Daylight stabbed my eyes. I barely had time to squint out at the train station before a rough hoof shoved me stumbling out onto the platform. The train gushed out steam. Everything was a white blur.
“You got one day,” came Cutter’s rasping voice from behind.
“Fuck yourself!” I snapped, my eyes adjusting.
“You got some nerve, Belle,” Cutter said.
I glared up at his ugly face. “And you've got some self-fucking to do.”
“Just get the money,” Cutter groaned, disappearing back into the darkness of the wagon.
“Of course,” I lied. “I’ll be back with it in no time.” I stepped back from the train, my head aching from the bright light.
Posters lined the station walls. ‘Dream by Rarity,’ they read, with my sister’s self-righteous face plastered on them next to some fancy blue bottle. Her advertisements were everywhere, even in the city, always watching and judging me.
“It’s too late,” said a deeper voice inside the wagon behind me.
“What?” Cutter asked.
“The train,” the deeper voice said. “It’s five minutes too late.”
“Do we pay you to count minutes?” Cutter said. “Get out and do your job.”
I froze and looked back. “Job? What job?”
The big bastard in the raincoat who’d sat silent all the way from the city emerged from the wagon, white eyes squinting around the station. He looked like someone who’d spent far too long in a dungeon, yet at the same time not nearly long enough.
“What a shithole,” he said, his thick raincoat making a clinking sound as he stepped out onto the platform.
“No, no, no, no, no,” I said, storming past the brute and looking back into the wagon at Cutter. “You didn’t say anything about bringing anyone.”
“Did you really think we’d just let you wander off alone with all that debt?” Cutter asked. “I’m going back to the city. Chuck-Chuck stays with you.”
I glanced back at the creepy stallion in the raincoat, and the sight made my guts churn. He was standing under a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ sign, staring up at a dusty clock that had been broken since before I left this very station five years ago.
“Come on, Cut.” I forced a smile. “There’s no need for that. I’m good for it, you know I am.”
“You worry too much, Belle.” Cutter put a hoof on the wagon door. “Chuck-Chuck’s the very best at what he does.” He grinned and began sliding the door. “Just don’t let him feed you anything.”
“No, no, please, please, please—”
The door slammed shut in my face.
I groaned, pressing my forehead against the cold metal. This was supposed to be easy—just walk away alone and disappear. I looked over to the stallion Cutter had called Chuck-Chuck.
He was looking right at me with those pale eyes of his.
I put on a hard face. “What are you looking at?”
“A dead mare.”
I swallowed. “I’ll get the money.”
Chuck-Chuck looked up at the clock again. “Sure you will.”
“My sister’s holding on to it. Just have to go pick it up.”
“Funny how everyone remembers some fortune lying around at a time like this.” He turned toward the station exit. “You've got until midnight. Then you’re mine.”
* * *
Leaves the color of gold and blood rustled along the winding, downhill road. Here and there, Ponyville came into view between trees and bushes: houses of mismatched colors along narrow roads, bridges spanning the same old rivers, rolling hills and forests stretching out beyond.
My head throbbed. I felt nauseous and weak. It was hard to breathe properly.
“How long since you smoked?” Chuck-Chuck asked. His raincoat kept making that clinking sound as he walked, like it was stuffed with glass. “They said you’re a dusthead.”
“I’m not a dusthead,” I snapped. “I’m quitting.”
“No one quits the dust,” he said. “The hunger breaks everyone. Once your nose starts bleeding you’ll sell your soul for a gem.” He looked down at the town. “But it’s not unusual for ponies to fight their demons when they sense their time is running out.”
I kept my mouth shut and walked on.
“Tell me why you ran away,” Chuck-Chuck said after a while.
I glared at him. “Is every debt-collector this nosy?”
His white eyes met mine in a dangerous look.
I pursed my lips and looked forward. “I didn’t run.”
“Fillies your age don’t just leave their homes.”
“I’m a mare, you idiot.”
“Barely.”
“What do you care why I left?”
Chuck-Chuck adjusted his raincoat as he walked. “It’s my job to know if your sister will give out a small fortune to some brat who ran off years ago.”
“It’s my money. Inheritance. It belongs to me.”
“And why’s your inheritance just sitting out here in the middle of nowhere while you’re living on borrowed money?”
I didn’t answer.
“Don’t make me beat it out of you,” he said.
I hesitated. “She stole it.”
