The photograph and ribbon still sat on the windowsill when he passed by again.
It had been three days since he returned them to Lanie's mother. The ribbon lay curled beneath the photo's frame like a sleeping memory. Next to it, someone had placed dried flowers—yellowed now, but carefully arranged, a quiet declaration that she was remembered.
He lingered at the gate, hand brushing the post, the lantern tucked in his satchel. The light hadn't flickered once since that night.
No pulsing flame. No ghostly presence calling from the edge of forgotten places.
But he didn't mind the silence.
Some nights, it was enough to know she had found her way home.
Back at the house, Calix was already waiting on the front step with his usual careless energy, a bag of bread in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.
"You didn't answer your door, so I answered it for you," he said, tossing the bread into the boy's lap.
The boy nodded. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. This is our new routine now, huh? You deal with ghosts, I bring carbohydrates."
The boy let out a quiet laugh.
But Calix's teasing faded when he noticed the boy hadn't looked up.
"You're still thinking about her," he said more gently.
The boy nodded again. "She was just a child. And there was something chasing her. Something that didn't want her to be remembered."
"That thing…" Calix paused, thinking. "Do you think it's the reason your grandmother disappeared?"
The boy didn't answer right away. Instead, he stood and opened the front door, nodding for Calix to follow him.
They stepped into the dim hallway. His grandmother's room, untouched since the day she vanished, was still neat—almost too neat. The scent of dried leaves lingered in the air, carried on the quiet like a shadow of her presence.
He lit the altar's candle and sat cross-legged on the mat.
"This is where she used to keep everything," the boy murmured, opening the bottom drawer of the altar cabinet.
Inside: a cloth pouch, her shawl, some worn-out coins, and beneath those—a folded note, aged but crisp.
He opened it again.
If ever I go missing, follow the light, not the road.
The lantern will remember.
Calix crouched beside him, reading over his shoulder.
"This was her handwriting?"
The boy nodded. "She left no map. Just this."
Calix's gaze darkened with thought. "Not the road. The light. So the lantern is… what? A compass?"
"Maybe it's more than that."
Later that afternoon, the boy sat alone on the veranda, the lantern beside him and the note folded carefully in his pocket.
The breeze was light. A bird chirped from the roof. Across the street, someone hung out laundry to dry.
And yet, something tugged at him—an unfinished thread.
He opened his grandmother's pouch again. This time, he pressed the fabric from the inside.
Something was folded into the lining.
His heart skipped.
He worked the seam open slowly and slid the paper out.
A list.
Four names.
No explanations.
• Lanie
• Maria Tan
• Caloy
• [One name smudged, water-damaged and unreadable]
He stared at the first.
Lanie.
She had been written down long before he met her.
"She knew," he whispered. "She was already helping them."
He turned the paper over, hoping for more—but the back was blank.
Just four names.
And beside each name, a faint line.
Lanie's had a faint mark beside it—maybe a check, a symbol, or a number once written and erased. Caloy's and Maria's were untouched. The last name had faded entirely.
But it was enough.
"You found this just now?" Calix asked that evening as they sat beneath the cracked lightbulb on the porch.
The boy handed him the paper. Calix studied it for a long time.
"Maria Tan…" he murmured. "That name sounds familiar."
"She was an embroiderer," the boy said. "Used to sew names into handkerchiefs and sell them in the plaza. But one day she just disappeared."
"No one noticed?" Calix asked, surprised.
"Someone remembered she left her things. That's it. No goodbye. No one knew if she moved or if something happened to her."
Calix looked at the name again. "Then we should find out."
The next morning, they returned to the plaza.
It had changed over the years. What used to be a circle of makeshift stalls had been replaced with carts and food vendors, teenagers loitering with iced drinks, and elderly men playing cards under the shade.
The boy and Calix spoke to a few of the older sellers who had been around long enough to remember.
"Maria Tan?" one of them said, scratching her chin. "Yes. She always sat over there, near the old lamppost."
"She embroidered names," another said. "I had her sew my granddaughter's name once. She never charged full price. Always gave me more than I paid for."
"Then one day, she was just… gone," someone else added. "Left behind her needles. Her small table. No note. No goodbye."
Later that evening, back at home, the boy unrolled a map and marked the plaza with a red pencil.
He added a circle around the old church, where he'd met another soul before.
Then he looked at the paper again.
Maria's name still had no mark beside it.
Neither did Caloy's. And the last one—whoever they were—was fading entirely.
Forgotten.
The boy placed the paper beside the lantern.
"I want to find them," he whispered. "I need to."
The lantern gave no answer.
But as the candle on the altar flickered… the lantern responded.
A faint, gentle glow.
No urgency.
No fear.
Just quiet understanding.
I remember them, too.