The Haunting
Admiral Biscuit
I couldn’t sleep.
What was the forest doing? What had Milfoil felt in the forest?
If I got an explanation at all—which was unlikely until the morning; she was fast asleep—I probably wouldn’t understand it. And that just made it worse. I could imagine any number of ponies all standing around and nodding, all feeling whatever she did, and me left out of the loop.
Or did they not feel it unless they wanted to? Unless they actively sought it? Unless they, too, went through the forest and felt it for themselves?
I thought that that was a possibility. If there was some major disturbance in the force, surely they would have all felt it in town.
Wouldn’t they?
Nature was complicated, and sometimes it didn’t take too much to upset the balance, and then what? Maybe I hadn’t felt the magic when I did the Running of the Leaves, but I’d sure seen the leaves fall as ponies went by the trees, and there was no human explanation for it. It had to be pony magic causing it.
What had Milfoil felt?
She hadn’t been overly concerned—at least I didn’t think she was. I wasn’t the best at reading pony emotions, but I would have known if she was scared of something. If she thought that Windflower was unintentionally turning the forest into a monster. So I could rule that out—I should rule that out. What possibilities did that leave?
Sometimes, back on Earth, there would be clusters of dead trees alongside the road. Something had killed them, probably something mundane like bugs or a tree disease. Could that happen here? Was her existence sapping the life of the forest? Would the trees fail to bud in the springtime?
That was unlikely. That was something that Milfoil could have explained to me. I wouldn’t have known the exact mechanism, but if she’d said ‘the trees are dying,’ I would have understood that. So that couldn’t be what she’d felt.
Maybe it was a rejection she was feeling. The forest knew that she didn’t belong, and was reacting to that. Which made me wonder if it was trying to push her out, somehow.
And if it was, did Windflower feel it, too? If she could, did she not know why?
•••••
When I got home from work, there were a bunch of crafting supplies on the kitchen table.
“More Hearth’s Warming decorations?”
Milfoil shook her head. “Well, sort of. You should make a Hearth’s Warming doll.”
“A doll?”
“Sure, it’s tradition.”
“What is it supposed to look like? I’m not good at making dolls. I’m not good at sewing.” I didn’t know that for an actual fact since I’d never tried, but it seemed likely.
“It doesn’t matter what it looks like,” Milfoil said. “A doll is traditional, but how its made, a lot of ponies have different ideas. Like, cloth or sticks and plants, or even rocks. We always made them out of fabric, but you don’t have to. Do what feels right to you.”
“Will you help me?”
She nodded.
I looked down at the supplies. This felt like a spiritual quest. How was I supposed to know what to make? I didn't think spiritual quests were real, anyway. People would just say that they felt something they didn’t, I was sure. Or they’d hallucinate because of boredom or sleep deprivation or drugs. But my inner skeptic couldn’t explain away pony magic.
“Is this one of those pony magic things? Does the inspiration just flow through you?”
“It’s not exactly the same,” she said. “Maybe for some ponies it would be. Unicorns sometimes do spells where the magic channels itself through their horn, I’ve heard of that. Especially when a pony gets her cutie mark. Earth pony magic doesn’t usually work that way; it’s like listening to the sound of the land and adding your own song to it.”
“Is that why you were humming when you were healing Windflower’s plant?”
“I wasn’t humming.”
“Yes you were. I could feel it.”
“You—” Her eyes went wide. “You felt the magic! That’s what it was.”
“I don’t know. . . .”
“Trust me.” She leaned forward and kissed me. “You’re turning into a proper pony.”
“How long before my hands fall off and I grow a tail?”
“Silly.” Milfoil blew a raspberry. “I wish it was springtime, that’s the easiest time to feel it. All the plants are singing then. But I think that when we go out into the forest again, we can try it—it’s probably going to be easiest for you to feel it when you’re in the woods instead of the house. Plus, it helps to have your hooves on actual soil.”
“Maybe if I had a pot of dirt to put my feet in, I’d be more inspired with my Hearth’s Warming doll.”
She turned her head towards the living room. “You’ve got plenty of flowers, and they wouldn’t miss a bit of soil.”
•••••
Milfoil didn’t make good on her threat to provide me with a pot of dirt, and I did manage to make a Hearth’s Warming doll. It looked kind of like a gingerbread man, with one leg just a bit longer than the other. She assured me that that was just fine.
I had started to get into it once I began crafting. I made a few paper templates before moving to fabric, just to get an idea what it might look like once I was done. That had really helped, and had given me a pattern to work off of. If I’d been smart, I would have folded it down the middle when I cut it out, and it would have been symmetrical at least.
The stitching wasn’t all that great, either, but it did the job.
“I assume you already have a Hearth’s Warming doll.”
She nodded.
“What about Windflower? Should we make her one?”
Milfoil thought about that. “It’s really not traditional to make a Hearth’s Warming doll for somepony else. I suppose in some cases, it would be all right; some families do make them for their foals when they’re too young to make their own, although that’s with the idea that they’ll get replaced once the foal’s old enough.
“Plus, if we did, it might not mean anything to her—it might not be how she sees herself.”
I picked up my creation. “I don’t see myself in this.”
“It’s not supposed to be an exact likeness. It’s just something that you made, not something that I made, or that you bought at the store. Your doll has a personal connection, and every time you see it, you’ll remember making it.”
I suppose that was true. Back at home, my parents’ tree contained a few ornaments I’d made in elementary school. I didn’t specifically remember making them, but I did recognize kindergarten me’s sloppy handwriting on it, and even if it didn’t bring back specific memories of sitting in class and making it, it did remind me of being a kid every time I saw it.
“Maybe her great uncle still has one of hers. She might have made one with him, or he could have kept one as a keepsake. If he does, that would be perfect. I’m sure he’d let us put it on the mantle.”
“We still need to take him back into the woods,” I said. “Now that you’ve marked the path. Maybe we can do that tomorrow; and we could ask him then, after we’ve shown him her resting place.”
•••••
We didn’t put the Hearth’s Warming dolls up on the mantle—Milfoil thought that it might distress Windflower to only see a pair of dolls. I thought she might be distressed just seeing mine, and I wouldn’t blame her if she was.
It didn’t really matter. Once again, she was eager to play with the plant. She ghost-galloped right into the living room without even waiting to see who was there, and she did a few eager circles around the pot before focusing her attention directly on it.
She traced her hooves up and down the stem, and touched all the leaves with her muzzle, working her way up from the base.
“We ought to get it its own pot,” I said. Windflower wasn’t paying any attention to me anyway.
“One that’s more appropriately sized. I can do that tomorrow, it won’t be any trouble at all. And we ought to adjust the plants some so that it gets plenty of light, too. It might start to curve towards the fireplace if it isn’t getting enough natural sunlight.”
“Plants wanting to get close to a fire could only end badly.”
“Yeah.”
“She’s got some kind of attachment to that plant.”
Milfoil nodded and lowered her voice. “I think she planted them herself. That’s very important for an earth pony. I know the whole garden wasn’t hers, but she had a row to herself. And I think that she never got to see them grow and bloom. I think that when she came back to the house, they were already going dormant for the season, and she never got to see them in bloom.”
“Does that work with the timeline?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know when she came back. But I do know that the garden got abandoned right after . . . right after it happened.”
I put my hand on Milfoil’s back. “Do you think she came back just to watch her plants blossom?”
“I might,” Milfoil admitted, then she shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s motivating her, and I don’t know if we’ll ever solve the whole puzzle. Maybe in the springtime she’ll be a garden ghost.”
“I’m sure she could do a better job of it than I could.”