“Thieves aren’t in the habit of giving back what they take.”
“This one will,” I said, my expression hardening.
The first houses appeared along the narrow road. The air was rich with the scent of earth—a nice change from the dusty coal-and-piss stink of the city. This smelled like home, and it made me tense with anxiety.
Rarity’s boutique came into view in the distance ahead. It looked different—bigger than before—but there was no question that it was hers.
I felt sick. I wasn’t supposed to be here. I never intended to come back.
I glanced sideways at Chuck-Chuck. The big brute looked as out of place as I felt, overshadowing me like some enormous bodyguard, scowling at everything and everyone with icy suspicion. I had to ditch him somehow, hop on a train going west or south or anywhere not Ponyville.
I turned toward a Café on the side of the road.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I need to use a restroom.”
“If your sister’s as rich as you say, she’ll have a pot.”
I ignored him, half-expecting him to grab me. But he stood back and did nothing.
A tiny bell rang above the café door when I walked through. The dimness inside soothed my headache.
A mare stood by the windows, red sunlight moving up and down her foreleg as she wiped a table with a wet cloth. “Oh, I’m sorry, dear,” she said when she saw me. “I’m afraid you’re too late. We’re closed.”
“Do you have a back door?” I asked.
She cocked her head. “A door? Sure. Why—”
“Where? I need to use it real quick.”
The mare hesitated, but pointed to a door at the end of a short hallway.
I looked out the window. Chuck-Chuck still stood in the street, watching me. I went for the back door. It creaked open, and I emerged in an alleyway smelling of earth and flowers.
My heart raced. I had to get away. Just the thought of seeing Rarity again made me feel weak.
I moved to the end of the alley and poked my head around the corner.
A tall figure stood there waiting for me. I looked up and Chuck-Chuck’s pale eyes glared down at me.
My mouth fell open.
He shoved me into the alley and pressed his hoof hard into my throat, hoisting me up against the wall until the ground disappeared under me. “You really don’t know what you’re dealing with, do you?”
I charged my horn in desperation, trying to strike out at him.
He jerked his head, horn flashing, and searing pain shot through my forehead.
I tried to scream, but his hoof clenched my throat shut.
His horn took on a softer glow, and the air between us distorted. Living light appeared, taking the shape of a glowing document with my signature at the bottom.
“There’s a reason we make you sign in that special ink,” Chuck-Chuck said. “Until I strike your name, your contract will lead me right to you, no matter where you hide.”
I couldn’t breathe. My lungs screamed for air. I pushed at him with my hooves, but he was too strong.
“I was going to save the surprise for midnight, but…” The glowing document disappeared, and his magic moved inside his raincoat, glassy objects clinking inside. “Here.” He pulled out a vial with a translucent, white liquid. “Sister’s Mercy, it’s called. Fitting name, don’t you think?” He studied the vial. “Deadly even in tiny doses. Its antidote is so wonderfully ironic, you’d think it was made just for you.”
He looked at me and strangled me harder. “Your contract may let me find you anywhere, but if you make me chase you again, I’ll force the poison down your throat and watch you writhe like a worm until you die.” He gave my throat a final squeeze and let go.
I fell down against the wall, gasping and coughing.
He tugged me up to my hooves and shoved me out on the road. “Find your sister, and pray she can save you from me.”
* * *
The round core of the old boutique still stood, but it had been painted blue. New, white sections had been built on its sides, making it look more a small mansion than a humble boutique. A greenhouse stood to the side, connected to the house by a glass corridor, its walls glaring red with the light of the setting sun.
“That it?” Chuck-Chuck asked.
I nodded, fighting back a shudder.
“Something wrong with your legs?” He shoved me onto the walkway.
I moved toward the front door as slow as a pony about to be hanged, the monstrous boutique looming over me.
“I’ll be close,” Chuck-Chuck said from behind.
I looked back, and he disappeared behind the hedge.
A few unopened envelopes lay in front of the door. I lifted one of them with my magic, almost entertaining the idea of this being the wrong house. But the letter was addressed to Rarity, and the old address hadn’t changed.
My guts tightened as I raised my hoof to knock. I held it in the air for a while, blood pounding in my head, and knocked once, twice, three times. My heart beat faster with every second I waited. I held my breath, expecting Rarity to swing the door open at any moment and yell at me when she saw me.
