Lantern

by Chess Desalls

  Machin set down the bucket and mopped his forehead with a moth-eaten rag.

  Suddenly and unexpectedly, he turned around and looked straight into Serah’s eyes. “May I help you with something, Serah Kettel?”

  “I—no, I mean,” she stuttered. “Goodnight, Master Machin. I—I’m sorry to bother you. I’ll be going to bed now.”

  He nodded, his expression curious and kind, though he offered no words of explanation. And Serah didn’t wait for a response. She gathered the folds of her dress and shot past Machin and the furnace, and vanished through the hatch.

  Serah shivered beneath her covers despite the heating coils that made the room pleasantly warm. She tossed and turned, worrying whether she’d be turned away before she completed her task to open and light the lantern. And then, what? I’ll be back where I started, which is no place at all.

  She let the tears that welled up fall freely along her cheeks. Before she could wipe them away, there was a knock at the door. Serah closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.

  After another knock, the door creaked. Serah’s eyes popped open. A thin line of blue light shone through a crack in the doorway.

  “Serah, dear?” Gelsey said. “I was going to offer you a warm drink before bed, but you disappeared so quickly.”

  Not wanting Gelsey to know she’d been crying, Serah pressed her eyelids tightly together and kept quiet.

  “Serah?”

  Her heart warmed at Gelsey’s kindness. She’d almost decided to accept Gelsey’s offer, or to at least say goodnight, when a second set of footsteps echoed through the tunnel.

  “Machin,” Gelsey whispered. “Did something happen to Serah? Is she well?”

  “Let the girl rest.” He sighed. “I expect Serah Kettel will be leaving us soon.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  With a thud, the door closed, muffling the sounds of further conversation.

  Chapter 9

  Serah paced back and forth across her bedroom floor, with her torch in hand and nose clamp pinching at her nose. I’m late for breakfast. But I’ll have to pass the furnace—and face Machin.

  Her fingertips grazed across the door handle. She dropped her hand and began pacing again. What did he mean when he said I would be leaving soon?

  Why would he say that? What have I done wrong?

  Serah shook out her hand and inhaled a breath through her lips. I’ll prove myself. I will open that lantern by tonight. And then, hopefully, they’ll let me stay.

  With her shoulders set back and head held high, she made her way through the tunnel and up through the hatch. When she released the nose clamp and slid it inside a pouch tied to her dress belt, the aroma of bread, eggs, and pork gave her pause. Her stomach growled, coaxing her legs forward and leaving Machin at his furnace, forgotten.

  “Gelsey?” Serah said, poking her nose into the room.

  “Oh!” Gelsey jumped from her seat at the table and wiped a handkerchief across her cheek. “Good morning.”

  Before her was a magnificent spread of food, flowers, and tea. A basket held freshly baked loaves, each three times larger than one of Gelsey’s biscuits. At the center of the table, steam rose from a tart made of meat, eggs, and fruit.

  Serah’s eyes widened. “What’s all this?”

  “From time to time I prepare a heartier breakfast for—”

  Gelsey rose from the table without meeting Serah’s eyes, and then buried her nose in the handkerchief. “For special occasions.”

  She rushed from the room, leaving Serah’s mouth hanging wide open.

  Special occasions?

  Serah looked back and forth between the tart and the doorway through which Gelsey had disappeared before following and knocking on the door.

  “Gelsey, are you all right?”

  “Yes, dear. Please eat before the tart gets cold.”

  “But what did you mean about a special occasion? And why would it be making you upset?”

  “I’m fine, dear—perhaps more emotional than usual. I’ll be out in a moment.”

  Serah sighed. She sat down at the table with her stomach tied in knots. She sliced identical wedges out of the tart, one for her and one for Gelsey. When she reached over the basket to set down Gelsey’s plate, she noticed an obvious hole where one of the loaves of bread was missing. Machin hadn’t turned to look at her when she’d emerged from the hatch. Serah frowned. He hadn’t said anything, either.

