Chapter 7: The Lantern in the Fog

Watching him leave, I frowned, dread settling in my stomach. If my uncle found out Mr. Hawthorne left, he’d be furious. I decided to wait a little longer before heading back.

Dusk deepened, the air thick with mosquitoes and the sweet, rotten scent of clover. I wandered over to a sycamore tree and sat down, hoping to clear my head. As soon as I leaned back, my eyelids grew heavy and the world faded out.

The fog tasted metallic, and the air pressed in like a too-tight blanket. In the haze, an old man with a weathered face limped toward me, one hand on a cane, the other holding a lantern. His eyes were bottomless wells of sadness. "Son, my boy’s in a bad way—tied up with chains to a big ol’ rock. These old hands can’t do much. Will you help me?"

His voice echoed, lantern flickering through the mist. I remembered stories Grandpa Joe used to tell about ghost lights and wandering souls. My mind raced, but in dream-logic, I just nodded. "Yes, sir. Where is he?"

The old man’s smile was cracked but grateful. "I’ll show you."

He turned down a path, and as he did, thick fog rolled in—so dense the world vanished, except for the lantern’s dim glow. My footsteps crunched gravel and twigs, the only sounds in the swallowing dark.

I asked, "Did you know there’d be fog? I thought maybe your eyes weren’t so good. And I don’t know you—are you from around here?"

The old man didn’t look back. "Don’t ask, son. Time’s short. My grandson needs you—if we wait, he might not make it."

He moved faster, almost gliding. No matter how I hurried, I couldn’t catch him, though he never left me behind. I kept jogging, lungs burning, heart pounding, chasing a shadow through a nightmare.

Finally, the path ended. The old man pointed to a patch of thin fog. "There he is."

A boy, no older than eight, was bound to a rectangular boulder with thick iron chains. He looked half-dead, skin and bones, the boulder wrapped in the gnarled branches of a twisted tree. The air stank of rust and old wood. The boy’s eyes flickered, pleading. I shuddered.

"Grandpa, how are we supposed to save him?"