//------------------------------// // Chapter 13 // Story: The Haunting // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// The Haunting Admiral Biscuit I spent a little time in the afternoon exploring further into the wilderness. I hadn’t been wrong about there being a game trail of sorts. It was one of those things that wasn’t obvious when I tried to look for it specifically, but with a broad view, it stood out. I walked along the trail for fifteen minutes or so--just long enough that I started to worry that I wouldn’t be able to find my way back. I hadn’t seen anything of note in the woods. Not that I had any idea what I might be looking for, exactly. A ghostly nest up in a tree? A mysterious cave with a weird moaning coming from its mouth even though there wasn’t any wind? A small cemetery or burial ground? I thought that if there was something big to be seen, I would have seen it. She might have a second collection of toys in the woods; if she did, I didn’t find it. Would a ghost leave a scent on something? Could I track her with a bloodhound? I could just imagine how that would go if I started asking around for a bloodhound that could track a ghost. Maybe a ghosthound. Could the ghost of a dog track the ghost of a pony? I kicked at a tuft of grass, which was rooted better in the ground than I’d thought. The pain in my foot helped re-focus me, just a little bit. There was no doubt that I was skirting the edge of madness—if one of my friends back on Earth had told me half the stuff I’d seen, I would have recommended he go right to the doctor and get a prescription for some heavy-duty psychotropic drugs. Or at the very least, an intervention. This kind of obsession couldn’t be healthy. ••••• I could sit in my box-fort a little ways back from the window, and see her approach the house. I didn’t think she could see me from there, not with the lights out. I saw her as she passed the oak tree. She didn’t come right in the house, so I eventually moved closer to the window and looked down at the garden, figuring that that would be the other place that I might see her. Sure enough, she had her muzzle down in the dirt, and it looked like she was digging. I couldn’t tell for sure--binoculars might be another thing to invest in. At least I’d gotten an egg-timer; that was sitting within easy reach. The mare who had sold it to me had also informed me that it counted for three minutes, but only after rolling her eyes when I’d demanded specifics. I guess when I asked how long it kept time for, ‘long enough to cook an egg’ was a reasonable answer. Since I had it, I started the egg timer. She spent about a half hour in the garden, which was plenty of time for me to speculate on what she might be doing. From the way she moved through the rows, I finally came to the conclusion that she was weeding it, or at least attempting to. When she put the trowel back in the tree, I moved back away from the window, back into the darkness where I wouldn’t be seen. Just in case she thought to examine the dormer windows before entering. She came through the roof and instead of spending any time in the attic, she went right downstairs. A few moment later, I heard running water below me. This was completely new, and I had no idea what to make of it. She’d never turned on a faucet before, so why now? Were her hooves dirty from digging in the garden? How was that even possible? Which faucet was it? It sounded closer than the kitchen, but it was hard to tell. I was debating if I should get out of my box-fort and investigate when she came back up the stairs, went over to the edge of the flooring, leaned down, and came back up with her duck in her mouth. The one with the pull-string and the broken wheel. I was regretting that I hadn’t built a system of box-forts. I very cautiously lifted the lid and stuck my head up. I could hear the sound better now; it was undoubtedly the bathtub filling. While I wasn’t the sneakiest guy in the world, I thought that it would cover any little noises that I made, so I got out of my box-fort and walked over to the attic stairs. Since I didn’t see her when I stuck my head through, I hurried down the stairs. I was wishing that I’d had some kind of a ninja suit to make me less obvious, but it was too late for that now. I could see that the bathroom door was mostly shut, but I thought it was more open than I’d left it. It was hard to be certain. If I’d been smart, I would have been setting things up in the house a particular way every single day so I’d know exactly where she’d been. Maybe little bits of thread tied to all the doors so if they were opened, the thread would break. Spies did that. There was time to go back. What if she knew I was hiding in the boxes? She might be a lot smarter than I was. Maybe she was trying to lure me into the bathroom and she was going to brain me with the duck and then drown me in the bathtub. Admittedly, that was one of the dumber ideas I’d had, but here in the hallway, alone in my dark house that had a ghost in the bathroom filling the bathtub, it seemed plausible. Just the same, I moved slowly along the wall, all my muscles tense in case she did decide to come through the wall and get me. She didn’t. I took a moment to consider the layout of the bathroom. If she was in or near the bathtub, I could get by the door and not be observed. If the door had been just a little bit further closed, I wouldn’t have been able to see anything, but I was able to get the slightest glimpse of her in the bathtub--not from the latch side of the door, but from the hinge side, the little gap between the door and the frame. More of a glow than anything specific. Knowing full well that this was stupid and I should retreat while I still could, I very cautiously pushed the door slightly further open. Not all at once, where I might set up an air current that would betray me, but just a tiny bit at a time. A quarter inch at the most each time. I felt reasonably certain that I wouldn’t be spotted. The spy-holes in the box-fort were bigger, and she hadn’t seen me yet, as far as I knew. She was taking a bath, at least as much as a ghost can take a bath. I could guess by her movement that she was pushing her duck around in the water, and the occasional splashes I could hear reinforced that idea. I wouldn’t have thought of the duck as being usable as a bath toy, but it was wooden so it would float. She leaned forward and turned off the faucet, and from that moment I stayed completely still, almost afraid to breathe. Without the water running it was deafeningly silent, and there was no way that I could escape her notice if she heard something suspicious and got out of the bath. I might not even see her; she might get out the other side of the bathtub. If I left now, I’d surely make enough noise to alert her, so I kept my eye up to the crack in the door and continued watching her. When she pulled the drain plug, it was time to go. Being a ghost, she wasn’t going to have to dry herself off, and I didn’t have much time to hide. I moved as quickly and quietly as I could back to the safety of my box-fort and I think I made it undiscovered. It was another few minutes before she came back upstairs, her duck in her mouth, the string trailing out along the ground. She put it back in its hiding place and circled around the attic once, then went back through the roof. I quickly looked through the window, and watched her disappear to the east. ••••• She’d never come back after she’d left, not as far as I knew, so I climbed back out of my box-fort and went back to my bedroom. While I got undressed, I pondered some more. Sooner or later I was going to have to confront her, somehow. Make her actually aware that I was here, but I was scared to. I didn’t know how she’d react. Assuming that she wasn’t aware of me, and that was a big assumption. It was hard, sometimes, to remember little details from the past. Before I’d known she was here, before I’d built my box-fort, she could have come into my bedroom while I was sleeping. Perhaps she had; except for when I’d blocked the attic stairs, the whole house had been fair game for her. If she was curious at all, she would have noticed me. How could she not have noticed me? Carrying that line of thought along, if she’d wanted to be aggressive towards me, she could have done something while I was sleeping, completely oblivious to her presence. Could have brained me with her duck or suffocated me with a pillow—could have done anything. So she probably wasn’t malevolent. Probably. How does one address a ghost? It would have been better if I’d known her name, but that seemed to be a dead end, unless I was willing to fold other ponies into my delusions. No, that wasn’t right, they weren’t delusions. She had a physical effect on her surroundings. I got up again and went to the bathroom. The bathtub was wet. That was a fact. Not a delusion. The cupboard doors had been opened. There were toys hidden in my attic. Those were all facts, undeniable facts. There was no other explanation, not unless I had been doing it myself and not remembering that I’d done it. What if I had? I had a lot to think about.