The Last Lantern of Tallow Lane

The summer I turned nine, my parents moved us from the busy sprawl of Portland to a crooked little house tucked behind a taller one in the old part of Sandpoint, Idaho. The house wasn’t on any proper street; it sat in a forgotten pocket between two alleys, reachable only by a gravel path that wound past the neighbor’s rusted swing set. The cottage itself was a dusty brick affair with a wooden porch that sagged like a tired dog, and my room was up in the attic, a cramped space with slanted ceilings and a single dormer window that looked out over the neighbors’ tangled rose bushes.

From the start, the house felt wrong. It wasn’t the creaks or the drafts—those were just old house noises, my parents said—but a heaviness in the air, like the rooms were holding their breath. When I was left alone after school, I’d sit on the front steps, watching the shadows lengthen, counting the minutes until the station wagon pulled into the gravel drive. Inside, I always had the feeling of being watched, and sometimes I’d hear soft footsteps in the hall that stopped right outside my door. But being nine, I chalked it up to an overactive imagination. I didn’t believe in ghosts. I didn’t believe in anything.

One hot August night, I woke up with my throat dry and my skin prickly from the heat. The attic held every degree of the day’s warmth, and the air was thick as wool. I pushed off the thin sheet and sat up, rolling my shoulders to loosen the stiffness. The room was dark, save for the pale moonlight seeping through the window, casting a silver square on the floorboards. My eyes adjusted, and I looked to my left, toward the dresser that held my collection of river stones and a half-finished comic book. That’s when I saw it.

Standing about three feet from my bed, just at the edge of the moon’s glow, was a girl. She was about my age, maybe a little older, with long, straight hair that fell past her shoulders, so pale it seemed to absorb the light. She wore an old-fashioned dress, the kind I’d seen in black-and-white photographs at the local historical society, with a high collar and long sleeves. Her face was expressionless, her eyes wide and dark, fixed on me with an intensity that made my breath catch. I didn’t scream. I didn’t move. I just stared back, frozen, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

A low hum began to fill the room, a sound like a distant tuning fork, and the air grew colder. The girl raised her arm slowly, her hand pointing toward the window. In the moonlight, I saw that her fingers were bent at odd angles, and there was a dark stain on her sleeve that looked like dried blood. She didn’t speak, but I heard a voice in my head, a whisper that wasn’t a whisper—more like a thought that wasn’t mine: ‘You need to see.’

I didn’t want to see. I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I opened them, she was gone. The hum had stopped, and the room was warm again. I lay back down, pulling the sheet up to my chin, my heart still racing. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. The next morning, I told my mother, who said I’d had a bad dream from the heat. But I knew what I’d seen. I knew that girl was real.

The visits continued. Every night, at the same hour, she appeared. Sometimes she’d be closer, sometimes she’d be by the window, but always she’d point, and always I’d hear that thought: ‘You need to see.’ I started avoiding my room, falling asleep on the couch in the living room, but my parents would carry me back up, and she’d be waiting. I grew haggard, circles under my eyes, my skin pale. My parents thought I was coming down with something.

One evening, I had enough. I decided to follow her. That night, when she pointed, I got out of bed and walked to the window. She smiled—a thin, tight smile—and then she turned and faded through the glass. I looked outside. The moon was full, and in the glow, I saw the backyard of the house behind ours. There, in the tall grass near the fence, was a rusted well, half-hidden by a rotting wooden cover. I hadn’t noticed it before. It was as if it had been waiting to be seen.

I crept downstairs, slipped out the back door, and made my way through the dewy grass. The cover was heavy, but I managed to slide it aside. I peered down into the darkness. At the bottom, barely visible, was something white—a small bone. And tangled in the roots that hung from the walls was a faded blue ribbon, the kind I’d seen in an old portrait at the museum, tied in a girl’s hair.

I ran back inside, my mind reeling. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t know what to do. I felt a strange pull to that well, a desire to look again, to understand. But I was also terrified.

That night, the girl came again. This time, she didn’t point. She held out her hand, palm up. In it was a small, tarnished key. I knew it belonged to the well. She mouthed one word: ‘Open.’

I woke up with the key in my own hand, clutched so tightly it left marks. I knew what I had to do, but I also knew I couldn’t do it alone. I called my parents, who were skeptical, but the key and the bone I’d found convinced them to call the sheriff.

They drained the well later that week. At the bottom, they found the remains of a girl who had gone missing in the 1950s, a child named Margaret Holloway. She had been playing near the well alone, and it was believed she’d fallen in years ago, but no one ever found her body. The case had been closed, and the family moved away.

After the remains were properly buried in the town cemetery, the visits stopped. The house felt lighter, as if a weight had been lifted. But I never forgot her. And sometimes, when the moon is full and the air is still, I look out my window, and I think I see a small figure standing by the well, watching me. But she’s smiling now, and I know she’s finally at peace.