But the seconds dragged on into an eternity, and no one answered.
I put my ear to the door.
Silence.
I tried the door handle.
Unlocked.
I opened the door a crack and looked inside.
The round room was vast and open. Blood-red slits of sunlight shone through gaps in curtains, cutting across a white floor. Naked mannequins stood with their tails to the curving wall, their empty faces staring into the center of the room.
I opened the door wider and took a step inside. “Hello?”
The room swallowed my voice.
I looked back one last time and closed the door behind me. There was no turning back now. It was get the money or die.
I looked around as I wandered into the room.
The ceiling lamps were dead. Specks of dust drifted in the slivers of red sunlight on the floor. The air had a faint smell of cloth. A work table stood beneath shelves stacked with fabric rolls organized by color. Everything looked clean and old, like a space prepared for work, then forgotten about.
I slid my hoof over the work table. Smooth and polished, ready for a new design. It was bigger than the one I remembered Rarity having.
A familiar, wooden toolbox sat on a shelf. I walked up to it and pressed the button on its front.
Clockwork clicked and hummed inside, and the top fanned open into three platforms, presenting scissors, needles, thread, ribbons, and just about everything else a fashionista could need.
I lifted up the biggest pair of scissors in the box—the ones Rarity never let me use. Excitement sparkled through me as I snipped the air.
A childish fear of being caught struck me, and I looked behind for any signs of my sister. But the room was still empty. I smiled back at the scissors, put them in their place, and closed the box.
There were two other doors aside from the entrance. The door ahead of me was slightly ajar. The door to my right had a ‘Do Not Enter’ sign.
I inched my way to the ajar door and opened it, bracing myself for Rarity standing on the other side.
It led into a hallway with a weak light at the end. Paintings lined the right wall, the left wall bare and empty.
I walked inside toward the door on the opposite end, glancing sideways at the paintings on my right.
The painting of a lonely star in the night sky looked familiar.
I stopped.
I knew that painting; it used to hang in my bedroom in our parents’ house. I would stare at that star for hours, wishing I could fall asleep. I looked around at the other paintings, recognizing all of them. Had it really been five years?
I continued past the last paintings toward the light at the end.
The light shone from the top of a staircase. Another hallway opened to my right where the staircase began, stretching on into darkness. There was an empty room to my left—no furniture, no lights.
I started up the staircase toward the light.
A single oil lamp shone at the top of the stairs, casting a dim, flickering glow into a smaller hallway with more doors. Light shone from the slit under one of them.
I approached the door quiet as a thief and stopped outside, listening.
All I could hear was the sound of my racing heart.
I took a moment to swallow my anxiety, and spoke into the door.
“Rarity?”
Silence.
I put my hoof on the door handle and pushed it open.
Warm, stale air washed over me. The room on the other side was dim, red sunlight struggling through curtains drawn across three windows. Shelves, dressers, and mirrors stood against one wall, an oversized bed hidden in drapes against another.
A nightstand lamp on the opposite side of the bed shone through the drapes, casting a silhouette of someone in the bed, chest rising and falling without a sound.
I stared at the figure behind the drapes, barely able to breathe from fear and excitement.
“Rarity?” I waited, so tense I would no doubt bolt away like a rabbit at the smallest sound. But no sound came. I took a step forward. “Rarity?”
The sound of soft breathing drifted up from the other side.
I put my hoof on the drapes, hesitated, and pulled them back.
Rarity lay in a pool of blood, her foreleg slashed open with a deep cut, blood pulsing out on white fur and sheet.
I stumbled back in horror.
A bloody knife lay at her side. Her closed eyelids twitched, but she didn’t move. She was still breathing, if barely. Red soaked much of her white coat.
I stared at the blood dripping from the edge of the mattress. She was going to bleed to death.
I moved up to the side of the bed and raised my hoof like I was going to do something useful, only to realize I had no clue what to do.
A cold thought hit me, and I slowly lowered my hoof. If she died, everything she owned would go to her next of kin. Her only next of kin. Me. I could pay off my debt, spare myself an early grave, and live the rest of my life rich as a princess.
All I had to do was walk away and her fortune would slip into my hooves.
Rarity groaned and shifted in bed.
I froze.
She settled again, unconscious and barely breathing. If it wasn’t for the blood, it would have looked like she was sleeping.
