By the Light of His Lantern

by Abe Moss

  He had to have it.

  Standing beside the shack, he found he could peek between the planks. He couldn’t make out much, but a constantly-moving shadow signaled the old man’s position well enough. He watched for a minute or two.

  Only a matter of time.

  He wouldn’t take all the wood if he didn’t have to, he figured. Only a small piece. Something to show him his way in the dark.

  Just as he expected, the figure within crumpled to the floor. Not wasting any time, he hurried to the door, where he found it locked, probably latched on the inside. No big deal, however, he thought. He simply climbed through the window.

  The old man’s corpse lay sprawled under the table. Lewis ignored him and crouched next to the fireplace. The single log burned soundlessly, without smoke, appearing smooth and pristine within the lapping flames. It didn’t burn. He hoped it wasn’t bulletproof, too. He searched the shack again very quickly, as there wasn’t much to rummage through. He searched the dresser, which he now noticed upon closer inspection was also poorly hand-built. There were rough, uneven gaps between the drawers, and when he pulled one open he nearly pulled the entire dresser over. Inside was an assortment of random objects: a roll of twine, scraps of cloth, a broken pair of scissors, scattered buttons of odd sizes and shapes, tiny blue eyedropper bottles. He pulled open the other three drawers and found more of the same. Just junk. However, on top of the dresser, hidden behind small piles of other junk, partially covered by a stray cut of fabric, he found something useful to him. An empty jar with a wire handle around its neck. It wasn’t quite a lantern, but it would serve that purpose close enough, he thought.

  He dug back through the drawers and removed one half of the broken scissors. He returned to the fire, crouched next to it, scissor blade in hand. He would only need a small splinter of it…

  “You!”

  Lewis jerked around. At the open window, the old man peered in with sick, tired fury in his red, baggy eyes.

  “Get the hell out of my house!”

  Lewis jumped to his feet. Grumbling, the naked old man began climbing through the window. Lewis stood fixed to the spot, clutching the scissor blade in his fist. The old man lifted his second leg through and stumbled inside. When he had his balance, he turned his attention back to Lewis, looked him over with a grave stare.

  “You going to murder me in my own house?” he asked.

  Lewis looked down at the blade in his hand, then back up to the old man.

  “I wasn’t planning on it, no. I just… I need some of your fire. Please.”

  “You can’t have it.”

  “I only need a tiny piece. Enough to get me to one of these settlements you spoke of. Please help me. I won’t disturb you any longer. I just…”

  “I told you to get out and I meant it. I still mean it. Get the hell out of my house, you brat.”

  “You’ve got me all wrong. I’m not… I didn’t mean anything—”

  The old man crossed to his cot in the corner. He bent down, reached for something underneath. What he took out shined brilliantly in the light of the fire, a lace of golden orange along its edge—a sword. He held it in both fists before him like a warning. He looked altogether ridiculous with it in his nakedness. But Lewis didn’t laugh or smile. His heart raced. He looked again at the scissor blade in his own hand.

  “I don’t want to fight you,” he said.

  “No shit you don’t!” the old man cried.

  “I just need some of your firewood. Please…”

  “You’re not getting anything from me, I said!”

  The old man took a step around the table toward him. His withered, pursed lips sucked each other inside his mouth, rolling and wet with menace.

  “I’m giving you one last chance,” the old man said, taking small baby steps closer. “You climb right out that window where you came from… or I’ll cut your feckin’ head off. Up to you.”

  Thinking quickly, Lewis reached forward for one of the chairs, dragged it toward himself. Never dropping the blade in his hand, he lifted the chair with both hands, shook it threateningly, nervously, at the old man.

  “Stay away from me,” Lewis said. “Just stay—”

  The old man gave a shrill warrior cry, gravelly and womanish, and rushed Lewis with the sword above his head. Trembling, Lewis thrust the chair toward him, acting more as a barrier between the sword and himself than a true weapon. The old man sliced his sword at the chair, knocked it with a thunk. Lewis held on tight, jabbed the chair back.

