smiled, and it was the smile of a parent seeing a long-lost child. She raised her arm, and the lights rushed toward me, a swarm of fiery insects that brushed my cheeks, my hands, my heart—not burning, but freezing. I stumbled back, fell into the muck, scrambled to my feet, and ran.

That night, I woke to a scratching at my window. The woman stood outside, her breath fogging the glass in intricate patterns. She pressed a finger to the pane, tracing a spiral—the same glyph on the tree. When she withdrew, the shape remained, glowing faintly. I buried my head under the pillow, but the scratching continued until dawn.

The next evening, I found a small, leather-bound book on my doorstep, its cover covered in the same spirals. Inside, the pages were filled with a spidery script I could not read, but the margins were covered in illustrations—of the Lantern Tree, of the woman, of me, crying, of the village burning. Each picture was more detailed than the last. I felt the book pulse in my hands, as if alive, as if it had been waiting for me.

I knew I had to destroy it. I took it to the hearth, threw it in, and watched the flames curl the pages. But instead of ash, the fire turned blue, and from the smoke came a voice, soft as wet earth: ‘You are the first to touch the tree in a hundred years. You have claimed the lantern. Now you must feed it.’

The book was gone, but the glyph on my window remained. And that night, I dreamed of the woman, standing at the edge of my bed, her fingers brushing my forehead. She whispered, ‘The wood is dying. The lights are fading. Only a sacrifice of the one who loves the forest the most will rekindle them.’ I woke with a scream, and the sound echoed across the fen, answered by the rustling of countless leaves.

Now, I am fifteen, and the woman has never left. She appears in the reflection of every puddle, every mirror, every still bit of water. The lights in the wood are growing dimmer, and with them, the trees are dying, their bark peeling, their branches drooping. The villagers blame it on the drought, but I know the truth. The Lantern Tree is starving. And it is calling to me.

Last night, I returned to the glade. The woman stood there, her hand outstretched, a single light hovering over her palm. She nodded toward the tree, whose bark had split, revealing a hollow interior, dark and warm. I stepped closer, and I could feel the tree’s hunger, a pull like a river current. The woman’s lips moved soundlessly, but I heard her in my skull: ‘Give me your years, and the wood will flourish. Refuse, and everything you love will wither.’

I did not run. I walked up to the tree, and I placed my hand on the fissure. The bark parted like wet clay, and warm sap coated my fingers, pulsing. I felt a tug, and a single seed of light passed from my chest into the wood. The woman smiled, and the lights blazed back to life—brighter, more numerous than ever. I collapsed, and when I woke, it was dusk, and the woman was gone. But I felt different. Empty, yet full. And I knew that the Lantern Tree and I were now bound, and that every autumn, I would return, to feed it a piece of my soul, until there was nothing left but the glow.

My brother says I’ve changed. I never smile. I spend my evenings at the edge of the wood. And sometimes, when the mist is thick, I see the woman, and she is me—tall, pale, with eyes of green fire. I have become her, or she has become me. The Lantern Tree is my heart now, and it beats with a hollow rhythm, pulling the last warmth from my body. But I know this is the price of watching the lights dance, of being chosen. And as the first frost touches the fen, I walk toward the trees, and the lights gather around me like children, eager for the story I no longer need to tell.