An unusual earthquake may be the end for a little coastal town, and the start of something new for the world beyond
The little town of Parrsboro, Nova Scotia has never been a particularly exciting place to live. However, a recent spate of unusual dreams and the even more unusual equine figures in them may mean that's all about to change. For better or worse.
Well, things have finally started settling down after that big quake last week, and stuff here in Parrsboro has gone back to being incredibly boring again. I swear to God, if I hear Robin make one more comment about how the quake ‘really shook things up’ I might literally strangle her to death. It was barely funny the first time, much less the seventeenth. Even that’s better than Barry over at the Fundy Geological Museum, though. I guess this is kind of his thing, so I can understand the excitement, but there’s only so long I can listen to him go on about ‘tectonic events’ or ‘inexplicable seismic activity’ before I start to tune it out. All I got out of the damn thing was a couple of broken plates, and of course the mayor’s making noise about building inspections. As if any of us could afford the fucking fees. Won’t be able to make payments on the house either if the fish don’t start biting again. Guess the quake scared ‘em off or somesuch. Oh well. We’ll figure out a way to get by. Always do.
Met the nicest lady tonight! Tyler was good enough to give me some extra hours working the front desk, even though we don’t exactly have busloads of tourists coming through in the middle of the winter. Good thing he did, though, because come two in the morning this poor girl comes stumbling in from the cold, completely lost and exhausted with no reservation or anything, and asks for a room to spend the night. Of course we had rooms, and I did the only neighborly thing and made her a nice mug of hot chocolate to warm her up. Not exactly much that’s needs doing at that hour, so we struck up a conversation. Her name’s Lauren... something, I’d have to check the registry. Started with an ‘F,’ I think, but she was trying to drive up from the States to Vancouver of all places. Asked her how she managed to end up all the way out here, and she didn’t rightly know. Not much of a sense of direction, that one, but of course I told her she’s welcome to stay as long as she likes. Gotta be a good ambassador for the town, y’know, and I gave her the whole spiel about how beautiful the blueberry bushes were during a full bloom and all the things there were to do if she was looking for a place to relax for a bit. Of course, we’re not exactly a big city. Not much happens here, unless you count the quake that shook things up a few months ago.
I don’t care what Marshall says. It’s still funny.
Well of course you know me, get me going and I’ll talk your ears off, but Lauren got a couple words in edgewise. She’s some kind of big television person, but when I asked her if she could cast me as the star in her newest show she laughed and told me it was a cartoon, but she’d keep me in mind. I told her that was just fine, and I was only kidding.
I totally wasn’t kidding. A girl’s gotta dream, right?
Anywho, I think I might have sold her on staying at least the rest of the week. Big snowstorms rolling through all of Nova Scotia over the next few days, and who wants to be driving through that? She did say that she wouldn't mind having somewhere quiet while she worked on the scripts she’d been trying to write for the last couple weeks. Writer’s block sounds like it would be just the awfulest thing. Of course we didn’t talk for much more than ten minutes or so before she went off to bed, but it was still the highlight of my night. Honestly, some of those graveyard shifts I just end up staring at the clock and thinking the sun’s never going to come up.
Boy, I’m going to miss Lauren. Half a dozen guests like her and I’d never have to worry about meeting payroll again. When Robin told me we had a big television producer staying in room six, I could barely keep myself from rolling my eyes. She’s a great worker, but she does tend to let her imagination run away with her from time to time. Whatever she said that first night obviously worked, though; three months at a B&B like ours isn’t the cheapest thing in the world. Hey, as long as the checks clear, right? Had her quirks, of course. One of the maids told me she’d found the entire floor covered in loose leaf paper with ideas scribbled all over the place. I told her not to touch anything, and when I asked Lauren about it that evening she told me it was just ‘part of the creative process.’ Apparently something about our sleepy little town really speaks to her, and she told me all about how she just wakes up in the middle of the night and writes, ideas popping fully formed into her mind when she dreams. Creative types. Go figure.