  Gelsey entered the room with blotched cheeks and a smile that was bittersweet. “Thank you for waiting,” she said, flopping in her seat. “How is it?”

  “Everything’s wonderful.” Serah looked down at her plate, her fingers trembling. “Gelsey, what is the special occasion? What is today?”

  Gelsey’s eyes glittered with moisture. “I have a feeling something good is going to happen today.”

  “Good?” Serah’s heart fluttered with confusion.

  “Yes,” Gelsey answered, smiling. “Very, very good.”

  But then why was she crying? Have I mistaken her tears for something bad? Does this mean Machin changed his mind—that I will get to stay after all?

  She chewed a mouthful of tart, collected the remaining crumbs with her fingertip, and set them on her tongue. Maybe Gelsey senses how much I want to open that lantern. I absolutely have to do it. Today.

  After polishing the lanterns, Serah sat at the table and faced the globe of glass. She pulled and tugged at its cap long into the evening. With each passing hour she grew more worried that the something good Gelsey felt wasn’t going to happen today.

  The light from above her dimmed, and a shadow loomed over her.

  “You did a fine job polishing the glass,” said Machin, his goggled eyes staring.

  “Thank you,” she said, startled. She relaxed at his interested expression, which was nothing like it had been the night before, as if none of that had ever happened. Had he really been outside my door last night telling Gelsey that I would be leaving soon?

  “Machin,” she said, eyeing him thoughtfully. “You already know how to open the lanterns, right?”

  His lips quirked into a side grin. He nodded.

  “You can do this without me, then?”

  “No, Serah Kettel. While I am familiar with the process, this lantern can only be opened by you.”

  Something about the emphasis of that one word, you, made Serah glance back at the bulb—it was round and smooth, and hollow like a fishbowl; only the opening had been sealed with a cap. Words echoed in her mind: Which of the two bulbs do you prefer, Serah Kettel?

  She wrinkled her nose and pointed a finger to the glass. The bulb remained still and lifeless, though a spark of energy tingled across her fingertip as if she’d been zapped by something from long ago and far away.

  “Is this the bulb I chose when you interviewed me for the apprenticeship?” she whispered.

  Machin grinned. “It is.”

  “Why is my bulb so plain?” she asked, glancing at a section of lanterns from up above—some had bulbs of different shapes; there were globes made from all colors of glass, and lanterns bejeweled with precious gems.

  “Some strive for simple happiness, Serah Kettel, while others yearn for more.”

  He sighed in response to her crinkled brow. “Though pleasing to the eye, these more decorative lanterns have been here for a very long time. The light holds on longer than necessary. Light that has entered but not yet faded.”

  His glance out the window was barely perceptible, but Serah noticed it. She smiled at a moonbeam that shone through a crack between the shutters.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Her mind raced with the beating of her heart. “The stones—the Celestial Glass. Moon glass. It’s penetrable only by—”

  Machin’s lower lip tugged downward. He took a step back and twisted his hands into a knot behind his back.

  Serah pulled open the shutters and lifted the lantern, up toward the light of the moon.

  Her ears popped and crackled with an expl
osion of light and sound. Her eyelids slammed shut. Everything disappeared in a thick darkness, except for a whisper.

  Moonlight.

  A numbness washed over Serah.

  Her brain fogged. She tingled from the center of her chest to the tips of her fingers and toes. Her head lolled forward, and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 10

  A dragging, crunching sound opened Serah’s eyes and coaxed her awake. She blinked at the yellow-orange glow that spread, thick as fog, around her.

  Machin? Gelsey?

  “Have I done it? Have I opened the lantern?” Though she hadn’t whispered, her voice was a tiny echo of what it once was, drowned out by scratches and crunches that became as strong as they were loud.

  Pressing her hands to her ears, she squinted. Are those footsteps? Where is everyone?

  She dropped her gaze to her own feet. Two shades of flame, bright and translucent, poked out from beneath her dress. She bent forward to touch her shoe. Her fingers passed through what had been leather and fabric—memories of a shoe. Her dress was the same; it was the one Gelsey had given her, and what she’d last worn at Machin’s cottage—right before she’d raised the globe to the stream of moonlight.

