//------------------------------// // Chapter 35 // Story: The Haunting // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// The Haunting Admiral Biscuit I woke up completely disoriented. I was cold and stiff and sore, and as soon as I opened my eyes it was plain that I was alone on the couch. Milfoil and Windflower were both gone. I wasn’t going to get into a panic this time. Milfol was an adult, and she could take care of herself. If Windflower could turn others into ghosts, she would have done it already. Since she hadn’t, she wasn’t going to. Plus, there were lots of perfectly rational reasons why Milfoil might be gone. Chief among them was that the couch was not the most comfortable place to spend the night. She could have woken me up when she left, but she might not know that couches weren’t comfortable for people, and decided to let me rest. But there was no reason to sleep on the couch, not when I had an actual bed, so I went upstairs and Milfoil wasn’t there. I thought she might have gone to her house, and I thought about going over there. Even though I didn’t want to leave the house empty in case Windflower came back, but then she wasn’t likely to want my comfort. I tried to consider it logically, which wasn’t the best thing to attempt in the middle of the night. If Milfoil had left because she was mad at me, she probably wouldn’t appreciate it if I came over to her house in the middle of the night and tried to crawl into bed with her. And if she had some grander plan and I just didn’t know what it was because she hadn’t woken me up—which there could be a perfectly good reason for—then she’d expect to find me again where she’d left me, so I got my blanket so I’d at least be warm and went back down to the living room. The dead flower was still on the mantle, and I almost just threw it in the fire, but I didn’t. Windflower could touch it, could interact with it, and there were very few things that she could. Something made this flower special. I thought that Milfoil had said that these plants would bloom in the spring again, and even if I was remembering wrong, it would have a better chance of surviving if it were in moist dirt. There were still some roots left on it, after all. Loose dirt I had plenty of. One of the valerian plants surely wouldn’t mind if a few handfuls were gone from its pot. I put it in the biggest bowl I had, packed the dirt around just firmly enough that it could stand up, and then set it with all the other plants, in the hopes that they might inspire it, and then I laid back down on the couch again and fell asleep again. ••••• I woke up with a cold nose pressing against my cheek. I was already sort of awake, and vaguely aware that I’d heard the back door open and hoofsteps across the kitchen. I might have thought it was Windflower, except that this nose was still breathing. “Milfoil?” I mumbled. “Where have you been?” “I’ll tell you later,” she said. “Get up, we have work to do.” “I don’t want to have to do work,” I mumbled, but I pushed off the covers anyway. “Do you want coffee?” “And toast,” she said. “Please. Now, what did you do with the plant Windflower brought in?” “I put it in a bowl.” I pointed over to the rows of valerian and yarrow. “Good, that’s good. I might be able to save it.” “I’ll cook breakfast.” ••••• I got the toast done before the coffee, and I brought it out to her and held it while she nibbled at it. Cooking gave me time to think. She wasn’t rested, wasn’t groomed. There was snow on her coat and mud on her legs, and I knew she’d been up to something, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask what it was. I trusted her; she’d tell me in good time. She’d replanted the flower with one of the valerian plants—I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that—and was giving it a thorough examination. “It had gone dormant,” she said. “That’s how it was surviving outside in the snow. And normally in the spring, when the air warms up and the snow melts and the ground thaws, it would start to bring nutrients back up from the soil. It’s inside and starting to warm up, so it probably thinks that it’s spring.” “So it’s going to try and pull nutrients through its roots.” “But there are hardly any left. Not enough to support it, so it will starve and die unless I help.” “By putting new roots on it?” Was that something that ponies could do? Some plants could be grafted, but I wasn’t sure that that was a thing that could be done with flowers. “It can grow new roots, as long as it gets enough nutrition for that. This is going to be difficult and take most of the day and I don’t know if it will work, but I’m going to try.” She turned back to the flower. ••••• By the time the coffee was done brewing, she was in full plant doctor mode, and I didn’t want to disturb her. She had both hooves in the dirt, crowded in next to the flower, and her muzzle lightly pressed against its stalk. I set the coffee down next to her, so she’d have it as soon as she wanted to take a break, and I thought about cooking myself some eggs, but then decided that I’d stay and watch her work for a bit. I’d never really gotten a chance to see what an earth pony could do with her plant magic. ••••• Ever so slowly, the flower was changing. It was subtle; I couldn’t see it happening, but where the stalk had been brown and grey its entire length, now it was very slightly green. The curled-up dead leaves had fallen off one-by-one, and tiny little buds were in their place. Milfoil had barely moved from her initial spot. She was completely lost in concentration. I wondered if she’d worked as hard on the plants I’d made sick from the cold—I hoped not, but I was afraid that she had. She hadn’t looked away from her work, hadn’t touched the coffee at all. I didn’t know how long she’d been at it: I had no idea what time it was, just that there was sunlight streaming in through the window. The plant was looking better, even to my untrained eyes. Milfoil wasn’t. Her coat was still wet from the snow outside, so I left her side for a minute to go to the kitchen and grab some towels to dry her off with. I probably didn’t do the best job of it, but felt like I’d helped her just a little bit, and there wasn’t much else I knew to do. Since my blanket was still on the couch, I put it over her back. ••••• The flower looked like it was going to live. The stem had turned a healthy green, and the leaves had grown out. I put my hand on Milfoil’s back, and I could feel an odd pulsing hum that was almost like music. Like feeling a speaker vibrate on a piece of metal, almost, or an electric motor running. That was something to concentrate on. Was she humming, too softly to hear? Maybe. But the longer I listened, the more certain I was that it wasn’t her. It was something else, something deeper, something older. Primal. The song of the land, channeled through her. I don’t know why I thought that. The rational part of my mind wanted to insist that she was just humming, and nothing more. But there was a ghost, and that alone threw rationality out the window. Plus, the humming and her breathing didn’t exactly coincide, and I thought they ought to if it was her doing it. Furthermore, I wanted to believe. Was that the magic that Milfoil had talked about? Was that what I was feeling? Was it the pulse of the universe, focused through her and unto a single plant that she was bound and determined to save? Was I considering pushing away what I was feeling because it wasn’t a grand thing? I understood the power of a crowd, or at least thought I did, and I understood the flashiness of a unicorn’s spell or the miracle of a pegasus’ flight, but this was subtle and this was deep. It was like the unicorns and the pegasi touched at the edge of what was and what could be, while the earth ponies were down at the depths, understanding it and using it in a way that was subtle, slow, and immensely powerful. I wanted to sing. Melodies floated through my mind, half-formed, just out of reach. My hand was on her back, and the universe flowed against it. The spell was broken when she spoke. “I think that’s all I can do.” Her voice was raspy, dry, with a bit of a ragged edge to it. “I haven’t—” “You did great. There’s coffee—it’s cold, but I can make some more. Do you want a drink of water? Does the plant need more water?” “Yes, water for the plant, there should still be some in the watering can.” She backed off the flowerpot, shaking on her hooves. “I’m going to lie down.” I thought she was going to go upstairs to my bed, or at least the couch, but she just laid down on the floor.