Five a Night

Past the shallows the lanterns hang dark on wire from the oaks, each with an aluminum tag, a number stamped in it and a line lettered under it by hand.

A man sits on a root with his shoes off. He holds a lit lantern out to you by its wire and does not get up. Five a night, he says.

You stand under the nearest dark one and raise yours toward it. The flame leans when you lean. Nothing happens. Low, the man says. You turn the brass wheel at the base of yours until the flame is hardly there. Above you the wick inside the paper catches, and the paper goes orange from the bottom up.

Something violet comes out of the paper and drifts along the bank. You lift your lantern, and where the light reaches it, it is teal. It falls in behind you.

The tag is stamped 040. Under the number: There, hovering just above the ground near the thicket of ferns, is a silver cube.

You light four more before the footbridge. By the planks there are five teal shapes behind you, a step apart.