Chapter 15
The Haunting
Admiral Biscuit
In every ghost story I’d ever read, the one of the major plot points was getting rid of the ghost. How that was accomplished varied by the story. In that regard, I had succeeded, at least temporarily. And it wasn’t unreasonable to expect that surprising her might work again—of course there was a real big asterisk after that; whether or not ghosts could actually learn new things being chief among the downsides to scaring a ghost off.
Nevertheless, I’d done it at least for tonight.
I should have felt victorious, but instead I felt like the biggest jerk in all of Haywards Heath. She’d done nothing to me, and I was one hundred percent certain that she had lived here before I had—I was the interloper in what had been her house. I was also one hundred percent certain that when I found out who she was and why she was here, I was going to regret what I’d done all the more.
I could have pushed the cupboard doors shut, but I didn’t. I left them just as she had, and I went back upstairs and laid in my bed and I didn’t sleep, I just kept replaying in my mind the look of shock on her face, and the way she’d just vanished, and that kept me up the rest of the night.
Not that it wasn’t without its humor—I’d scared off a ghost. But man, I felt like a jerk about it. Especially when she didn’t come the next night.
Or the next.
Had I actually scared her off for good? And if I had, where had she gone? Back to the woods? Back to the spirit realm? Someplace else in town? Did she have some other routine, one that I was completely unaware of? I’d never tracked her all the way back into the woods, to wherever she came from. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to; perhaps some questions were best left unanswered. Perhaps I should be satisfied with what I knew and what I thought and the fact that my house was now ghost-free, perhaps now I could start sleeping on a normal schedule and not spend the early parts of the night huddled in a box-fort, waiting for her to arrive. Not spying through the windows of my house at what she did in my yard.
What if she had a routine? Maybe she haunted my house and then she went back into the woods and a little bit later she haunted the Smith’s house, or the hotel, or who knows what.
It wasn’t hard to imagine where that line of thinking might lead me. Stalking around town in the dark of the night, searching for some sign. Hiding in the woods half the night, huddled up in a pine tree watching and waiting, going into work the next morning half-asleep, getting more and more paranoid that some pony was going to ask me why I was up all night long, why I looked like death warmed over every morning.
Milfoil gossiping about her weird human neighbor. A system of box-forts arranged around town, in places where ponies didn’t go.
I had to think like a ghost.
I didn’t know what kind of resolution I expected, if any. Maybe there are some things that just aren’t meant to be known, and maybe I’d accidentally stumbled into one of those mysteries through no fault of my own, and maybe I’d be best to just give it up now. If I stopped spying on her, she might eventually come back, perhaps more wary and more cautious than she was before. I was sure that there was something drawing her here, and if I wasn’t going to be egotistical, it probably wasn’t me.
I didn’t sleep much. Even though if I’d been the protagonist of a story, I would have felt victorious at vanquishing the ghost. Real life wasn’t neat and tidy like a proper story. And sometimes real life never answered questions. What was it that Westley had said in The Princess Bride? “Learn to live with disappointment.”
•••••
It seemed to me that she would be suspicious of my box-fort. She’d spent a lot of time studying that after I’d first put it up. So I took it apart and brought all the boxes downstairs. I closed up the attic stairs at night, as well. I thought that that would help. It would make the attic seem safe again.
I was glad that I hadn’t confronted her up there. That was the one place I was reasonably sure she might still go. I tried to put myself in her shoes, to come to the conclusions she would have. Seeing me downstairs—well, surely she knew that someone new had moved into the house.
She ought to have been expecting to see a resident.
There was no way of knowing if she’d been in the attic. It wasn’t like she was going to leave ghost footprints, and the ponies were lacking in surveillance systems. I pondered that for a while, before deciding that I’d see if I could rig some kind of telltale on her toys. Something that wouldn’t scare her, that wouldn’t let her know I’d messed with them. It would have to be subtle, something like a hair tied to each one of them, or something placed on top of them that would fall off when she picked them up. And I might want to vary my method, too, just in case she was clever enough to notice that each of her toys was now tied down with a strand of hair.
