Epilogue

 

Machin set down his tongs and wiped his forehead with the back of his gloved hand.

A twinkling of white light caught his eye, a glow distinct from the lanterns in the adjoining room, and lower than eye level.

He paced to the table where the oblong globe sat nestled inside its frame of dark metal. It had remained empty of light since Halloween, and yet it was still sealed, as if it had never been opened.

Something about the lantern was different. Its lid was in place and its globe was the same.

Except for one important detail.

Machin squinted at the burst of light radiating from the globe.

Instead of blue like Evelyn’s flame had been, the light was a pure, blazing white.

Machin lifted the lantern from the table; his eyebrows rose.

His knees creaked as he climbed the stool. Gently, carefully, he hung the lantern from a hook on a wooden beam that stretched across the ceiling.

No sooner than he’d done so, the lantern burned out.

“Once again, you surprise me, Graham Webb.” He chuckled.

“You are much like your mother was, though she was already growing ill by the time she met me, and I had to send her away. Which is why the torch I’d planned for her was eventually passed on to you.”

He removed the lantern from the ceiling and set it back upon the table. Then he pulled a hammer from his work belt and struck the glass.

The globe cracked and splintered. A breath later, the glass shattered and collapsed into a pile of shards.

With his gloved hand, Machin gathered the tiny pieces, guiding them softly to the edge of the table, and swept them inside a pouch.

And smiled.