Bats in the Old Apple Barn

by adcoon

Gloomy Eyes

“There!” Apple Bloom stepped back down from the window and turned back to her two friends. “That was the last one.”

“Great.” Scootaloo looked around Granny Smith’s bedroom, lit up only by the three candles they had brought with them. The three flames created long, flickering shadows in the room. She shivered and backed out into the hall, turning around to head back down the stairs. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You’re not afraid, are you?” Apple Bloom grinned and picked up her candle again as she followed, leaving the door to Granny’s room open as she and her two friends walked back down the stairs.

“Of course not,” Scootaloo protested, cheeks slightly red. “I was never really scared at all. I just … remembered all the candy waiting for me down here, that’s all.” She grinned and hurried over to her chair to stuff her face with more sweets.

“You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.” Apple Bloom grinned as well and threw herself back down into her chair. “I’ve got a tale for you, and if you thought the last two were scary, then you’re in for it now.”

Sweetie Belle sat down in Granny’s rocking chair and wrapped herself in the blanket again. “I don’t know, I don’t think anything can top those two.”

“Oh, this’ll top both of ‘em.” Apple Bloom grinned widely and rubbed her hooves together as she looked between her two eagerly waiting friends. “Did I ever tell you … that this farm is haunted?”

“What, no!” Sweetie Belle gasped and held her blanket up to cover her muzzle.

Apple Bloom slowly nodded. “Oh yes. For a hundred years, this place has been haunted by the vengeful ghost … of Gloomy Eyes!”

“Wait wait wait,” Scootaloo cut in. “I thought Granny Smith said her family built this farm before Ponyville was even founded. Granny’s not a hundred years old!”

“You’re right,” Apple Bloom said. “She ain’t. The ghost,” she paused to look at both of them in turn, “has been hauntin’ these grounds since before Ponyville, before the farm, and before our family came to this place to settle.

“Long ago a stone tower sat on this hill, at the edge of the forest. We ponies built it as a watchtower where guards could watch the forest and the lands around it, but over the years it was abandoned and ruined. Gloomy was a young bat pony then, and she found the tower just sittin’ there, weathered and unused. Since bat ponies love old, abandoned places where it’s dark and lonely, she thought it was the perfect place for her to live.

“Gloomy’s dream was to have a family, to have a very special somepony and a little foal of their own. But none of the other bat ponies liked Gloomy or wanted to be her special somepony because of her eyes, and because they all thought she was a little bit odd, and so she lived in that old, ruined tower all alone.

“One night, while out flyin’, she came near a village of ponies, and she saw a little pegasus filly in a cradle made of clouds, left upon the doorsteps of a house. Gloomy descended cautiously, knowin’ the reputation of her kind among regular ponies, and approached the orphan. When nopony was around and lookin’, Gloomy picked up the foal and hurried back home to her tower.

“Gloomy took the babe home and treated it like her very own child. Gloomy named the child Velvet Wish, and she fed her, taught her, and loved her. No pony knew that Velvet was missin’, because the child had been left but never found, except by Gloomy. And so Velvet grew up with Gloomy, becoming skilled in the ways of the bat ponies.

“Velvet loved her adoptive mother too, but she soon grew lonely in the old tower, with no friends other than Gloomy. One day, while her mother slept in the cold darkness of the tower, Velvet went out into the sunlit world to find other ponies her age. She found her way to a nearby village, perhaps the very same one where her mother had found her. But everypony could see that she was different, even a little bit odd, and it wasn’t long before the ponies of the village found out where she came from.

“The ponies of the village took Velvet away, wrapped a blindfold over her eyes so she couldn’t see where they took her, and carried her off into the skies to live among her own kind. Then they headed for the tower where the evil, filly-nappin’ bat pony lived. Gloomy escaped into the forest, but the ponies destroyed her home and crushed all her possessions, but worst of all, they had taken away her only child.

“Gloomy returned days later to the ruins of her home. She searched the villages for Velvet but never found her. Gloomy never gave up hope, even after years. She stayed in the old tower, alone and cold, hoping that one day Velvet would show up.

“Then one night, a terrible storm came out from the forest. Gloomy hid in her tower, huddled up alone and wet in the dark, thinking only of her lost daughter. The thunder roared, and lightning struck the tower. Gloomy didn’t make it out that night.”

“Some say that years later, Velvet finally found the old tower again. Now that she was a grown mare, she had left the clouds in search of that tower from her childhood, and the mother she remembered. But all she found were stones, scorched by lightning, and the bones of her mother.

“Velvet buried the bones here, at the base of the ruined tower, and made for her mother a grave. And here Gloomy has rested ever since, her spirit still wanderin’ the tower which stands no longer, still waitin’ for her beloved daughter to come and stay with her.

“Granny and her family later settled here and built their first house on top of the ruins. If you listen, on most nights, you can hear her wandering the house, waiting for her lost daughter to come home. And sometimes, when you wake up in the night and look around your empty room, you will see her standing there in the dark, watching you sleep.”

Apple Bloom paused in her tale, and looked at her two friends. None of them dared look around. After a moment, Sweetie Belle wiped an eye and looked at Apple Bloom. “That was so sad. Is … is it really true? Did all that really happen?”

Apple Bloom nodded solemnly. “One hundred years ago, on this very night, the ponies of the village took her daughter away and destroyed her home. Some say that on that night, after a hundred years, at the strike of midnight, she will come out and seek her revenge.”

The two fillies looked up at the massive grandfather clock behind Apple Bloom. The heavy pendulum swung back and forth steadily, ticking away the time until midnight. The hands on the clock showed five minutes to midnight.

A floorboard creaked somewhere above, on the second floor.

Scootaloo startled and looked towards the stairs, her body tense. “T-that was just the h-house creaking,” she said and laughed uncertainly. “Right?”

They sat in tense silence, all three staring at the stairs to the second floor and listening. None of them dared to move or look away from the stairs.

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said after a while. “Just a—”

The sound of hoof steps on the second floor cut her off. They sounded slow and heavy, and unmistakable.

All three fillies tensed, staring with wide-eyed terror at the stairs.

The hoofsteps stopped, and a door creaked before closing with a soft click.

“A-are you sure Applejack or Big McIntosh didn’t stay at home after all?” Sweetie Belle whispered.

Apple Bloom sank a lump in her throat and nodded silently. “Not even Winona is here,” she whispered. “I-it’s just us three.”

“I-I’m not afraid!” Scootaloo’s voice cracked slightly as she looked at her friends. Her eyes betrayed her words, plainly showing her terror. “If … if there really is a ghost, then … then we can totally take it on! Right?”

“M-maybe it just needs a … a friend,” Sweetie Belle said.

“M-maybe,” Apple Bloom said, dragging out the word. “M-maybe we should go up there and … and look. Maybe it was just … um …”

“The wind?” Sweetie Belle suggested, raising an eyebrow.

“N-no, um, nevermind.” Apple Bloom slipped out of her chair and stood up stiffly. “C-come on. W-we have each other, remember? W-we’re three and … and it is just one.”

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked at each other. Slowly they got up too and followed Apple Bloom as they picked up their candles and headed for the stairs.