The Haunting
Admiral Biscuit
Milfoil and I spent another fruitless afternoon trekking through the woods, finally stopping our search as the sun touched the tops of the trees.
“I don’t think we’re going to find her,” Milfoil said.
I’d been thinking the same thing, but hadn’t wanted to say it. “This weekend, we could spend a whole day looking.”
“And if we still don’t find it, what then? Keep looking all winter long?”
“If that’s what it takes.” But my heart wasn’t in it.
“We might not be going into the woods deep enough.”
I nodded—I’d thought of that.
“I hate to give up on her.”
“We’re not giving up on her,” Milfoil reminded me. “If she was still alive and lost in the woods, I’d be out here until she was found—you know that. When we first searched for her, nopony grumbled or suggested that we could go home and try again later.”
I’d thought about that, too. There would have been a flood of ponies streaming into the woods, pegasi flying overhead, unicorns might have used spells to search for her. One thing that ponies had was dogged determination, and I was willing to bet that every single one of them would have looked until they collapsed on their hooves and not once complained about it.
And I hoped that I would have done the same.
I also hoped that I’d never have to find out.
“She can lead us,” I said. “I’ve thought about trying to follow her after she leaves my house, but it’s too risky.”
“If she sees you, she’ll think you’re hunting her.”
“If she wants, though, she knows where to go. She might beckon you to follow her.” She probably wouldn’t make the same offer to me, and I didn’t blame her for it.
“I could wear a ribbon in my mane, or a bow on my tail,” Milfoil said. “And then tie it to a tree on my way back out of the woods.”
“Yeah.”
•••••
Tomorrow, instead of going into the woods, I was going to go to the market. I was nearly out of food in my house and while I was sure that Milfoil had plenty, it didn’t feel right to ask. I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded at all, and it was just my foolish pride, the idea that as a man, I should be the provider, even though Milfoil would have been a better choice.
“How long does it take for a pony to know if she can trust someone?”
“You just sort of get a feeling,” Milfoil said.
“Is it always right?”
“No. I wish it was.” She fell silent for a moment, blowing on the embers in the fireplace. “It’s not some kind of pony magic if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“So it’s kind of like on Earth—words and actions are what matter?”
“Yeah.” Milfoil stepped into the kitchen. “Mostly. I knew even though you were lying to me about walking into a lamp post that you were a good po—person. You had a good reason to lie.”
“I must have felt something, too,” I said. “Us humans are usually wary, and I don’t think I would have admitted what I was doing if I didn’t think I should trust you.”
“I think that Windflower kind of knows. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have come back at all, even after you put all the flowers out. Maybe she didn’t think you were doing it for her, but it was enough to overcome her fright.”
“I need to tell her great uncle. Or, you know him, you could ‘happen’ to meet him and bring it up.”
Milfoil shook her head. “You ought to be the one—he’ll think you’re up to something if I do it.”
“I’m just—”
“I’ll come with you,” she said. “He was asking me about her, you know.”
“What?” I didn’t know; that was something she’d never mentioned before.
“Oh, yes. He thought she might not be resting easily, but he didn’t know. He said he had a feeling, but I thought it was just grief and indulged him. I should have had a better watch.”
“There was no way you could have known.” That raised a lot of questions in my mind, and for a moment I thought about trying to press her for more answers, but what good would it have done? The past was gone, unchangeable, and I would have scoffed if she’d come over and warned me that there might be a ghost haunting my house. Especially if she said she had it on his word.
“We’ll do it after market tomorrow,” I decided. “I want to get some more food—I’m almost out.”
“I’ve got plenty at my house. You should have said something.”
“And then we’ll see if he’s at the restaurant,” I said. “We can go together, have dinner there, talk to him, and let him know what I know—what we know. Invite him over, maybe? Windflower might be more receptive if he’s here.”
•••••
She met me at work, which was sure to send the gossip machine into overdrive. I didn’t care; I was sure that we could navigate the market more quickly with her at my side.
At least she hadn’t dressed up. I would have questioned her motives if she had. That was a rude thing to think, but I couldn’t help being a suspicious human. Maybe in time such thoughts would fade into the background, but for now they were still present.
She didn’t introduce me as her boyfriend to all the ponies selling produce and pasture grasses. That was something that I’d worried about a little bit: there would be questions and I didn’t know how I might answer them. I didn’t know how ponies in general felt about interspecies dating.