Still, all good things must come to an end, and she finally checked out this morning. Left the room spotless, too. Can’t tell you how many guests leave a gigantic mess for us, but Lauren even made her own bed and left a big tip. What a gal. She’s going to go on and do something great. I’ll have to tune in to that show of hers when it finally airs, it sounds right up Melissa’s alley. I mean, what six-year-old girl doesn’t like ponies?
Still, a man loses his boat and the least you can do is buy him a drink, right? And nobody wants to drink alone, so you have to buy one for yourself too, right? And at some point it makes sense to just tell the bartender to just leave the bottle, right? Fuck, Robin’s going to kill me.
The worst fucking part is that a little part of me was happy when I heard the news from Jim. I love the guy like a brother, y’know? But with the fucking fish the way they are these days, I’m glad there’s one less team out there fighting for the scraps. It’s bullshit is what it is. When I used to go out this time of year with Dad the fish were practically jumping into the nets for us. Now we’re lucky if we come back at the end of the day with enough of a catch to cover expenses, much less enough to actually live on. Nobody can give me a good reason why the fishery’s in the state it is. And some of the fish we do bring up... I don’t know. Fish aren’t supposed to look like that.
Summer vacation! Finally! Gotta admit, coming home after the first year of college is a major culture shock. Dad completely flipped his lid when he saw the tongue stud. Whatever, I’m an adult now. Wait until I tell him about the tattoo. He’s going to have an aneurysm when he hears where I put it.
I thought I’d be glad to be in my own bed again, but I guess it’s true what they say about how you can’t go home again. When I finally did fall asleep I had some really weird dreams. Been walking around feeling kind of hazy all morning. Still, everybody’s been nice. Kinda weirdly nice, actually. Maybe it’s just being back in Canada after spending that much time in the US, but people seem almost too nice to one another. I mean, I guess that’s not bad, but it’s a bit off-putting. And they all smile like they know something I don’t, or they’re in on some kind of joke.
Or maybe not getting enough sleep is making me paranoid. A quick nap might clear things right up.
The oddest man checked into the hotel tonight. I don’t judge people, of course, but I’ll admit that when somebody walks in wearing a blue hoodie with long strands of multicolored fabric hanging down the back of the neck I raise an eyebrow. Asked him about it while I was getting his room key, and I guess he’s one of these things called ‘bronies,’ or fans of that show the nice television lady from two winters back ended up making. It really takes all kinds to bring forth the new world. Or to make a world? I think that’s how that saying goes. Anyway, he said he was making something of a pilgrimage to our little town, wanted to spend a few days in the place that had inspired his favorite show in the first place. Me, I’d rather be on a tropical beach that on the coast of Nova Scotia in January, but I guess somebody has to pay my salary. I hope he enjoys himself.
Well, if this is how those ‘brony’ freaks act in their everyday life, I can see why they have such an awful reputation. I get plenty of tourists coming through looking for a drink, and they’re not all the best customers, if you know what I mean. A bunch of ‘em can get kinda loud, but that’s fine. Got nothing against people blowing off a little steam on vacation. But this Russell guy wasn’t like that. Comes in fifteen minutes to closing covered in dirt, sweat, and mud. So I try to strike up a conversation, and he just looks up and stares. Doesn’t say a word, just stares. Then he put a hundred dollar bill on the counter and motions for the bottle. Takes a bottle of ten-year-old scotch and just starts going at it, muttering to himself between sips. Now, I’ll ‘forget’ to check the clock for a couple minutes if my customers are having a good time and don’t want to leave right at closing, but this guy didn’t give me the chance. Real nervous and jumpy, and when the ol’ grandfather clock started to strike midnight he practically jumped off his stool and bolted for the door.
It was supposed to be fun. Come see the little town that inspired the show, maybe do some snowshoeing or something. Not this.
