It was a few minutes after two o’clock on a Thursday afternoon when the rose began to change. I knew because the big cabinet clock beside the door had just chimed the hour.
I was at home, in the kitchen, getting an early start on dinner: a pumpkin-and-daisy-petal stew. Something new for my restaurant’s autumn menu. One of my better ideas that year, to be honest. Just a little sweet, with a hint of savory and a bit of a tang. Spicy miso base. The sort of thing you want when the air gets cool and the leaves start turning. It wound up as one of our best sellers. San Palomino Chorba, I think I called it.
The rose was in a glass vase on the counter, alone. An anniversary gift from my wife. She always had a deft hoof with roses, though that shouldn’t surprise anypony. You don’t get a name like Roseluck without a bit of talent.
She was out on the patio with her friends, gossiping about the new doctor at Ponyville Hospital. Can’t remember his name, not that it matters. Rose had been sick the week before, bad enough that she’d gone to see him a couple times. Couldn’t keep anything down, whatever I cooked for her. Made me a bit scared—but she got better. She’d been hale as a horse all week.
From what Roseluck said, the new doctor was quite a looker. She and Daisy were trying to get Lily interested. Daisy’d had a steady for about a year then, as I remember. I heard they got married a couple months back. Big Canterlot affair. Lots of guests. Lily never showed much interest in dating, though. Didn’t stop my wife and Daisy from trying to set her up, but none of the stallions they pitched at her ever lasted more than two dates.
I remember the whole thing very clearly. I ladled up some of the stew and took a taste. Hot enough to burn my tongue. There was a hint of cumin in the flavor—I was working on getting the spices right. Outside, I heard Daisy laugh. “Oh, you should see the cannons on him, Lily. He could be a show horse with legs like that.”
Roseluck snickered. “If you don’t want him, maybe I’ll take him. With Ember spending more time away at the restaurant, I could use an extra pair of hooves around here.” I felt my barrel tighten, and had to remind myself she was making a joke.
“You think you might keep him on for a little detail work?” Daisy asked, and her tone made it very clear what she was suggesting.
On accident, I dropped the ladle into the soup. I stared at it for a moment and then turned away. I stuck my head out the patio door and smiled. “Dinner’s ready. You three been enjoying yourselves?”
Roseluck smiled back at me. “Oh yes, honey. Just talking about the weather.”
My smile slipped a little. Just another one of Rose’s little white lies. She didn’t want me to know she and her friends had been talking about other stallions again. I turned back toward the kitchen.
Outside, I heard Roseluck laugh again. Then there was a grunt, and the laughter changed into something else. A cough, dull and liquid. It stuck in my head the way it stuck in her throat. I looked up from the stove and I saw the rose.
It had been a deep crimson when my wife gave it to me. Almost an unnatural color. Too vibrant. She’d told me it was special, a type of rose that only grows in the heart of the Everfree Forest, a type that would stay fresh and never wilt. I don’t know how she got her hooves on it. She’d only ever seen one other, she told me. And it had some sort of magic to it, but what that was she couldn’t say. Or wouldn’t, maybe.
It had been a deep crimson. I know it had. But now it was burgundy. Darker, closer to purple. I blinked, tossed my head, stared at it. A trick of the light, I told myself. Roses don’t change color.
The coughing stopped. The voices from the patio grew softer. I couldn’t make out the words.
I fished the ladle out of the soup, and began to stir.
A month passed, and the rose slipped my mind.
Then, late on a Saturday, I found myself alone at the restaurant. Closing up for the night. I remember Roseluck and I got in a spat that morning, before work. Something unimportant—something like whose turn it was to buy fresh hay that week. Put me in a sour mood all day.
I’d just finished mopping the dining room’s hardwood floor when I heard the phone ring. The kitchen phone, not the main phone. It must have been after ten-thirty at that point. I remember the sky outside was black. I leaned the mop against one of the tables and trotted back to the kitchen, curious about who could be calling. A wrong number, maybe? The kitchen phone rarely rang at all, and never this late.
When I picked it up, I heard a clatter on the other end of the line. Something falling, something breaking. Then Lily’s voice, worried. “Ember?”
“Yeah.” I frowned. “I didn’t think you had this number.”
“I didn’t. Rose just—” Another clatter. “Ember, I think you should come home.”
I felt my brow wrinkling. “Lily, what’s going on?”
“It’s Roseluck. I stopped over to say hi, and I found her passed out in the bathroom.”
