L01-03. Lantern

by Chess Desalls

  They followed the porch, which wrapped around the side of the house, to where it ended in a backyard.

  Serah took in a lungful of air, certain she hadn’t breathed since she’d first seen the colored lights. More lanterns, round as globes but made of paper, dangled from clotheslines and cords stretched across trees.

  “You didn’t tell me Smyrna has a tradition of lighting lanterns on Halloween, too, Grady,” she whispered.

  With a laugh, he answered, “I wouldn’t call it a tradition, exactly, but yeah, we have jack-o’-lanterns and stuff. And party lights, so we can see instead of tripping over ourselves in the dark.”

  “Is that what you call this?” Serah pointed to one of the paper lanterns that was purple. “A jack-o’-lantern?”

  “Um, no,” he said, slowly, scanning the backyard. “But I could probably find one for you.”

  She twisted her face, confused.

  “Hey, it’s Grady!” A creature that was part man, part wolf approached, then slapped a paw across Grady’s back. “It’s about time you got here. Ooh, and you brought a date.”

  A half dozen heads turned toward them. Serah took a step backward; her shoulders stiffened. She’d been so awed by the lanterns she hadn’t taken notice of the people there—or what they were wearing.

  The man-wolf wriggled his brows. “What’s your name, lovely?”

  “Knock it off, Mason,” said Grady. He narrowed his eyes. “I was hoping you could tell me who this is. I found her on our property. She says her name is Sara.”

  Mason frowned. “I’ve no clue, man.”

  This is Mason? The friend Grady said I look the most like?

  Serah looked back and forth across the yard, and shuddered. More of the guests were watching now—some with fangs poking through blood-red lips, others with grins quirked on painted faces. Instead of plain clothes like hers and Grady’s, there were pops of fabric and paint in garish shades of violet and red, some spotted and striped like the animals her father mentioned while telling tales.

  A young lady with cat ears poking up from the top of her head threw an arm around Mason. She brushed a handful of dark locks off her shoulder. “Stop scaring the poor girl,” she purred.

  She examined Serah from head to hemline before raising a brow at Grady.

  “What, Abigail?” he said.

  “Nice costumes.” She snickered and looked back at Serah. “Welcome to my party. So, how long have you two been…a thing?”

  Serah frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “You know…” Abigail dropped her arm from Mason and took his hand. “A couple.”

  Blushing, Serah lowered her eyes. She noticed Abigail’s shoes were spotted at the toes with painted cat claws. “We’re not betrothed or engaged,” she said.

  She looked up when Abigail cackled.

  “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  “Abigail,” warned Grady. He frowned. “For whatever reason, she likes to stay in character. Which of you put her up to it?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The prank in the woods,” he said, his voice tinged with anger.

  Abigail and Mason shared a puzzled glance.

  “Like I said, I don’t know, man.” Mason squeezed Abigail’s hand. “Or are you messing with us?”

  More heads turned as guests began surrounding the two couples facing each other in the yard.

  “I don’t want to fight you—I want to know what’s going on.” Grady looked at Serah, who was on the verge of tears.

  Her eyes darted back and forth at the party guests—ghouls, monsters with gashes that dripped lifelike blood; girls who looked like grown-up dolls, with bare stomachs and skirts much shorter than Serah’s.

  I don’t belong here. I’ll never belong here, and now I’m causing trouble for Grady. He doesn’t believe me, and he doesn’t want to believe his friends.

  Slowly, she took a step backward, then another as Mason and Grady squared off, staring at one another.

  “Don’t ruin my party, Grady,” Abigail hissed. “Whatever you think you’re doing, it’s not entertaining.”

  Serah’s stomach twisted. She pressed her hands to her middle where she felt the rumblings from her gut. The scent of roasted meat grabbed her attention. Her mouth watered. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d last eaten.

