Dressed-Up Apples

by Mr Merritt

Chapter One

You can smell it…in the air…

The grey colt sat upon the porch of the Sweet Apple Acres farmhouse, head held high and nostrils flaring. The early morning breeze held a hint of chill that just weeks ago had not been there. The little chef knew that this could only mean one thing: that the dog days of summer were behind them and that the autumn season was ready to begin.

“Hmm…” Peppermill, the youngest of the Ponyville Apple clan, found himself having mixed emotions as this understanding sunk in. On one hoof the chef in him looked forward to the bounty of produce and other culinary delights. But, as he was well aware (provided no draconequus in the vicinity were attempting to mess with the seasonal cycles), autumn is followed by winter. And for a pony who loathed the cold that was not a prospect he looked forward to.

“I feel like…I am forgetting something…”

***

Out in the west orchard a massive red drafthorse lifted his head to sniff the air, before loading another basket of fruit onto a wagon.

“Summer’s endin’…” rumbled Big Macintosh to himself. “Seems lahk it barely started…” For a pony whose life revolved around the growing cycle of the common apple, the change of season usually only meant a different breed of apple to harvest.

But Big Macintosh was not remotely an average apple grower.

As the stallion continued to load the cart, a distant memory bubbled to the surface of his mind. It was a memory that always came at this time of year, and it was a memory that never failed to furrow his brow and darken his usual docile mood.

“Gonna be jus lahk every other year…”

***

Peppermill was back inside his personal domain aka the Sweet Apple Acres kitchen, trying to decide what he would feed his family that day. Normally this was a technicality due to his vast knowledge of cuisine, but today he found himself drawing a rare blank. This was due in large part to the nagging feeling there was something he was forgetting, or missing.

“Autumn…” muttered the colt as he rummaged through the pantry. There was something about this word that struck a chord in the colt. No matter how much he tried to focus on food, images that he associated with that particular season kept popping up in his mind’s eye.

“Wait…what happens during…autumn?””

***

Big Macintosh hitched himself to the wagon laden with baskets of apples, and began his trip to the nearby barn to this quadrant of the acreage. His steady gait hid his stormy thoughts of the future, and he was not fretting about finances or fruit.

‘Hate’ was a strong word, and few ponies would ever expect to associate it with the gentle giant. But the thoughts of what was to come in the following weeks were enough to put a scowl of his face. Like a wisp that you couldn’t put your hooves on, it was the memories of what could have been that set the stallion on edge. He hated that his mind (or was it is heart?) kept bringing the memory up like a nagging toothache or a thorn in one’s fetlocks.

“Harumph…” grunted the Apple pony as he plodded his way to the barn.

***

“Calendar…where the hay…is the calendar?” Peppermill had given up on trying to come up with a meal, and decided to solve the other major mystery plaguing him. The dark-maned colt paced in and out of the ground floor rooms looking for a calendar. He felt maybe something tangible to look at might help answer his question.

Eventually the colt found what he was looking for, much to his chagrin, back in the kitchen right by the door to the porch. He reared up onto his hind legs and managed to pull the calendar off of the nail it hung on. He placed it on the floor then and there and leafed through the pages.

“What happens…in autumn…besides the apple harvest?” questioned the colt out loud. It was then that his eyes fell upon a small image at the end of one of the pages.

“Is that…a pumpkin? But why does it…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Oh!”

***

As Big Macintosh finished unloading the baskets, his gloomy gaze happened towards on wall of the barn. This particular building was not just used for storage, but was also used by Big Macintosh as his own private domain not unlike the upper level of one of the other barns that his adopted brother used for privacy.

This was where the red pony kept a large number of his personal trophies he had accumulated over the years. While Applejack might have valued her rodeo awards, the stallion tended to find himself on the top podium for various strength and other strongpony competitions. On a wooden shelf sat dozen of various trophies and plaques he had won for his phenomenal strength, reaching back all the way to his youth. It was a source of pride for the stallion to know that his muscles had been of great use to him since colthood.

But another look at the shelf revealed there was one spot that seemed…bare.

Big Macintosh sauntered over to the shelf and stared hard at the empty spot. Anypony who knew (or thought they knew) him would of assumed that a trophy or award was missing from that spot.

And as far as he was concerned, there was…

***

“I can’t believe…I forgot!” Peppermill exclaimed, a jubilant smile on his face.

***

“Ah cain’t believe it’s that tahm again…”

***

“Maybe this…will finally be…the year…”

***

“…that ah ken finally enjoy…”

***

“…Nightmare Night!”