Daybreak: The Box
“Come hither, Maudileena.”
The girl looked away from the small, boulder-shaped rock in her hand and to her father. She remained expressionless, as she often did, as she placed the rock in her pocket and walked over to his side. Once she stood next to him, he turned his head forward.
“Look yonder.”
The girl did as she was told. The old, scraggily, and thick woods that they had spent the past two hours traveling through on a thin, mountain-bound trail in their rickety wagon had given way at last to a clearing of sorts. From where they stood, they were standing on an overlook of the valley below.
As young as the girl was, she had seen several quarries by now. This one, however, was totally different. The surrounding terrain made it look like a ravine rather than a proper dig site, and the parts that were exposed clearly hadn’t been worked for many years. Trees that were almost mature were growing in places, and some of the rocks were so weathered and beaten it was hard to tell that they had ever been cut. It was dark around here as well. The trees had grown over the ravine so thick that it cast a perpetual shadow over the quarry. Enough to where it would be pitch black only shortly before sundown.
“Thou hast come of age, Maudileena,” her father explained. “Now thou must work thy keep the same as thy kin. Mark well this valley. This is where we shall dwell for the next three seasons. A new church is being decreed in town, and we hath been tasked with providing the foundations. Right here, from the community’s own stone. From the same quarry that sunk the stone of their previous church a hundred years prior.”
Maud nodded in response.
His hand extended and began to move over the landscape. “All of the quarry from north coming down to the west to the south and rising back up again to the east shall serve as our place of work. All of the stone there shall provide our needs. Should any stone be lacking or not suffice, we shall dig as necessary to uncover more rock from those places.”
He squatted down to be shoulder level with the girl after this, extending his hand outward again. This time, she could see exactly where he pointed. To one portion of the ravine, the ground didn’t look like worn away soil but worn away slabs of rock, forming a jagged and irregular cliff that framed one side of the steepest drop off, rising up to a place where the ground was clearer—as if it had become overgrown at the same point the rest of the quarry had. Semi-irregular stones were arranged on that flat expanse of ground in rows.
The girl was old enough to recognize them as crude tombstones.
“But mark ye well…stay far from the northeast. Cut no stone there and never touch it with spade.”
“What’s over there?” It was the first time the girl had ever recalled not simply taking her father’s word for something but asking more about it. As a result, he hesitated for a moment, looking back down at her and seeing her staring inquisitively back. However, he simply inhaled through his nose and looked forward again.
“Tis an unholy place where unholy people did unholy things, Maudileena. That’s all ye need know. Stay far from it, doesth thou understand?”
The girl only paused a fraction of a second before nodding. “I will, father.”
Being too weak to cut the larger pieces of stone in block sizes sufficient for construction, the girl spent most of her time off to one side at an area her mother and father had cleared off. There, hoisting a stone axe almost too big for her, she progressively worked on each freshly cut block that was handed to her; dressing it to the proper sizes and shapes that were required. Nearby, etched out on a piece of leather, was a diagram of each stone they needed and how much, and a second piece of leather that the stone was perched on served as a stencil as she slowly worked it over.
Nearby, set on a slab of rock embedded in the ground, was her small boulder. It seemed to have been set as if to watch her as she spent the long hours chipping away at the blocks. In spite of the fact that they were almost always in shade and shadow every day from the overhanging trees, and that the work was long, she stuck with it faithfully. By now it had been several weeks since they had moved into the area, and she had become as hard a worker as anyone else in their family.
She worked away at one edge for a few more strokes, tapping away a particularly hard piece, before setting the axe down a moment. Her hands were throbbing a little from repeated work, and the sweat was starting to run into her eyes. She took a moment to wipe her brow as the tapping and ringing of stone cutting tools from her father echoed up from further down the quarry. In all the weeks she had been there, she had never taken a breather at the same time as he had. His hammer was always ringing out whenever her axe stopped, and vice versa.
