“Sorry I’m late, Princess Luna. Bitter really wanted to talk to me about a weird dream she had.”
Hex Breaker, now 2 years older than when he’d made his promise, sat in his window seat to gaze up at the moon. Not long after making his promise to keep talking to her, his father had a window seat installed so that the colt could have his conversations from the safety of his room rather than sitting up on the roof every night. Something told him that was just an accident waiting to happen. While Puer was more than willing to support his son, he didn’t think a broken neck was what either of them needed.
“I think my sister sees things a lot of the rest of us don’t. She said that some weird things from past the stars came to see her and stayed with her for a while. She tried to draw them, but I couldn’t really make much out. They had these big green heads and huge black eyes! I wonder...do you ever see things like that from where you are?”
She didn’t answer. She never did. But Hex didn’t hold anything against her. Maybe for all he knew, Luna was answering him and he simply couldn’t hear her. It wasn’t all that hard for the colt to picture the Alicorn there on the moon. Thanks to the library and bookstores, he’d been able to find old text that had painted portraits of her. They were all heavily stylized, but it was still nice to have a little bit of an idea as to what the Princess looked like. In the small pony’s eyes, she was the epitome of beauty. She was the night sky all wrapped up into one perfect package.
“Oh! I almost forgot,” he started with a wiggle. “My dad wanted to add some special foods to the cafe today. You know, the tea cafe that he runs? I said I wanted to make something that would remind ponies of the moon. He looked kinda sad at first. But then he smiled and he pulled out a recipe that my mom made!”
Slipping off of his seat, Hex moved to grab the plate from his desk. Said plate was carefully set on the windowsill as an offering to Luna.
“I brought one for you. They’re called moon cakes. He tried to show me how to make it, but I’m not sure I’ll remember how to without the instructions,” the young one explained. “They’ve got lavender in them. So they’re really soothing and nice.”
He looked down at the little pastry with pride. It was more of a cookie than a cake for sure, but nevertheless, he was still proud. Silently, he wondered if Luna was proud too.
“I wish you could have met my mom,” Hex continued. “She was really great, from what I can remember. I mean, I don’t remember much. We lost her when I was 3. Bitter never got to know her at all. So I guess I’m pretty lucky.”
His ears drooped and the colt nudged his hooves together. His mother was more of a feeling at this point than a full memory. He new she smelled like warm earth and herbs and he would still feel the warmth of his embrace if he tried hard enough. A soft, lingering melody would float through his head from time to time. He was sure it was a song, but all he could recall was humming. The memory always comforted him whenever he was sad. Even now, the tune came from his own lips as he hummed along with the memory.
“I wish…”
His own words startled him at first, and Hex had to paise to get his bearings.
“I wish I could have known more about her.”
No sooner did that whisper leave his lips did the light in the colt’s room flicker. A soft whisper met his ears, making him jump as he perked up.
“H-Hello?”
Silence.
“Please… if you’re there, tell me what you want?”
Again the whisper reached him and oh so slowly his door began to creak open. Hex Breaker had no idea what was there, but whatever it was seemed to want him to follow it. There was the whisper a third time, this time from the hallway. He swallowed heavily, took a deep breath, and made his way forward. Bittersweet had already gone to bed, and his father was downstairs making sure the shop was ready for the next day. Yet the whisper still called to him. It brought him further down the hall to what Hex thought was a dead end.
“Hello? Why would you bri--”
His words were interrupted with a squeak as a ladder clattered down before him. The attic. Somehow he’d forgotten they’d even had one. It wasn’t a very large space, and Hex was sure his father just used it as storage, but it was there. On one hoof, the young one knew that he probably shouldn’t be following whatever this was. This was how ghost stories tended to start, wasn’t it? On the other hoof, something seemed to be answering his wishes. There was only one way to find out if this would end in disaster or in answers.
