The Haunting
Admiral Biscuit
She hardly paid any attention to my box-fort and went downstairs right away.
I should have left the book open on the desk. I could have weighed down the pages with something; that might have enticed her.
Right on cue, I heard one of the cupboard doors bang against the wall. It wasn’t that loud, and it could have been a door slamming somewhere else, except that ponies didn’t slam their doors.
I’d thought about bringing a clock with me, so I could get an exact reckoning of how long she spent in the attic, and now how long she spent downstairs. But I thought that the ticking of a windup clock might alarm her.
I could have brought an egg timer. The sand swishing through the glass was nearly silent, and while it only kept time for a few minutes—however many minutes it took to cook an egg—I could keep flipping it over. Put tally marks on the wall. I didn’t have one, but I’d seen them for sale at the market.
People aren’t that great at keeping time in our heads, and after I’d waited a while I started to get a bit edgy. One day I was going to be up here and not notice when she left, and I’d wind up spending the whole night in my box-fort.
Maybe tonight would be that night. Maybe tonight would be the night that she decided that instead of going back out through the attic, she’d use the kitchen door like a proper pony. Well, assuming that she could open it or drift through it.
I heard another soft clunk from downstairs. Another cupboard door. I could put the book in the kitchen cupboards; she’d be sure to spot it then. She might wonder why it was there, but I didn’t think she would wonder all that much.
It fell silent downstairs again and I leaned up against the knothole, waiting for her to arrive. Not for the first time, I wished that the doors in my house were squeaker. It would be easier to figure out where she was. Maybe there was some way to un-oil the hinges.
I’d started to get eyestrain and she still hadn’t returned to the attic. She’s still in the kitchen, looking at things.
Just as I thought that, there was a faint glow coming up the stairs, and she reappeared. She got out a couple of her toys, but her heart wasn’t in it, and she listlessly moved them around for a little bit before putting them away again and vanishing through the roof.
The moment the glow in the thatching had faded, I moved over to the window, intent on finding out where she went when she left my house.
She drifted down to the garden and circled around it a couple times before moving into the rows and making her way between the plants. She went through the whole garden in that fashion before finally heading off to the east.
I thought she would have been visible for longer than she actually was. The moon painted the landscape in strange shadows and bright spots and once she’d moved beyond my backyard, my view got blocked by an oak tree, and I thought I saw her come out the other side, but I wasn’t sure.
It was hard to believe that other ponies in town hadn’t seen her. Earth ponies and unicorns, I could believe. Her route took her out of town quickly, and after dark most ponies who were still awake would have had lights on in their houses, making the outside even darker. If they saw anything at all, by the time they got a good look, she’d be gone, and they would probably pass it off as either a trick of the light, or the glow from a unicorn’s spell.
What about the pegasi? There weren’t as many of them out and about at night, true, but for those who were, I thought that she wouldn’t be that hard to spot, and if spotted, she wouldn’t be that hard to follow.
Even if she were trying to actively avoid the living, she obviously didn’t have any kind of supernatural sense—I was nearly certain that she didn’t know I was watching her.
It was possible that ponies simply couldn’t see her. That their eyes were unable to perceive her, and mine were. I could prove that by either catching her, or inviting an open-minded pony to join me in my box-fort.
•••••
Did the stallion know she was here? Could that be the actual reason for his awkwardness during our last conversation? Did he stay awake at night wondering if humans couldn’t see pony ghosts? I could have said something. Dropped a little hint, maybe. I wasn’t sure what, though. It would depend on what he knew. Saying I’d found toys in the attic, that might work.
Or I could tell him that my kitchen cupboards kept coming open at night. That might be safe. Ask him if he knew a pony who could fix them, or if he could fix them himself. Lots of older men were hobby carpenters, and maybe the same applied to ponies. If he thought I was revealing that I knew that there was a ghost, he’d probably come over even if he didn’t have a clue how a screwdriver worked.
Maybe I could invite him to share the box-fort with me. Although that probably wouldn’t be a wise thing to offer right away.