Today, however, was a bit different. She had scarcely begun to wipe at her head when her father’s tool stopped as well. It was for nothing special; just taking a break. Yet for the first time in weeks, a silence hung over the quarry. The wind was still, most of the local wildlife had cleared off from the sounds of work, and everything was eerily quiet. The girl actually stopped to look to the sky, noticing just how still the valley was for the first time. How abandoned. How desolate…
A noise came from behind her. Instinctively, she turned around, and before she knew it she realized she was facing the irregular slabs of rock that made up the northeast of the quarry. She hadn’t so much as glanced in their direction for more than a passing gaze since her father had given her the warning when they moved there, but now she found herself facing it and staring.
In particular, she saw a few tiny pebbles at the base of the rock face roll to a stop.
The girl stared at them as they halted. She looked up afterward, back to the rock face. She had never stared at it before, and so it was impossible to tell if it had been altered and if the stones had come from it. Yet there had been no tremor in the ground just now. No rough impact that would have shaken it. Both she and her father had stopped working and all was still. And yet…
The sound of her father’s tools began to ring out again. Hearing that, the girl snapped out of it. She took up her own axe again and turned to get back to work.
Before starting again, she glanced at the rock face one more time, and then away.
The girl had never seen her sisters look so miserable. Both of them were shivering and shaking seemingly uncontrollably in spite of being wrapped in blankets. They were almost as pale and ashen as the granite she cut into every day. It was honestly a little hard to watch as her mother somehow summoned the strength to carry them both and up into the back of the wagon.
As she struggled to get them situated and comfortable as best as she could, the girl’s father finished tying the horses. He headed back in order to get in the wagon himself, but before jumping in he looked down at Maud. He crouched soon after so that he was eye level again.
“We’ll return as soon as we can, Maudileena, but twill still be five days from now to a week. The stones for the foundation will not tarry that long, or I would take thee with us. The dressing has to be done and the stones passed on to the masons three days hence from now. Dost thou understand?”
The girl nodded. “Yes, father.”
“Tis a crime that I must leave thee alone here while still so young, but I and thy sisters need thy mother more than thee. I must ask of thee to remain here by thyself. Dost thou believe thy can do this?”
She nodded again. “Yes, father.”
He looked at her momentarily, as if evaluating her, before he reached out and placed his hands on his shoulders. “Thou art a good child, Maudileena, with thy head level and wise beyond thy years. Thou wilt do well. Gaia Everfree will watch over thee. I am sure of it.”
Giving her one last look of approval, he rose from the girl and turned back to the wagon. Soon he loaded up into the coach portion, took up the reins, and gave them a snap. The horse began to move soon after, and pulled the wagon along with him. As it slowly began to roll down the trail, the girl caught a glimpse of her mother in the back with both of her sisters resting their heads on her lap. She looked out to her and gave a nod of approval, and met her eyes all the way down the trail until they turned a corner and vanished from sight.
The girl looked on at the empty trail for a short while, even after the wagon had long since departed. After that, she turned back to the house. The Pies hadn’t been able to afford a home of their own for this job. Rather, one of the locals who they were working for had leased an old house on the edge of the mountain path leading to the quarry to them so long as they worked there. Until now, Maud had thought of it as a nice place. As nice as their own home was.
Now, with all the candles and lamps out and the fire extinguished, surrounded by encroaching woods, and with a hollow breeze blowing by, it looked very empty. Very isolated. Dark. Unwelcoming. In the silence of the afternoon, the girl, for the first time, looked into the open doorway leading into the dark interior…and felt a hint of fear.
Reaching into her pocket, she grasped her fist-sized boulder and walked forward and into the house.
The first day her parents and sisters were gone went by easily enough. The girl had some trouble getting to sleep that night. All of the normal sounds were louder than usual, it seemed. The shadows were a bit longer and emptier now that she knew she was the only person in the house when she got into bed that night, and she had said more prayers than she did normally both when in bed and when kneeling at her bedside with the warm, welcoming light of her candle before she got in. Yet with the morning sun came a banishment of the darkness and solitude, and once she was awake and fire was crackling in the stove to the tune of birds singing outside, it was almost enough to make believe that everyone was still there.
