//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: The Manetown Chronicles: A Hidden Heritage 
// by LincolnShanna 
//------------------------------//

	“Mom! We’ve gotta talk!” I yelled. I had just left the bus, and now I was looking for my mom. Hopefully she wasn’t hiding.
“Mom?” Where is she now? I thought. “Guess I have to search for you again.”
I roamed down the hallway, looking left and right for Mom. I turned toward the kitchen doorway. I peeked in, but no Mom. I walked farther down the hall, headed for the back door and the hall closet. I reached the back door. I opened the back door and left the house. I walked toward the lawn. I sauntered past the grill and the trampoline, and headed for the garage. 
“Strange,” I said to myself. “The garage door’s open.” I knew that whenever my parents were home, they left the garage door closed. So why was it open?
I walked toward the garage. “Mom?” I whispered. “You in here?” There was no answer, but I noticed something. The ladder that led up to the attic was pulled down. Someone was up in the attic.
I approached the base of the ladder. “Mom?” 
“Moon. Sun. Luna. Celestia.”
“Mom? Is that you?” I climbed up the ladder. When I reached the top, I hoisted myself onto the wooden landing. I squinted my eyes as they adjusted to the darkness. How could anyone see up here? After my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I saw something. Someone. Mom was sitting cross-legged on the floor, squished between two plastic bins. What was even stranger was that she was glowing blue. 
“Mom? What was all that?” I blurted out. Mom paid me no attention. She kept her back facing me, and she was still glowing. 
“Moon. Sun. Luna. Celestia,” my mom repeated. She began glowing even brighter.
“Mom! I’m talking to you!” I yelled. Mom’s glow started to flicker and go out. She slowly opened her eyes and turned around. When she saw me standing behind her, Mom clutched at her chest and staggered back. She bumped into a storage bin. 
“Jicxie? What are you doing here? What… what did you see?” she asked apprehensively. 
“Mom, we need to talk,” I declared. 
“About what?” Mom said carefully.
“We need to talk,” I repeated. Without another word, I reached into my backpack and pulled out the old journal. I held it out for Mom to see. I bit my lip.
“Oh,” Mom sighed. “About that. Well, I guess you must know sooner or later.”
“Know what?” I asked.
“About where I am from. Where we from,” I answered regretfully.
“Who?” I pushed.
“Kalissa and I.” Mom bit her lip, as well. 
“Aunt Kalissa?”
My mom nodded. She walked toward the ladder. “Follow me.”
I plodded down the steps after my mom, wondering what was going on.

“So, where did you get this book?” Mom began. She pointed to the leather journal resting in the center of the dinner table. 
“I took it from the front hallway when I left for school. I remember seeing you with it almost every day. And every time you read it, you look like you’re glowing blue,” I confessed. “I just wanted to know what was so special about that book, but now I don’t know what to think.” 
Mom grasped my hands. She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. “Oh, Jicxie. I did not want to have to tell you this. But now it seems that I must.”
“Tell me what? What?” I demanded. “No more secrets. You and Dad always seem to be speaking in secret, and you are always in really weird, dark places. What’s up with that? Not to mention the blue streak in my hair. I was born with it, wasn’t I? How is that possible? I want answers.” It felt great to get that off of my shoulders. 
“And you shall get them,” Mom assured me. “Give me the journal.”
I pushed the book toward my mom. She grabbed the book and ran her index finger over the embossed cover. Her finger stopped when it touched a tiny, silver star pressed into the leather. I hadn’t noticed it before.
“Has that always been there?” I asked. 
Mom shook her head. “No.” Her voice cracked.
Mom pushed her finger into the star. It went into the cover. It took me a moment to realize that the star was a button. A silvery-blue light began to travel around the edges of the silver stars and crescent moon. All of a sudden, the cover of the journal burst open like a door. An image, somewhat like a hologram, came into view.
It was an image to two winged unicorns. One unicorn was black with a blue mane… like the one I had seen inside the journal. The other pony was white with a pink, blue and green mane. I remembered seeing this pony in the journal, too.
“Who… what… what is that?” I stammered, pointing to the image.
Mom smiled. “That would be Princess Luna and Princess Celestia, the royal rulers of Equestria.”
“You mean that those two pony things are princesses? The same ones in the book?” 
“Yes.”
“What’s ‘Equestria?’” I wanted to know.
“The magical pony realm,” Mom answered matter-of-factly.
“Wait. Magical pony realm?” I repeated. 
Mom nodded. “Maybe this will explain it better,” she said. She reached forward and touched the image of the blue pony. The image rippled like water, and a new image came into view, but this time, it was a video.
It was a video of the blue princess. 

