Chapter One: The Lantern

I must have been four or five because when I was six I got an X-Wing Fighter. And even though a lot was expected of me as child I don't believe that at three my parents would have given me a lantern for Christmas.

A tiny kerosene lantern, coated with red enamel, maybe eight inches tall, not counting the handle. It had a rag wick and a little dial to move it up or down and control the illumination.

I was so proud of that lantern. It had it's very own hook, drilled into one of the log beams that made up the ceiling of our little cabin. My mother or father would hang it there so I could read or draw by it's light but mostly I would just sit and admire the lantern. My lantern.

But it's true purpose was far more practical than simple reading or writing. Winter nights in Alaska can be cold and with no moon, dark as coal. I would pull on my Sorrels and my parka, a wool hat and mittens, and holding my lantern high overhead I would venture out into the twenty below air.

My breath would freeze before me as I crunched through the often times knee high snow to the old outhouse. The little red lantern illuminated the frozen terrain around me in an eight-foot diameter bubble of light that no evil in the universe could possibly penetrate.

I would pull back the frozen curtain that served as a door and set my lantern on the plywood seat, next to the hole. With my mittens I brushed the crystals of frost from around it's edge and using an old block of wood as a stepping stool I would climb up and do my business as quickly as possible, eyes never leaving my lantern.

Minutes later I would be back in my very warm bed, blankets wrapped tightly around me, everything silent except my parents breathing across the room and the occasional pop of spruce from the barrel stove.

My lantern sat next to me on a table, dialed down as low as can be, the last thing I saw as I drifted off, back to sleep.

Yes, I think I was four.