The Evening Lantern

In December, the night doesn't warn you either.

At half past four it's still a little bit day. At a quarter to five it's over. The light goes all at once, as if somebody, somewhere, had pulled a curtain.

That evening, Emma was at the window when the curtain came down.

The garden turned blue, then gray, then black. The apple tree vanished. The white hill that used to be the old bucket vanished. And under the apple tree, in the place where there is always a small brown shape curled up, there was nothing at all, because there was nothing at all to be seen.

"It's dark at Nougat's," said Emma.

Theo looked up from his crayons.

"He's not scared of the dark. He's a reindeer."

"I know."

Emma stayed at the window a while longer. What she felt wasn't exactly fear. It was more the thought that twenty steps from the warm house there was a completely black place, and someone she was fond of spent every night in it.

"We're going to make him a light," she said.

They built the lantern on the kitchen table, out of whatever there was: a big empty jar, the pickle one, washed three times and dried twice.

Theo cut stars out of tracing paper. He cut them badly, which turned out to be lucky: perfectly even stars look like catalog stars. His, with one arm always too long, looked like real stars, the kind you see when you squint a little.

Emma glued them inside the jar. They made shadows straight away, before there was even a candle.

For the candle, they asked. Because a candle is not something you take by yourself. That's a rule, and it's a good rule.

They were given a small one, in a little metal cup, the kind that can't get up to any mischief.

Then they went out.

Evening cold is nothing like morning cold. In the morning, the cold stings. In the evening, it settles. It comes up slowly through your trouser legs and reminds you that the house behind you is a very sensible place to be.

They hung the jar on the low branch of the apple tree, the one that leans right over the scratchy blanket.

Emma struck the match. Theo held the jar.

The flame caught.

And suddenly the garden was not black anymore.

Not lit, no — one small candle in a jar does not light a garden. But there was a circle. A circle of gold all around the apple tree, with crooked stars turning slowly across the snow.

Nougat lifted his head.

He looked at the light for a long time. He didn't back away. He didn't come closer either. He simply stood inside the circle, right at its edge, with the stars sliding across his back.

Then he lay down again, in exactly the same place as before. But this time, you could see him.

"There," said Emma.

They went inside. Off came the boots, the scarf, the itchy hat.

Much later, long after the house had gone dark and everyone should have been asleep, Theo came into Emma's room and climbed onto the bed without asking.

They looked out the window together.

Down below, in the dark, there was a small gold point trembling a little.

"It'll go out," said Theo.

"Tonight, yes."

"And tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow we make another one."

Theo thought about that very seriously, the way he thinks about all important things.

"Then we have to make one every night," he said. "All the way to Christmas."

Emma smiled in the dark.

"All the way to Christmas," she said.

And down below, under the apple tree, the little light held on a good while longer.