Luckily, it never came up. We were just two beings shopping together for whatever reason, and nobody questioned it, and in all honestly it didn’t feel any different than it had the last time she’d helped me out at market.
Still, the idea nagged at me, but I ignored that tiny bit of doubt, attributing it to leftover human expectations or human morals.
•••••
Milfoil didn’t question my organizational system in the cupboards, and after we’d gotten all my purchases put away, we got ready for dinner. It was so much easier and efficient to work as a team. I didn’t get the hang of her brushes right away, but she was patient with it. As for my own grooming, she was far better than a mirror, and offered helpful criticism. And I had to admit that while I’d been a bit tense at first, it was calming to brush her and to have her comb my hair. At least once I’d gotten over the irrational fear that she might stick the comb in my eye.
Normally, I’d have been looking for a restaurant based on the menu, but this time we walked around looking through the windows for a sight of him. I let her guide me; she surely knew his routines better than I did.
We must have passed three quarters of the restaurants in Haywards Heath before she finally turned and pushed open a door, and sure enough, there he was, sitting alone at a table. His ears went up when he saw me and then they kind of flicked back and dropped a bit before perking up again.
There were some restaurants in Manehattan that were fancy enough that a maître d' sat me, but this was a far cry from that. It was honestly the pony equivalent of Waffle House.
“Mind if we sit here?” I asked, just to be polite.
He nodded his assent.
•••••
I waited until we’d gotten our drinks and ordered food before laying it all out for him. At first, Milfoil stayed mostly silent—there wasn’t much she could add. I had the vague hope that her presence would deter him from taking another swing at me, if that was what he had in mind. That, and moral support. I probably would have muddled my way through it or just wimped out and kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t do that with her sitting next to me.
All things considered, it probably wasn’t the best place to have had this conversation. In a movie, it would have been in the living room, or maybe the cemetery, or possibly the woods. I did keep my voice low; I was still a bit nervous that other diners might overhear and label me as crazy, although if I was, at least I wasn’t alone in my delusion.
He occasionally glanced over at Milfoil, as if to verify that what I was saying was true. A couple of times I caught her nodding at him when he shot her a questioning look. Given that I was sitting in a pony-operated restaurant located in a pony town in a world that was full of ponies and magic, I didn’t think a ghost story was all that far-fetched.
Once I’d gotten to her returning to my house and interacting—talking was too grandiose—with Milfoil, she took up the tale, and I breathed a sigh of relief at having gotten through the entire conversation without taking a punch to the face. I think he was having trouble processing it all, and there was a brief moment that I felt bad that his dinner was completely cold. He hadn’t taken a single bite since I’d started talking.
I had assumed at the end of the tale, he’d provide some sort of guidance, some instruction about what to do next. I’m sure Milfoil expected the same.
He had no idea.
I should have considered that possibility and not gotten my hopes up. Should have considered that he would be just as clueless as we were. If hauntings were commonplace in Equestria, the situation would have been resolved before I even got to Haywards Heath. One of the ponies would have seen Windflower already and would have known what to do.
I sort of faded into the background as he and Milfoil discussed a few possibilities. There wasn’t much that I could add, I didn’t know the ponies in this town, and therefore didn’t have any idea who might be able to shed some additional light. If I had, things would have turned out quite differently.
We could have stayed at the restaurant all night, discussing our options for going forward, but both Milfoil and I wanted to get back home before Windflower. It was looking unlikely that we’d make a big breakthrough at the restaurant, and it was better to spend our time making small progress with Windflower.
The old stallion must have thought that, too, because he finally had the waitress clear the half-eaten food off the table, and over our protests paid for dinner for all of us.
I’d gone in half convinced that we should invite him over. Milfoil was more neutral, pointing out that we didn’t know what he might do, nor did we know how she might react, to which I’d countered that she’d taken the blanket and I honestly didn’t think it was because she was cold. If a blanket provided her some comfort, how much more might he be able to provide? No matter what I wanted or Milfoil wanted, what mattered most was what Windflower wanted, and I couldn’t forget that.
“Do you want to come over and see her?” I asked. Milfoil’s ears drooped—I probably should have discussed it with her further, or at least phrased it better.