Trixie sat against the wall, remaining there for quite some time after the ghost had departed, her mind in a turmoil of fear and misery. Every time she blinked she saw herself in the portrait, aging away into senility. The mare could not for the life of her understand how her already shaken psyche had survived the awful experience intact. But rather than relief, she felt frustration. It could go on forever like this, with the ghost terrifying her to the brink of insanity, only to stop at the last moment to let her recover. Trixie briefly wondered if perhaps she herself was dead, and this was the punishment she would endure for eternity; to be horrified senseless in a decaying house by its otherworldly inhabitant.
Trixie glanced behind her at the portrait. There stood the skeletal unicorn, his form blurred and smeared by years of moisture and frost that had crept into the manor through broken windows. The paint that once formed his eyes had run down his face, and now appeared as dark rivers of tears dripping from his sockets. The pale cream color of his face had faded to a yellowish-white, now looking more like a skull. The portrait really did look as though it was depicting a cadaverous ghoul instead of a refined gentle-colt. Trixie looked away from the corrupted image and instead focused on the bronze plaque that adorned its frame.
His name was Kasper Von Waltz, and he had lived from 1806 to 1856. There were other smaller words on the plate, but they had been obscured by oxidation. Trixie doubted they would have said much of anything anyway. The mare turned away from the painting and back at the empty room. She still felt the eyes of the portraits looking at her. The lifeless, palled faces, almost seemed like a mocking imitation of the crowds she so desperately desired, their attention focused on her and nothing else. Unlike her other audiences, they had witnessed the real Trixie. They knew she wasn’t brave, they knew she was vain, and now, so did she.
As she sat alone in the darkness, the unicorn wondered what she would do next. After witnessing the horrors that the spirit was capable of, she felt no desire to go forward. It would be there to pry her apart, to break her down, each time finding a new insecurity to exploit. But once again Trixie was confronted by the fact that it could just as easily come back to his location and scare her anyway. She would lose either way. Frustration slowly built up in the mare, and she found herself clenching her teeth so tightly that her neck hurt. It wasn’t fair. Terror was inevitable no matter what she did, and she was powerless to stop it. Trixie let out a muffled growl that rose to a quiet screech.
The mare slowly rose to her hooves, avoiding eye contact with the silent paintings, thought she still felt their unbreakable stare. Trixie gave one last glance at the portrait of Kasper Von Waltz. She wanted to sneer at it, but found she had no confidence to back it up. Instead she simply turned and looked for a way out. The faint light of her horn showed a single door on the left-hand corner near the desk. The mare started for the door on near-silent hooves, passing by the ancient desk as she went. The yellowed papers that lay on its dusty surface wavered slightly as she drew near. Trixie froze, afraid that the spirit had returned. But as she looked back she saw that it was only her movement creating a light breeze.
She now noticed the papers were marked with faded ink in the form of music staffs, dotted with dark, slightly malformed dots that made notes. Trixie was not musically inclined, and the notes made no sound as she ran her eyes over them. She would have ignored them entirely had it not been for the title, written in large, looping letters. They were crooked and distorted with age, but they were as clear as day to the magician. The Untitled Waltz, by Kasper Von Waltz. Trixie looked back at the painting, where the gaunt figure of the unicorn stood amid a lonely garden. Never had it occurred to her that the ghost once had a life beyond roaming the desolate halls of the manor.
But that had been a long time ago. The thing that remained was a beastly, miserable creature, its only intent to terrify her. The unicorn continued to the door, and placed a hoof on the rusted knob. The cold metal flaked in her grasp as she turned it, and she felt something inside of it break and crumble. The door opened with a quiet, almost moan-like creak. Trixie stood in the doorway and peered inside, not knowing what to expect. The light of her horn reflected off of a large, filmy mirror on the other side of the room, filling the room with a pale, purplish glow.
She found herself looking into a predominately open room, its tile floors covered in coarse layers of dust and dirt. Several chairs sat with their seats against the walls, completely smothered in cobwebs. All of this was centered around a large instrument that towered to the ceiling. Trixie looked up along the copper shafts that had faded to a sickly green, the pale strands of webbing from long-dead spiders laced between them. The pipes ran down to an enormous ebon organ, its palled keyboards stacked on top of each other as if to form a grimacing mouth. Cobwebs looked as though they’d been draped over the stops like a death shroud, making the organ appear as some kind of casket. Trixie stared at it with a look of horrific anticipation. She knew what was likely to happen if she stepped inside, yet was afraid all the same.
But across the room was a doorway. Not a closed door, but an open doorway. It was the first one Trixie had encountered since entering the mansion. The unicorn was suddenly overcome with an impulse to madly dash for the opening. In seconds it was no longer an impulse, but a reality. The mare found herself running frantically over the tile floors, her hooves making uneven clops as she ran. Time slowed down in her mind, and she was struck hard by regret. The door would close just as she reached it. She knew it would. The door behind her would too, and she’d be trapped all over again.
Cobwebs fluttered in the draft created by the doors as they slammed shut simultaneously. Trixie came to a halt inches from the closed door, just as she had predicted. The unicorn screamed in frustration as she slammed her hooves on its wooden surface, attacking it with a combination of anger and terror. But ultimately they morphed into a sullen hollowness as the mare slid down to the floor and crawled into the corner, kicking up dust as she went. Trixie felt like a frightened foal as she curled up among the fallen cobwebs and dust-bunnies. She looked out at the room. The shadows cast by her horn reflected onto the yellowed walls, forming twisted shapes that looked as though they would come to life and attack. Trixie wanted nothing more than to turn out her light and make them disappear, but the thought of darkness terrified her even more.
The unicorn cringed as a piercing shriek broke the silence of the room. She saw a single key of the organ pressed down, and nearly wept when she realized what it meant. The long, drawn out note was cut off and replaced with another, which was followed by another. The notes repeated themselves, gaining speed and coming together. They were joined by more notes scattered throughout the keyboard, each one adding to what was becoming a waltz that was both terrifying and melancholy to the ears of the fear-ridden magician. Dust billowed to the ceiling as stagnant air was forced out of the great bellows that powered the instrument, carrying cobwebs along with it. Trixie covered her ears to try and escape the song, but found it impossible. The melody simply became louder, worming its way past her tightly clamped hooves. It crept insidiously into the depths of her mind, where it presided over her psyche like a malevolent fog.
Trixie could only stare in horror as a shadow appeared in the corner opposite of her. It was far darker than the others surrounding it, as dark as the magician could imagine. The unicorn shrank back as the shadow began to grow, spreading across the walls and floors. What she was seeing was not possible. The faint rays of light given off by her horn were being consumed by the shadow as it crept along the chipping paint of the room, their magenta glow fading to black. Trixie squirmed in her corner, knowing that the light would soon be gone all together. Her heart raced uncontrollably as the blackness approached her, now only a few feet away. The mare watched as it encircled her, destroying the last of the light. A ragged scream escaped her lips as she was swallowed by the shadow.