//------------------------------// // Chapter 19 // Story: The Haunting // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// The Haunting Admiral Biscuit I’d made another trip to the cemetery, just to verify what I already knew. There wasn’t a marker for her of any sort, and I couldn’t help but wonder why she wasn’t interred at the cemetery. I knew that back on Earth, people had historically also been buried in churchyards, or around their own homes, but that practice had mostly stopped. And of course sometimes they were cremated and their ashes either kept as an heirloom or else scattered somewhere. Was that what they’d done instead? Ponies might have different customs. Although the cemetery seemed about the right size for Haywards Heath, at least based on my rough calculations. The old stallion would know, of course, and Milfoil probably would, too, but I was still leery of asking either of them. I’d already been punched in the face once, and it was something I would rather not have repeated. Especially since just asking either of them what happened to her body might be overly personal. Luckily, there were lots of other ponies in town who I could ask, at least once I figured out the best way to frame the question—it would be weird to just come up to a random pony on the street. There was the possibility that it was something that just wasn’t discussed in town. All small towns held some secrets, things that weren’t spoken of or gossiped about, and Windflower’s death might have been one of those things. I wasn’t sure how good ponies were at record-keeping, or what were even considered public records. The town clerk might have a copy of her death certificate, if that was an avenue I wanted to pursue. Now that I knew what to look for, though, when I was done with work I went to the library again and started skimming through old copies of the newspaper one more time, just to see what I could find. There wasn’t much. No obituary, although I already knew I wasn’t going to find that. I hadn’t found one the first time I’d looked, and it hadn’t appeared the second time, either. I did come across one article that piqued my interest: it was about something dangerous that was living in the woods outside of town. Some kind of a monster, but I didn’t know what exactly—I didn’t know what the Equestrian word used to describe it meant. Before coming to Equestria, I would have scoffed at the idea of a monster, but now I knew that they did have monsters, especially in areas that ponies hadn’t tamed. I considered asking the librarian for some assistance, but it was nearly dusk, well past the closing time of the library, and she was asleep at her desk. It would have been rude to wake her up, so I just stacked the newspapers neatly back where they belonged, and closed the library door on my way out. ••••• My flowers weren’t doing very well. The cold night air was damaging the leaves and flowers, making them discolor and wilt, and some of their stems were getting floppy, too. I didn’t know what I could do to help them. Obviously, not leave them out at night, but that defeated the purpose of having them. I had cut back on the number of plants outside each night—now that I’d lured Windflower back with the plants, I didn’t need as many in the yard. Half of them stayed inside, and when I got home, I switched the healthiest ones for the ones that were outside. That way, all but the sickest ones spent a day in the sun and then the next night outside. Milfoil’s curiosity over what I was doing with my flowers—or sympathy for the injured plants—finally brought her over into my yard again. She rejuvenated them as best she could, and without thinking I invited her into my house to help out with the rest of them, the ones that were kept in my plant hospice. We went through the back, since that was the most convenient entrance, so she didn’t get a full view of my madness until she looked into the living room, where all the furniture was piled up at one end of the room, completely unusable. At least with the plants going outside in shifts, there was a better corridor through to the hallway and front door than there had been. It had looked a little bit like a hoarder’s living room, although I figured it probably smelled a lot nicer. “Sorry it’s kind of crowded,” I said. “I couldn’t think of a better arrangement.” Some of my disassembled box-fort had been repurposed as plant stands, so that more of the flowers could get sunlight through the living room windows. Her attention was drawn to the worst plant, of course. I’d put it right by the window in the hopes that sunlight would help revive it, and I’d also wrapped its pot in a blanket to keep it warm, although I couldn’t say why I thought that would help. “If you really want to keep the plants out at night,” she said, worming her way through the rows of pots, “you need to cover them and protect them from frost. A little bit of frost doesn’t hurt the plant, but if it gets inside the leaf, it starts freezing the water inside the leaf