//------------------------------// // Chapter 14 // Story: The Haunting // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// The Haunting Admiral Biscuit I wasn’t going to visit my box-fort tonight. What was the point? I knew she was there. I didn’t need to gather any more evidence, not really. There was a ghost in my house. It stood to reason that any pony in town who wanted to see it could, so long as they didn’t mind waiting in a box-fort. But who would I show? If I’d been going around town talking about the ghost and ponies had laughed at me, I could have had the one who laughed the loudest spend the early part of the night in the box. Or if he didn’t want to do that, he could wait in the fir tree. Nobody had laughed at me, though, because I hadn’t told anyone. What would they have had to laugh about? Would she notice if I moved her toys? If I put them in different spots? Would she think that I’d messed with them, or would she just think that she’d done that and forgotten about it? How good was a ghost’s memory, anyway? I was getting claustrophobic in the house, so I went out into the backyard to have a look at the garden. At first, I didn’t see anything, and my brain fought with itself trying to make sense of it. I didn’t see anything because there wasn’t anything to see; the idea of a ghost gardener was ludicrous, a product of an unhinged mind and what I really ought to be doing is finding out if the town has a pony psychiatrist before it’s too late. That was counterbalanced by all the clear evidence I’d seen and if I was going to start doubting what I’d seen, how did I know my house was real? How did I know I was real? And then I did see evidence that she’d been digging. There were plants which I assume were weeds that were dug up and laid over on their sides. No animal I was aware of would have done that. She hadn’t taken them away—maybe she couldn’t—but she’d dug them up. I grabbed a handful of them and walked slowly, calmly, sanely over to Milfoil’s door. “Are these weeds?” I asked, resisting the urge to thrust them in her face. She blinked at me, flicked her tail a couple of times, then nodded. This is not how a normal pony would greet his neighbor. “Why do you ask?” “I, um, was curious. They were dug up.” “Dug up?” She looked over at my garden, the corners of her mouth downturned in a small frown. “By what, I wonder?” “I don’t know.” I’d already said too much. I was starting to sweat. I’d never been good at lying. “Some animal, maybe?” “Or a pony who doesn’t like an untidy garden,” she said. “It wasn’t me, though. I would have asked if you minded first. Some ponies prefer ferals to cultivars, you know.” Implied in that statement was that ponies who prefered ferals weren’t all there in the head, so I nodded. “I wonder if you’d help me with the garden? In the spring? I’d like it to look nice.” “Of course I would!” Was she too eager? Had I been right that the old stallion was trying to play matchmaker? Was she an attractive pony? What made a pony attractive, anyway? “Well, thanks,” I mumbled. I could feel her eyes on me as I walked back to my house, all the while considering how I might have handled that encounter better. If she didn’t already think I was a little crazy, now she would for sure. If I had gotten through the first part of our conversation better, I might have been inclined to ask her some questions about her former neighbors, the ones who had left my house in a great hurry. Although it was obvious why they had. They couldn’t deal with the ghost. They surely gave some other reason, because they didn’t want ponies in town to think they were crazy. Maybe they’d be coming back here sometime although I got the impression that they moved far, far away. Farther than a ghost would think to chase them. That was the logical explanation. I tossed the weeds on the ground near the garden, far enough away that if they decided to re-root themselves in the spring, they’d get mowed down. ••••• I’d told myself that I wasn’t going to visit my box-fort tonight but of course I did, and while I waited for her I replayed my entire conversation with Milfoil. What was I going to do if she knocked? I could pretend I was asleep; all the lights were off. And if she came in anyway, she wouldn’t find me. I was safe in my box-fort. She’d never think to look there. Did the ghost know I was here? Was she just ignoring me since all I ever did was watch her from the shadows? Was she teasing me? Why had she ignored Bathtime for Biscuit but wanted the trowel? Did she prefer digging in the garden to reading? What was she doing in the kitchen? Why did she keep looking through the cupboards? What did she expect to find? That was something I’d never really investigated. Maybe there was something in them, something that she’d hidden, and I’d covered it with something she couldn’t move for whatever reason. Why did I keep hiding in my box-fort, night after night? What did I hope to learn that I didn’t already know? There was a soft glow at the thatches and she came through and circled around the attic once and peered into her toy box as if something new might have appeared. When she found nothing, she got out some of her toys and arranged them around the cup again. I expected her to have another tea party with them, but once she had everything set up, she floated through the trap and down the stairs. She’s looking for tea, or more teacups. Maybe there had been a set that had matched the one she had. Hers had been out in the backyard and that’s why it was in such poor shape, although if she was willing to use it as both a cup and a pot as her play demanded, why couldn’t some of my cups stand in? I pushed the lid up on the box and climbed out. I had no plan whatsoever, and half a mind to just climb back in there and repeat the whole thing again. I moved down the attic stairs like a wraith. She wasn’t in the hallway, and all the doors were closed. She tended to not close doors when she went into a room, so she probably wasn’t in any of the rooms upstairs. Even so, I started checking until I heard a cupboard door bang open below me. The Ghostbusters had some sort of beams that trapped ghosts and a box to keep them in; I did not. Priests had holy symbols to keep ghosts at bay, and I did not. At the back of my mind I considered what I might do if she turned aggressive, and the only answer I could come up with was run away. Not much of a plan. I stuck my head around the kitchen door. She was up on the counter, in a completely inexplicable position. Her forehooves were rested on the countertop, while her truncated torso trailed off towards the ground, as if she were standing on the hind hooves she didn’t have. There was no sense in that; if she could float up to the attic, why not the cupboards? What she was looking for, I had no idea. Maybe she was just taking an inventory of my canned goods for her own personal satisfaction. That was unlikely, but no less likely than a pony ghost. I could have just waited and watched, hoping that she gave me another clue, another piece of the puzzle. But I didn’t. For better or worse, I was past that now. I moved into the room, and then without a moment to consider, I said “Boo!” Her ears turned and her head jerked up and she turned and saw me standing in the doorway and then she vanished through the cupboards. I rushed to the window, expecting that she’d stop out in the garden and look back, but she was already gone. I had just scared a ghost off.