Lantern Beneath the Shingle

They saw her for the first time on a night when the tide came in too fast. The villagers of Hastings had gathered along the seawall, lanterns held high against the rising storm. The wind howled through the gaps in the old cottages, rattling shutters and carrying the sharp scent of salt and seaweed. Waves slammed against the rocks below, sending white spray into the air like ghostly breath. Someone shouted. "There—out in the bay!" All heads turned. A lantern glowed in the darkness, bobbing gently above the water. At first they thought it was wreckage — a ship's light torn free, drifting toward the shore. But then the shape beneath it rose with the swell, and the lantern lifted higher, held aloft by a pale, trembling hand. A woman stood waist deep in the black water. Her dress — red, soaked, clinging — streamed around her like blood in the tide. Her hair hung in dark ropes over her shoulders. Her face was white as moonlit bone, hollow eyed, lips parted as though she were calling out, though no sound carried over the storm. Someone whispered, "It's her. The Lantern Bearer." Another voice trembled, "But she drowned… years ago." The lantern flickered. The woman turned her head toward the shore — toward them — and for a moment the storm seemed to still, the waves holding their breath. Then she raised the lantern higher, as though signalling to someone unseen. As though waiting. As though searching. A distant bell tolled from the anchored ship in the bay — one long, mournful note that rolled across the water like a warning. When the villagers looked back, the woman was gone. Only the lantern remained, floating on the surface, its flame impossibly unquenched by the sea. And from the depths below, something shifted. Something old. Something patient. Something that had not finished with her.