  Serah’s fingers shook as she stretched her arms. Her mind filled with the suggestion of shivering, but she couldn’t feel her body. There was no warmth, no cold. No breath.

  But there was thought and emotion, and the sensation of something…beating. She pressed her hands to her chest, certain her heartbeat had been replaced with a flickering pulse that encompassed all of her being, and now filled a space that had outgrown her ribcage.

  Turning round and round, Serah inspected the yellow-orange glow from all sides, searching for the source of the dragging, crunching sounds. Her steps were small and numb as she pressed her hands further, deeper into the light. Until her hand slammed into a dewy, filmy substance that turned her insides to ice.

  “I felt that!” she gasped. Cold. Wet. And slick like glass.

  Her knuckles tapped against the solid surface with a clink that echoed all around her. Beads of condensation melted into streams of dewdrops. Serah flattened both palms and wiped back and forth.

  It is glass! But there was nothing but darkness on the other side. All of the light seemed to be from somewhere…within.

  Serah swiped her palm to the left and followed the surface. A strip of darkness, no wider than the span of her hand, formed where she smoothed away the condensation, stretching and trailing darkness until she ended exactly where she’d begun.

  I must have made a circle.

  Looking up and around again, she began to shake. All of the light ended in dewy, glassy surface. Am I encased in glass? Frantically, Serah smeared back condensation from every surface and rounded corner she could reach.

  It wasn’t until she heard another sound that she realized the footsteps had stopped.

  “Who lit a lantern way out here?”

  Serah fell backward, pressing her hands to her ears, and screamed. Pain from the boom of the voice was as real as the sensations of coldness and wetness from the glass. But her ears took no notice of her hands, and her hands could not sense her ears. She pulled her hands away; they’d done nothing to muffle the sound.

  “Hello?” the voice said.

  Wincing, Serah peered outside the glass.

  A young man stood, alone, looking around. He held a torch like she’d never seen before. The longer yellow part fit in his hand, and light shone from a round, flat end. The torch and the hand both seemed larger than she was.

  Serah’s lips dropped open when she looked up to see his face. Am I in a land of giants?

  Slowly, she stepped backward, away from the young man and the torch. Numbly, quietly. Until her back landed against something cold and wet. She sucked in an airless breath. I’m at the other end of the glass.

  But, wait. He said something about a lantern.

  Serah peered outside, but there was only darkness and a faint twinkling of stars in the sky. Her focus shifted to a reflection in the glass, the soft, fiery outlines of what she thought was herself—or what she used to be.

  I must be trapped inside…the globe.

  “If there’s no one out here,” said the voice, “I guess I’ll head home.”

  Serah pressed harder against the wall of glass behind her until the crunching of footsteps softened, signaling that the young man had moved a few steps away. She drooped, relieved, before she realized her mistake.

  “Wait! Don’t leave me here!”

  She banged her fists against the glass. The tinkling and chiming bounced around her, but the young man didn’t turn back.

  “Wait,” she cried again. He must not hear me—he’s so big and I’m so…small?

  Though tears didn’t flow, Serah’s mind raced with the suggestion of crying, and a phantom suffocation filled her chest. The light inside her cage faded and condensed, until there was a single spark of light.

  No. Please come back.

  Please.

  Help me!

  The spark erupted, frenzying the flickering pulse that had replaced Serah’s heartbeat. The yellow-orange glow brightened and faded at intervals, sending strobes of light through the glass.

  Serah spun from surface to surface. Her hands slammed against the glass.

  “Get me out of here!”

  When no one came, she fell forward and folded in on herself. Her strength diminished and hopes waned until sleep overtook her once again.

  The light went out.

  Chapter 11

  Serah stirred from somewhere on the border between wakefulness and sleep.

  Music touched her ears. The tune was unrecognizable, dampened and cloudy, as if funneled through a wall or door. “Who is whistling?” she murmured.

