By the Light of His Lantern

by Abe Moss

  “Mm-hmm.” Catherine heard rustling around, sheets being moved.

  “Is everything all right, though? Otherwise? Did you have a nice birthday?”

  “Mm-hmm. I did.”

  “Oh, good.” She listened to her daughter breathe into the phone. “So why aren’t you doing anything with Rob tonight? How is he? Did you see him today?”

  “Mom, I’m really tired. I have to work tomorrow.”

  “On a Sunday?”

  “Yes, on Sunday.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Ah, well.” She wanted something else to say, anything else to keep her daughter on the line. She racked her brain for it, but couldn’t think of anything. It saddened her, truthfully. How little she knew…

  “Mom…”

  “Yes, yes. I know. I’ll let—”

  “Are you okay?”

  Her mouth hung open. She opened it more, as if to say something, but no words came.

  “Uh… well, yeah. I’m okay.”

  “Okay.” Lara took a deep breath. When she exhaled, it sounded whispery and sandy through the phone speaker. Quite lovely, Catherine thought. “You should get to bed too. Get some sleep. It’s what I’ll be doing. Don’t worry about me so much.”

  “It’s easy for you to say,” Catherine said, so low her daughter might not have even heard it. “I will. I just… needed to call, I guess.”

  “Goodnight, mom.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Lara hung up.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The next morning, following a wholesome breakfast consisting of an entire orange, Catherine stood before the basement door with something which felt like clarity in her mind. Was it clarity? She couldn’t be sure. But it felt much less foggy than what she remembered of the previous day. The tray of food, trying to feed him, the piano lesson with Kellie, the hopelessness she felt, the anger, the terror of her nightmare—it all seemed so unlike her, now that she thought back on it. A strange day. But then again, there was still an unconscious man tied up in her basement, which she would have said was unlike her on any given day.

  What am I doing?

  She went downstairs to see him. She stood over him, studied him. She wished nothing but death upon him. She wanted him to suffer, to lose everything.

  It’s what he deserves.

  She also saw the youth about his sickly face. He was someone’s child. He had a mother and father, somewhere.

  Doesn’t everyone?

  Perhaps they were delinquents the same as him. Perhaps she would be doing the world a favor by ending his bloodline here and now.

  She thought about Lara, though, and that really turned her stomach. What would she think? To know her mother was capable of this?

  No one would believe it.

  That was also part of what made it so perfect. No one would ever suspect such a thing. She was too proper. Even she realized at times what a joke she was, how over-the-top her need to be flawless could be. Her daughter thought she was vain, self-centered, a phony. Sometimes she agreed with her.

  I wonder what people think sometimes. How do they think I spend my time alone? Not like this, I’m sure.

  The young man on the floor never uttered a sound or so much as twitched in his coma. He looked like a fresh corpse, whose blood had yet to cool. Soon it would, though, she thought. He would probably die of thirst soonest.

  And if not for yesterday, he’d be that much closer.

  She bent down, placed a finger on his eyelid, pulled it up to see his eye underneath. It was wet. Bright, but far gone. It didn’t see her the way she saw it. He was in another place.

  There was a chill. Catherine rubbed her arms. She stood thinking for a moment. Before long, she was shivering, and something about the sleeping man on the floor made her skin crawl.

  I don’t know. I… just don’t know…

  She headed upstairs, locked the basement door behind her. She got dressed, put on a light jacket—it was overcast out this morning, a likelihood of rain, her weather app told her—and headed out the door.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  There was a giant tree—one Catherine didn’t know the name of, just that it was ugly as hell—marking the yard of the house she wanted. She pulled over at the curb, under the tree’s shade. It loomed up into the stormy sky, thick branches reaching out from the trunk like fingers from the palm of a hand, with large knotty knuckles, too many of them. A spider impaled upside down on a needle. It marred what Catherine would have otherwise considered a lovely street.

  She made her way up the walk to the front door and rang the bell. A little boy answered, and the smell of something delicious wafted out, like spicy stew, herbs.

  “Oh, hello,” Catherine said. She peered through the small gap beyond the boy but saw mostly darkness. “Is your mother home? Or… your grandmother?” She wasn’t quite sure the woman’s age. She had that ageless beauty about her—that she might just as likely be thirty as fifty. “Rosaline? Is she here?”

  The boy didn’t say a word, and instead turned away into the house. She heard voices. Moments later a man came to the door wearing a ratty white tank-top and sweatpants. His eyes were dark and revealed nothing. He opened the door wide.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m looking for Rosaline. I’ve met with her before. Not that long ago, actually…”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Oh!” Her eyes wandered beyond the man, and she spotted the little boy watching them from the kitchen. “Do you know when she’ll be home? Or… or any other way I can contact her? I need to speak to her about something quite urgent.”

  “I don’t know when she’ll be back. She’s at the bar. Could be hours.”

  “Oh…” She felt her face burning. The man grinned.

  “You could stop by and see her. She’s always good for a customer.”

  She hesitated. “Well, I don’t want to bother her.”