She was in a much better mood when she made the two-hour walk to the quarry. Her parents had told her that committing herself to her work would banish idle thoughts that might trouble her, and she believed it that day when she got back to the stones and started to dress them. Her father, thanks to years and the strength that came with maturity, had already cut the next load of stones needed for the temple foundation. She had only to finish dressing them, and in two days time they would be claimed by the local masons. However, that meant she had to finish the dressing soon, and the thought of the need for urgency made her focus on the task at hand and banish all other thoughts.
It was around noon when wind began to blow through the trees overhead. An hour later, it had gotten strong enough to produce a rustle. An hour after that, and she looked up from her task to occasionally see a leaf or two land next to her in spite of autumn being weeks away. At that point, she stopped work long enough to temporarily ascend half of the steep path up the side of the ravine, just enough to look up and out to the sky.
Half of it was filled with clouds, and not thin ones or light ones either. The larger, puffier variety. They were still white for right now, but the girl had seen them enough times to know what it meant.
In the end, she descended back into the quarry and resumed work. There were still many stones left, and it was already starting to look like having them complete in two more days would be a stretch. She needed to do as much as possible.
Another hour passed, and at the point the entire sky had clouded over. She continued to work, but slowed for other reasons. The quarry had gotten much darker as a result of the overcast sky. Many of the animals dwelling in it had quieted down or gone silent. Another hour passed after that, and things grew stiller yet. Only an occasional distant bird could be heard at all, and those calls happened fewer and farther between the more time went on. The sky grew darker, both with the setting sun as well as from growing more ominous and gray. Finally, the sounds of thunder began to rumble.
At that point, the girl stopped again. She looked to the sky and at her surroundings. Very still, very quiet, and growing darker all the time. Another distant sound of thunder rolled, and at this point she knew that even if she left now there was small chance of her getting back before it began to pour. Yet the thought of the walk back, how long it would be, how dark, and how it would be the first without her father made her hesitate…
She finally shook her head to snap out of it, but when she did so her cutting tool jerked. Before she could catch herself, the end swung out and smacked the small fist-sized rock she had set up next to her. At once, she looked out and to it, realizing her mistake, but it was too late. The rock went flying away and landed on the ground, tumbling along until it came to a stop.
Right alongside the northeast rock face.
The girl turned to it, but did not move. She stared at her rock now lying in front of that ugly, disjointed face. The same face she had purposely tried to avoid looking at ever since that one day. Now that she was staring at it again, however, in spite of the fact that it had been so long since she looked at it, she realized it had changed. She wasn’t sure when, although a part of her said it had to have happened last night. That she would have seen it even with a passing glance. Some of the rock that made up the tall, irregular slabs had broken loose and fallen into the quarry. Chunks of it now lay there, providing a surface that her own rock had stopped against.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there staring at it, but it was a long time where she didn’t move and didn’t look away. Finally she took in a deep breath. She spoke aloud a prayer to Gaia Everfree. It was meant to instill confidence in her, but the sound of her voice being the only one resounding through the quarry ended up unsettling her. When she finished, she rose from where she stood and began to walk to claim her rock.
Even her walk seemed to take forever. It was as if the distance had somehow grown, or that something in her was making her walk slower than usual. She finally reached the broken pieces on the ground, and her rock was at her feet. When she looked down on it, she began to notice just how dark it had truly gotten outside, for even from that close she was beginning to have a hard time making it out. The thunder rumbled again.
She finally bent over. Her hand reached out to grasp the stone.
“Hello…?”
The girl didn’t know when was the last time she had jumped. Things simply never alarmed her. However, she gave a start at that. In an instant her hand had recoiled and she was standing and looking at the rock face in front of her. The voice sounded like it had come from there.
“Is somebody out there?”
She stiffened. The voice had definitely come from there. It was muffled, but it had unmistakably come from the rock wall.
“Hello? Anybody?”
Her eyes traced over the rock face for a moment. By now, it was so dark that shadows were beginning to cast along it, making it look like a totally different surface from what she was used to. Yet after a few moments, her eyes focused on one spot.