  The table she’d nearly backed into held plates of sliced meats and cheeses, bread, salads, and foods Serah had never seen before. She lowered her nose to funny-shaped cakes dotted with raisins. They smelled of cinnamon and sugar. She reached out to take one when she noticed a bowl. Her hand froze in midair, and a jolt of nausea overpowered her hunger pangs. The bowl was filled with eyeballs floating in red liquid.

  She brought her hand to her lips. The plate next to the floating eyeballs was stacked with cubes of brown cake. Fat worms, marbled with yellow, red, and green colors, surrounded the squares and were scattered over top of them. A hand reached up out of a basket filled with candy.

  I can’t eat food like this. She missed Gelsey’s cooking and the warmth of the furnace. She missed Havenbrim.

  Serah shrugged inside the woolen cloak and looked back at the crowd of partygoers surrounding Grady, Mason, and Abigail. The two young men were still arguing with one another—because of her.

  “That doesn’t explain how I saw her inside the lantern, Mason!” Grady’s face was red and the guests were excitedly murmuring to one another.

  Serah sighed.

  Her head snapped in the direction of a princess wearing a tiara and layers of beaded jewelry, who was explaining that Grady’s girlfriend would be cute if she didn’t have such squinty eyes. Another girl laughed, which shook her rainbow-colored pigtails.

  Serah’s fingertips skimmed across the locket. If I go, he won’t have to worry about me anymore. He’ll still have his friends.

  She jumped at a roar of sound that strongly resembled music. Bass beats quickened her heartbeat, making her arms and legs want to jump around. Other guests had given in to the feeling, and were cheering as they bounced and swayed to the music. The circle around Grady and Mason scattered into pairs and smaller groups.

  I should join them—at least make an attempt to fit in, she thought, her head spinning. To show I’m trying. To see if they will accept me. But she was so weak from hunger and thirst.

  Her knees buckled. Colors blurred as she sank to the ground.

  The girl with the rainbow hair stopped bouncing and screamed.

  “Quick, get her some water!”

  Serah thought she saw Abigail through the haze in front of her. The edge of a cup reached her lips. “Drink this,” someone said.

  She sipped. The cool liquid was sweeter than honey. She pressed a hand to her lips to trap droplets that threatened to dribble down her chin.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Her stomach twisted at the red film that stained the bottom of the cup—the same ghastly red of the substance in which the eyeballs floated.

  “Can you stand?”

  “Yes,” she said, recognizing Grady’s voice.

  “What happened?”

  Serah shrugged.

  “She’s dehydrated, obviously,” said Abigail. “Come on, bring her over here and give her more fluids. When she’s feeling better, we should play a party game.”

  Grady sat down and crossed his arms.

  “I’m sorry I ruined everything,” Serah said, trying to ignore the whispers behind them.

  He exhaled a sharp breath. “No one will explain what’s going on. You’re as weak as if you’d actually been inside a lantern without food or water for days. And you act like someone from a different world. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  Chapter 15

  Abigail clanged a fork against a glass and loudly cleared her throat. “Okay, everyone, our first game is Phantom Fibber.”

  A pale girl with fangs, and the skeleton next to her, hooted and whistled. Guests at another table booed.


  “That’s a kid’s game!” the princess called out. “We played it at my ten-year-old cousin’s party. Can’t you think of a better game?”

  “This is my party, and I happen to like Phantom Fibber.” Abigail’s lips quirked into a grin. “And the winner gets a real jewelry prize.”

  She pulled a ring from her finger and held it up teasingly. Light billowed across a stone set in the center of the ring; it shined blue, purple, and white beneath the paper lanterns and the moon.

  The girl with the fangs let out a shriek. “Nice bling, Abigail. What is it?”

  “Moonstone,” she said, slipping the ring back on her finger. “To play for the prize, you’ll need to stand up here and answer questions as the person you came as in costume. Everyone else gets to ask you questions, and you’re not allowed to break out of character. The best, most convincing fibber wins the ring. Got it?”

  There were a few puzzled faces in the crowd—one of which belonged to Serah, who’d locked eyes with her hostess.