  “Please!” he cried. “What are you doing? Just…”

  The old man swung again. The sword chopped, stuck in place. Lewis held on tight still as the old man tugged the sword out from the seat.

  “I don’t even know what I did wrong!”

  The old man swung one last time, and Lewis shrieked. He dropped the chair to the floor. Somewhere down there with it, the tip of his finger rolled away, a tiny ribbon of blood trailing after.

  “Oh my god!” Lewis yelled. “What the fuck!?”

  The old man charged him again, sword held high. Lewis ducked under its arc, sidestepped him clumsily. The sword cut through the empty air. Lewis fell against the wall of the shack. He pushed himself away, spun to face the old man again, blade held out pathetically.

  “Stop! You cut off my finger!”

  “I aim to cut off more than that!”

  The old man charged again. Lewis kicked the overturned chair, sent it sliding over the bumpy floor right under the old man’s feet. The old man tripped over it, lowered the sword as he tried to keep from falling flat. He braced himself against the table. Then, very quickly, he got both hands back around the sword handle and came again. Only…

  Lewis stepped into him, threw an arm over his bare shoulder, and pulled him against his own naked body, trembling and out of breath. The old man gasped. The sword fell to the ground. He pushed himself away from Lewis, away from the scissor blade lodged in his guts. It slipped out seamlessly. Lewis held it limply, eyes terror-struck as he watched the old man sink backward onto his ass beside the table, holding himself where the blood let in thick streams.

  The old man met Lewis’s eyes, dropped them to the floor. A devil’s grin spread over his paling face. He reached for something. He cupped it in his hand and held it up for Lewis to see.

  “You dropped something,” he said, and could hardly hold back his laughter even as he said it—never mind the gushes of blood through his hand. He cackled so loudly, Lewis wished to escape out onto the beach away from the terrible noise.

  Lewis’s fingertip sat in the old man’s palm. He plucked it from him, held it up to see it better, felt the blood run from his face, his shoulders, down to his feet. The old man’s cackling seemed to never end.

  Lewis set his severed finger on the table and, his horror swelling into something more akin to malice, took up the old man’s mug instead. He held it out just above the old man’s reach.

  “So did you.”

  He hurled the mug at the old man’s feet. It broke apart, as did the old man’s laughter.

  “You little shit!” He crawled on his hands and knees. The blood from his guts stippled the dusty floor beneath him as he picked up several shards. “Y-you fecking bastard!”

  Ignoring him, Lewis stepped over the old man, scooped up his sword. He knelt next to the fire again. With the sword, he pulled the log toward himself, and then carefully chopped and sawed at one of its edges until he worked a sizeable chunk off. He balanced the chunk of fiery wood on the end of the sword and tipped it into the glass jar. It burned perfectly, the flame not too high or too hot for him to hold the wire handle over the jar’s opening.

  With that, he stepped over the old man’s dying body again, then loomed over the already dead one.

  “You won’t make it far,” the old man promised, cradling his broken mug in his lap. “You don’t know where you’re going. That fire won’t keep you safe from everything!”

  Lewis ignored him. He bent ov
er the old man’s poisoned corpse and began removing his tattered clothes.

  “Wha… Hey!” The pieces of mug slid from his naked thigh as he crawled toward Lewis. “You can’t take a man’s clothes! You can’t! You’ve gotta leave me that!”

  Lewis slipped the shorts onto himself, cinched the waistband around his narrow waist and tied it off. Then he pulled the billowy, ravaged white shirt over his head. With the sword in his hand, he looked like an almost-debonair pirate.

  “You can’t take an old man’s clothes!” he repeated, almost begging.

  He reached up, gently pulled on the hem of the shirt Lewis now wore. Lewis touched the edge of the sword to the old man’s wrist, pushed away his grasping fingers.

  “You’re right,” Lewis said. He picked up his jar lantern and made his way to the front door. “Your fire doesn’t keep you safe from everything.”