and that hurts the plant cells.” “I know, but I can’t do that.” “Can’t, or won’t?” “It’s important to me,” I said. “I . . . I can’t explain why.” She took her hooves off the sick plant and looked me right in the eye. “You’re up to something. I don’t know what, and maybe it’s none of my business anyway. I know you lied to me about how you hurt your nose, I heard all about that from other ponies—not that I believed your story anyway since there aren’t any lampposts in town that you could have walked into.” “I’m sorry.” “You should be.” She flicked her tail and went back to examining the plant. “I think it will live, but I don’t think you should put this one outside any more. Where are you going to put them all after the running of the leaves? It’ll be too crowded in your house.” “I don’t know.” I hadn’t thought that far ahead in my plan. Once it got to the point where I wasn’t moving them in and out all the time, I could spread them around the house. That might make it more inviting for Windflower, too. I could put a couple up in the attic, near the windows. If I rotated them around, I could even put a mini flower garden up in the attic. She might like that. “Do you want to adopt a couple plants for the winter?” She wrinkled her muzzle. “I suppose I might as well. But only if you promise me you’ll tell me what you’re up to that’s so important that these poor plants have to suffer.” “I will, I promise you. But not right now.” “It isn’t good to keep secrets.” She picked up the sick flower and balanced it on her back. “They eat at you.” “I know.” “You’ll feel better when you’ve told somepony. And maybe they can help you, with whatever it is.” She held up a hoof before I could open my mouth to replay. “Maybe I’m not the right pony to tell, I don’t know. But if you think I am, you’re welcome at my house any time.” I couldn’t help but watch her as she wove back out of my plant-maze, the sick valerian balanced perfectly just behind her shoulder blades, right about where a saddle horn would be. I didn’t understand how ponies could do that so casually. ••••• There was a stallion who was often at the market who made his living selling whatever. He was essentially the pony Goodwill—he had a cluttered shop in town which had been a great source for many of my home essentials. He tended to like to bring a wagonload of trinkets that might catch a pony’s eye, and he never had the same thing twice. I often took a glance at what he had to offer; his prices were reasonable, and every now and then, I’d find something I didn’t know I’d needed. This time, one thing got my immediate attention: a small wooden dog, painted brown with white spots. It was well-used, well-loved, and the paint was worn thin. One of the ears had been broken off, and the string tied to it was a replacement: whoever had put it on had not bothered to cut all of the old one off. I bought it in an instant. “I didn’t know you had any foals,” he remarked. “I—it’s for a friend,” I said. “You don’t happen to know who made it, do you?” He shook his head. “I got it in trade.” “From who?” “I don’t remember,” he admitted. “Sometimes, I’ll just get a box of stuff, you know, and I kind of glance at it to get an idea of its worth, but a lot of times I don’t rummage around in it. It’s rude! So if it was at the bottom of a box, you know, I might not have particularly noticed it at the time, and later on when I was sorting stuff out and saw that it was in—well, it’s in kind of poor shape.” I bet he wouldn’t have said that if I hadn’t already paid for it. “Still! Foals can be rough on their toys, you know, and I bet with a little bit of paint it’d look as good as new again.” “Wear is the sign of a well-loved toy,” I said. “Well, listen, if you remember who you bought it from, let me know. This is the kind of toy that my friend really likes. You don’t know if there’s anypony around here that makes them, do you?” “Long Bent,” he said. “He’s got a shop over on the south side of town, you can’t miss it. You know, I’m surprised you didn’t know it was there, if you’ve been buying toys.” “I haven’t been until just recently,” I admitted. “I—well, it’s a long story. Alright, thanks!” ••••• I stopped at my house long enough to put my food purchases away, and then I went looking for Long Bent’s shop. Even though I no longer needed an answer as to who Windflower was, I thought that if he made toys, he probably had a soft heart for foals, and if he had a soft heart for foals, he might be the one to tell me exactly what had happened to her. Surely he’d know. Plus, I had a ready-made pretext. I’d seen the dog at the market, and that had reminded me of the wooden duck in my attic—the wheels were identical, and I’d be willing to bet my entire collection of valerian and yarrow that he was the pony who’d made both. Since ponies generally preferred selling their goods directly when they could, there was every chance he’d remember Windflower or her parents, and then he’d either tell me that nobody spoke of that, or else he’d tell the story.