  She squeezed her eyelids, keeping them shut. Please let it be Gelsey. Please let me be in my room, at Machin’s cottage. Let the nightmare inside the glass have been exactly that—a bad dream.

  The music mixed with a dragging crunch. Serah groaned. Her eyes snapped open.

  Glass walls reflected the yellow-orange glow all around her, capturing the scowl on her face and the translucence of her form. She watched herself flicker and glow. Trapped inside the globe, she was its flame.

  Unable to control her flickering, the yellow-orange light—Serah’s light—panicked and pulsed bright waves through the glass.

  “Hello?”

  Her eyes squeezed shut at the voice’s painful sting. She opened them again to find a nose pressed to the glass. Above the nose was a pair of widened eyes. Large eyes—bright, clear blue, and fringed in gold lashes.

  “What’s this?” whispered the young man.

  He reached inside a bag and pulled out a glass object which he pressed to the globe. A single blue eye—many times larger than the eyes in the pair had been—opened and closed.

  A magnification lens? Serah frowned, remembering the young man’s funny-looking torch. Is he an inventor like Machin?

  With light steps, almost unconsciously, Serah receded to the back of the globe, until the lens and giant eyeball disappeared, replaced once again by the young man’s face.

  Fingertips grazed his chin. His voice remained a whisper as he mumbled to himself, “If I’m not dreaming, the flame inside this lantern looks like a small person…and it moves.”

  Lantern? Light flashed from inside the globe. Oh no.

  The face disappeared and a fingernail tapped the wall behind Serah. The resulting clink rang and echoed inside the glass. Her hands grabbed at her ears.

  “That hurt you, didn’t it, little flame-girl? I was only trying—” He pressed his lips shut as Serah doubled over in agony at the boom in his voice.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, whispering. He turned his head sideways. “Do you speak?”

  Serah nodded.

  “What’s your name, little flame-girl?”

  “Serah Kettel.”

  She frowned at his confused expre
ssion.

  “Hold on,” he said. He pressed his ear to the globe. “Okay, say that again, as loud as you can.”

  “Serah!”

  The young man tilted his head back and scratched at his hair. “We need to figure out a different way to do this. I’m Grady,” he said, pressing his hand to his chest.

  Serah smiled. His gesture gave her an idea. She pointed at herself, and then lifted a knee as if stepping upward. When he didn’t respond, she tried it again, bending her knee while lifting her opposite leg with her toes.

  Grady blinked. “March? Marching? March-a? Marsha?”

  Serah shook her head. No. That was supposed to be stepping up stairs. Stair, Stair-a, Serah. She rested her hands on her hips.

  “Try again,” Grady whispered. “I’m not that good at charades, but I don’t have a better idea.”

  Her lips puckered. Finally, she smiled.

  Grady smiled, too, as he watched Serah place both hands in front of her face, and then snap them away with a growl.

  “Peek-a-boo?”

  Serah’s face twisted.

  “No? Okay, good. Because that would be a terrible name.”

  She repeated the gesture again, only this time she wriggled her fingers and pounded her legs, mimicking a monster.

  “Spooky? Though, way too cute to be frightening…” He lowered his eyelids. “But it is Halloween, so I’m guessing that was supposed to be a big, scary monster.”

  Serah bounced up and down. She mimed what Grady mistook earlier for peek-a-boo.

  “Scare?”

  She nodded, smiling.

  “Okay, let me think. Scary…Sherry?”

  Serah shook her head.

  “Scare. Uh... Scare-a.” He grinned. “Sara?”

  “Yes, Serah!” she yelled out, smiling and not caring that he couldn’t hear her.

  “Well then, Sara, it’s nice to meet you.” He wiped his palm across his face. “Given how long it took to get one word out of you, I’m not sure how you’re going to explain being inside a lantern.”

  Serah shrugged.

  He squeezed his head with his hands. “Don’t tell me this is part of a Halloween prank. Because if you’re actually somewhere else being projected in there as a flame, that trick would be awesome. That’s it, isn’t it? Oh, you got me good. You’re working with my boys as part of a setup, aren’t you?”