The Haunting
Admiral Biscuit
Based on what I knew from Earth, Christmas had been scheduled based on old Pagan festivals, which were originally meant to celebrate the fact that the days weren’t getting shorter any more, that they were getting longer. Winter would come to an end.
From a purely astronomical point of view, that made sense. If I was planning out on paper when to have a holiday celebrating a nascent new year, that’s where I would have put it.
But seasons lagged, not only on Earth, but also in Equestria. Back on Earth, Christmas was situated more towards the beginning of winter rather than the end, and the ponies had made the same mistake when it came to timing.
Hearth’s Warming wasn’t a halfway point; instead, it was fairly early in the season. Yes, the days were getting longer, that was an undeniable fact, but the weather stayed snowy and cold. Colder, in fact, than it had been for Hearth’s Warming.
Some of that was probably subjective. There was the Running of the Leaves and not too long after that Hearth’s Warming decorations started to appear, and while at first it seemed that was too soon, the holiday just rushed up and all of a sudden it was there. There was lots to do before the holiday, and little to do after.
Just the same, another month wouldn’t have been too much of a stretch. The ponies could have pushed it back and that would have provided more time to plan, and possibly better weather for travel. That would have provided longer days, while still having the snow cover required for a proper winter holiday. More importantly, that would have shifted it more toward a halfway point, at least in terms of the average person’s understanding of winter fading into spring.
Maybe Earth ponies thought differently; maybe the song of the land spoke to them in a different manner, so I didn’t suggest to Milfoil that the holiday ought to be moved.
But it was hard to remember that the days were getting longer, that the tilt on the axis was changing, that spring was just around the corner, when it was still cold and snowy.
The first snow of the season was special, and a few storms after that were memorable, and then as winter continued on, they became a chore. The excitement over fresh snow was replaced with disappointment each time.
I had to remind myself that that was a human thought. Foals, especially, seemed to enjoy each new snow. And I hadn’t heard any ponies complaining about it, either.
While I could have tossed market pony gossip as an unreliable source, since it stood to reason they’d say whatever it took to make a sale—regardless of their actual feelings on the matter—I couldn’t really dismiss Milfoil’s opinion.
I never asked her directly, but the evidence piled up nonetheless. She didn’t share my opinion that winters were best spent cooped up in the house looking at the pretty landscape outside, and dragged me into all sorts of outdoor activities.
Which she and the other ponies participated in mostly nude. In fact, I came to the conclusion that hats and scarves were as much of a fashion accessory for ponies as anything. Granted, having a fur coat was a blessing when it came to that—I wasn’t going to go outside in just my boxers and a hat.
•••
Windflower kept returning on her usual schedule. I got the sense that she was also getting tired of winter, although maybe I was projecting my thoughts on her. She’d often circle the snowed-in garden restlessly, examining the dead stems of the plants that stuck above the drifting snow.
We’d kept up the Hearth’s Warming decorations longer than normal, but eventually it came time to take them back down again, and they got packed in boxes and put up in the attic for next year.
Windflower’s doll was returned to her great-uncle. If she was still around next year, he’d let us borrow it again.
•••
My cooking skills improved, slowly.
Besides Windflower’s nightly arrival, one of the highlights of the winter was watching Milfoil care for all the potted plants in the living room—and at her house. I followed her around, and we experimented with ways for me to hear the song. I would lightly touch a plant when she was watering it, or rest my hand on her back as she nipped off a few dying leaves. I tried putting my hands in the soil, and tried again when she touched her nose to it, or her hooves to the pot.
Sometimes it was frustrating. Sometimes it felt like I was making no progress at all. I’d try something new, expecting that it might be the breakthrough that we were both hoping for, and nothing would happen.
Other times, it was within my grasp, at least for a few moments. It was faint, and it might have been as much imagined as actually heard, but it was undeniable.
As the winter dragged on, the successes started to accumulate faster than the failures. I was learning how to clear my mind, how to pick up at least a little bit on the melody, and we began to move to the next stage of experimentation.
“No two ponies hear the song quite the same way,” Milfoil said.