“Is she all right?”
“I don’t think so. I saw a lot of blood in the sink and—” There was a thump. “Hold on, Ember. She keeps trying to—”
My heartbeat thundered in my ears. I opened my mouth to say something; I don’t know what. Then I heard a loud crash through the line. Then, silence.
A second later, a different voice spoke through the phone. “Hi, honey.”
“Rose?”
She laughed. “Of course it’s me, silly.”
“Do you want me to call the—”
“No, no, everything’s fine. I’m fine.” There was a pause, and I thought I heard her cough. “Lily just has an overactive imagination.”
Bile rose in my throat, burning. “Rose, I want to talk to Lily.”
“I told you, honey, there’s nothing wrong. Why don’t you finish up at the restaurant and—”
“Put her on the phone.” I felt my hoof twitch, like it wanted to kick.
There was another cough, clearer this time. Then her voice came back, nervous. “Sorry, honey. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later tonight, okay? Bye.” The phone clicked once and fell silent.
I held the phone for half a minute, staring at it, wondering what had just happened. I felt dazed at first. And then angry—so angry. I don’t know where it came from. I mean, Roseluck always had her little secrets. I knew that before I married her. Some things, she only shared with Daisy and Lily. Some things, she didn’t even share with them. She had her secrets, but never about anything important. Just little things, like where she went to collect the blue roses she sold every winter, or how she always knew where to find the mayor at every hour of every day.
But this? I couldn’t stop worrying about what Lily had said. Passed out. Blood. And whatever it was, Rose didn’t want me to know about it. I felt the bile rise again. I felt a pounding ache in my temples.
I threw the phone. I don’t know why—I’m not usually a violent stallion. But it felt like the only thing I could do. I threw it, and it clanged against a large iron sauce pan. The pan fell over and the remains of a thick tomato borscht sloshed onto the floor, leaving a red splatter across the white tile. I stared at it for a moment, and I felt a stab of rage. Then, as quick as a whinny, it subsided. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and went back into the dining room to fetch the mop.
When I returned home, close on midnight, Roseluck was already asleep. And the rose—sitting in its glass vase and looking as fresh as the day it was cut—the rose was an ugly purple color, like a day-old bruise.
I had a dream that night, I remember.
It never made much sense to me. I'm at home and it's mid-afternoon—which is strange. Saturday afternoon, I'm always at the restaurant. I'm at home, and I hear Roseluck laughing in the kitchen. There's another sound, too. Another voice?
I trot down the hallway toward the kitchen, and the laughing cuts off. I call out ahead, "Rose? I got the hay you wanted."
She's standing in the kitchen and she looks flushed. I hurry toward her, but she shies back. Her hooves tremble a little. "Ember! What are you doing home?"
I hear a loud tick from the cabinet clock by the door. It always does that, about a minute before it rings the hour. Winding back the hammers before they strike the chimes, I think. "Slow crowd today. Soup Spoon's taking care of things. I just... I'm sorry I yelled at you this morning. I didn't want to spend all day feeling like that."
She smiles. "Oh, Ember. It was just a spat. We've had worse and I'm still here, aren't I? Everypony gets mad now and then."
There's something tight in my chest. A feeling that something is wrong. I hear that sound again, like a whisper, from somewhere behind me.
"Stop. Please stop."
My ears perk up and I start to turn my head, but then Roseluck is leaning her head against my neck, sighing. I smile down at her and smooth her mane with my hoof.
"I heard from the doctor today, Ember. He said—"
I twitch. I hear the sound again. I don't understand it. I turn away from her, looking behind me. The clock ticks loudly in my ears, and the whisper is gone.
"Ember? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," I lie. "I was just thinking about the restaurant."
Why did I say that? I wasn't thinking about the restaurant. I was thinking about the voice, and about Roseluck, and about the new doctor.
"Please, Ember. It was only some hay." The voice trembles. It seems to come from behind me, beneath me.
Rose runs a hoof through my mane. "Ten months, he says. At the end of the summer, maybe within a week of our anniversary. Won't that be nice?"
I smile back at her, but then she's gone. Vanished. I hear a door slam, a stallion yelling, wood rattling against wood. I smell something sharp and metallic, and my heart pounds in my chest. My vision fades to black, and I hear the stallion's voice again.
"I suppose I should get back to work, honey. I'll see you tonight."
I still have that dream sometimes.