The lanterns should have been glowing.
Instead, they hung like wilted fireflies over the Harvest Circle, their copper casings dulled, their wicks cold. Laurel stood in the center of the festival grounds, a half-woven wreath of thyme and blue clover still in her hands. The string lights above sagged, their magical gleam replaced by a disconcerting stillness. Even the usual buzz of spirit-sprites preparing the evening's revelry seemed hushed.
She tucked the wreath under one arm and squinted toward the treetops. "They're not just dim," she murmured. "They're mourning."
Pippin, lounging atop a barrel of candied almonds, flicked his tail with minimal concern. "Maybe the lanterns simply want a nap. It has been a demanding festival."
"They've never gone dark before. Not during festival week." Laurel approached the nearest lantern, fingers brushing the cooled metal. No pulse of magic greeted her. Not even a reluctant shimmer. The enchantment that usually flickered to life with a touch had disappeared entirely.
Seraphina arrived with an armful of ribbon streamers and her usual flair. "Laurel, darling! The lanterns—" Her eyes widened as she noticed the gloom. "Oh. Oh no."
"Have you ever seen them go out before?" Laurel asked.
The mayor's face pinched into a rare expression of worry. "Not since the Winter Dim, thirty-three years ago. That was... unpleasant. The spirits withdrew from every corner. It took three weeks and a song from the bell choir just to relight the well torches."
Laurel's stomach performed a small somersault. She gently tapped the lantern's base. "Come on, little light. You loved the plum blossom incense last night. What's changed?"
Nothing answered. No flicker. No warmth. Only the faint scent of brass and old wax.
Pippin sat up, licking a paw with casual elegance. "Could be spirit fatigue. Or bad harmonics. Or someone forgot to make the proper offering again."
Laurel winced. "I... might've skipped the honeyed oats this morning."
Pippin's smug silence said it all.
"Let's check the lanterns closer to the grove," she said, already walking. "If it's a pattern, maybe we can coax them back before tonight's dance."
Seraphina handed her the ribbons, now clearly forgotten. "I'll speak with the choir. Just in case."
They wandered into the quiet lane that wound toward Whisperwood, where lanterns usually bobbed like gentle stars along the path. Here too, the lights were dark. One swayed in the wind with a soft metallic clink, like a sigh.
Laurel reached into her satchel, fingers brushing sprigs of glowroot, a pinch of powdered lavender, and—yes, there—her copper chime. It rang with a bright, clarion tone when she shook it gently.
The lantern above them flickered.
Just once.
Her breath caught. She tried again—three clear chimes, steady as a heartbeat.
The lantern responded, not with light, but with a low hum. A note of longing, just on the edge of hearing.
"I don't think they're broken," she whispered.
Pippin tilted his head. "Then what are they?"
Laurel closed her eyes and listened to the hum. It wasn't random—it was musical. A lullaby, slow and aching. A tune she half-remembered from her earliest days in Willowmere. Something about a lantern sprite's farewell.
"They're singing," she said softly. "And I think... they're sad."
The tune deepened as they entered the fringe of Whisperwood, where ancient oak limbs curled protectively overhead. Lanterns here did not sway—they drooped, still as stones, their frames cradled by ivy tendrils. Laurel stopped at the base of a particularly old tree, its bark etched with faded runes.
She held up the chime again, letting it ring once, twice—on the third strike, the nearest lantern glowed faintly.
Pippin hopped onto a stump. "That's progress. I'd mark it down as a win if I weren't morally opposed to optimism before tea."
Laurel ignored him, kneeling to pull a pouch from her satchel. From it, she retrieved three things: a sprig of fresh thyme (for memory), a flake of beeswax (for binding), and a copper button shaped like a sunburst—the traditional offering to lantern spirits.
She placed them in a small circle and whispered, "For warmth remembered, and warmth yet to come."
The lantern brightened.
Just slightly, but it stayed lit.
"Ah-ha," she breathed. "They're not mourning us. They're mourning something else. Someone."
Pippin's ears twitched. "Could this be about Wicks?"
Laurel blinked. "Wicks? The old lantern sprite?"
"He's gone, Laurel. You knew that. He faded after the last solstice." Pippin's voice softened, the sarcasm briefly retreating. "I think this is his wake."
