The Haunting
Admiral Biscuit
For all their rainbow of hair and coat colors and their unique cutie marks, it turned out to be harder to find a particular pony than I’d imagined it would be, especially in such a small town. I’d occasionally spot a pony at a distance who looked like him, but every time it turned out to either be a false alarm, or they were gone before I got over there. He didn’t seem to be a regular at the market—at least, I never saw him there.
There was surely a reasonable explanation. He could be on vacation, or else he worked different hours than I did. Maybe his wife did all the shopping. Maybe he was a travelling salesmen. Maybe he stayed home all day and worked on his garden or put ships in bottles.
Or maybe I’d not only imagined the ghost, but I’d imagined him, too. That was an idea I didn’t want to dwell on at all. Imagining a ghost was enough of a mind-bend for me to process; if I was imagining flesh-and-blood ponies too, I was far gone.
If that was the case, what would come next? How soon could I expect the nice ponies with butterfly nets? Were they already on their way? Were they in a nearby house, watching me from their own box-forts?
•••••
When I did find him, he was at the restaurant, eating breakfast. I didn’t even bother with pretext; I just sat down across from him, and as soon as he looked up from his pancake, I told him everything.
Other ponies might have overheard. That wasn’t even a consideration—I was so relieved that he was actually real that I started talking with no care of who might eavesdrop. Even though it was still in the back of my mind that I was sitting at an empty table, talking to an empty chair.
For as open as ponies generally were with their emotions, he had very little reaction as I told my tale. He just sat there, absorbing everything or maybe wondering if he could signal the waitress to summon nurses to take me away.
I can only imagine that the entire thing was a barely coherent explanation of what I’d seen and what I thought I’d seen and what I’d done and what I might have imagined. In my head, it probably made sense, but in hindsight it would have been wise to have practiced getting my thoughts and observations in a sensible order rather than just vomiting them out willy-nilly.
And yet, I must have gotten my point across, because after I described how I’d sneaked up behind her in the kitchen and scared her off and she hadn’t come back since then, without a single flicker of emotion, he reached across the table and punched me in the face.
In a movie, I might have indignantly asked what that was for, but I didn’t have to; I knew exactly what that was for, and I had it coming.
Every eye in the room was on us as I picked up my napkin and pressed it gingerly against my nose. It was probably broken, although I wasn’t entirely sure; I’d never had a broken nose before so I didn’t know what one felt like. It was certainly bleeding a lot.
The entire restaurant was silent. I’d never noticed before how creepy it was to have so many eyes looking at me and I wondered what I should say, if anything. Should I apologize? No, he was the one who hit me. Should I reassure all the ponies that things were okay, that there wasn’t going to be a fight? Did ponies even have bar fights?
A smart person surely would have fought back or fled the restaurant in shame, but I didn’t. The two of us just sat there until the other ponies started to look away. Maybe they didn’t want to get involved or maybe they had figured out that the situation was under control and was none of their business anyway. Maybe one of them was going out the back entrance to get the police.
I was wondering if it was possible to bleed to death through my nose when he reached for my face again. I cringed back as much as I could while remaining in my chair, but this time he meant no harm. He touched his hoof lightly to the bloody napkin, and I went cross-eyed focusing on it—this was the closest I’d ever seen a pony hoof and even though the pain, I couldn’t help but notice the gleaming edge of his shoe, the small ridges and chips in the wall of his hoof, and the neatly groomed hair of his leg.
I was about to warn him about the dangers of blood-borne pathogens, until I felt a tingling warmth on my face. The bleeding slowed to a trickle, then a few drips, and then it stopped.
I suspected my nose was still broken, though. Either his hoof’s touch didn’t extend that far, or he didn’t feel I deserved such mercy.
He reached down and dropped a few bits on the table. “Come with me.”
I could have refused, but I didn’t.
