By the Light of His Lantern Read online

  Lightning flashed again. A figure appeared, moving quickly toward him, legs dancing in an effort to move through the thick mud. He gasped, stepped back. They were plunged back into darkness. With one hand hovering over the opening, he held the jar lantern out, arms shaking, dripping. The figure emerged into its light, hair wild and frizzy, eyes mad.

  “Stay back!”

  Lewis pulled his lantern away while brandishing his other hand in an open palm. He pushed them and they fell into the mud, crying out.

  “Stay back!” he repeated.

  “Please…” It was a woman’s voice. “Please help me.”

  Tentative, he edged closer until his light found her seated in the mud, arms raised above her head, shielding her eyes from the rain and possibly his light. She was clothed in heavy, baggy clothes. He imagined a bum with layers and layers of old coats.

  “Who are you?”

  She sputtered for a moment, not saying anything intelligible. He told her to speak up.

  “Please,” she said. “I… I need your help.”

  “Who are you, I asked.”

  “My name’s Karen.”

  He considered. “Show me your face.”

  She lowered her hands. She looked older than her voice suggested, he thought. She looked ragged. Her face was sunken and pale, and her eyes were trapped inside a hundred lines which might have betrayed her true age.

  “What do you want?”

  “Please, help me up first.”

  He watched her closely, studied her face, which she’d partially shielded again from the elements. Aside from merely existing in this terrible, untrustworthy world, he detected nothing insidious. He bent and lent his free hand. She took it and he pulled her to her feet, both of them groaning in the process. Standing face to face, her eyes moved over him, brow furrowed.

  “You’re just a boy…”

  “What do you want?” he asked again.

  She collected herself. “I’m lost. I… I keep trying to find my way, but I just end up here again. I saw you and I thought… maybe you could help me.”

  “I don’t know any better than you.”

  She nodded. She looked over her shoulder, where they could see nothing of course, and then turned back to him thoughtfully.

  “It’s a cave,” she said. “Up ahead. It’s the only way through. The trouble is navigating it.” She paused. “Seeing as you’re here, you’ll be needing to go through as well, I imagine. Maybe we can help each other.”

  “What do you mean a cave?”

  “The canyon ends not much farther up ahead. The mouth of a cave is there. It’s the only way through.”

  “You’ve been through it before?”

  “I have.”

  “What’s so difficult about navigating it now?”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  He waited, expecting her to go on, but she didn’t. “Well, try.”

  “You can get turned around inside. There’s a proper path to take, but… I keep ending up back here, at the entrance.” She wiped rain from her forehead and eyes. “It can be tricky.”

  Lewis thought about it for a minute. He looked ahead into the dark until lightning overhead revealed only more canyon.

  “I don’t see it up there.”

  “The canyon winds just a bit before you reach it. I can show you.”

  “And what’s on the other side?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What’s on the other side of the cave? Where are you trying to get?”

  “Well, my house is on the other side.”

  “Your house?”

  “I have a house, yes. I was attacked… and well…” She paused again, looked him over. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  “A little.”

  “Here long enough to know how things work, I gather?”

  “Some of it.”

  She nodded. “Well, I’m making my way back. If you’ll help me get through this cave I might have some things at home you can take. Better clothes, for starters.” She gestured to his dripping rags.

  “How do you know there will be anything left? Your attacker might have robbed you.”

  She hesitated. “He’s dead. I’m sure of it. Now, will you join me?”

  She appeared sane, relatively speaking, he thought. When he looked at her, he couldn’t help wondering what she’d done in her past life to deserve being here.

  “Lead the way.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Karen wasn’t lying about the cave. The canyon bent and they followed it slowly through the mud and rain until they were at its opening—a narrow, jagged triangle in the rock face. Lewis leaned inside and took a deep breath. Humid yet cool.

  “How long to get through it, do you think?” he asked.

  “Hard to say,” she said, and he understood completely. “Shall we?”

  He let her go first and followed behind with his jar, which he’d miraculously managed to keep lit.

  “Lucky I ran into you,” she said, looking over her shoulder as they entered. “Your light will make this easier. I hope.”

  The tunnel was only wide enough for a single person at a time. The ceiling ran overhead in wave-like patterns, dipping and rising, so that if Lewis wasn’t paying attention he could feel the cold rock brushing against his hair. He hoped it wouldn’t go on for too long. His mere hope, however, told him to expect otherwise.

  “Tell me about yourself,” Karen said. “Make this cave a bit less tedious.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I still haven’t gotten your name.”

  “Oh. Right. Lewis.”

  “Lewis?”

  “Mhmm.”

  “Ah. I knew a Lewis.”

  “Standup guy, I bet.” There was no humor in his voice. The small talk grated on him. He wished they could walk in silence.

  “He was a very mediocre man.”

  Unsure how to respond, “Oh. Okay.”

  “You ever meet someone like that?”