Despite the fact that he knew he shouldn’t go, Hex made his way to the top of the ladder. A single circular window shed light from the moon down into the tiny room. There were a few boxes here and there, but what really called the lavender pony’s attention were two large containers off to the side of the window. One was a wooden trunk while the other was a chest that looked very familiar. The closer he grew, the more he could smell the cedar and the memories came rushing back. This belonged to his mother. The pony had assumed the wooden chest had been lost forever despite it being one of his mother’s favorite possessions. She kept all of her best clothes inside of it, and more often than not, Hex would hide away inside of it. The warmth that filled him as he nudged his forehead against it quickly turned cold when he realized the chest that was normally never locked now had a lock on it.
The trunk, however, didn’t have a lock.
The exhilaration Hex Breaker felt as he ran his hooves over the trunk was almost too much to bear. He’d asked to know more about his mother, and someone had listened. At this point, the colt hardly cared who had been listening. All that mattered was that his wish had been answered. He was practically vibrating as he finally moved to push up on the lid of the trunk. So many books and bottles filled the trunk almost to the brim. There were little boxes here and there with hidden treasures inside, herbs that still somehow smelled so good despite being locked away for 5 years, parchment, quills, and strange little bottles of what looked like ink. The eager pony didn’t know what to look at first. There were so many books waiting to be read and trinkets waiting to be looked at.
Finally he settled on one of the books. It was one of the oldest in the trunk for sure, judging by how well-loved it looked. Nothing could have prepared Hex for the elation he felt bursting through him when he opened the cover to find that this very book was his mother’s Grimoire. Now it made so much sense as to why it had been kept all this time. The book was filled to the brim with all of his mother’s magical knowledge. Or well, most of it. Hex was sure that all of her experiments and things of the sort were contained in the other books, which looked much more like journals than a Book of Shadows. This was more the “finished products” of her work. There were spells, potion recipes, a full list of the herbs she tended to use on a regular basis and what each of them did medicinally and represented magically.
The lavender pony quickly found himself on the floor, pouring over each and every page. His mother’s prized possession was now his own, and he would read it by the light of the moon until he couldn’t read anymore. So there he sat for hours, reading a good half-way through the book of magic. At this point, he wasn’t sure if he could even remember half of what he’d seen. It would take a lot of time and devotion to get it all down, and that was something he was more than willing to do. For now, Hex reluctantly closed his precious book and turned his attention back to the open trunk. There was just so much to look at! Just when he thought he’d seen everything, more came tumbling out. Crystals of all kinds were kept in pretty pouches and there were more candles here than he knew what to do with.
“Mom did a lot more candle magic than I thought,” he mumbled to himself as he pulled out a pure black candle to look over.
This one looked much like it was being prepped for a spell. There were carvings all over it and it smelled sweet from the herbs rubbed into its grooves. Perhaps this was something she’d been working on before Bitter was born. The sad thought wasn’t given time to settle in before Hex was once more digging around. Suddenly, something jingled when he nudged it; the sound of metal hitting metal completely called his attention. The colt’s horn glowed a pale pink as he pulled it up from the trunk. The little box was quite heavy, and when he opened it he could feel himself grow pale. It was full of keys. Once glance at the cedar chest had him both excited and terrified. The key to the chest had to be in there, but which one was it? There had to be at least 40 keys.
“Hex!”
The poor pony nearly jumped out of his skin when his name was called. Glancing around quickly, he was relieved to see his father hadn’t come up into the attic yet. The box was hidden away, the trunk was closed, and Hex found himself clambering down the ladder as fast as his little legs could take him. With a noise of discomfort, he all but flopped down onto the carpet below. The sudden bounce was enough to slam the folding ladder right back up into its hiding place.
“C-coming, Papa,” Hex called out.
Deep down, the pony knew he should talk to his father. Maybe if he just asked, the stallion would be willing to share stories of his mother and allow him to go through both trunks without worry. Even still, Hex couldn’t bring himself to say anything, even as his father came into sight. The trunk would just have to wait.