  “Oh, no bother!” His grin widened, his eyes shrank. “Like I say, she’s always good for a customer. Always has time.” He laughed softly, taking her in, positively amused. “One of her customers, right? A client?”

  “Yes, I am.” Then, wanting to get away as soon as possible she said, “Where can I find this bar, then?”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  It wasn’t far. The Four Wasps, it was called. Not like any bar Catherine had ever heard of, or seen for that matter. It was just a dingy little thing, with barely a sign out front to know what it was. There was a group of young boys outside sitting along the wall under the tinted windows. They smirked as Catherine walked by, like a joke was being played she didn’t know about. Or maybe they thought she looked funny. She was a little dressed up for the neighborhood, she thought. They probably hadn’t ever seen designer clothes before…

  She smiled at them despite their snickering as she opened the door and headed inside.

  Inside the bar was dim and warm, a faint smell of smoke and something woody. It was calming in a way. A few people were seated at one of the booths who eyed her curiously as she walked in but quickly lost interest.

  She approached a woman behind the bar, who was not the woman she was looking for, and asked, “Is Rosaline here?”

  “Hey! Rosa!” The woman barked. Catherine gasped audibly when she did. “One of your ladies is here!”

  The woman who came out from the back office was most definitely the woman Catherine sought. Even in the dim light she glowed, a beauty so enviable it was almost wicked in its own secret way.

  “Yes?” she said, eyebrows raised. She approached Catherine, leaned against the bar with a smile Catherine couldn’t decipher as friendly or crooked.

  “Do you remember me? We met not that long ago… I was referred to you by a friend of mine… Beth?”

  Rosaline nodded, carefully, grinning from the corner of her mouth as she seemed to remember.

  “Come, come,” she said. “We can talk in the office.”

  The office was brightly lit compared to the bar, wit
h sickly white fluorescents above a small desk and computer. Rosaline sat behind this desk and gestured for Catherine to do the same.

  “I don’t mean to take up too much of your time,” she said, insisting on standing. “I just wanted to ask something fairly straightforward.”

  The smile melted from the woman’s face, though her eyebrows never lowered.

  “Spit it out, then.”

  “Ha, yes…” She cleared her throat. “You gave me something when we met, something to use on someone…”

  “Be more specific. You are in a hurry, yes? So am I.”

  “All right. I used it. I’m wondering…” She paused, feeling a red, hot, volcanic wave of embarrassment rising, bubbling up. To use something so drastic, and then to come back like this… she knew Rosaline would look upon her as the weak, spineless thing she was. “I’m wondering, just out of curiosity…” Ha! she thought. Who was she fooling there? “I’m wondering, if I should need it in an emergency…”

  “You hope there is a way to reverse this, yes?” The smile crawled back to her lips. “To take it back?”

  Catherine sighed, shaky and heavy. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You paid a great deal of money for this curse, yes?”

  “Yes, I certainly did.”

  “Reverse costs even more. More than you can pay. Out of your budget.”

  The feeling in her legs abandoned her, and she almost thought she might take the seat offered to her after all. But she remained standing, a quick flutter-flutter-flutter through her stomach.

  “H-how much more?”

  “More than you can pay.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “You are desperate, then? You think you made a mistake?”

  She isn’t stupid. Just be honest. Quickest way out of here.

  “I’m not sure yet. I just wanted to ask. Just in case.”

  “Well, when you are totally sure…” Her eyes narrowed as she said this. “You come back, and we will see how desperate you really are.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Rosaline stood, hands upon the desk. Her hair covered half her face, but she didn’t bother pulling it back.

  “When you are certain of your mistake, then you ask for the price. Then we will talk.”

  “I don’t know what kind of business you’re trying to run here, but—”

  “These are not toys I am selling,” she interrupted. “I do not sell a flavor of the month in my line of work. I told you what you were buying. Maybe you should think more first in the future? You play with people’s lives this way. It is expensive.”

  Not knowing quite what to say, Catherine stood dumbly, taking in the woman’s judgement in all its dark power. She knew a thing or two, Catherine imagined—things that would chill the flesh off your bones if you knew better, which she didn’t.

  “Leave now,” Rosaline said, and swept her hand toward the door. “I have more than one business to run, and you are getting in the way of both.”

  Catherine tried to look offended when she turned and left—or fled, rather—but she knew all Rosaline saw was fear.

  And that’s all there really was to see, anyway.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  She barely got the front door shut before she withered into herself, collapsed into a sobbing heap.

  What have I done!? What have I DONE!?

  She climbed the stairs, clumsy in a blur of tears, up to her bedroom where she lay down in bed and cried herself to sleep.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  She woke up a few hours later, after dark. When she did, her cheeks and her pillow were dry. She sat up and turned odn the light. After a moment, thinking, she climbed out of bed with a pillow in hand. She grabbed her keys from her nightstand. On her way to the hallway, she tore the comforter from her bed and dragged it with her as well. She pulled it all the way downstairs, to the basement door. She unlocked it. Then she dragged the blanket all the way down those stairs, into the cold concrete room lit by a single dangling bulb.