•••••
He lived in a small house on the southern side of Haywards Heath, a tidy little house set just a bit away from his neighbors. He offered me a chair—too short for a human, but I took it anyway—and got me a clean towel to finish getting the rest of the blood off my face.
I hardly noticed the house at all; my eye was drawn to a black and white photograph on the table. There were two ponies in that picture; one was obviously him, and the other was almost certainly my ghost.
“Who was she?” I asked softly.
“My grand-niece,” he said. “Her name is Windflower.” He shifted around on his hooves and sighed. “I’m sorry for hitting you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I really couldn’t blame him, so he had no reason to be sorry. Maybe I was just being silly from head trauma, but I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought about punching myself in the face as a way to knock some sense into me. It was surprisingly effective—things felt a lot clearer than they had.
“She was out in the woods . . . shouldn’t have been, not by herself, but it was a nice summer day. When she didn’t come home for dinner, ponies started looking, but it was too late.
“Her parents were completely devastated, and left town as quickly as they could.”
He fell silent again, and I considered what he’d just told me. It left a lot of questions, but I wasn’t sure I should ask them. I was confident that there would be time for that later.
“I’m sorry that I scared her off. I didn’t mean to.”
“We all do things that we regret later,” he said softly. “Or don’t do something that we should have.”
“How can I convince her to come back?”
He closed his eyes and for a minutes, went away. There was no other way to describe it. He was there, he was still in the living room, but he wasn’t. I could have gotten out of my chair, made myself a cup of tea, and come back, and I don’t think he would have noticed at all.
I could imagine what he was thinking. Was I just some collector of exotic butterflies, aiming to lure one more into my collection, or was I truly contrite, without any other motive than correcting my error? There was every chance that when he came back, he’d kick me out of the house, and I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. I couldn’t even imagine what I’d have done if the situation was reversed.
“Valerian and yarrow. Those are her favorite flowers.”
“It’s not the right season for flowers. Any day now, it might start snowing.”
“We haven’t even run the leaves yet. There will be hothouse flowers. If they’re kept in pots, and kept warm in the house during the day, they’ll do okay outside,” he told me. “Teazle grows both.”
“Does she—Windflower—visit here?” Maybe his house had been where she’d gone after leaving mine. Maybe she’d told him all about me scaring her off. If so, I’d been lucky to leave the restaurant with just a broken nose.
He shook his head.
“But you’ve seen her.”
Rather than answer, he beckoned with a hoof. “Come here.”
I followed him back to a small bedroom. The bed was filly-sized, made up for a pony who would never use it again. “I don’t know if this will help, but she’ll recognize this blanket. If she’s still got some of her toys, this might also provide her with a little comfort.”
•••••
I spent the afternoon buying and arranging flowers. Two cartloads of them. Milfoil watched over the fence at what I was doing, but I paid her no mind. I put a row of new flowers around the garden, then walked around the perimeter of the yard taking a look at it. It really did brighten up the yard, although I wasn’t looking forward to having to carry the pots in every night. Nor did I have a place to put them inside yet, but that didn’t matter; I didn’t use my living room for anything much; I could move things around and fit them in there.
I thought about what I’d tell Milfoil—I figured that I owed her an explanation, although it was tempting to tell her nothing.
“It looks nice,” she said, practically right in my ear. I hadn’t expected her to just walk over into my yard.
“Thanks.” I scooted another pot into place.
“What happened to your nose?”
That was sure to be the subject of town gossip any time now, but apparently word hadn’t gotten around yet. “I walked into a lamp post.”
“It looks painful.”
“Not as much as you’d think.” As long as I didn’t touch it or breathe too much, I hardly noticed.
“It’s a little late in the year for flowers outside, you know.”
I nodded. “I thought I could keep them inside some of the time, to let them warm up. It’ll make the inside of the house look nicer, too.”
“Your house will be crowded with flowers.”
“I don’t mind.” I stood up and brushed off my knees. “It’ll make it less gloomy, and I’ll plant them properly in the springtime.”