Started out fine, checked into the same bed and breakfast she stayed in while she wrote the pilot. Even got the same room. So with ponies on the brain, it’s no surprise I dreamed about them, right? Wasn’t the first time.
Not like this though. This was too real to be a dream even though I know it was a dream because things like this don’t happen except in dreams but this wasn’t a dream. Luna was just sitting there and smiling and letting me stroke her mane, and she whispered. I just stared into the window to the inky abyss of space and let her whisper to me. I could reach out and touch the very stars she was talking about, telling me all about which ones were coming into alignment just right. But there’s so much she needs me to do first. So much to do but they’re things I don’t want to do. And I tried to look up at her and tell her that I won’t do such awful things, but when I met her eyes I just couldn’t. She had this patient smile but the eyes were just so hollow and lifeless. Like a paper doll glued to a popsicle stick distracting a child while the real grown ups told them what they should do in this falsetto, pleasing voice to make the message more palatable. I don’t know how long I stared, or how long I let her whisper, but I woke up and... I wasn’t in my room anymore. It was sundown and I was in the middle of the woods freezing my ass off. I don’t know how I got there. I don’t know how I found my way back. I only hope I drank enough that the dreams won’t come again tonight. I need to just pass out and wake up tomorrow and start driving. I don’t care how much the changeover fee is, I’m going to be on the next flight out.
Writing this helps me focus, helps me stay awake, but I can feel exhaustion creeping up on me. Exhaustion and something else. Those whispers are already beginning to come back, even though I’m not asleep. Unless I actually am, and I’m imagining all of this. But if I’m not, and you somehow manage to read this letter, get out of Parrsboro. Just get back in your car right now and go. Before it’s
Ka-ching! Scored a great commission today. Who’s the best realtor ever? You’re looking at him. Totally easy, too. This guy just walks into my office in this weird rainbow hood-thing and tells me he wants to buy a townhouse. Didn’t even go out looking, he just opened my binder of listings to a random page and picked one of them off the list. Ran his credit check, drew up the paperwork and he signed it right there. Whole deal took less than two hours.
Can’t say I blame him, though. Parrsboro may seem like a quiet little town on paper, but people who come here just to visit never want to leave.
I’m so excited! There was a new episode of My Little Pony today, and it was great! It had Twilight and Cadance and dark magic and a cool new bad guy and everything. There’s this place called the Crystal Empire and it has a Crystal Heart, and when you put the heart in just the right place and give it magic it makes joy and happiness spread across the sky, just ribbons of magic making the whole world better. Mommy and Daddy watched it with me. Then we rewound it on the Tivo and watched it again, and then again, and then six more times. I want to change the world with a Crystal Heart too! I want the sky to open up and bring all that good stuff to the whole world. Daddy thinks so too, and he was talking to Mommy about how we needed to find our own Crystal Heart, but we don’t know how. Celestia hasn’t told us yet.
I hope you had a good day today too, diary. I have to brush my teeth and put on pajamas before Mommy and Daddy come to tuck me in. I hope I dream about ponies and princesses and Crystal Hearts tonight, too.
It’s becoming clearer with each night. I think I finally understand.
She came to me, as she does almost every night now. She spoke, educating me as if I were but a child. I suppose I am, by comparison, but She is a wonderful teacher. Chalk danced across a blackboard as I listened, struggling to force the knowledge into my mind. It resists what She is teaching me, to my eternal frustration. I want to throw myself down before Her and beg Her to fix me, to shape me into the vessel that can hold and comprehend the knowledge that will make the whole world right again, as it’s supposed to be, as it was all those eons ago before those idiots wrecked everything. But the seal will be undone soon, so soon, just a little longer. The Heart is the key, the center. It sits at the, well, the heart of all the diagrams, six vectors branching away from it. Each one a perfect right angle with all five of the others, geometrically ideal. We just have to make it, to prepare it for her. She will show us how.
