The Last Lantern

CHAPTER ONE: The Choosing

The Harvest Festival had been held in Ferndale village every autumn for longer than anyone alive could remember. And every year, the festival began the same way: one animal carried a living flame from the hollow of the old oak tree on the hill, all the way down through the valley to the stone lantern in the village square, and lit it there.

Until that lantern was lit, the festival did not begin.

This year, the elders chose Pip.

Pip was a young mouse with large ears and quick feet, and she had watched the lantern bearer make the journey every year from her spot on the wall. It had always looked straightforward. You walked up, you got the flame, you walked back down. The village cheered when you arrived.

When the oldest elder, a hare named Corvan, came to her door and told her she had been chosen, Pip felt something complicated happen in her chest.

"What if I drop it?" she said.

"There is a lamp," said Corvan. "A good one, with a glass shield. The flame does not go out easily."

"What if it rains?"

Corvan looked at her steadily. "Then you walk quickly," he said.

He gave her the festival lamp — small, brass, with a curved handle and a thick glass shield — and told her the journey began at dusk.

That afternoon, Pip held the unlit lamp in both paws and looked at it for a long time.

CHAPTER TWO: The Storm

She set out at dusk as the first stars appeared.

The path was clear and the air smelled of autumn and wood smoke and something good cooking down in the village. The oak tree was twenty minutes up the hill. Pip climbed steadily, the empty lamp swinging in her paw.

She reached the old oak. In the hollow at its base, as it always was, the ember burned — a small orange coal, ancient and steady, kept alive through the year by the groundskeeper who lived in the oak's roots. She held the lamp's wick carefully to the coal, and the flame took hold.

She turned and began back down the path.

Then the storm arrived.

It came from the west, fast and cold, and within minutes the rain was coming down hard and sideways. The path turned slick. The trees above thrashed and drops fell everywhere, heavy and deliberate.

Pip hunched over the lamp with both arms, shielding it with her body. She could feel the warmth of the flame through the glass against her chest. She walked carefully — not fast, because fast meant slipping — one foot and then the other on the muddy path.

The wind came harder. The lamp trembled.

Pip stopped and pressed herself against the trunk of a wide elm tree. She looked at the flame. It was still there — flickering wildly, but still there, still orange, still alive inside its glass house.

She took a breath.

She thought of the village square and the stone lantern and the moment the flame was lifted in, and the way the whole village went quiet and then erupted all at once.

She stepped back onto the path.

CHAPTER THREE: The Square

The last quarter of the path was the hardest. The mud was thick and the rain came in waves and twice Pip had to crouch low and wait for a gust to pass before she could move safely.

But she kept the lamp close.

She held it with one arm against her chest and used her free paw on branches and stones for balance, and the flame burned on inside the glass — small and stubborn and absolutely determined.

The valley lights came into view between the trees. She was nearly there.

She came out of the treeline and onto the lane that led into the village square, and the rain chose that moment to ease — just a little, just enough. The cobblestones were slick and glistening and every window in Ferndale was warm and lit.

The square was full.

Every animal in the village stood in the rain with their lanterns unlit, waiting. When Pip appeared at the edge of the square with the brass lamp held out before her, there was a moment of absolute silence.

Then the cheering started.

She walked to the stone lantern in the centre of the square. Her arms were tired and her fur was soaked through and her feet were covered in mud. She lifted the flame to the lantern's wick.

The stone lantern lit.

All around the square, a hundred small flames were passed from lantern to lantern until the whole village glowed.

Corvan appeared beside her with a warm blanket and a cup of something hot.

"Well done," he said.

Pip looked at the stone lantern burning steadily in the middle of the square and felt the warmth from the blanket and the cup spread all the way through her.

"The flame never went out," she said.

"No," said Corvan. "It never does, when the right animal is carrying it."