There was an indentation in the rock that was horizontal as opposed to the vertical slabs. It was gray from being covered with old, dry dirt and rock, but it was also smooth and flat. At a glance, one might have thought it was another stretch of rock face. Yet a closer look revealed it was too flat for that.
“Anybody out there? Hel-lo-o!”
The girl nearly recoiled again. The voice had definitely come from that spot. And for a moment, she was left frozen where she stood. What her father told her came back to her. However, she was a child who kept her mind on Gaia Everfree and her tasks, like most of her family did. She hadn’t really thought too many dark or horrifying possibilities about what he said until now, like many other children would. Instead, she began to realize what the voice sounded like.
A child. A girl, in fact.
“Are we playing the quiet game? I’d rather not play that game… It’s been quiet in here too long…”
Still the girl did not move. Since she was not like most children, she hadn’t heard scary stories before. Stories where an unsuspecting man or woman would be lured into a river or a dark forest by a voice that sounded like it was human only to be made by some dark monstrosity. Nor had thoughts that there might be evil or monstrous things in the world which could take on the likeness or mannerisms of people to lure victims into traps. She did remember her father’s words…about how there were unholy things in that place…however. And it kept her silent for some time. Yet in the end, the more practical side of her, or perhaps the more innocent, that heard only a girl won out.
“…Hello?”
A pause, then the voice suddenly sounded more excited. “Oh! There is someone out there! Yay!” Soon after, however, the voice quieted again. “Mr. or Mrs. Someone, could you please let me out? I’ve been stuck in this box for a really, really, really long time…and it’s been really boring and lonely in here.”
The girl stared on silently. In spite of the dim light, she took a step closer toward where the rock slab was missing and looked again. From this distance, she could make out that she wasn’t looking at rock at all but what looked like wood. She stepped closer yet, albeit much more hesitantly and slowly, like someone approaching a bees’ nest.
It was definitely wood, in the shape of a long box. Like a coffin. Something was hastily scratched along the side of it. It was in crude lettering, and the girl could barely read it in the dim light, but she just managed to make out a word.
PINKAMENA.
“Please?” the voice called again, more insistent and pleading this time. “I don’t want to be in here anymore… It’s been so long since I’ve heard anyone else… It’s…it’s scary thinking of how long I’ll be in here before someone else comes. Please let me out! Pretty please?”
The girl stared on at the box, hearing the girl’s voice inside continuing to plead with her. The wind rushed and another thunder rumble rang out. The leaves clattered against the rock ground behind her.
Over time, a voice came in her head. A voice telling her how, young as she was, it seemed impossible that anyone could survive being buried alive for who knew how many months or years. And that if they were, they wouldn’t have the voice of an innocent child speaking so sweetly and kindly. That this…this entire situation…was wrong. Very wrong. What more, she was alone and with no one else for miles. No one to call to for help and no adults to ask for assistance. The voice told her to turn and run. To get away from there as fast as she could. To forget she ever saw or heard anything in that rock slab…
Yet the more she dwelt on that, the more another voice spoke to her. Asking her where her faith was in Gaia Everfree if she was so easily growing scared of fantasies. Surely no one could have been buried alive in that spot. Anyone speaking like this or talking like this had to have been placed there by someone. What if a kidnapper had seized a child from the local village, put her in a box, and practically buried her alive in the rock wall? That would certainly be a reason why the rock slab had been missing, wouldn’t it? Far more than it would just happen to crumble and reveal an old coffin or box? And if so, how long would she last in there? Would she starve or die of thirst? And all because she was too frightened to help someone begging for it?
The first voice responded that she knew this was wrong. She could tell it was from everything around her. Her father had told her this was unholy ground. The wooden planks within the stone slab might be all that was protecting her from something bad…something even evil. She would be disobeying her father, and she might regret it forever…if she lived to regret it at all.
The second voice responded that this was someone who needed her help and she was the only one who could provide it. That if she turned around now and went home and left someone imprisoned in that dark box in a forgotten hole, then she would regret it forever. She’d hear that voice pleading for help in her nightmares for the rest of her life.