  The man lay just as she left him. With her bare toes, she kicked him over onto his side, then onto his stomach, face against the floor. She placed the pillow under his head, turned his head just comfortably enough to the side. Then she draped the comforter over his back, tucked it beneath him, rolled him up.

  Once he looked well enough, she ascended the stairs, turned off the light, and returned to bed.

  Chapter Three

  Rest for the Wicked

  The beach played its crashing cymbals and a breeze carried weak, periodic waves of sand against his face. His finger stub ached and bled. One side of his jar lantern was stippled with it. With the fire therein, at least, he could see the ground at his feet.

  He happened upon his corpse as he left the old man’s shack, torn apart by the creature which he took revenge against somewhere farther along. He hoped he wouldn’t happen upon that corpse. Feeling it, and hearing it, were frightening enough. He didn’t want its form engraved in his memory, too.

  He backtracked over the hill, down the rocky slope on the other side—careful to avoid the area he thought he might find the dead beast—and to the tree line near his “wash-up” spot, as the old man had called it. Everything felt a little different with the light of his fire. He saw the trees he followed beside him. He saw the empty spaces between them, as well.

  The trees eventually stopped, only briefly. A few feet beyond that, where they started again, Lewis found the sign he remembered touching before. Just a tall stake in the ground with a wooden plank nailed to its top. There were letters carved on its face.

  The black grooves read: “This way to The Historic Inn”

  Feeling substantially more confident with his light source, and the old man’s sword, Lewis followed the path once more.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  More surefooted, the path unwound much quicker than before. He hurried along, eyes darting with simmering fear, the forest dead and reaching out like the arms of prisoners through cell bars. The longer he traveled, the more he felt the distance creeping back up on him, as though the world only existed around his light—the darkness rolling itself up like a carpet at his heels.

  He heard something once. A scuff in the dirt. He turned, held his jar toward it, gripped the sword in his fist. He worried the old man might follow, might try to take back the clothes he stole. He knew these paths much better. He’d probably walked them countless times by now.

  Other sounds—rustling, twig-snapping, the brief noises which sounded to Lewis like someone sniffling—haunted him all the way, and he feared he might go insane with paranoia should he not reach the end of the path soon.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  A different noise, tucked away in the woods not far off. A hungry noise. Growling. Not too foreign anymore, sadly. A hideous dog that wears its empty stomach on the outside for all to hear. That’s what he imagined.

  His sore feet slapped the dirt a little faster.

  Then there were footsteps, rushing up behind. He spun around.

  “Go!” His voice wavered. “Stop following me!”

  He squinted past the fire in his jar.

  Whatever waited in the woods, watching—attracted to his light but intelligent enough to stay out of its reach—let out a low, blood-chilling bark. A dog indeed.

  Or something.

  He moved away one steady step at a time. His jaw was clenched, and his sword-wielding hand felt weak and shivery. If it came down to it, he knew…

  It barked again, louder and fuller, and Lewis ran. He kept close to one side of the path, followed the edge of the trees as they whizzed by. His company joined him, feet and nails scratching. They were on him—just at his heels, he knew. But they didn’t pounce. Not like last time. Something, maybe his fire, kept them off. But they followed all the same, and he feared if he stopped running they might take their chances…

  “Gah!” he screamed. He turned on them, slashed his jar thro
ugh the air like a holy wand, and its light earned him a glimpse. His heart leapt into his narrowing throat.

  Sinewy, slippery, low to the ground, all jaws and eyes. It retreated from his dome of light quick as a spider. He shook in place, face pulled open in a silent scream.

  “Fuck off!”

  It barked again, now somewhere off to his left, as though it were circling him.

  “Fuck off, I said!”

  He lunged at it, dared it. Its feet—or its paws, or its hooves, he didn’t get a good look—skittered back. Feeling brave, exhausted, he lunged at it again, sword raised. Then again. It retreated farther and farther away, only enough to stay out of the light. He roared then—the sound someone might make when jumping out at their child in a playful game of hide and seek. He lunged once, then again right after, and before he realized he even had it in him he was chasing the creature, running for it with his lantern as a shield, and its feet whispered over the dirt farther and farther down the path in front of him. He ran harder, roared louder, bellowed until his throat hurt from it. When he stopped, he heard the feet continue off, scrape through the trees and back into the woods until he couldn’t hear them any longer.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  He walked for hours. The path weaved and rippled and choked and swelled, but it never ended, and it never led anywhere but farther ahead.

  The old man had spoken of the dark, and how it could manipulate you. For all Lewis knew, the path really didn’t go anywhere. Maybe it altered itself, a living thing, and now he wandered in an infinite loop, followed by the constant fear of death waiting just around the next bend, or even trailing him around the last…

  Lewis was grateful to be startled by yet another sound—anything to distract him from his obsessive dread. Back home, this sound would have barely fazed him. But in this place, given the lack of such ambience so far, it tensed every muscle in his body. A bird. It cawed overhead, guttural, flying over the path from one tree to another. The branches rubbed as it landed, settled its weight. It cawed again. Caw. Caw. In the complete dark he wondered if what sounded like a bird actually looked anything like a bird as he knew them.