  “Mediocre?”

  “Yes. Very plain. I’d almost call them empty. It’s like… a shell of a person. I mean…”

  “Some people are like that, I guess,” he said. “Some people are also just private. Keeping to yourself can make other people—more outgoing people—wary of you like that.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve just met people, too. That’s all.”

  “This Lewis guy wasn’t private. I didn’t get that from him at all. Just boring. No personality. Like, if humanity was a book, and every person was a page, Lewis was blank. Fluff. No reason to exist. No real interests, no direction, just… there. Filler. Nothing to contribute except taking up space.”

  “Does that bother you? Sounds like he should have been invisible to you.”

  “It makes me wonder who the people are who created such a person. What must his life have been like to produce someone of so little substance. There are many Lewises in the world.”

  Lewis didn’t say anything after that. He thought it strange to be asked about himself, only to have the conversation veer so wildly into what he considered a low-key tirade.

  She turned to look at him again, a self-deprecating grin on her face.

  “You’re probably starting to second-guess joining me.”

  “No…” He hesitated. “You just… sound very opinionated.”

  “That’s a polite way of saying I talk too much. I get it.”

  Well, he thought, she wasn’t wrong.

  “So, your name is Lewis,” she said. “What brings you here?”

  “Well, I… I’m not… totally…”

  She stopped in front of him. He held his light out next to her, to see what she saw. The tunnel widened some, it appeared. Or rather, it looked as though it split in two directions.

  “I know it’s a right here,” Karen said. “Always a right.”

  They took the path to the right. This path was only slightly wider than the one they�
��d followed so far. They continued single file, but now at least Lewis’s shoulders had room to breathe.

  “You don’t know what brought you here?” she asked.

  “Oh. No, not really. I just… woke up.”

  “You don’t know who might have put you here?”

  “I’m sure there are plenty of people who could have…”

  “No one you’ve pissed off?”

  “Again, lots of people.”

  Karen laughed. “Is that right? Maybe you’re not such a Lewis after all.”

  “I don’t know, it sounds like you might be a little pissed off about the Lewises of the world.”

  “Not pissed off. Just… a little irritated, maybe.”

  They walked a little ways in silence.

  “So how did you end up here?” Lewis asked.

  “Wronged the wrong people, of course.”

  “Wronged them how?”

  “Stole from them.” She looked back again, smiling with her thin-lipped, sunken cheek smile, the flesh balled up around her cheekbones beneath her hollow eyes. “I was a maid. Lot of wealthy families need cleaning up after. Got caught stealing from the wrong one.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t tell you that. You know that by now, I’m sure.”

  He did.

  “A long time ago, though.”

  Lewis thought for a bit. “What year was it? That you last remember.”

  She thought. “I want to say nineteen-sixty-four. Maybe sixty-five.”

  “I could tell you how long you’ve been here, then.”

  She looked back at him, and the smile was gone.

  “Don’t you dare. I don’t need to know.”

  “I’ve only been here… well, not too long. But I know the year.”

  “I don’t want to know, I said.”

  Her voice was cold and firm. He didn’t press it.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  For a long while, it was just the sounds of their clumsy feet ricocheting off the cave walls. He appreciated it, but knew it would come to an end eventually. They walked single file. Lewis followed Karen the entire time, despite holding the lantern which might have helped having in the lead, but they were making their way well enough.

  He watched her carefully, still unsure.

  “You’re so young,” she said, breaking the silence. “I can’t stop thinking about it. Who would want to put you here?”

  “I already told you, I—”

  “I know, I’m just talking to myself.” She sighed. “How about your parents? They must be worried sick about you.”

  This turn in conversation stiffened his arms, his legs.

  “I don’t like thinking about them much.”

  “Oh. Not real close, then?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Even mommy, huh?”

  “I’d rather talk about something else.”

  “You don’t think they’re worried about you?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t really care. Why are you so concerned?”

  “I’m just making conversation. Geez.” She whistled mockingly, emphasizing his temper. “It’s just… I had kids, too… once upon a time.”

  Lewis remained quiet.

  “Did you know your parents?”

  He wanted to ignore her the rest of the way, but had a feeling she wouldn’t put up with that. If anything it’d make her prodding worse. So he decided to give in a little, if just to satiate her curiosity enough.

  “Yeah. My mom. I never knew my dad real well.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah. Okay. And your mom?”

  “My mom…” He paused. “We’re just not close.”

  “She raise you by herself?”

  “Yes.”

  Karen was quiet, thinking. “That’s a shame. You seem like an okay kid. She must not have done too bad a job.”

  “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

  “I know your momma raised you by herself. That’s no easy thing.”

  “Yeah, well… lots of things aren’t easy.”

  “I’m just saying… I bet she misses you something terrible.”

  Lewis didn’t want to argue. He didn’t want to share. If he kept his mouth shut, maybe she’d do the same now. He’d said enough.