What shade of blue were her eyes? What did her voice sound like? I couldn’t remember any of it, not even the last words I’d said to her on that horrible night five years ago. But for some stupid reason, I remembered her face when I’d screamed it at her: sad, exhausted, broken—just like her face now, teetering on the edge of life.
And in a heartbeat everything changed. The hatred I clung to crumbled away, and all I felt was a terrible dread of losing the last family I had in the world.
I tore off a clean strip of bedsheet, lifted her bloody leg, and wrapped the cloth around the cut, feeling queasy at the touch.
Red soaked the makeshift bandage.
I tore off another strip of bedsheet and wrapped it around the first one, tighter this time.
The bandage stayed white and I stayed in debt.
I stared down at her. Was bandaging the cut enough to keep her alive? How much blood had she already lost? It looked like she had been bleeding for a while.
A jolt of pain crackled through my skull. I winced and sat down on the bloodless part of the bedside. Something felt horribly wrong with my body. Dust hunger. Hadn't smoked in over a day. I breathed harder. My heart pounded. I needed it—just a little to make the pain go away. But I had none, and if there was one place you wouldn’t find a dust dealer, it was Ponyville.
My eyes went to Rarity’s face. She looked half a corpse—a beautiful corpse; she hadn’t aged at all since I last saw her.
I looked away, struggling to control my breathing.
The dark figure of a grandfather clock stood next to the mirror, watching me. It was too dark to see the time, but I could hear it ticking away my seconds. Slowly, slowly. Tick, tack, tick, tack.
The clock clanged out loud as thunder, startling me so hard I almost fell out of bed. The bells inside the clock played a melody of sorts, then began chiming. The clock tower in the town square chimed at the same time, far away, deep and distant. They counted the hours together. Shrill, deep, close, distant, shrill, deep. Nine times. Nine o’clock. Three hours left to live.
Rarity mumbled something in the silence.
I looked down at her like she was a snake about to bite me.
Her bright-blue eyes blinked open.
My heart shot up into my throat, and I felt a violent urge to run and hide.
She squinted at the room like she didn’t know where she was. Her eyes fell on me. “Mom?” she croaked, making a miserable face.
“I-I’m not…” I shifted on the mattress, unsure of whether I should move closer or give her space. “It’s me.” I lowered my eyes. “Sweetie Belle.”
Rarity blinked. “Sweetie?”
I swallowed.
“But you’re… How…?” She looked down at her blood-soaked coat, and her eyes widened. “Get out.”
“It’s okay, I’ve—”
“Get out!”
I scrambled from the bed and out of the room. The door slammed shut behind me, and I stood alone in the dim hallway.
My heart still thundered in my chest. I stood stunned for a moment, then slumped sideways against the wall and sat down on the floor, feeling dazed.
What had I done? Why hadn’t I just let her die? I never should have come here. I never should have borrowed so much money in the first place. Damn but I needed some dust; it felt like my head was about to split open.
I raised my forehooves, about to rub at my throbbing temples, but froze and stared at them instead. My hooves were smudged with her blood. I shuddered.
The bedroom door opened.
I stood up.
Rarity walked right past me, horn glowing to levitate a ball of blood-soaked sheets in front of her. Her otherwise graceful strides wobbled when she put pressure on her bandaged leg. She went into a different room in the hallway and closed the door, a lock clicking behind her.
Something creaked beyond the door, followed by the sound of a shower turning on.
I sank back down against the wall.
A short while passed, and the sound of the shower died.
I looked up.
The door opened and light fanned out into the dim hallway. Rarity stood in the threshold, her mane hanging half-wet over one shoulder. All traces of blood were gone from her coat, but she looked paler than her usual pale, and a blue bandage—the expensive magical type that healed fast—wrapped around her wound in place of mine.
I rose slowly.
She closed the door behind her and held out a wet towel to me. I hesitated, then took the cloth and wiped the blood from my hooves. She took the towel in her magic and moved it out of sight.
We both stood there for a moment in silence without looking at each other.
“Are you thirsty?” Rarity asked.
I looked at her. “What?”
“I have tea.”
Words fled my mind. I could only stare.
She waited a moment, and limped down the staircase, leaving me alone in the dim hallway.
I looked back at her room one last time. The drapes were drawn back, clean sheets clothed the bed, and on the nightstand on the other side was flowerpot with a single flower—twin headed, one white, one blue.
I bit my lip and slowly followed Rarity down the stairs.