THE LANTERN AT LOW MOORS

The Somerset moors had been shrinking for years, but nobody in Witham Grange talked about it. Everyone in the town just looked the other way when the reeds changed colour to yellow sooner than the season indicated, or even when the water line pulled back in that strange, perfect circle. As if something underneath had taken one long careful breath. The older folks would mutter that the land was remembering itself. The children never spoke of it as if it was a bogeyman to get children to behave. Only Mara Thornbridge kept watch. She lived by herself in the last cottage before her marsh path turned to mud and whispering grass. Her Mother and grandmother had done the same before her, although no one had explained what they were watching for. Assuming all is explained eventually. All they were ever told is when the Lanterns come calling, you need to be here to answer. Mara has never seen any lanterns, and she has been watching for the last 13 years and no sign of anything. Recalling her mother telling her that once the lanterns come to you, they will come often. She was starting to dispute they were a real thing, but she felt something from the Moors watching her back every evening especially when the moon shimmer was there. The strongest is just after dusk when the sky went purple and the water went still as if the moors were holding its breath. At nighttime you should hear starlings’ wings beats like a thundering waterfall. Bittern booming call that can carry for miles across the reed beds, the screeching calls of the Tawny owls, whirring or churring sound of the Nightjar. Tonight, everything changed, it was deadly silent, not a sound as if the moors were holding its breath waiting on me to enter. This was when she saw a tiny point of light way out in the deepest part of the moors. Mara rubbed her eyes assuming hallucinations and strained to see with fresh eyes. Now the pale light has flickered again, now holding a steady unwavering glow. The lantern she thought, could it be here now. Her breath caught in her throat, picturing this moment a thousand of times, here it finally is and it is all happening as her mother had told in bedtime stories. She feels that she had been preparing for this moment since a she was a child, since her mother and grandmother told her that this is her duty from birth. She eased off her front porch, and the moors opened a path for her. The lantern did not move closer as she was stepping closer the path opened for her. It had only seemed to hover above the water, suspended in a patch of fog that was not there until just then as she looks up for the light after ensuring her footing was safe as each step her boots were sinking into the mud. When she arrived at the old causeway stones, partially submerged in the muddy earth and slightly slippery, sharp jagged that make it difficult to manoeuvre. Now looking back up and the lantern was a bright glowing amber; the fog has now pulled as if my vision had been blurred and now picture perfectly clear. The circle has now appeared, a perfect ring of water, darker than anything around it as if the night needed to make the circle known. This is where the lantern is hovering right in the middle of this circle as if the artist painted the circle themselves. The lantern floated above the circle not attached to anything. The air above it shimmered as heat off hot summer pavement. Mara's heart is racing, excited and terrified at the same instance. In that moment recalling her grandmothers voice "the circle is a threshold, the lantern is a key and the price is always yours to pay." She never understood what her grandmother meant by it all. Now she realises that it is her time to find out what it all meant. She could make out a ripple moving across the water, as if something is just below the surface to make the impression in the water. Mara has felt paralysed in place so still her breath had frozen too. Just then a faint voice so imperceptible, not spoken, more like she could feel the voice. The voice stating, "come into the circle." She could feel her knees weakening as if they were about to give out. She could feel the words move through her bones, ancient and hungry. She stumbled backwards trying to recover her footing remembering the sinking earth and stone, but everything behind her had changed the path, muddy earth and stone were all one and nothing but her reeds that had moved for her to reveal the path is now supporting her back to stay in the circle. The circle was the only way forward. The lantern highlighted the way; Mara stepped on the first stone just above the water. The very second each step she took she could feel it all shifting. The moors dissolved into the mist, the air got thicker and heavy, stifling, making nearly impossible to breathe. The heavy smell of peat and something much older, something of memory. She is finding herself standing on a narrow strip of earth that had not existed even seconds before. It stretched towards the lantern like a tongue of earth reaching into nothing. She progressed forward on as she cannot turn back now even as she had wanted to return to her front porch. The fog parted around her, showing her pieces