THE THINGS WE KEEP LIT

Last spring, before so many names had been added to the lanterns of Embermist Hollow, an old woman named Elsbeth carried a broken one into Widdershins’ Arcana Emporium.  The Answering was three days away.  Already, strips of cloth had begun appearing beneath the lanterns outside the homes along the cobbled lanes. Names written carefully in ink moved gently in the fog.

The dead.

The missing.

The lost.

Elsbeth had written the same name for eleven years.

Alden.

Her husband had gone into the mountains one morning and never come home.  They had found his lantern beside the road.  They had never found him.

     “The Answering is Thursday,” Elsbeth said.

Mittens Widdershins looked at the old lantern between them.

That was explanation enough.

     “I see.”

     “It won't light," Elsbeth sighed.

Mittens drew it carefully toward herself.

     “Then we'd better fix it.”

The young harengon immediately disappeared into the clutter of her shop, returning with books, crystals, chalk, and several objects Elsbeth suspected had nothing whatsoever to do with lanterns.

TickTock, Mittens’ little mechanical ferret, followed patiently.

     “Miss Widdershins.”

     “Yes?”

     “The lantern.”

     “I know.”

     “You are holding a spoon.”

Mittens looked at her paw.

     “So I am.”

Elsbeth laughed despite herself.  She had not expected to.  While Mittens worked, Elsbeth wandered among the shelves.  She found a compass.  Alden had carried one just like it and had never learned to use the damned thing. Once, after becoming thoroughly lost less than a mile from home, he had blamed the compass.  Then the trail.  Then, somehow, Elsbeth.  She smiled.
Farther along the shelf sat a chipped blue cup.  Alden's favorite cup had been chipped too. She had tried to throw it away once. He'd rescued it from the rubbish and accused her of attempted murder.
Elsbeth touched the rim.

Eleven years.

She wondered sometimes how many things she remembered correctly anymore.  That frightened her more than she admitted.  She could remember the exact sound of Alden's laugh, but not what he'd worn the morning he disappeared.  She remembered how his hand felt around hers.  She could no longer quite remember his voice saying her name.

There was guilt in that.

As though forgetting even one small thing meant she had abandoned him somewhere.  So every spring she wrote Alden.  Every spring she tied his name beneath the lantern.  And every spring she waited.  She had become very good at waiting.  Perhaps too good.

     “Elsbeth?”

She turned.  Mittens had opened the lantern. Inside was a small circle of cloudy crystal.

     “This isn't an ordinary lantern," Mittens mused.

     “No?”

     “Did you know?”

Elsbeth shook her head.  Mittens held the crystal carefully between her black paws.

“It's a waiting light. Very old magic. Someone leaves with the lantern, and someone else waits for them. The flame is supposed to keep burning.”

Elsbeth looked at the crystal.

     “For how long?”

Mittens hesitated.

     “As long as someone is waiting.”

Something inside Elsbeth tightened.

     “This was Alden's.”

Mittens said nothing.

     “They found it on the road,” Elsbeth said distantly. “Still burning.”

She looked at the dead lantern.

     “This morning it went out.”

Mittens understood.

     “Oh.”

     “I thought perhaps it meant I was supposed to stop.”

The shop became very quiet.  Even TickTock was still.  Mittens looked at the lantern for a long moment.  Then she shook her head.

     “No.” Mittens said.

     “How can you know?”

     “Because magic breaks.”

Elsbeth looked at her.

Mittens continued,“Enchantments fade. Runes wear away. Crystals crack.” Mittens touched the cloudy stone. “Sometimes old things simply need looking after.”

Elsbeth almost smiled.

     “People too?”

Mittens' ears lowered slightly.

     “Especially people.”

Elsbeth looked away.

     “I don't know how long I'm supposed to wait.”

Mittens returned to her work.

     “I don't think the lantern gets to decide that.”