  “Okay,” sighed Abigail with a long, drawn-out eye roll. “Since some of you seem confused, I’ll go first to give an example of how this will work.”

  She lifted and curled her hands into claws, posed ready to pounce. “I’m a black cat,” she said, showing off the tail attached to the rear of her fuzzy jacket. “Who wants to ask me a question?”

  “Whose cat are you?” Mason snorted. “And how come you can talk?”

  “That’s two questions,” she snapped. “But I’ll answer both. I belong to a powerful sorceress who cast a spell on me so I can only speak at night.” She mewed for added emphasis, which earned her more snickers than applause.

  Serah’s eyes widened. According to the rules of the game, Abigail had been making up tales, telling lies. But they were spun in such a way that Serah would have believed them—if she believed in sorcery. She still had trouble believing whatever it was Machin did with the lanterns and the light. She smoothed her hands across her skirt. She only had one story to tell about her clothing, and none of it was a lie.

  “I’ll stop there,” said Abigail. “Who’s next?

  The pale girl with fangs pushed forward through the guests and took Abigail’s place. She stretched out her cape and bared her teeth. “I’m a vampire, a creature of the night. What do you want to know?”

  “Can I be your next victim?” The male voice that yelled out belonged to a guy wearing a pirate hat. The harlequin next to him punched him.

  “Ouch!” He rubbed the injury with a plastic hook that stuck out from his opposite arm. “I was only kidding.”

  The vampire glared at the pirate with a disgusted frown, then looked away. “Does anyone else have a question?”

  “I do.” A young lady, in a dress with layers of ruffles, adjusted a pair of goggles wrapped around her top hat, and smiled. “How did you become a bloodsucker?”

  “Both of my parents were vampires.” She shrugged. “So I guess that makes me a second-generation vampire.”

  Her response was met with laughter and a spray of popcorn.

  “That’s not how it works. Someone had to make you, by biting you and leaving vampire venom in your blood.”

  She scrunched her face at Abigail, who looked back at her, unimpressed. “Well, that’s obviously a different type of vampire. I’m from one of the more refined, um, fertile lines.”

  Serah’s hands shook. Bloodsucker? They’re only telling tales, she reminded herself. None of this is real. Perhaps I’m dreaming. She glanced over at Grady, who took a bite of cake and popped a worm in his mouth. Her stomach lurched.

  She turned back to the vampire, who was dodging more fistfuls of popcorn.

  “That’s enough,” said Abigail. She shook her head and slipped the ring on the vampire’s finger. “Since you’re officially the first to go, you get to wear the ring until someone else is more convincing…which won’t take much. Do we have a volunteer?”

  When no one answered, her gaze rested on Serah. “Grady said something about your ability to stay in character. Come up here and tell us who you are.”

  Serah froze. “I’m not sure I’d like to. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be silly. It’ll be fun,” said Abigail, pulling Serah up by the hands. She winked at her. “I’m sure you’ll be great.”

  Grady gave her an encouraging smile, which might have been comforting had he not still been chewing the worm.

  A hush fell over the crowd, and Serah found herself standing in the yard, at the center of attention. Dryness tickled the back of her throat.

  “My name is Serah Kettel,” she said. “And I’m dressed as myself.”

  “But what are you?” said the girl with the rainbow pigtails. “Some kind of peasant girl from the past?”

  “I’m an apprentice tektite glazier from Havenbrim,” she explained, cringing at how the girl had said peasant. Under the weight of watching eyes, her shoulders curled forward. She twisted her skirt in her fingers.

  After an uneasy moment of silence, tongues loosened and laughter bubbled up all around her.

  “Where’s Havenbrim?”

  “A tektite…what?”

  “How’d you get here?”

  “Yeah, and why?”

  Serah looked back and forth at the monsters and ghouls who’d peppered her with questions. “Havenbrim is a village in Llum,” she began. “A tektite glazier forms Celestial Glass into globes used for lamps and lanterns. I entered Smyrna through one of the lanterns made by my master, Machin—one with a special globe meant for me.”