  And with that, he left the old man to bleed.

  Chapter Two

  Catherine’s Secret

  Catherine Blake pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes as she exited the liquor store, the sky blindingly blue and bright. She hated bright days like these. Her eyes were so sensitive. She had to squint without her sunglasses, and squinting was an awful habit. Squinting caused you wrinkles. Wrinkles meant you were getting old, and she wasn’t getting old. Not yet. It would happen inevitably, she understood. Old happens. Nothing resists old. Not forever.

  She sighed tiredly as she neared her car.

  It’s already getting too darn hot.

  She opened her car door and was about to step inside when someone across the parking lot caught her eye. Another woman. She paused, watched her discreetly over the top of her open door. This woman, tall and dark and beautiful—also nearing the age of sunglasses being a necessity, Catherine thought—was startlingly familiar. She locked her car behind her with a remote, gliding over the tarry parking lot with an authoritative confidence about her. She turned her head as she walked, turned her shades into giant gold beacons in the sun’s reflection. Catherine twitched, thought about getting into her car as quickly as possible. Did she see her? It was impossible to tell where a person really looked when they wore sunglasses. The woman’s mouth did something, a quick deliberate movement as she turned away. Did she smile? Catherine’s heart beat rapidly. She wasn’t sure.

  Then the woman was gone.

  Catherine got in, sat for a moment, staring into the cars around her wide-eyed, thoughts gone somewhere distant. When she collected herself, she pulled her phone out of her purse and made a call. It rang and rang and nobody answered. She stuffed her phone back into her purse. She sighed.

  She started the car and made to leave.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  She parked at the curb and shut off the engine. She looked around the tree-shaded street, at the other parked cars and some pedestrians walking home or to the store or wherever it was the people in this neighborhood went. They were all so young. All of them. Backpacks slung over their shoulders, earbuds in their ears, without a care in the world about the people they passed on their way. In their own heads—a constant state. She looked at them and felt pity, knowing how troubled most of them likely were. They were so nonchalant on the outside. But she knew. They were secretive. The gears in their minds were busy, busier than anyone’s gears had any right to be. She wished there was a way to slow them, to calm them, to get them to see themselves in the moments they were in instead of being in such an endless worry about the future.

  She took the wine bottle from the passenger seat next to her and got out. She slammed the door, smoothed her blouse, checked her hair in the reflection of her window. She rounded her car and made her way up the walk toward the tiny white house, with its tiny unkempt lawn. A wooden wind chime made a dainty knocking from the corner of the porch’s awning and she smiled at the sound. A single car was parked in the cracking, uneven driveway—a little rusting red commuter.

  She knocked on the door and waited. Nothing. She knocked again, louder this time, more like a pounding. This time there were footsteps. They stopped at the door, and suddenly she felt shrunken there—felt the eyes watching her through the peephole. Already, in the pause from the other side, she felt their irritation at her presence. The door opened.

  “Hello!” Catherine exclaimed, and held the bottle up, an offering to ease the sting of her visit. “Happy birthday!”

  The young woman appeared reluctant to open the door fully to her, but with a faint crack of a smile—it almost wasn’t recognizable as such, more like a defeated grimace—she stood aside and let Catherine in.

  “Well, don’t look so happy to see me,” Catherine said. She stood in the foyer—also the living room—with the bottle in her hands while the young woman shut the door and turned to face her with folded arms. “Smile a little. Your face is looking too smooth for a twenty-two-year-old.”

  “That’s a funny joke coming from you,” the young woman said. “I’m sure in a few years you’ll be recommending me plastic surgeons, or maybe a discount coupon for botox for my next birthday?”

  Catherine grinned, choosing to outwardly accept her daughter’s remark as a friendly tease than for what it really was. Her daughter saw through it, though, she could tell.

  “I’m sorry, that was rude.”

  Catherine’s shoulders sagged, still holding the bottle of wine to her chest.

  “I just wanted to stop by and give you this.”