Laurel stared at the glowing lantern, heart heavy with the sudden memory. Wicks, with his warm glimmer and riddles that always ended in rhymes. Wicks, who used to sing lullabies from the rafters while Laurel stirred sleepytime tea.
"Oh, Wicks," she whispered. "You old spark."
The lantern above her pulsed once, like a heartbeat. Then another lantern joined in. Then another.
One by one, the lanterns along the grove path flickered back to life, their light golden and gentle. They didn't shine—they glowed, as if cradling a shared grief and warming it into remembrance.
Laurel stood, brushing off her knees. "We need to give him a proper farewell."
Pippin leapt beside her. "What did you have in mind? Poetry? Flaming pastries?"
"No," she smiled, pulling out the copper chime again. "We'll tune the lights. Every lantern. We'll give them his lullaby."
That evening, as the sun dipped below the village rooftops, Willowmere's lanterns began to sing.
Laurel and Seraphina tuned each one by hand, matching the resonance with gentle strikes of the chime and placing sunburst tokens beneath their bases. Children followed behind, adding sprigs of thyme and whispered goodbyes. Even Bram showed up with a tiny wrench to adjust hinges that squeaked out of tune.
By the time the first stars appeared, the Harvest Circle was aglow with soft golden light, the lanterns humming a wordless song that wrapped the villagers in warmth.
Laurel stood with Pippin on the steps of the apothecary, eyes shimmering.
"Not bad for a wake," the cat said.
"Not bad at all," she murmured. "He'd have liked this."
And as the breeze picked up and carried the tune into the night, Laurel swore she saw one last flicker dart across the sky—like a spark finding its home among the stars.
The days that followed carried the hush of something sacred passed.
Lanterns stayed lit now, but not in their usual cheerful flickers. Instead, they held a steady, amber glow—quietly respectful, like candles at a bedside. Laurel moved through the apothecary in slower steps, her work punctuated by small silences.
She caught herself glancing at the rafters where Wicks used to perch. The spot looked emptier than it should have.
Rowan tiptoed around the shop more than usual, watching her mentor with uncertain eyes. On the third morning, she spoke up over a simmering pot of moonmint salve.
"Did he really just... fade?"
Laurel nodded, not looking away from her mortar. "Sprites don't die like we do. They just... return to wherever they came from. When they're done."
"That feels unfair," Rowan muttered.
"It feels natural," Laurel said gently. "And sad. Both."
A pause. Then, from the back shelves, Rowan asked, "Can we make something for him?"
Laurel glanced up.
"Like... a memory charm? A lantern we never put out?"
Laurel smiled, a slow warm thing. "Yes. Yes, we can."
By the end of the week, every child in Willowmere had decorated a tiny lantern from Seraphina's festival stash. The charms were strung along the Whisperwood path, each one bearing a note, a doodle, or a poem. Laurel contributed her own: a carved copper bell, hung from a twisted branch.
And on the final evening, when the last charm was tied and the breeze was soft, Laurel stepped back and let the quiet fill her.
Wicks would never riddle again. Never hum lullabies from the shelves. But in their place, he'd left a village brighter, more tender. He'd left songs in their lanterns and warmth in their hands.
And that, Laurel thought as she turned for home, was no small legacy.
The apothecary's front step had become Laurel's favorite perch that week. Wrapped in her patchwork shawl, she watched villagers pass, often pausing to nod at the lanterns now chiming gently above.
Most brought small offerings: a honey wafer, a feather, a shiny stone from the creek. No one said Wicks' name aloud, but each left their gift with quiet reverence.
One afternoon, Bram clomped up with a metal tin. He wordlessly set it beside her and grunted.
Laurel opened the lid to find a miniature lantern, forged in gleaming brass and fitted with a blue-tinted glass. "It sings when it's warm," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Or when it's near thyme. Don't ask me why."
Laurel blinked rapidly. "It's beautiful, Bram."
He shrugged, already turning away. "He was loud, that sprite. But... useful."
That night, Laurel placed Bram's lantern beside her bed. When she climbed under the covers, it gave off a soft, tinny hum—off-key but unmistakable.