She is pleased with me after tonight, and she smiled upon me as I recited back to her what I needed to do. She rewards me for my diligence, and allowed me the favor of laying a hand upon Her, right on the blessed sun at Her hip.
I don’t know how long I sat there basking in Her light, but eventually I awoke. The tingling in my fingers has been growing ever since.
It’s taken nearly two months, but with the thaw and the recent spate of good weather we’ve been able to uncover it. I confess I had begun to doubt, but whenever my faith wavered I could always turn to Reverend Maxwell. The proof that She has blessed us in our endeavour is written right there upon his very flesh itself. I hope someday I, too, am so rewarded. But there’s much yet to do.
The cave was a fresh opening in the side of what I’d always remembered as a sheer rock wall. I suppose that not even the Earth itself could stand against Her will forever. It was a long way down, deep within the depths. And dangerous. I’ll miss Tyler, he was a good man. But at least he distracted those... well, whatever they were. I didn’t get a good look. Robin did, and she hasn’t been able to form a coherent sentence since, so maybe it’s better this way. I’d hoped that the Heart would be waiting for us, ready for us to put it into place right away and bring Her joy into the world, but no such luck. Instead we found a massive block of crystal that burns with an inner blue light. Not heart-shaped in the least. It took three of us to bring it out.
Serendipity, or fate? A long time ago I would have said the former, but now that She has given me this task I’m more inclined towards the latter. The last few months have been such a trial. I can’t count how many chisels and tools I’ve destroyed trying to carve this thing, but it’s been stubborn. Doesn’t want to give up its secrets, I suppose. Honestly, it might have beaten me if I hadn’t gotten as frustrated as I did, lashed out and punched the damn thing right there in the middle of my workshop.
Thing about crystals? They’ve got some very sharp points. Cut my hand bad. Real bad. Blood everywhere, and I hate the sight of blood. Guess I better get used to it, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
So after I bandaged myself up, I came back to clean up the mess. I thought it would just be a matter of wiping stuff up, maybe using some bleach. But the blood that had gotten onto the crystal did something funny. Couldn’t wipe it off, and instead it sorta sunk into it, like it was trickling in through some tiny cracks. When I went to try to start chipping away again, I carved right through the bloody parts like a chainsaw through hot butter. Only a couple centimeters, tops, but it’s more progress than I’ve made on this thing in the last month.
I’ve loved hunting ever since I was a kid, but I’ll be the first to tell you it can be boring as fuck at times. I hope writing this down makes the time go by a bit quicker. You can only sit up in a tree for so many hours before you start to go a little nuts. It shouldn’t be taking this long. These woods used to be crawling with elk and moose, but it seems they’ve moved on. Or maybe something scared ‘em off, hell if I know.
I can’t come back empty handed. Not again. Last time I did they took enough from me that I nearly passed out. Seems to take more and more of the stuff the closer we get to the core, to the appointed shape. But every drop will be worth it to see the skies open up. Running out of places to get more, though. Blood bank’s empty, there’s not a single cat or dog left in town, and now the woods are empty too.
Maybe not totally empty. Something’s moving in the bushes over there. Looks like I might bag a moose after all.
That wasn’t a moose. Oh God, what was that thing? I’m glad I missed my shot. I don’t think I want to make it mad.
So I was sitting in Tim Horton’s this morning, enjoying a cup of coffee, when three out-of-towners walk in and sit down, a set of parents and their son. They stick out from the locals like a sore thumb, especially these days. Anyway, the kid’s going on and on about all the funny costumes, and how he wants one. His Mom and Dad at least have the decency to look embarrassed and uncomfortable. Their waitress walks up to take their order, but she doesn’t even get three words into her spiel before the kid starts a fresh tantrum about wanting a unicorn horn headband like hers, and he wants it NOOOOOOOOOOOW. Just the worst.
