Chapter 8
Grace burst through the front door of the Lantern House, still dripping.
The door swung close behind her, slamming and engulfing the entire place with darkness.
She stalked through the rooms, feeling at the walls and stubbing her bare toes, till she managed to climb up the stairs and take shelter in the quiet and secluded loft.
She thought that the creepy lantern was the last place she would want to be in the entire house, but there was something comforting about the dark thing.
The light no longer came to life, but knowing that it was once meant to guide someone back home was enough to bring some sort of warmth to Grace’s trembling chest.
The windows overlooked the lake, where the moon could be seen reflecting off the undisturbed surface. The sound of crickets and owls echoed through the house as Grace hunkered down beside the tall lantern, her entire body riddled with relentless shakes.
“You’re not crazy,” Grace whispered into her knees. “But…but you’re something.”
Something happened back there. She couldn’t deny that.
Maybe they drugged her and she was hallucinating.
Or maybe Grace had been sick for a long time, and her night of drinking and letting loose was the final straw.
Perhaps she was in the downward spiral of her life, set to only get worse from there.
But it wasn’t like she was harmed. It wasn’t like she was bullied or beaten or wounded.
Sure, Grace had been thrown into a new reality, but…
she was alive. Grace was alive and had lived long enough to see a real mermaid.
She felt the scales beneath her fingers, felt the muscles flex and tighten.
She saw the creature lurk beneath the water, moving in a way no human would ever understand.
As her thoughts clung to the wonder of the moment, Grace quickly remembered that it was not a creature she captured in the wild.
It was Anna, it was Caroline, it was Olivia.
They were people she thought to be like herself, people she wanted to lean on.
How could she look at the same, after knowing what truth lied below the surface?
Grace pressed her hands to the side of her face.
“Maybe you are losing your mind,” she whispered. “Because that would be the only logical way to explain all of this.”
Beside her, the lantern came to life.
Light burnt within the center, a simmering flame whipping back and forth at the wick.
Grace straightened as she watched it, inherently scooting away and to the opposite side of the loft.
A soft light echoed around the lantern within the surrounding darkness.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be anything to fear, if only it hadn’t meant that a flame had suddenly sparked from within it.
“O-kay,” Grace drawled to herself. “That is weird, but –”
Every light in the entire house turned on.
Grace had let them stay dimmed when she first came in, not bothering with them after what she had experienced.
But they were all awake at once, illuminating every nook and cranny.
She was standing then, two hands pressed over her chest as she stared over the entire house.
There wasn’t anyone lurking around the halls or hiding behind the corners.
With the open floor plan, the loft gave her a perfect bird’s eye view of everything inside.
Nothing would be able to get by without being spotted by her.
Which didn’t explain a damn thing. Grace gripped the railing to the loft, about to try and take her trembling legs back down the staircase.
She only managed to wobble one step over when the lights all snapped back off.
That time, Grace released a startled shout, the sound echoing across the empty Lantern House.
She whipped back toward the lantern to see the familiar light echoing out of the center and drew closer to it, craving the comfort it had once brought to her.
As she came to its side, taking a seat against the windowsill, Grace caught a glimpse of something moving near the lake.
Though she didn’t quite want to see what was out there, her eyes lunged toward the window, already fervently scanning the quiet surface.
At the opposite end of the lake, directly across from where she sat within the loft, a wispy figure appeared within thin air.
Its features were unrecognizable but one thing was for certain: its feet did not touch the ground, it passed through trees as though they were made from air, and its aura radiated with something that was not from the land of the living.
An inhuman chill rolled through Grace’s body.
A ghost.
The figure moved toward her with an agonizingly slow pace out of the woods and across the lake.
As it drew nearer, Grace thought it to be taking the shape of a tall man, her mind was immediately drawn to the story about the lantern’s origins.
Perhaps the otherworldly figure was following the lantern’s light, and not trying to get to her.
Grace snatched at the lantern’s top and yanked it off, blowing out the small flame with a trembling gust of air.
It went out within the second, and she was entirely swallowed by darkness once more.
Knock, knock, knock!
Grace leapt in the darkness, almost knocking over the priceless lantern.
She fumbled with it as it teetered, making sure to rest it back in its familiar spot before putting the lid back over its opening.
For a moment, she lingered at the top of the staircase, her head pulsing.
After the night she had, why would she even think about opening the door to any sort of sound?
She remained stuck in place and almost breathed a sigh of relief when the silence stretched on.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
Grace practically fell down the staircase as she skirted toward the front door.
On the way there, she lifted an empty vase high over her head, ready to pelt the thing at whatever beast lay on the other side of her front door.
Grace sucked in a sharp breath as she grabbed the handle and yanked it open.
Caroline, Olivia, and Anna stood within the doorway, their eyes wide and clinging to the empty vase.
Grace’s arm dropped and the lights snapped back on. “Are you kidding me?” she screeched, almost pelting the vase across her foyer. Her attention turned back to the three ladies, noticing how deeply sympathetic they looked. “Don’t tell me: you all know about the ghost on the lake already.”
“Did the lantern turn on?” Caroline asked. “Did you see it?”
Grace sighed and nodded, rendered entirely speechless and exhausted.
“If it helps at all: the ghost will never make it to the house.” Anna shrugged her shoulders, as if it was hardly an issue. “The lantern will light up for a minute or two, until you see the ghost on the lake, but then it’ll fade away. And, you know, the lights will come back on.”
“I-I don’t understand. You say this like it’s a regular occurrence?” Grace watched as they had another shared look. “How often?”
Anna pressed her lips together. “Every night at midnight. But you’ll sleep through it, anyways! Where’s the harm in that?”
The floor swayed under Grace’s feet and she staggered backward, putting the vase down as one hand slapping her forehead.
So much had happened in such a short period of time, and she was finally beginning to feel winded by it all.
Her friend’s casual talk and nonchalant attitudes hardly made any of it easier to swallow.
To Grace, the entire world had been turned upside down, but she was still being expected to walk like a normal person.
Without saying anything, the three ladies waded into the Lantern House, shutting the door behind them.
Caroline inched closer to her and pulled Grace into a long hug.
Her arms entirely encompassed Grace’s narrow frame, rubbing her back and smoothing out the lumps in her hair.
As the minutes dragged on, Grace’s heart rate returned to its regular rhythm, simply chugging along as the world kept on changing.
“I think,” Caroline said into her hair, “we have a lot to talk about.”
Grace numbly nodded.
“I don’t suppose you have –”
“Vodka.”
“That’ll do.”