The Last of the Lantern Bugs

I never thought I would see a lantern bug again. They were a fixture of my childhood in the rice paddies near my grandmother’s village in Kerala, their eerie green glow pulsing through the monsoon nights. But after we moved to the United States when I was ten, they became a memory, a fragment of a world I had left behind. Now, at twenty-two, living in a cramped apartment in a city that never truly slept, I had convinced myself that the past was just that—past. But then I found the box.

It was my father’s, tucked away in the back of a closet we had never fully unpacked. Inside, beneath yellowed newspapers and a tarnished silver locket, lay a glass jar. The lid was sealed with wax, and inside was a single, dried lantern bug, its wings folded like a prayer. A note, handwritten in my grandmother’s shaky script, read: ‘When the light fades, the keeper returns. Do not let it out after dark.’ I laughed at the superstition, the same way I had laughed when my grandmother told me stories of the bug that could steal your voice if you looked at it too long. I was a rational person, a biology student, and I knew that lantern bugs were harmless. I pried off the wax.

The dried shell crumbled to dust, but the dust swirled, forming a thin, wispy shape that hovered in the air. It looked like a ghost of a bug, its form flickering with a green light that seemed to come from nowhere. I stared, my heart hammering. I blinked, and it was gone. I told myself it was a trick of the light, a draft. But that night, I heard a scratching at my window. I ignored it, thinking it was a branch. But the scratching grew louder, more insistent, like nails on glass. I pulled back the curtain, and there, pressed against the pane, was a face—not human, but not entirely insect either. It had too many eyes, all of them glowing green, and a mouth that opened too wide, filled with needle teeth.

I stumbled back, tripping over my feet. The face vanished, but I felt a cold breath on my neck. I spun around, but the room was empty. I turned on all the lights, but the darkness seemed to seep in from the edges, thick and suffocating. I called my boyfriend, Ravi, but the line was dead. I tried my cell phone, but it showed no signal. The apartment felt suddenly smaller, the walls closing in. I remembered the note: ‘Do not let it out after dark.’ I had released it just before sunset. Panic clawed at my throat.

I searched for the jar, but it was gone. In its place was a single green feather, like from a bird I had never seen. I picked it up, and it was warm, pulsing with a faint light. I felt a sudden urge to swallow it, to consume the light. I fought the urge, but my hand moved on its own, bringing the feather to my lips. I bit down, and the taste was like burnt sugar and ash. The room spun, and I fell to my knees. When I looked up, the walls were covered in writing—not English, not Malayalam, but symbols that seemed to writhe and twist. I could understand them, somehow, as if they were a language I had always known but forgotten. They read: ‘The keeper is in you now. You must feed the light or become the dark.’

I ran to the bathroom, splashing water on my face. In the mirror, my eyes flickered green, and for a moment, I saw the lantern bug perched on my shoulder, its wings spread, its abdomen glowing. I blinked, and it was gone. I felt a hollow ache in my chest, as if something had been taken from me. I knew then that the bug had not just been a superstition—it was a parasite, a curse passed down through my family. My grandmother must have known. She had kept it in the jar to protect us, but I, in my foolishness, had freed it. Now it was inside me, and it was hungry.

The hunger grew over the next week. I ate constantly, but nothing satisfied. I lost weight, my skin took on a sickly pallor, and my appetite for normal food vanished. Ravi became worried, but I pushed him away, afraid of what I might do to him. At night, I dreamed of the rice paddies, of the green glow crawling over the water, and I felt a pull, a longing to return. But I was thousands of miles away. The only thing that eased the hunger was the light—any light, but especially the glow of the city at night. I would stand on my balcony, staring at the neon signs, and the ache would subside, just a little. But soon, the city lights were not enough. I needed something more.

One night, I woke to find myself in the kitchen, holding a knife. Ravi was sleeping on the couch, his silhouette a dark shape against the window. I saw the green glow reflected in his eyes, and I knew the bug wanted me to cut him, to drain his light. I dropped the knife, shaking. The next morning, I called my parents in India. I begged them to tell me about the lantern bug, about what I had done. My mother’s voice was choked with tears. She said, ‘You must go back to the village. Find the old well behind the temple. There is a way to drive it out, but it will cost you something precious.’ I didn’t ask what. I booked a flight that night.

When I reached the village, it was monsoon season. The rain hammered the tin roof of my grandmother’s house, which had been empty for years. The air smelled of wet earth and jasmine. I felt a peace I hadn’t felt in weeks, but the hunger remained, a gnawing void. I found the well, half-hidden by weeds. It was deep and dark, and when I peered in, I saw my reflection, but in the water, my eyes were green and glowing. I heard a voice, soft as a whisper, but it was not human. It said, ‘You have come to give back what you took, but you cannot give back what is already a part of you.’ I felt a chill. I realized then that the cost was my memory, my identity, my very self. But I had no choice. I had to save Ravi, to save myself.

I closed my eyes and recited the prayer my grandmother had taught me, the one I had thought was nonsense. As I spoke, I felt a tearing inside, as if something was being ripped from my soul. The green glow around me intensified, and then, all at once, it shot out of my body, a swarm of tiny lights that spiraled down into the well. The water glowed green, then faded. I collapsed, exhausted. When I woke, I was lying on the grass, and the sun was setting. I looked at my hands, my reflection in a puddle—my eyes were brown again. I felt different, lighter, but also empty, as if a part of me had been erased. I didn’t remember my childhood. I didn’t remember my parents’ faces. I didn’t remember Ravi. All I knew was that I was in a village in India, alone, with a deep, aching loneliness.

I returned to the United States months later, after my parents found me wandering the village. They were devastated, but they hid it well. They told me I had been in an accident, that I had lost my memory. I believed them, because I had no reason not to. But sometimes, late at night, when the city lights are low, I see a green glow out of the corner of my eye. And I feel a pull, a memory of something I can’t quite grasp. I don’t know what I did, or what I became, but I know that the lantern bug is still out there, waiting. And somewhere, in the back of a closet, in a box I will never open again, there is a jar, waiting to be filled.