“So I won’t have any luck finding an Earth Pony Magic for Dummies book that explains it all?”
“You’re not a dummy. Well—”
“I know what you mean.” I leaned in and kissed her on the nose. It didn’t bother me that there were a few crumbs of dirt stuck to it. “Is it because ears are all different?”
“That’s part of it, and your own magic also blends into the melody.”
“Even though I haven’t got magic.”
“You must, or else you wouldn't hear.” She said that with utter certainty. It reminded me of an episode of The Simpsons where Bart sold his soul and then discovered that automatic doors didn’t work for him anymore. While it was a silly premise, I could understand Milfoil’s thinking, and although I knew that automatic doors didn’t detect souls, I couldn’t be sure if it was actually a requirement of the melody to be able to change it before it could be heard.
Although back on Earth I could at least do blunt things to plants to change their lives, and that might have been all that was required.
“So how are we testing it? Impartial observers? A blindfold?” I’d heard of various ways of proving and disproving psychic powers.
“Just keep your ears forward, and you’ll start to understand,” she said. “I remember being kinda frustrated as a filly when Sabi would know things that I didn’t, but then I got the knack for it and I started to really understand what I was hearing. It’s not something that you’ll be able to comprehend all at once. For me, the more I heard, the more I was able to make sense of it all, and I think it will work that way for you, too.”
“Do you think that Windflower still sees the world like that?”
Milfoil frowned. “I think . . . I think not exactly. Not anymore. I think by the way she acts sometimes, she’s not hearing all of it, and I think that sometimes she knows that something is missing and other times she doesn’t.
“Sometimes after she’s left, and you’ve fallen asleep, I think about it. I wonder if she’s still fading away or if she’s been pulled back at least a bit by what we’re doing, and I wonder how it happened and I wonder what we can do to fix it. I worry that if we let it go on for too long, something will happen that we haven’t anticipated, and I’m afraid that it will be bad.”
“Bad? Like ‘the forest dies’ bad?”
“I don’t think that bad. But, it would be bad for her, I’m sure of that. And it could—there are plant diseases, and some of them I don’t know how to treat. If I had a favorite plant that got sick and I didn’t want to cull it for the good of the rest, the disease would spread. I don’t think this is the same, but I’m not completely certain that it isn’t.”
“That’s a worrying thought.”
•••
Back on Earth, winters varied from one year to the next. Snow came early, snow came late, snow kept coming even when it shouldn’t. One year I distinctly remember snow on the first day of spring, and other years I remembered wearing shorts in January. Weather was complex.
For the ponies, it was simpler. The snow came when pegasi wanted it to, and as the month turned the countdown began to Winter Wrap-Up. That was the official end of winter, not something guessed at by a woodchuck but instead an official decree.
I knew that there were parts of winter I’d miss. The pervasive smell of woodsmoke in the air, the beauty of frost creeping around the edges of the windows, the magic of fresh snow. The blessing of cuddling up with a warm pony. I thought of nights with the covers pushed back and the desperate hope for any breeze to evaporate the sweat on a hot, humid July night, and I reminded myself how I’d be longing for the snow and cold then.
As winter inexorably drew to a close, the stark, almost black-and-white beauty of the winterscape would be replaced by a softer, less-defined palette of greens and browns, dotted with bright splashes of color. The house would turn from a comfy blanket to more of a hot prison.
I was sure that the weather schedule was published well in advance, and unlikely to contain many surprises. Sometimes the weatherponies made mistakes and had to fix them, but that was uncommon. I was used to the weather app on my phone giving different predictions from one day to the next as the model was refined, but when I was in Manehattan, the weather calendar was almost never wrong.
Had I wanted to, I could have likely gotten a copy of the annual weather schedule. Something like the Farmer’s Almanac, but far more accurate. But I didn’t want to. As winter drew to a close, I felt more and more that I preferred the mystery of it.
•••
There weren’t many days left of our cozy living room arrangement. Of Windflower checking her amaranth, and then weaving through the other pots of plants. Of the fire crackling in the fireplace. The calendar inexorably marched towards Winter Wrap-Up and as we got closer and closer I wanted to drag it back.