Nothing the parents are saying to the kid seems to get through. If I’d acted like that at his age, my Mom would’ve paddled my ass red right there in the restaurant, with worse to come when I got home. Parents today are soft, though, so the kid gets away with it. That’s not the worst of it, though. The kid reaches up, grabs her horn, and yanks.
It’s hard to say exactly what happened then, it was all pretty quick. Waitress started screaming as it came right off. Must have been pretty new, hadn’t really settled in all the way. Those things are delicate, and left a nasty gash as the kid yanked it out of her forehead. He just kinda stared down at the bloody stump of the thing, and then he started screaming too. Blood was all over the table, which pissed me off even more. Can’t waste that stuff these days.
Dad got up and grabbed the kid, started bolting for the door. Mom tried to follow, but even through the pain the waitress had the presence of mind to grab at her turtleneck and drag her down. What a trooper. I hope that She will reward her for that, at the very least. Meanwhile, I do my part to protect our town, and our secret. A flying tackle brings Dad to the floor on top of the kid, and a mug smashed into the back of his head preempts any struggling. Too bad. It was a good cup of coffee.
Last I heard, a couple of nurses swung by the police station and sedated all three of them. I’m sure once they wake up they’ll be much more understanding. After all, they aren’t necessarily bad people; they just made a very bad decision.
She is angry with me, and I deserve it. It’s been a year to the day since I figured out that I needed blood to carve the Crystal Heart, and even though I’ve gone through gallon after gallon of the stuff the work isn’t finished. The time is drawing near, and there’s no excuse for being tardy. I have to work faster, whatever the price.
I pleaded with Her in my dream last night. Asked her if there wasn’t some other way. Offered to do it myself. I was rebuffed every time. This is how is has to be. I stood outside my daughter’s bedroom for a long time before going in to wake her up, trying to think of how I was going to explain this to her. Turned out I needn’t have worried. She woke up with a smile on her face and told me that Celestia had already explained everything. She was so excited, and why wouldn’t she be? She was going to get to go to Equestria even sooner than she’d hoped. Couldn’t wait to get to my workshop, and she even smiled as she handed me the knife.
The work will be finished on time. Then maybe I can get someone to come and take a look at my roof. It must be leaking. These droplets of water dripping onto the page are making it tricky to write.
Everything is in place. The Heart sits on the altar, runes carved into place just as she prescribed. All who gaze at it are filled with awe, at both the craftsmanship and the future it represents. We’re ready to bring Her love to the world, to fill every mind with nothing but the purest devotion, ready to be remade by Her will. The worthy and faithful will be rewarded. The others will be forgiven... perhaps. It is not our place to question Her judgement, only to bring about Her desires. One member of the congregation steps up, unable to control himself, and presses his palm onto the sacred relic. The Heart glows, and the man doubles over as he begins to scream. Two others step up and pull him away, dragging him to the side of the room where there’s space as his flesh starts to warp and change.
When it stops, he’s beautiful.
The chanting starts. Through the window a burst of colors not of this world sears at our vision. Closing ones eyes does nothing. The light burns through our eyelids like flame through tissue paper.
We knew they would come, and we knew just as certainly that it would be too late. Many have fallen before their tanks and bullets, giving everything to protect this inner sanctum. The chanting has reached a crescendo, but it still isn’t enough to drown out the staccato chatter of machine gun fire. Nor can it overpower the screams, most of them human, a few of them not. The Way has begun to open, rending the sky above as powers beyond comprehension prepare to rewrite everything into perfection. We are not alone in our struggle; She has blessed us with Her heralds, creatures with only the tiniest fraction of Her true strength to aid us in this fight. If the soldiers approaching were smart, they would throw down their weapons and cast themselves upon Her loving mercy. Perhaps they might be allowed a moment to look upon Her wondrous visage before they’re torn apart.
Another sound rises above all the others. It’s laughter. Her glorious, terrible laughter makes the very walls and foundation of our building tremble, the beams above our heads creaking dangerously and starting to splinter. They will not last long. But they will last long enough.