  She handed it over. Her daughter took it without really looking at it and set it on the small table against the wall behind her.

  “I didn’t mean to be like that. It’s just… you know I hate it when you just pop in. Not just you, I mean… but, when—”

  “I called but you didn’t answer. I wanted to make sure I gave it to you today, that’s all. I would have left it with a note if you hadn’t been home.”

  “Thank you.”

  They stood awkwardly for a minute. Catherine looked around at her daughter’s living space—rented with two other women, she believed. All the blinds were shut and the house was very dim.

  “Are you doing anything fun tonight?”

  “I’m going out with some friends.”

  “Oh! Well I’m glad. With Patrice?”

  “It’s Denise, and no. Couple other friends. You’ve never met them.”

  Catherine nodded. “Well, that should be fun. I’m glad you’re doing something fun on your birthday.”

  “Yeah.”

  After another moment: “Have you heard from your father?”

  “He called earlier today. We talked for a bit.”

  “Good. Good… How’s he doing?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “Good…”

  There was music playing in the house, very faint. It was coming from her daughter’s bedroom.

  “Are you still writing music?” Catherine asked.

  Her daughter sighed. She turned and picked up the bottle of wine.

  “I actually have to start getting ready. I’m supposed to have lunch with someone in an hour. I…”

  “Oh! So busy! That’s perfectly fine. I’m just glad I got to see you for a minute and give you that.”

  Catherine opened her arms, and her daughter leaned in and hugged her for a brief second. She wanted to clutch her, to pull her in and squeeze her harder than anyone might like to be squeezed. But she didn’t. She barely got her arms around her before she pulled away.

  They said their goodbyes and their thank yous, and her daughter escorted her back onto the porch where Catherine told her she’d call her sometime, to which her daughter said that would be nice. She didn’t mean it.

  Catherine returned to her car. She sat a while longer, watched the young people go, go, go.

  Then her mind drifted. She was thinking about that woman, the beautiful one with the dark, sleek hair. She hadn’t just been a familiar face, and Catherine knew it even at the time, had recognized her the moment she saw her. Of course she recognized her. It hadn’t been that
long ago…

  She fished her phone out one last time. She placed a call and waited.

  “Hi!” she said as the other end answered. “I’m just out and about right now and was wondering if you’re free. Maybe lunch?”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  There was a small diner they liked to frequent. A slow, cozy kind of place. They sat in a booth, Catherine with just her cup of coffee. However, Beth, her friend, had an array of breakfast items before her—a plate of pancakes smothered in syrup and butter, a plate of sausage and eggs, and a third plate of sliced fruit and fluffy crepes topped with cream.

  “How can you eat all that?” Catherine asked.

  “It’s the only reason I go running every day,” Beth answered, with a fork full of pancakes to her lips. “I’m not even kidding.”

  As they ate, Beth looked surprised and pointed to Catherine’s arm.

  “What did you do to your arm?”

  Catherine observed herself. “Oh, this? I cut it by accident. Cooking.”

  “The back of your arm?”

  Catherine just nodded and, hoping they could talk about something else, pointed to Beth’s plate and said, “As much as it is, that all looks so good.”

  They ate and talked about menial things for a good while. It wasn’t until Beth was nearly finished with her final plate that she asked Catherine the question she’d been hoping she wouldn’t ask.

  “Before I forget, did you ever get around to scheduling with that woman I told you about? Did you keep the card I gave you?”

  “Woman?” Catherine asked. She knew exactly what she meant.

  “Yeah, for a reading. With the woman I referred you to.”

  “Oh! Yes, actually I did.”

  “You did! Did you have it already? How was it?”

  Catherine paused. Without meeting Beth’s eyes, she lifted her mug to her mouth, as though ready to take a sip, and said very quickly, “It was fine.”

  Beth laughed, loudly—a real guffaw. Catherine shrank into her seat at the sound, fearing anyone might suddenly pay them any attention and overhear their conversation.