Or I could broach the subject with Milfoil tomorrow. I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d bring it up, though. I’d have to come over on a pretext . . . say I needed to borrow a cup of sugar. Or I could cook her a casserole or something. Of course, if the old stallion was trying to play matchmaker, that might be misconstrued.
It was about time to admit that I was going in circles and not getting anywhere. I could feel that it wasn’t going to be much longer before I’d be at the market, looking at all the other ponies suspiciously, wondering what they knew that they weren’t telling me. Thinking that every time two ponies had a quiet conversation that it was about me.
I was scared. Not of the ghost, but of the other ponies in town thinking I was crazy, of them shunning me. Word gets around in a small town, and it wouldn't be too long before my boss took me aside and said that he was sorry that he had to let me go but it just wasn’t good for business to keep me on, and if that happened I’d never get another job in Haywards Heath because word would travel faster than my resume.
•••••
I spent the next evening on the outskirts of town. I didn’t think that I was on private land; most of the time, when ponies owned land they grew something on it, and this land had nothing but weeds and shrubs and a few trees.
There were a couple spots where I could see the back of my house and I mentally drew out a line where I’d seen her go. If she did indeed come this way—if it had been her and not some trick of the moonlight I’d seen on the other side of the oak tree—she’d pass by this way.
On a bit of a ridge, there was a pine tree with thick, bushy branches. It would be a decent enough hiding place; I didn’t think that she would be checking out all the trees and shrubs on her way to my house. She’d have no reason to suspect that I was there.
Leaning up against the trunk of a pine tree as the sun sets and darkness falls isn’t nearly as comfortable as I’d imagined. Practically everywhere I touched there was sap, and I kept thinking that there were ants or some other bugs crawling on me. I didn’t dare try to swipe them off, because if I did, that might alert her.
It also got cold quick when the sun went all the way down. As furry as the tree seemed, it wasn’t doing all that much to keep the cold out, and if it had been much later in the year, I would have been really uncomfortable.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait all that long; she went by right on schedule.
I lost sight of her for about a minute, and then she popped up over the backyard and went into my house. Even from this distance, it was no less weird to see her morph through the thatches.
One thing that was great for preventing sleep during times of boredom was discomfort. I’d never fallen asleep in my box-fort because it wasn’t terribly comfortable there, but it was infinitely more comfortable than my pine tree post. At least now that I knew she was in the house I could move about a bit more freely, so I unstuck myself from the sappy trunk and moved around a bit, scratching a number of itches and slapping a few twitchy spots just in case they were bugs.
I suspected that I’d see her when she came back out, and I did. It also gave me insight into how she might have escaped detection from my neighbors thus far: there were no lights on in any of the surrounding houses, suggesting that everypony was in bed.
I froze in place until she’d passed, and then quietly moved around to the other side of the tree. She tended to avoid bushes and tall grass, even though I was sure that she could pass through them if she’d wanted to.
When she had an ample lead, I stepped out of the tree and followed. I was somewhat careful with where I put my feet, but not overly so. I thought that any noise I might make could just as easily have been a small woodland creature, and unlike her, I didn’t glow in the dark.
Whether it was me, or her normal behavior, she almost seemed to speed up, and pretty soon I lost her completely.
Even though it was dark, I took a look around me. I thought I could see a faint path into the woods. Nothing pony-made; it looked more like a game trail to me. I felt fairly certain that she’d been following it, and I did, too, until the woods started to close in and I considered the possibility that there were monsters in the woods—something that was a very real concern in Equestria.
It's all an elaborate ruse. She wants dinner!
Monsters there's an idea. Saying you've seen a ghost might get you funny looks but everypony knows monsters are real. Ask if anyone has heard of a glowing floating monster that kinda looks like a pony and never mention the word ghost at all.
"So... you were playing with your toys until your parents looked away, then you wandered into the forest and got killed." I took a breath, most likely out of habit, and looked back up the path. "I really should have seen this."