In the end, she could do only one thing.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and lowered herself to her knees. She began to pray soon after.
“Um…hello?” the voice finally asked. “Are you still there? You…you didn’t leave, did you?”
The girl didn’t answer. She remained in that position for five full minutes, praying silently. At last, however, she opened her eyes. Although her face remained expressionless, she had a new resolve.
“Get to one side of the box.”
“Oh! You’re still here!” the voice answered. Soon after, there was a rustling from within. “Alright! I’m at one side!”
Still riding on the resolve, the girl turned around and walked back to the stones. She took up her stone axe and turned back to the wall. She walked up to it, reaching striking distance, and paused. She held the tool up in both hands but moved no more.
Another rumble went out. Soon after, the girl felt a touch of cold wetness as the first raindrop fell from the sky and hit her. A few more joined it before the clouds up above rippled with their first shimmer of lightning, followed by a second rumble. Her hands shook.
Yet before she could break any further, she hoisted the axe up with both hands and brought it forward into the side of the box.
The wood that made up the box was the strongest that the girl had every encountered. The first strike barely dented it. Yet she struck again and again afterward with strength and stamina that had already been honed beyond her years. She kept working at it and eventually the wood started to splinter. While she began to sweat and the rain began to pick up, she kept beating away at it. Soon fragments of splinters started to come out.
The thunder rumbled again as she kept beating away, yanking out chips with each strike. The light continued to diminish, and as it did it got harder to see what she was doing. Still she kept striking, and as her hands began to feel raw, finally one of the planks that made up the side of the box began to bend inward. As she kept striking, she heard a crackling from it. It was the sound of part of the side giving away. She kept striking, and eventually the axe head began to dip in with the plank, such that when she ripped it out she started to twist the other boards in her wake.
At long last, as the shadows lumbered over the site and the darkness gathered, one swing of her axe resulted in a resounding snap. A section of plank about as long as a man’s palm broke off and was sent flying into the open cavity of the box.
The girl was breathing hard at this point, and let her arms fall and the axe fall out of them. Realizing she had sent a piece of wood flying into the box, she wondered if she had struck whoever was within, and so she stepped forward and looked into the cavity.
She heard nothing and saw only blackness in the dim light.
“Hello?” she called inside.
The lightning flashed…and the girl saw it.
It was only for half of a second at most, but the last lightning bolt cast a gleam into the dark recesses of the box. When it did, she saw six separate eyes staring back at her…irregular, each one different from the other, and each one focusing and moving independently. Aside from that, all she made out was a mouth full of sharp, irregular, curved teeth.
Before the thunderclap came, the girl had already turned and broken into run. And as the rain broke in full fury and began to come down in pouring sheets, for once the otherwise stoic and conserved child expressed nothing but raw terror.
As it grew darker yet and the thunderstorm raged over her head, the girl only ran. She ran harder, faster, and longer than she ever thought was possible; learning that night what it truly meant to run for her life. She didn’t even get a mile down the trail before it was already growing too dark to see save for lightning flashes, but she didn’t slow or stop. Above all, she never looked behind her. She didn’t dare. Each time the lightning flashed, she struggled not to shut her eyes. Her mind kept imagining seeing that horrific thing that had been in the box standing in front of her, looking at her with its six eyes and grinning with a mouthful of teeth…
She kept thinking she could hear its footsteps in the water and mud behind her; right on her heels. She almost swore she could hear its voice behind every thunderclap. Long before she reached home she went into a constant stream of prayers for protection and deliverance, and she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Doing so would let her mind conjure up more horrible fantasies of that thing behind her, or, worse yet, what it would do to her when it caught her. She had no one to turn to for help now. No one to go to. It was just her and that thing she left behind…which she began to pray ever more fiercely couldn’t get out of that box.
At last, her home came into view in one of the lightning strikes. She ran straight for the door, tore it open, and ran inside. As frantically and quickly as she could, she barricaded the door, covered and shut all the windows, and finally fetched her father’s rifle. Only then, still praying all the way, she went up to the front door and, mustering all the strength and courage she could, she looked out the small keyhole which happened to be aimed directly toward the path leading to the quarry.