It took nearly another hour.  Mittens whispered over the lantern as she worked, tracing tiny runes into its old brass. Whenever her attention wandered, TickTock gently brought her back.  At last Mittens closed the little door.  For a moment, nothing happened.  Then a tiny flame appeared.  Elsbeth stopped breathing.  It was hardly anything.  A little golden point behind cloudy glass.  But she knew it.  For eleven years that light had waited with her.

     “There you are,” she whispered.

She wasn't certain whether she meant the flame or Alden.

Perhaps she meant herself.

     “How much?” she asked Mittens.

     “Nothing,” Mittens replied.

     “Mittens—”

     “Nothing.”

     Elsbeth knew better than to argue with that tone.

At the door she looked down at the tiny flame.

     “Will it be bright enough?”

Mittens considered this.

     “No.”

Elsbeth looked back at her.

Mittens smiled, “But it doesn't have to be.”

She gently turned the lantern toward the door.

     “Just enough to find his way.”

Three nights later, Alden's name hung beneath Elsbeth's lantern.  The little strip of cloth moved softly in the mountain fog.  All across Embermist Hollow there were other names beneath other lanterns.
Some had been written that morning.  Some had been written so many times that children had grown old beneath them.  The names remained there from dawn until dusk.  No one spoke them.
That was part of the Answering.  The Hollow had other days for telling stories about the dead. Other nights for raising cups to them, weeping for them, laughing over them, or arguing over what they would have said if they were still around to say it.  The Answering was for something else.  So the names hung silently beneath the lanterns, and all day the living passed beneath them.  Elsbeth passed beneath Alden's each time she entered her house.  Each time she left it.  She had spent eleven years wondering whether he was cold.  Whether he had been frightened.  Whether he had called for her.  Whether somewhere, impossibly, he was still trying to come home.  She had spent so long wondering where Alden was that sometimes she had forgotten to notice where she was.  At dusk, the first bell sounded from the heart of Embermist Hollow.  Throughout the village, work stopped.  Shop doors closed. Supper pots were taken from their fires. Brooms were leaned against walls. Games were abandoned in the lanes.  At the second bell, every household lit its lantern.  One after another, small flames appeared through the fog.  Elsbeth lit Alden's.  The repaired flame caught at once.

Tiny.

Steady.

Waiting.

At the third bell, everyone stepped outside.  Elsbeth had done this every spring of her life.  As a child, she'd stood between her parents.  Later beside Alden.  Then with Alden's hand in hers.  And for eleven years now, alone.

No one spoke.

That silence mattered too.

The strips of cloth stirred beneath hundreds of lanterns, carrying all the names that would receive no answer that evening.  Then, somewhere near the village center, a single voice broke the silence

A woman spoke her own name.  Another voice followed.  Then another.  The Answering moved outward through Embermist Hollow.  Down one lane.  Across a bridge.  Up the hill.  House by house.
Person by person.  No one hurried.  No one answered for another.  A child too young to speak was held quietly until next spring.  At an empty doorway, there was only silence.  And beneath every lantern, when their turn came, the living gave the Hollow their names.

Elsbeth listened as the Answering drew nearer.  Names she had known all her life.  Names she had watched grow from children into parents.  New names.  Old names.  Voices strong and wavering and shy.  Each one saying the same thing without saying it.

I am here.

Alden's name stirred above her.  Elsbeth touched the cloth.  For eleven years she had been afraid that living without him meant leaving him behind.  Perhaps it didn't.  Perhaps loving someone was not a place where you had to remain standing forever.  The Answering reached the house beside hers.  Then there was silence.  Her silence.  Elsbeth looked up at Alden's name. The little flame burned behind it.  She remembered suddenly how he used to say her name when calling her in from the garden.  Not perfectly.  Not the sound of it.  But the feeling of turning toward him.  That was enough.
Elsbeth lowered her hand.

     “Elsbeth, "she whispered.

Her voice trembled.  The Hollow waited.  She drew another breath.

     “Elsbeth."

And this time she heard herself.  The Answering moved on.  Another name rose from the next house.  Then another.  Elsbeth remained beneath her lantern and listened until voices filled the valley.
Above her, Alden's name moved gently in the fog.  And the lantern remained lit.