The ghost nodded solemnly and gave me a short nudge to the side. "Do you want to go back tomorrow night and I'll show you the rest of my toys?"
I looked back over my shoulder at where the... thing was still dismembering my body and gave a shrug of my own ectoplasmic shoulders. "I suppose. It doesn't look like I have anything on my schedule for the immediate future."
If you go down to the woods tonight, youre in for a big suprise.
Its got teeth and claws and talons and jaws,
And just loves to have you for dinner.
Hey, want to come sit in a pile of boxes in my attic overnight? I promise there's a good reason for this. No, wait, don't run away! It's not like that!
9311722
In a less morbid vein, I'm hoping there's an old tree fort, or something, and she goes in and curls up a la a cat, going to "sleep" for the day. She'll probably wonder about the box fort that sprung up in the corner overday, but hopefully the shiny, new book will be mollification enough.
Ironically, in avoiding trying to look crazy he's going to make everyone think he's crazy.
Heck, he's already verging on CMC territory. The tree sap is a dead giveaway. It's the five exclamation points of Equestria.
9312901
I was more thinking of it as an extendion if her role as dream therapist, especially for little kids. Plus ghosts seem to be sleepwalking and all.
And now I’m wondering if she ever gets the sniffles when she sees dreams of a perfectly normal mundane life, because it’s probably just normal dreams and kind of boring. But it might be a little kid’s ghost hallucinating a normal life.
9311648
He should cook her up some ghost peppers.
9311705
That’s actually a really good idea, and one that our protagonist ought to have thought of before he got too invested in box-forts and such.
9311722
Well, that’s one way to end the story. Certainly plausible in Equestria, too.
“Looks like the human went into the woods and got eaten by a monster.”
“Shame.”
“Better put a for sale sign back on the house.”
“Yup.”
9311776
That exact thing is probably on signs outside the Everfree, to warn foals to stay out.
9311826
I know, right? Surely an offer like that doesn’t sound suspicious at all.
9311895
That would be so cute.
9311947
Well, that’s pretty much how it goes. He’s got a box-fort, stays up late at night, probably got stubble, and a sort of wild look in his eyes. . . .
i.ytimg.com/vi/s7CZz1TuIfI/hqdefault.jpg
One hopes that in Haywards Heath they don’t know who the CMC are, but I bet they do. And they’re probably banned by local ordinance.
9312738
Ooh, I like.
9312921
My motto in life has always been suck less than the other guy. I find it inspirational.
9312924
Well, yeah, and that’s where we get into my not so sure opinion. If ghosts aren’t real, if they’re a nightmare, than clearly, they fall under her domain. If they are real, it really depends on how much sway she has over the night. Canon suggests a fair bit, so even if she can’t control them as directly as she can control dreams, it’s certainly possible that she has a ghost force among her thestrals, assuming that ghosts only come out at night, that is. It would make sense to split up day and night patrols of Equestria between the diarchs. And while I also agree that ghosts seem to be sleepwalking, I’m not entirely sure that it would count as the same thing . . . as an example, my part-time job is working with developmentally disabled adults, and there have been a few in our system who technically don’t qualify, although they’re in our system because their traumatic head injury caused them to have a similar presentation from a clinical point of view, if that makes sense.
Ooh, that’s another good question. I think that sometimes she might find it relieving. Maybe there are some dreamers who she often goes back to, since they have relaxing dreams to her.
Or, as you said, it could be ghosts dreaming of a normal life. Which is kind of sad.
9313025
Does make sense. I suppose we'll have to see.
I know in one of the comics, at least, she likes to visit Twilight's dreams for a break because the library is calming.
9312966 Maybe she's only going to grind up other ponies...
And now he gets attacked by Timberwolves, as is par for the course in HiE stories. It's about time!
The ghost pony's past: She got gobbled by a hydra, and is now unable to move on until the hydra hacks up her skull (which got wedged in its gallbladder) so it can be properly buried.
Not sure how smart it is to go into Equestrian woods at night, there be monsters you know.