She sat there staring in that keyhole for the next two hours, terrified with each passing moment that the next lightning flash would reveal the horror coming up the trail…or, worse yet, looking right back at her through the keyhole. For half of that time, the only company other than her prayers and thunderclaps was the sound of her labored breathing and heartbeat. Yet as time passed and the storm kept raging, nothing appeared. The trail remained empty. The only sounds in the night was the rain and thunder.
As time kept passing, her heartbeat finally slowed along with her breathing. She again began to tell herself that she had only knocked a small hole in the box. Nothing that whatever was in could get out from. As time passed after that, she began to reason even more calmly. She had to have imagined it. There was no sort of creature with teeth like that or eyes like that. It had been a trick of the lightning. Nevertheless, her grip remained on the gun, and when she began to tell herself that she must have seen nothing and that it had to have just been a normal person inside, she responded that the person could now wait inside that box until her parents were back. She wouldn’t be going back there again alone. Not even to dress the stones. Her father might be angry at her for it, but she wouldn’t even get in earshot of the quarry.
As the third hour passed, she eventually moved away from the front door and back to the room that she and her sisters shared. After barricading that door as well, she went to her bed in the corner. She got in, making sure to set the rifle next to it, and then slipped under the quilt.
She reached in her pocket, but on feeling inside she felt only empty space. Her eyes widened. She felt around more frantically for a moment before her memory connected. She had left the rock back in the quarry… Feeling more nervous than ever, she ignored it and folded her arms.
Telling herself again that she had to have imagined it, she gradually eased down onto the mattress. As the thunderstorm kept blowing outside and lighting up the windows while pelting them with rain, she finally leaned back on the pillow. As time went on, she finally shut her eyes. She told herself to try and sleep and forget the whole thing happened. At least until daylight.
The storm continued to rage outside, but gradually it melded together, and only a continuous dripping with periodic thunder registered in the girl’s memory.
Lightning flashed. Her eyes cracked open slightly, but she saw nothing but the inside of her dark room. Rain pelted the glass of her window. All was still and quiet in the house. Her eyes slowly shut again.
Lightning flashed again. Her eyes once again opened, and there was nothing there. All was still. All was quiet. The rain continued to tap against the glass. Her heart eased just a little more as she closed her eyes again.
Lightning flashed again. She cracked open her eyes. The room was empty and still. Nothing out of the ordinary or unusual. Nothing except the shadow on the floor moving…
Shadow? Moving?
Her eyes opened just a bit wider, and flicked to the window.
A hand with multi-jointed fingers twice as long as they should have been was pressed against it like a giant bug.
The girl let out a gasp and did what any frightened child would have done. She sank into the bed, threw the quilt over her face, and became as still as a statue. She held her breath but the sound of her heart racing seemed so loud that it resonated through the room. In the middle of her panic, she remembered the gun…but she didn’t dare go for it. Not now. Not when whatever was at the window could risk seeing her go for it. Instead, she lay there still as a statue.
A thought crossed her mind. Maybe it was her imagination. Or at least it hadn’t seen her.
Both thoughts were consumed by raw terror when she heard the window shutters creak open.
The girl kept holding her breath. She shut her eyes and struggled not to tremble. She kept telling herself she was imagining this. That it was just a dream. She wasn’t really hearing the window swing open wide. She wasn’t really hearing the floorboards crack as something stepped through it and into her room. She wasn’t really hearing it come to the foot of her bed.
She wasn’t feeling weight on her mattress from something putting its limb on it.
She wasn’t feeling water from rain drip and drop over her body as it leaned over her.
She wasn’t hearing it breathe right over her face.
There she lay, immobile. Eventually, she had to breathe and she stole one before swallowing. But when she did, she could still feel the weight on top of her. Water was soaking into her covers. Another thunderclap rang out, much clearer now that her window was open. A part of her told her to stay there. Wait until it was gone. It didn’t move, however, even when she waited several minutes.