of the moors as it used to be centuries ago: deeper, wilder, alive with strange lights darting across the reeds. Multiple shadows are now moving under the water, to fluid to be human and too purposeful to be an animal. She felt with encouragements that this was not a vision or memory or fables once told. Something familiar encouraged her that she was in fact seeing through time. This area of the Somerset moors was presenting their memory through her. A figure appeared ahead of her, tall wearing a cloak, carrying the lantern. Mara breath caught in her throats; I know that posture. She could not see the face, but the posture was weary, burdened and resigned. She bellowed out "Mother?" Mara is stumbling forward calling out again "Mother?" The figure never turned around nor utter a word, only progressing to the centre of the circle, knelt lowering he lantern into the water. The amber glow dimmed and was swallowed up in the darkness. The figure dissolved into the mist that drifted about the water. Mara fell to her knees. Mara's mother has vanished when Mara was thirteen, everyone assumed that she had drowned in the moors, now Mara understood the moors has taken her, she would never have left, she had been taken or had she given herself to the circle? Her mind was racing with possibilities that would help explain this all. The lantern levitates from the water brighter that before. The voice shifted firmly through her bones saying "Come." She felt in her bones that the pressure so intense could snap her bones, the voice is growing impatient. Mara stood up an began to head to the circle and stepped in. The water was not cold, it was soothing warm water, far too warm for the season as if it was blood or breath. It now clung to her skin, thick and sticky, beginning to pull her closer with each step. The lantern was floating ahead and always just out of reach. The voice whispering through her skull, this time curling around her mind like smoke. You are the last, the circle must be kept, the moors must be fed. Mara gritting her teeth, "fed with what" Mara struggling to state. The voice replied with "memory, we need your memory." The water surge dragging her under, she fought back by kicking upwards, but the moors were holding her tight with root limbs twining themselves around her limbs with the yew tree roots limbs. Images flashing behind her eyes, her childhood, her mother’s laughter, the cottage at dawn, the smell of peat smoke, the touch of her grandmother plaiting her hair. each memory gets pulled as i was burned from her memory, leaving a hollow ache. "No!" she gasped, you cannot have them, as she began to thrash around to prevent or to break loose. She could hear the voices "The moors will remember what you forget." She could feel the limbs tightening against her ankles, panic shot through her. She began to claw her way upwards, breaking the surface with a ragged gasp. Now the lantern has lingered just inches from her face, close enough now could reach if I can get my arms free. Behind the lantern rising from the circle she could see something behind it, it was the keeper of the lantern and the circle. Not like any human she had ever seen, potentially was once a human once upon a time, centuries have reshaped it. The body was tall and reed than, the colour of wet stone, moss grew along its arms, water dripping from its hair which hung long, tangled strands like river weeds. Its eyes were hallowing pits filled with shifting lights. The lantern held high dangling from his hand. Mara stated, trembling, "What are you?". Its voice was the marsh itself, wind, water, mud and memory. "I am the keeper, the circle binds me, the lantern sustains me, the moors endure because I endure." She swallows hard, "Why did you take my mother?" The Keeper stated, "she came willingly, just as her mother before her did, just as you must come now." Mara shook her head "no! I will not come." The Keeper tilting his head as if studying her confused, "But, you already have." The circle tightened around them, the water rose, swirling with fragments of memory: faces, voices, moments torn from her mind. She saw her mother again, kneeling in the circle lantern in hand. Her mothers voice echoed faintly "When the lantern calls you answer." Mara clenching her fists "Why us, why my family?" The keeper lifted the lantern, it glowed, dimmed, revealing a second light deep in the keeper’s chest, a faint, flickering ember. "Because you remember the moors and the moors remember you." The water surge again, pulling at her thoughts, her identity, her very self, Mara screamed. She did not know how long she had fought, time mean nothing in the circle. The moors pulled at her memories, but she continued to hold them with a ferocity she did not now she had in her. Then her mother face, the cottage, the reeds, the sky over Witham Grange at dusk, she refused to allow the moors to take them from her. The keeper watched, lantern dimming, "you resist?" Mara spat water at him "I choose." The keepers hallow eyes flickered, "Choice is a human word and has no meaning here." "Then you better learn it," Mara protested. The moors began to shudder, the circle rippled violently, lie the land itself