She slept like a stone.
The final ritual came without ceremony.
Just after twilight, Laurel climbed to the festival dais alone. In her hands, she carried the apothecary's oldest lantern—the first one Wicks ever sparked.
She held it high, then lowered it into a copper basin of lavender smoke.
"I remember your light," she said simply. "And I remember your laughter. Thank you."
When she stepped down, the basin flickered once, then dimmed. Not with absence—but with peace.
From that evening on, no lantern in Willowmere ever flickered out completely. Even in the darkest hours, each kept the faintest ember—a promise that some lights, once kindled, never truly fade.
Willowmere returned to its rhythms, as villages must. But something lingered—soft, unseen. A gentleness in how doors closed, how broom bristles swept porches. Even the bells above the bakery tinkled with a rounder tone.
Laurel, in the quiet between customers, added a new page to the Eldergrove Grimoire.
"Lantern spirits mourn. Not as we do—with tears—but in silence and stillness. Their grief dims, but does not extinguish. To rekindle them, one must not shout light into their darkness, but whisper warmth into their memory."
She finished the note, tapped her quill clean, and closed the book with a breath.
Outside, Rowan called from the greenhouse, her voice bright with discovery.
"Laurel! The thyme you replanted? It's humming."
Laurel smiled to herself. "Of course it is."
She stepped into the warm light spilling from the apothecary windows, chime at her hip, spirit steady.
Some losses made room for new light. And in Willowmere, that light sang.
The next morning brought dew and a low mist that curled between cobblestones like sleepy cats. Laurel set out early with a basket on her arm, collecting the last of the festival ribbons that had fluttered down overnight. Each one she gathered carried a memory: a child's giggle, a song half-sung, a whispered wish for a good harvest.
When she reached the village square, she paused.
There, nestled against the statue of the first Willowmere herbalist, was a single copper lantern—not one of hers, not one from Seraphina's stores. Handmade, a little lopsided, with a wax seal etched into its base.
Laurel knelt beside it. Inside the glass, a pale light pulsed—faint, but rhythmic.
A note had been tucked beneath its handle, written in crooked, careful letters:
"For Wicks. From Junie. He made the shadows less scary."
Laurel's throat tightened.
She took the lantern gently and placed it in the center of the square, beneath the Harvest Tree. Then she lit a second beside it—hers. For company.
That night, every lantern in Willowmere leaned slightly toward the pair, as if in agreement. Or in harmony.
And far above, past clouds and starlight, something shimmered once—a quiet twinkle—and was gone.
It was Rowan's idea to build a lantern shelf.
Not for herbs or instruments, but for memories. A quiet nook in the greenhouse, between the glowroot beds and the window that always caught the morning sun.
Together, they mounted it—Laurel holding the level, Rowan driving in the nails a little crooked, Pippin supervising with dramatic sighs. They placed six lanterns on the shelf, each with a nameplate: Wicks, Junie's gift, Bram's chime-light, Seraphina's moon-glass orb, Laurel's own copper twist, and a final empty one labeled "To be kindled."
"That one's for later," Rowan said. "For whoever lights the next story."
Laurel didn't ask what that meant. She didn't need to.
Instead, she lit each lantern, one by one. Their lights shimmered differently—some gold, some pale blue, one that danced like a candle over water. Together, they cast patterns of moving warmth on the greenhouse walls.
In the quiet, she whispered, "Thank you."
And if the lights flickered in answer, she told no one.
Because some griefs, and some joys, are meant to be held close. To be tended like gardens. To glow like lanterns.
And in Willowmere, every glow had its story.
Later that week, Laurel visited the Whisperwood path alone.
She carried no tools, no herbs, not even her chime—only a small loaf of oat-honey bread and a ribbon the color of dusk.
The lanterns lining the grove had settled into a gentle cadence. Not singing anymore, but breathing, it seemed. Glows pulsed like slow heartbeats in time with the wind through the leaves.
She placed the bread near the old spirit stone, where Wicks used to perch in the summers.
"This one's warm," she said. "And no raisins this time, I promise."
The stone didn't shimmer. The wind didn't answer. But the nearest lantern dipped its light just slightly, as if bowing.
