Theandric Thursday : Who Moved My Lantern?

“Are you sure you did not come into my shed last night?” I asked my sister Dana again on the third morning it had happened. Somebody moved my lantern in the night, again. Which meant that someone had been using my lantern, again. Which meant that someone entered my shed during the night, again.

“Why would I? No!”

“Someone moved my lantern again last night.” I said fixing her with a gaze. Her expression changed from an incredulous one to a straight face.

“I have no interest in your lantern, or getting into that fowl shed of yours, even during the day, let alone at night.” She added that I ask someone who I should be asking. That she had more important things to do at night than moving lanterns, like sleeping.

***

© Nina Lautenschläger

Two days ago, I had slept with the lantern by my bedside but had woken up the next morning to see it sitting by the door. At first, I thought that maybe I just left it at the door for some reason and don’t remember it clearly, but the second day it happened again and I asked the first person I came around about it. My sister, an easily scared girl, got rather offensive though.

“You get lost or I’ll go and tell Mamma”, she said, making that furious narrow eyed face she always made when I did this to her.

But I wasn’t doing this to her. Someone actually moved my lamp last night.

“I am serious Dan”, I said.

“So am I.” And she went about with that.

***

To say I wasn’t scared a little the fourth night would not be totally correct. I kept changing sides when I lied down, glancing back at the old table clock I had recently bought during one of my visits to town. It had a rusty quality to it despite being totally plastic. The street vendor, when I thought of it lying there, had a weird air around him. He looked more like a thief selling his dough on a white sheet than an actual seller. Yet, I somehow knew he wasn’t a thief. He looked mysterious yes, but that is no reason to assume someone to be a thief. Though, the fact that no other customer came to him the whole time I was there kept making me a little uneasy. Not a single customer in front of me. Or before me. Maybe.

I slept after some time engrossed in thoughts about the clock and that vendor, totally forgetting to dim the lantern that lay beside my bedding.

When I woke up the next morning, it was dimmed, and sitting by the door.

I stared it in disbelief and fear, not daring to touch, or even go close to it. I went out of my shed and saw people going about their business as usual. Men were walking purposefully. Kids were playing. Smoke from the morning kitchen fire was rising like it rose each day. Nothing was out of place, except for the lantern. The normality of the whole situation started driving me more anxious than the fact I was worried about. How could it be?

I was dying to tell this to someone, to make someone believe that it was happening for real. Dana was refusing to even listen to me now and mother had other important work to do. No one else had any time.

Seeing that I was already getting late, I washed up and went to the fields. I decided that I would talk to someone by the end of the day.

***

“So, what was the time you finally went to sleep?” asked Lorne. Lorne was the one who was closest to being a friend and I usually met him at the farmer’s market where he had a permanent stall.

“I don’t remember exactly. Sometime after 2.30”

“And you remember where it was when you slept clearly?”

“Of-course I do. I’ve always kept it near my bedding.”

“And what was it that you said about the clock?”

“Oh, it was nothing. I just…thinking too much…you know”

“Hmm. Don’t sleep tonight. See then what happens. And keep something sharp and strong with you…you know, just in case..”

“Yeah. Yeah, you are right I suppose…keep something sharp…yeah” I tried to put up a brave face about it but even the idea of confronting someone who silently walked into my shed each night just to move my lantern was sending chills down my spine.

And what if that someone did not even walk? What if it didn’t even have to walk?

***

I stayed awake till 2 without much relative effort, after which sleep started pulling my eyelids down and I had to start trying to keep awake. The struggle intensified a lot after the hour hand on the clock crossed 3. Around 3.20, while I was sitting against the wall, bobbling my head, strange noises started to come through the crevices on the sides of the door. The wind was blowing hard and the sudden noise had caught me by alarm and made me fast awake. I gripped the handle of the axe I had with me tightly and kept a steady stare at the door. But despite the continuous unsettling noise(which also sounded as if it was carrying voices) nothing happened and I fell asleep around 4.15 finally.

I woke up at 7 when mamma came in to wake me up as I was late. The lantern was at the same spot I left it the night before. I relieved a sigh and went about my work.

Later that evening while talking to Lorne, I expressed my concern about how I couldn’t stay awake every night and that this still doesn’t solve anything. He suggested that I change my sleeping place for a day. I went home and talked to Dana since asking Mamma to switch places was out of the question.

***

“Are you drunk or did some mad dog bite you? Of-course I am never doing this” was her reply.

“Please Dan, just for the night. There is no trick I promise you”

“No! Why are even asking then? Are you still playing that lantern game with me?”

“No…Yes…No! I mean, it is about the lantern but it is not a game. I just want to…check something..”

“What?” she eyed me with hostile suspicion.

“If that lantern … no, it’s just that I am changing my bed to see if those hallucinations stop” I tried not to look into her eyes while saying this.

She thought for a moment, still eyeing me. “Are you putting me as bait Kef?”

“No, no no no no. Noo! It’s not like that...  you can still sleep in your own shed. I just need some space for the night. There is nothing wrong with my shed.”

She eyed me suspiciously some more.

“No, you stink too much. I’ll go to your shed. And you’ll have to carry my bedding there. All of it. I am not sleeping on your stinking bedding”

“Really?”

“Do you want me to change my mind?”

“No no. Yuss. Thank you Dan, I love you. Thank you. You’re the best sister. I am blessed..”

“Okay enough! I sleep early. You better be at work already”  

Nothing happened that night. Nobody moved the lantern in my shed. Dana’s lamp in her shed was at the same place it had been the night before, right by the door. Nothing except the dimming of the lamp in Dana’s shed. And I didn’t check to see that the oil in it was near full.

***

That next day, I was much relieved, happy even. To my own surprise I had slept sound and I felt my best in the whole past week. Nothing had happened in the past two days and I finally relaxed a bit and came to a realization, if not complete yet, that maybe those few days had just been some stress acting up on my mind as the work had increased and I had been feeling very tired.

Yes, it required extra work to shift Dana’s bedding and back but at least it worked. Lorne’s advice had worked and I thought about meeting and thanking him in the evening.

The thoughts about the clock had also been far-fetched perhaps. Again, a work of tired mind.

After a good day's work, I walked to the farmer’s market but didn’t find Lorne. Someone told me that he was visiting town and would come the next day. I walked back home still happy.

Of course I didn’t know that Lorne had met one of my co-workers from the farm, Soyl, who had told him about the strangest thing he saw last night. He was sleeping in the farm last night and while attending nature’s call, Soyl told him, he saw a man carrying a lantern walk up the path from where my shed was, and then walk back. And that strange man kept doing this for more than fifteen minutes, after which Soyl rushed to his bed pretty scared.

But I didn’t know this and went home in a cheerful mood. I ate dinner with my sister and mother, laughed and talked then went to bed around 11. I slept half hoping and half knowing that nothing would happen during the night.

Sometime around 3, I got off my bedding while still asleep, picked up the lantern and went out for my night stroll.

***

This post is part of Theandric Thursday, a fortnightly whenever-she-gets-time-and-feels-like-posting feature hosted by Ashna Banga.

The dictionary definition of 'Theandric' is 'Relating to the joint agency of divine and human nature'.

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