  Finally, they continued in renewed silence.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Farther into the cave, there was a sound from behind them. It reached them as an echo, bouncing along the walls. A loud scuff, or a knock.

  “Did you hear that?” Lewis asked.

  They stopped and listened. The cave was devoid of sound, aside from their low breathing. Karen seemed mostly uninterested.

  “We should keep moving,” she said.

  Lewis didn’t hear anything else after that.

  They followed the cave for a long time, twisting and shifting—like waste through the mountain’s intestine. The air at some point turned stale. No longer cool and fresh, the tunnel breathed something dry and stuffy.

  “There’s something different about the air,” Lewis said. “Normally I wouldn’t think anything of it, but I’m paranoid now.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “What if we’re breathing something toxic right now?”

  “What could we be breathing?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Anything the darkness wants us to breathe.”

  Karen turned to him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It wants us to suffer.”

  She only stared. “You haven’t been here long enough to know anything.”

  “Maybe not, but I’ve been told a few things. Taught some things.”

  “By whom?”

  He didn’t feel like telling her about the old man. Truthfully, he didn’t much want to even think about him. He recalled how he’d left him there, without clothes, and his mug…

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  They were stopped, and Karen stared at him long and hard in the dark, her worn face faintly aglow in the light of the lantern.

  “The darkness wants suffering, but I believe there’s a balance to it. It’s more than just being ‘out to get you’.”

  “What do you know about it?” Lewis asked earnestly.

  “Not much more than anyone else, but enough.”

  “What do you mean when you say a balance?”

  They walked again.

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “You’ve said that before.”

  She laughed. “I’m not the best at explaining things, I guess.”

  “Practice makes perfect, they say.”

  “There’s not much more to it than what I already said. Just a balance. We’re not meant to be happy here, that’s true. But suffering isn’t the only alternative.”

  He wanted to tell her about the boots he’d found, about how the darkness had meant to bait him into suffering by placing a snake inside. A trap. But as he opened his mouth to speak they heard yet another sound. It was much closer this time—more than an echo on the walls.

  “There it is again,” Lewis said. “I don’t think—”

  Someone grabbed him in the dark. Or rather they grabbed for him. A hand closed over his shoulder and he shrank from it, out of its reach. They grabbed again and he saw the hand on his arm in the firelight for just an instant before he yanked away.

  “Get away from us!” he yelled.

  He turned to Karen and she was right against him.

  “Go!” he yelled. “Run!”

  But she didn’t run. He backed into her, away from the approaching stranger at their heels. He shouted for her to move, to run, and he felt her pushing at him with her chest. She must be confused, was his first thought. She was frozen. When he shot a glance over his shoulder, he saw her hand on the wall beside them, and over his other shoulder was her other hand. Guarding his exit. The stranger’s hand reached out of the dark and grabbed him by the unthreading fabric of hi
s shirt. A man’s face was barely visible. Old and chiseled. With their second hand they gripped his throat. He tried to swing his jar lantern at them. Its arc was cut short as they forced him sideways into the cave wall. The jar fell.

  “Pick that up,” the man said, and Karen scurried for it.

  He held Lewis to the wall by the throat. Karen stood with the lantern, held up just behind the man’s shoulder, and her face was lit not only by the fire but with a feverish excitement. They both stared at him with greedy wonder.

  “He’s new,” Karen said in the man’s ear. “Hasn’t been here hardly a day or two, I think. Maybe a few weeks or months. Ignorant as they come.”

  “Please don’t kill me,” Lewis said.

  But it was like they couldn’t hear him.

  “We’ll get him back to the house,” the man began, “and we’ll get everything ready. Do it right this time.”

  “Not so hurried like last time.”

  They stared at him for a long while. Maybe it was his youth they couldn’t peel their eyes from. The old man had been curious about it. And the man with embers in his eyes had noted it as well.

  “We’ll be blessed,” Karen said. “Who knows how long with him.”

  The man nodded. “Peace.”

  Pinning Lewis to the wall by his throat, the man removed a sharp blade from his clothes with his free hand. Lewis squirmed at the sight of it.

  “No,” the man said. “No, no, no. Not yet. Don’t struggle.”

  “Don’t kill me. Please.”

  “You’re going to come with us. No fighting. I won’t use this if you don’t fight.”

  They continued staring, the smiles faded, eyes firm and waiting. Lewis nodded. The pressure in his head and throat beneath the tightly pressed hand throbbed. The man slid his hand around the side of his neck to the nape, where he guided Lewis ahead in the dark, Karen leading the way.

  “Keep walking,” he instructed. “Don’t fight.”

  With the tip of the blade kissing his side, Lewis didn’t plan on it.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  As expected, the remainder of their journey through the cave didn’t include any guesses or hesitation regarding which direction they should take. Karen knew exactly where to go.

  “What do you want with me?” Lewis asked, and received a painful jab with the blade.