“This is Princess Luna,” my mom explained. “In the pony realm, she raises the moon each night, and her sister, Princess Celestia, raises the sun.”
“Mom, this is messed up! This must be some kind of prank, and it’s not very funny,” I said loudly. I was just about to walk away when something stopped me: a voice.
“Hello, my dear,” someone said. It sounded just like Mom, so I turned around, thinking that it was Mom. It wasn’t. The hologram pony was speaking to me.
“Umm… hi?” I replied, unsure of what to say.
The hologram paid me no attention. “If you are seeing this, it means that I have decided to tell you where I am really from. I am not from… Kansas. I am a pony princess from the magical realm of Equestria. I am Princess Luna.”
“How do you know me?” I asked the pony. “I mean, we’ve never met!”
“Yes, we have,” the princess assured me. “Most likely I am sitting with you right now.”
I turned to face Mom. A look of complete shock was on my face. Mom nodded slowly.
“I am going to leave my kingdom and powers in Equestria. I want to settle down. I am in love with a human named Lenny Darenesk. Your father. Yes, child. I am a pony princess and your mother.”
I gasped. I glanced at my mom out of the corner of my eye. Mom’s eyes were watering.
“Please, listen to me, my child,” the video image said. “Do not let your jealousy gain control over you. Trust me. The consequences are dire.” 
At that same moment, a new voice came into the video, but the speaker didn’t come into view. 
“Luna! We must get going! Princess Twilight cannot keep the mirror stable forever.”
Luna looked to the left, toward the speaker. “I am coming, Celestia! I will be there in a minute.” She turned to face me again. “Remember what I have told you. No jealousy.”
The video flickered away. The room was silent.
“Mom…” I started to say. 
Mom nodded again.
“Pony princess? Magical world? Aunt Kalissa, too?”
Mom nodded yet again.
“Not possible. I don’t believe it,” I decided. Without another word, I turned on my heel and raced up the stairs. Right before I slammed my bedroom door closed, I heard my mom sigh.
“Sweet Celestia! What am I going to do? Jealously will consume her. She will become Nightmare Moon, as well,” Mom said.

“Nightmare Moon?” I repeated to myself. “Who’s that?” I walked over to my desk and turned on my black Macintosh laptop. I typed “Google.com” in the URL bar, and when the GoogleSearch page popped up, I clicked on it. I typed “nightmare moon.” I punched the Search button.

When the page loaded, I scrolled down the page, looking for some logical explanation. Maybe “Nightmare Moon” was a special moon phase, like the waning or waxing moon. Instead, a bunch of articles and photos from a TV show popped up. Apparently, Nightmare Moon was a villain from the little kid’s show “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.” I scanned the page.
At the top of the page, there were several pictures related to “Nightmare Moon.” I saw several pictures of a creepy-looking, black, winged pony with a sharp horn, glowing eyes, and blue, flowing mane.
Underneath the pictures, I saw different descriptions and stories about Nightmare Moon. I clicked on the first article, one titled “Nightmare Moon: The Story Behind the Villain.” I began to read.

“Nightmare Moon.  The very name sends shivers up your spine. Nightmare Moon. Every brony, pegeasister, and My Little Pony fan knows her. But do you know the truth?  
“According to pony legend, Princess Luna was born 500 years ago. Everypony loved her, but not as much as they loved her older sister, Princess Celestia . Celestia raised the sun every morning, but Luna was born with the task of raising the moon, a job that was much less glorious than causing the sunrise. Luna became jealous, and as her jealously grew, her heart grew darker, too. Pretty soon, she had lost all love for her older sister. Luna vowed that the night would last forever. Every pony in Equestria lived and played in Celestia’s sun, but they slept under her moon. It was her turn to shine!
“Soon, Luna’s jealousy reached the point where she turned into a power-hungry, hateful monster. She approached her sister, and told her that she was going to take over the day. The night was going to last forever. Celestia refused, and a terrible battle ensued. Celestia won, but she regretfully had to banish her sister to the moon for 1000 years. Once Luna was sent to the moon, lines of craters were etched onto the surface of the moon. The craters formed the shape of a unicorn head. This was called ‘The Mare on the Moon.’ After 1000 years, Nightmare Moon returned and tried to take over the night again. This time, six young mares stopped her. They were Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Twilight Sparkle. 
“After these six ponies stopped Nightmare Moon, the evil alicorn (a unicorn with pegasus wings) returned to the good side and rejoined her sister as the youngest ruler of Equestria.
“Equestria has been safe ever since.”

I rested back in my seat. “Wow,” I breathed. “It’s real.”

I closed my eyes and rubbed my eyes with my balled fists. What was happening? Mom claimed to be a pony princess from a magical world. Aunt Kalissa was a princess, too. How was that possible? If they really were from an alternate universe, how did they get from their world to the human world? Was there some sort of portal? And if “Luna” and “Celestia” raised the sun and moon in their world, who did it now? I had a lot of questions, but I knew that it would be a long time before they were all answered. For the moment, I had bigger problems to deal with. Kristyn’s party was in two nights, and Mom didn’t know that I was planning on not attending. I would have to fake going to the party. The question was how?