  “That’s more like it.” Abigail grinned. She pulled the moonstone ring from the vampire’s finger and pressed it into Serah’s hand. “Keep going; answer the question about why you’re here.”

  “Yeah, you’re a good liar,” the vampire scoffed, crossing her arms. “Congratulations.”

  Serah blinked back tears. “I’m no teller of tales. Everything I’ve said is true. And I— I don’t know why I’m here. But I don’t want to be here. I want to go home.”

  “Then go home,” someone said above the laughter. “Show us how you travel by lantern.”

  The guests started chanting, “Prove it. Prove it. Prove it.”

  “I can’t. The lanterns you have here are made of paper—they’re different. Bending moonlight only works with Celestial Glass, globes crafted with an impenetrable seal.”

  She looked to Grady for help. “You saw me inside the globe! You were there when I escaped. Tell them it’s true.”

  He wrapped a hand around his forehead and squeezed.

  “Grady,” she said, her voice breaking. “Tell them, please.”

  He sat back in his chair and stretched his legs out in front of him. His lips were set in a deep frown.

  Serah clenched her hands into fists. “What have I done for you to mistrust me? You still think this is part of your friends’ trick. Well, they’re here now, and none of them believes me.”

  She gritted her teeth as a handful of popcorn hit her in the face, then turned and ran from the yard.

  “Sara, wait!”

  She ignored the drumming of footsteps behind her.

  I’m sorry, Machin, that you sent me all the way here to Smyrna, Tennessee for nothing.

  Serah grasped the locket and pulled it out from beneath her cloak. Her knuckles tapped the tiny door twice before she tugged at the doorknob.

  The door opened and burst with blue light.

  The tang of smoke and sulfur stung Serah’s nostrils and filled her mind with pictures. Machin pulling a globe from a furnace. Gelsey pouring barley tea. Charred biscuits falling from the sky. A lantern. A beacon. A torch.

  And then, nothing.

  Chapter 16

  When Serah opened her eyes, she wished she hadn’t.

  She recognized the sweet, earthy scent of straw, and the embers of a cooking fire before she felt their warmth.

  It smelled like home.

  Serah winced.

  She was curled on a straw mat wedge
d in a corner, with the woolen cloak draped around her. She sat up and rubbed away the stiffness at the base of her neck.

  Something pinched the inside of her palm. When she opened her fist, the moonstone ring fell from her hand. She grasped at the ring and slipped it on her finger. I have to leave before Mother and Father awaken. They mustn’t find me here.

  She listened for her parents’ snores before pulling herself to her feet. The alcove where they slept gave the house the illusion of having more than one room.

  Serah lifted her arms for balance in an attempt to take steps that were soft and gently placed. The red-orange glow of embers did little to highlight a path to the door. Drops of perspiration beaded across her brow.

  A glint of red reflected off the door’s metal lock. I’ll need to raise the latch without making a sound. She raised her hand to the door, but her cloak resisted. Squinting over her shoulder, Serah found the fabric had caught the splintered end of a stool. When she tried to pull herself free, the stool teetered and fell, with the cloak still attached.

  She scrambled for the latch, dragging the stool with her. The stool caught the end of a bench and flipped it over, followed by the crunch of pottery and jangle of pans hitting the ground.

  “Grendel, wake up! We’re being robbed!”

  Serah fumbled with the ties to free herself from the cloak. Her fingers shook, unable to pull the knot loose. She tugged at the fabric and tried pulling it overhead. She barely got it over her chin when it got stuck beneath her nose and earlobes.

  She shuddered as two forms approached by candlelight.

  “How dare you show up here,” Golda seethed. “Trespassing in our home and breaking our things.”

  “I didn’t mean to—I was only coming back to Havenbrim, to find my master—”

  Serah let the cloak fall back across her shoulders and around her body, and searched for the locket Machin had given her.

  Her hand fell away, empty. The tiny door he gifted me…is gone. She returned her father’s apologetic frown with one of her own. How do I explain where I’ve been and how I showed up here?