And then I remembered how the toybox had been tipped over and emptied. Why would she have done that? Was it clumsiness, or something else? Maybe it was more expedient for her to dump all the toys on the ground and move them that way, rather than pick them out one at a time. Pony mouths weren’t as dexterous as human hands, although I had to admit that they were pretty close.
She must have known that I was in the attic moving things around. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure that out, and she might have been afraid that I was going to take away her toys.
She wouldn’t have been wrong to think that, either. I had contemplated taking that box to whatever passed for pony-Goodwill in Haywards Heath, but it had been such a low priority I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
I went back up in the attic and studied her toys thoughtfully. I didn’t touch them, but just observed them. Ponies didn’t go for mass production in the same way humans did, so there weren’t any clues to be had there. But—if there were toys, there were toymakers. Somepony in town had made the stuffed animal, probably, and the duck, and since I was all out of other ideas, I thought I’d look around town and see what I could find that looked like her toys—maybe the toymaker would be able to provide some clue about her.
That was something I should have thought of long before. I was never going to make it as a private detective. That was one thing I could cross off my list for sure.
•••••
The bathroom was probably a dead end. She’d taken a bath, although it was a complete mystery as to why. I suppose it could have been as simple as her getting dirty working in the garden, but that was a dumb thought. Ghosts didn’t get dirty; how could they? But I didn’t have any better ideas as to why she’d done that. I’d never heard of a ghost haunting a bathtub.
The kitchen was a different matter. There was something she’d been looking for in the cupboards, and more than once. That suggested that she hadn’t found it.
There were, of course, a lot of things that she wouldn’t find in the kitchen. The Hope Diamond wasn’t in there, nor was my aunt’s missing handkerchief. Thinking about what she didn’t find was as losing proposition, unless of course there was something there that I hadn’t found. It was certainly a possibility; not only had I not had a ghost inspector examine the house, I hadn’t searched for hidden compartments. Why would I? Why would anyone? And yet I’d known a guy who’d kept his drug money stashed under the drawer liners in his cupboards, and when he’d been raided, the cops hadn’t found it.
While I wasn’t expecting drug money, I was expecting something, but there was nothing there. An entire afternoon spent with nothing to show for my effort—the cupboards were a bust. Whatever she was looking for was something that wasn’t still here, I was as sure of that as I could be without actually demolishing the cupboards.
Buried treasure in the backyard was another possibility, but I ruled that out for two reasons: The first was that if there was something buried in the backyard that she knew about and I didn’t, she’d have spent more time digging and less time playing with her toys. The other reason was simple laziness; I had no urge to dig up my backyard to see what was there. Emptying the cupboards completely was more than enough work for me.
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Seems like he's stressing over it. I think he should step back for a bit and look at it with a fresh pair of eyes.
Isn't it obvious man? She lives here, what else would she be doing?
So much Boo, so little discoveries so far. If the garden is full of weeds and Boo has been trying to clean it, any Earth ponies to ask to see what plants, flowers where there before? As for cupboards, no idea, I dont have much myself to compare with.
pa1.narvii.com/6749/8c8faba85a9db7b0642e8c44c62fd01ed6d791bc_hq.gif
Worse, if he has to leave town for a few days, should he hire a ghost-sitter?
Cutie Mark Crusader Ghost Watchers, yea!
Actually I remembered it as, "Get used to disappointment."
Ay you got featured! Nice job man!
The poor little ghost filly is simply alone and confused. In her quasi-extant state, she's likely not fully aware of what she is or what she's doing.
This human is probably terrifying to her, as it's almost certain she's never seen one. He's several times larger than her, and looks like a small bear reared up on two legs... an attack posture. And her first contact with him is in what she still believes to be her house in the middle of the night.
Poor lil ghost is probably out of what's left of her mind in terror.
