Lanternwick

When the Great Lantern goes dark and the last lamplighter falls ill, a young apprentice named Wick must brave the creeping Dusk to bring the light back before the cold swallows her town.

In the town of Lanternwick, night was nothing to fear, so long as the lanterns burned.

Wick had lived her whole life among them. She was twelve years old and apprentice to Master Fen, the last lamplighter, a stooped old man with a beard like frost and pockets full of matches. Every evening they walked the crooked streets together, lighting each lantern one by one. 'Slow and gentle,' Fen always told her. 'A lantern is not a candle. It is a little jar of caught starlight, and starlight has feelings.'

That was the secret of the town. Long ago the lamplighters had learned to catch drops of starlight and seal them inside the glass. That trapped light was the only thing the Dusk was afraid of. The Dusk was not ordinary darkness. It was a living shadow, cold and slow and hungry, and it pressed against the edges of Lanternwick every single night, feeling for a dark corner to pour through.

At the very heart of town stood the Great Lantern, tall as a church and bright as a small sun. 'As long as that one burns,' Fen said, 'the Dusk stays out.' Wick loved the Great Lantern more than anything. 'One day,' she whispered to herself, 'I will keep it lit all by myself.' She did not know that day was tonight.