The oddest of sounds reached his ears. He slowed his horse, to which the animal did not seem to object. In the dark stillness, he listened. Pops. And snaps. After a moment, he realized what he was hearing: the ice in the bogs was cracking. While he intended to remain on the road, it was easy to grow lost on a dark night, something he ought to have considered sooner. And growing lost in the bogland came with a risk of being plunged into a boghole or finding himself unknowingly riding into a lake and drowning.

As if to add to his sudden realization of the precarious nature of his situation, a thick fog began rolling over the land. The already dim landscape grew dark as ink. The cracking of ice grew louder and more frequent. He grew increasingly frustrated. And increasingly concerned.

“Slow and careful.” He offered the instructions as much to himself as to his horse.

What little calm he’d managed to acquire disappeared as a sudden explosion of reddish-white light shot toward the sky. Followed by another. And another. Immense cones of fire appeared all around him. Their size and magnitude varied greatly. Some were six feet in diameter at the base, others five times that size. Their heights differed every bit as much—some no more than the height of a man, others reaching thirty feet into the air.

Two dozen, perhaps more, appeared and disappeared at unpredictable intervals and at vastly different distances. Some must have been at least a mile away. Even as he carefully led his horse onward, the cones of flame continued to appear and extinguish.

The effect was dazzling, shocking, and yet these columns of fire made little impact on the darkness, the light they produced being disproportional to their size. Neither did these pillars of fire add warmth to the frigid night. Dr. Palmer eyed them all with growing confusion and increasing interest. Though the blazes flickered without warning all over the landscape, each individual column stayed in place while it was visible, never wavering from its position.

What were they? What had caused them?

Rain began to fall, and with it, the columns of fire disappeared into the mysterious night.

The icy bogs continued to crack. But no more towers of fire appeared.

In three-quarters of an hour more, he found himself at the home of his colleague. Despite the shocking oddity of all he had seen, Dr. Palmer no longer felt upended nor worried. His was, after all, a mind more predisposed to curiosity than to concern.

“Palmer,” he was greeted, “I had nearly given you up.”

“I left after my time.” He set his hat on a hook near the door and pulled off his dripping wet coat. “The journey itself took longer than anticipated due to a most extraordinary experience.”