recoiled. The keeper stepped back, lantern trembling in its grasp..."It you do not take the lantern the circle will break." "Good, if the circle breaks the moors will die", Mara hesitated. She looked around, the moors, its memories, its ghosts, its ancient breath was woven into every fabric of her life into her family and into the grange itself. If it was to die something irreplaceable would die right along with it. On the other hand, if she took the lantern and ensured the circle to continue she would become the keeper, she would lose herself, unless a thought sparked. "What if we no longer required a keeper but instead offered a witness? The keeper went silent, "Explain." Mara stepped forward, water swirling around her waist, " You take memories to survive, but memories fade, they weaken and break." "What if the Moors no longer needed to steal them," "What if someone remembered for it?" The keepers light flickered uncertainty, A witness? "Yes, a witness," Mara clarified. A mortal cannot hold the moors memory, "maybe not alone," she reached for the lantern, the keeper recoiled but it was far too late. Mara's hand closed around the handles, just then a light exploded in a flash. Then when the light had dimmed the world as she had known it has now been restored, Mara was now standing on solid ground, the circle was gone. The Grange stretched out before her, vast and shimmering, alive with whispering reeds and darting lights. The water began glowing faintly, as if it was lit from within. the keeper was no longer anywhere to be seen, the lantern hung from her hand warm and pulsing like a heartbeat that she has known, her own. Inside her mind woven through her thoughts like roots through soil was the moors memory, not stolen, not taken by force, but now shared. She felt her mother there, faintly but present. Her grandmother shaped from the mist too and followed in the mist were the images of all the Thornbridge women from generations, each holding a piece of the moors story. Mara breathed deeply, the grange breathed with her. She understood now that the circle was never meant to be a prison, it had been a pact, a bond between land and lineage. By the old, flawed way demanding sacrifice versus partnership. She has now changed that entire pact, she would be the first witness, the lantern brightened, casting a warm glow across the reeds. Mara turned towards home, the grange whispered behind her, not a command, but a promise. "We will remember." When Mara reached her cottage, dawn was now breaking. The sky went over all pink in the Witham Grange, and the birds started singing again. She felt the moor's memory humming beneath her skin, vast and ancient, but not heavy anymore. She sat the lantern on her windowsill, it glowed softened, settling into a steady, gentle pulse. Mara went to make some tea, hands steady, heart calm, she felt differently. Somehow older, younger, deeper and lighter all at once. The circle presence was a quiet companion now and not a burden. As she begins to relax sitting and sipping her tea there was a knock on the door. She opens the door to find a girl about ten at the door, barefoot, hair tangled, eyes wide with fear. "Mara Thornbridge," the little girl questioned. "Yes," Mara replied. The girl pointed to the moors, "I saw the light, a lantern, I think it was calling me." Mara knelt to look in the little girls’ eyes as she held her hands for reassurance, " it will no longer call for you anymore, it calls with you," she said gently. The girl frowned with confusion, "I do not understand". Mara assured she would understand one day. She invited the girl inside, poured her a tea and begin talking, not about a sacrifice, but about a memory, not about fear, but about witness. The circle was no longer a trap and is now a bond we share. The girl listened, eyes wide with optimism and hope. Outside the moors shimmered, alive, awake, remembered years passed by and all the people in the village have grown to understand that Mara is the Lantern witness, although she never called herself that. She had taught other people to listen to the moors, to honour its memory without giving up on their own. The lantern stayed on her windowsill, glowing softly, a reminder of the night the circle changed. The Grange flourished, the water deepened, the reeds grew tall, the Grange lights came back at night to dance in the dusk night sky just above the moors, the land has healed and Mara healed with it. Sometimes, when the fog rolled in just right, she could feel her mother's presence warm, proud, no longer trapped in the circles grasp. The moors held her memory gently now, not as a keeper but as a companion. One night many years later, Mara walked to the edge of the moors to where the lantern had glowed so bright in her hands, brighter than it had that fateful night. "Are you ready," the circle questioned. "Yes, I am ready." She stepped into the water, not to be taken, not to be consumed but to join. The moors embraced her, warm and welcoming. When she dissolved into the light, her memories flowed into the water, not stolen but freely given. The lantern rose, brighter than ever, a new witness would come. The Circle of Witham Grange moors would endure.