She sat cross-legged beside it, ribbon curled around her wrist, and watched shadows stretch as the sun waned.
"I used to think magic was in the herbs," she said aloud. "In the glowing bark and the fancy salves. But maybe it's more in what we remember. In what we keep lit."
She tied the ribbon to a low branch.
"For everything you lit in us," she said, "thank you."
When she rose to leave, the path behind her seemed a little brighter—not from any spell, but from the warmth of something carried.
And as she turned the corner back toward Willowmere, the lanterns hummed a single, unified note.
A farewell. And a blessing.
The lantern shelf stayed lit through the season's end.
Visitors began leaving small tokens beneath it—dried petals, folded wishes, scraps of poetry. Someone even placed a tiny stitched pillow with "For Wicks" embroidered in uneven thread.
Laurel didn't remove any of them.
Instead, she added a tiny wooden sign to the shelf's edge. It read:
"Light kept. Memories held. All welcome."
And on the coldest night of that autumn, when a frost danced silver along the windows, she stepped into the apothecary, cradled a mug of rosemary cider, and sat by the lanterns.
They glowed for her.
She smiled.
And in the hush, she hummed back.
Winter crept into Willowmere on padded feet.
Lanterns, once content to flicker softly, now burned brighter in the early dusk, casting long golden lines down cobbled streets. Children began to hang dried citrus slices in their windows, and the smell of cinnamon baked into every corner.
Laurel wrapped her scarf twice around her neck and stepped out just as the first snow began to fall—light, slow, like drifting feathers.
She looked up.
Every lantern on the street hummed together, low and steady, their light unmarred by the cold. Above them, the sky shimmered pale violet.
She didn't say anything. Just stood there a moment, heart full, hands warm.
In the hush of falling snow, a song old as memory drifted between the glow.
Not loud.
But enough.
A week before the solstice, Seraphina dropped by with an armful of snow-dusted garlands and a mischievous gleam.
"Lantern concert," she declared. "Midnight. Dais. You in?"
Laurel blinked. "Concert?"
The mayor grinned. "Pippin insists he's teaching three lanterns harmony. Rowan swears one can whistle. I figured we'd test the theory."
Laurel laughed, the sound catching in the rafters like sunlight.
That night, villagers gathered again under the lights.
There was no real concert. No rehearsed performance. Just a collection of warm souls humming half-remembered tunes beneath a sky full of stars and the hush of old magic.
The lanterns joined them.
And in that moment—off-key, soft, full of laughter and glowing light—Willowmere remembered.
Some goodbyes never fade.
They simply become music.
In the final days before frost truly claimed the earth, Laurel spent her mornings walking the village paths, lantern-light trailing behind like loyal companions. The apothecary had quieted—fewer customers, more time to steep roots and ponder small enchantments.
She'd begun a new project: a tea called Lantern's Rest. A blend of thyme, oatflower, a hint of cinnamon, and a delicate thread of glowroot. It didn't sparkle or hum. It simply warmed you. Deep down.
She tested the blend on Rowan one afternoon. The apprentice, after a thoughtful sip, blinked twice and said, "It feels like I'm remembering something I never knew I missed."
Laurel just nodded.
That evening, as snow began to gather in serious drifts, she poured herself a mug and stepped onto the back stoop. Lanterns blinked gently along the eaves. Pippin sat beside her, tail flicking, eyes half-closed.
"You know," he said, "not all cats appreciate sentimentality."
"Good thing you're not just a cat."
He huffed. "Point taken."
Laurel took another sip. The tea tasted like home.
Above them, the lanterns pulsed once—golden, steady.
"You think Wicks would've liked this one?" she asked.
Pippin didn't answer immediately. Then, softer than usual, "He'd have asked for it every night."
Laurel smiled. "Then I'll keep the kettle warm."
And there, beneath the hush of snow and the steady light of a hundred singing lanterns, she sat with the past and present folded gently into her hands.
The night held its breath.
And then exhaled.
At dawn, the village lay wrapped in soft gold and white.
And in every window, one lantern glowed.
A promise.
A memory.
A light never lost.
And in the apothecary window, Wicks' copper lantern winked—just once, as if to say, I remember too.