* ⬅️ This thing is an asterisk. Asterix is a comic series.
Spooked her so good, she didn't come back, you monster!
She's probably gone to tell her ghostfather. Next chapter you'll wake up with a couple broken knees and a human's head in your bed.
Curious but inconclusive. Still, hopefully the town will be able to shed some oight on the filly's life.
He'd right; he really isn't cut out to be a detective...
To play with her ducky properly of course!
9335850
English is the language that will drive you mad!
I'm seriously considering whether or not our ghost hunter really is crazy in the coconut. And also whether or not he's actually in Equestria at all...
Hmmm, how do you give apology presents to a ghost?
Why she was here.
Of course not! Sheesh! Just because Hope has tufted ears and membranous wings does not mean he will automatically go roosting in your cupboards!
#EquusChiropteraIssues
Man, will he have a bitter surprise when he gets a fine for the violating the Equestrian Afterlife Nesting Protection Act of 957.
Digging up the yard didn't do Kevin Bacon any good in Stir of Echoes. And the fact that she comes FROM the woods suggests that there are no filly bones to be found in your walls either man. Crazy is no excuse for illogical!
This my favorite story currently to read, thank you.
See, obviously nothing's there because it's working~
9339010
Ghost best I can imagine a ghost just going in and out of my bedroom
But yess I love this story
9335805
The story could end with the dude realizing the ghost is just a little girl.
9339185
R-r-r-rape ghost!!!
9339190
Woah. I want one of those!
9339190 "Manos: the Hands of Lyra"
REALLY NIGGA!? I BITCHSLAP ALLCROSS YOUR FACE NOW! *trying but failing miserably *
9348375
How do you hunt the ghost? You think like the ghost.
Hey, who’s to say that they don’t have ghost inspectors in Equestria? It seems silly, yeah, but I bet a prudent homeowner would have that done in order to ensure that the house wasn’t infested with them.
9350310
"'ello 'ello 'ello. What's all this then? You 'ave a license for that there spiritual manifestation? Oooh, the mayor's not gonna like this, not one bit she's not."
9353927
Ooh, I hadn’t thought of that, but needing a permit to keep a ghost.
9335603
Of course he should, but when do people think of that until it’s too late?
9335605
Yes, precisely. Sometimes the most obvious answer is also the right answer.
9335616
Milfoil would know.
Really could be anything--more teacups, the cookie jar, maybe that’s where her crayons were kept. . . .
9335619
I could watch that gif for hours.
Especially since it’s perfectly accurate.
9335666
Theoretically, she’s fine on her own.
There is no possible way that could end well.
How it ends badly . . . well, there are plenty of possibilities for that. Accidentally opening another portal or two to the land of the dead is probably one of the tamer options.
9335668
I believe that is actually the correct quote.
9335794
Thank you!
9335805
You are correct.
You are also correct.
And once again . . . perfectly correct.
9335850
Correction made; thank you!
9335876
He really is. Poor ghost.
And the worst thing would be if it’s his own head. He wakes up and there’s his severed head next to him, and . . . well, don’t mess with ghosts.
9335898
Of course they can, as long as he asks the right ponies.
9336092
Not a bit.
Well, there’s no point in having a ducky if you don’t have it in the bath. . . .
9336134
Yes, even if you’re a native speaker.
Spoiler alert, a few chapter hence, someone caught when I used vice instead of vise. Why do those have to have two different meanings?
9336178
That is not outside the bounds of possibility.
He is where he thinks he is . . . whether he’s completely sane or not, he does know where he is.
9336398
That’s a tough question, and one that our protagonist hopefully figures out an answer for.
9336687
Correction made; thank you!
9336895
But he could, could he not?
9337090
And unlike with phoenixes, ghosts aren’t a problem you can solve with woodchippers.
9337298
Well, let’s be honest, our protagonist isn’t exactly thinking straight. And who’s to say what the rules are for where a ghost has to come from anyway?