I caught up to where you have written in the story, and I must have more! This is a really nice, well paced, mystery fic that I am enjoying greatly.
Curiouser and curiouser. The general diurnality of ponies would certainly explain why nopony seems to talk about the ghost... though that's as shaky an assumption as thinking she doesn't know he's there. I still suspect she's waiting for him to make the first move. After all, she might have been taught not to talk to strangers.
In any case, definite food for thought. Looking forward to more.
"What happened?"
"Well, just like any other night, I was following this filly into the woods and---"
JAIL INTENSIFIES
9316703
Ew, he better pray that's ectoplasm then.
I can not wait to read this, though I'll probably wait until it is finished because I have a phobia of reading incomplete stories in fear they will never get finished.
9313012
I may have missed it in the early chapters, but what job does this guy do? Is staying up every night affecting his work?
Oh no!! Where's chapter 13!?
9322406
Delayed due to a play I'm in.
9322415
Those accursed plays! Curse them and their accursed cursed curses!
I hope you enjoy! Please let us know how it goes.
9313144
Huh, that’s interesting. I don’t think that I’ve read that comic (I feel like I would remember it if I had).
9314409
To quote Reepicheep, “You were right to fear the forest.”
That would be a bummer, wouldn’t it?
Or what if the timberwolves buried it here and there, like dogs would with a bone, and she’s got to find it all before she can move on? Having a trowel for that task would be quite helpful.
9314416
It’s not smart at all. All manner of monsters could be in the woods.
9315021
Thank you!
I’ll be publishing new chapters and finishing it up starting either tomorrow or Monday--now that I’m past the most intense parts of the play.
9315434
Yeah, it still doesn’t answer the question; it could be that they know she’s there but nopony’s talking, or else they’re oblivious. She might know he’s in the boxes but since he’s not doing anything, she’s ignoring him, or she might be completely clueless about it.
I’m not entirely convinced that that’s something that ponies would do. From what we’ve seen in the episodes, at least, the monsters tend to be other species, not ponies.
Of course, he’s not a pony, so. . . .
9315735
Yeah, there’s certainly a creepy stalker element to our protagonist’s paranormal investigations. If Equestrian legal protections extend to the dead, he might be in some serious trouble when other ponies figure out what he’s up to.
9317553
I can promise you that it’ll be finished, and most likely within a couple of weeks. Got delayed due to a play, but that’s almost over now and I’ll be back in the saddle.
Having said that, I totally get where you’re coming from. I’ve got lots of stories I like that aren’t finished and honestly probably never will be.
9317663
He never says what he does. Maybe he’s an accountant.
Staying up late isn’t affecting his work, at least not yet. He often naps in the afternoon, and he also goes to bed after the ghost has left.
9324756
Makes sense to me, living or formerly living things should interact well with living magic (of which ghosts are a probably a type). Affinity and all that.
Makes me wonder what will happen when we had ghosts with cybernetics, or ghosts of androids. I mean if they have souls they should become ghosts right?
Though come to think of it maybe it's just a matter of perception. You do get all those modern stories about ghost phone calls after all.
9323922
It's very traditional
9324764 lol
Hmmm... Trails can lead to water...
9331062
Ooh, are you thinking in the kelpie direction? That would be an interesting twist.
This flips from paranoia to real concerns. Living in a magical world's the breaks isn't it
9331697
Yeah, that’s always a problem with Equestria. Human experience in what’s real and what isn’t won’t help you there.
Pine trees are, in general, some of the least comfortable trees to be in
Well, whoops
9985377
And yet they always look so soft and inviting.
That’s one bit of wisdom that we’ve mostly forgotten on Earth (depending on where one lives, of course)--for most of us, there isn’t much threat being out in the woods alone at night. Most of the big predators who are a danger to humans are gone. Like, I’ve spent the night in the woods without shelter for Boy Scout things, and never feared a bear or a wolf or mountain lion (technically, cougar) coming to nom on me. That’s certainly not the case in Equestria, of course.