Finally, she told herself to open her eyes and pull the quilt off of her face. To prove that she was imagining it. That this was just a dream. That none of it could be real. That she could just end the terror she was feeling right now. With that, she took in a deep breath. She whispered another prayer to Gaia Everfree. Bracing herself for whatever her mind would come up with, she opened her eyes and used her fingertips to pull back the quilt.
The multi-eyed, toothed face from the box was hovering two inches from her own.
All illusions and optimism vanished. She knew it was real…and it was here. Hunched over her bed. Looking her dead in the face. It was over. She was going to die. The last thing she would ever see was it opening its jaws and biting her face off. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. She just lay there looking at it.
The six eyes continued to move independently, although one remained focused on her at all times. The girl kept looking at them and the teeth, not daring to look at the rest of its body.
The mouth suddenly spread open wide. Bits of drool started to leak from the corners of its mouth. The girl thought this was it. It was moving to bite…
“Hi there!”
The girl was so petrified with fear that her mind didn’t even register what she had heard, nor the fact that it was in the exact same innocent girl voice she had heard before. She focused too much on the thing’s monstrous lips moving over its jagged, irregular teeth and its eyes continuing to shift around in weird ways.
“You let me out, didn’t you?” the thing’s out-of-place voice asked. “You ran away before I had a chance to say thank you, silly! Well…thank you!”
The girl didn’t move. She thought the thing was warming up to kill her still. That it was playing with her a little first with this talk.
“Soooo…what’s your name?”
No answer.
“Is this where you live? It’s nice and dry!”
Still no answer.
“Is this what you sleep on? It’s super-comfy! Much better than a box!”
Still no answer, but the girl began to become aware that the thing wasn’t making a move on her either. Nor did it look inclined too. Eventually, she gained enough bravery to swallow and exhale some of the breath she had been holding. The thing didn’t react, other than to continue to spread its mouth open wide.
Was it…a smile?
“You don’t like to talk much, do you? I love to talk! And this is great because I haven’t had anybody to talk to for so long that…well…I can’t remember the last person I talked too! Tee-hee!” It finally pulled its head back slightly. “Say, you know? You don’t look too much like me…or I don’t look too much like you.”
The voice was so innocent-sounding, so child-like, and so simple that the girl found herself involuntarily glancing down and looking at the body perched over her. It filled her with more dread. The thing had ten limbs in all, each one too long, gangly, and bony. They weren’t adjusted regularly either like one might find on an insect. More like something jumbled together.
The thing’s head looked away and down at its own body, seeming to compare it to the girl’s under the cover. “Yeah, I think I’ve got a few more parts than you do. But do you want to know a secret?” The thing lowered its voice into a childish whisper. “They kind of get in the way. Along with all of these teeth. See?”
Its lips peeled back, exposing part of its misshapen skull underneath, so it could bare its mouth full of teeth at the girl all at once. She couldn’t help it; she shrank and let out a small start when it did that.
At once the thing froze. The girl held her breath again. She thought that had done it. That this would be what pushed it over the edge into killing her.
However, a moment later, all of the thing’s eyes widened together. “Ooooh…I get it… You’re nervous ‘cause I don’t look like you! I remember that! People used to not like me because I didn’t look like them!” The face spread into a smile again. “But I learned a trick to fix that ever since I got put in the box! Just a second!”
With that, the gangly limbs all shifted together and scrambled off of the girl and her bed. She let out an exhale again as the weight was removed, even if the thing was still in her room. Out of sheer fear, she sat bolt upright in bed and pushed herself backward. She thought again of the gun, but didn’t dare reach for it or move any more.
She was now fully facing the thing as it stood on the floor of her room, seeing it in all of its disjointed “glory”. The irregular eyes looked over its own body for a moment. “Hmm…let’s see…where to start… How ‘bout…this one!”
One of the thing’s gangly arms reached up, extended its spidery fingers, and grasped another arm where it joined to the thing’s body. It tightened it grip, and then began to twist. After a moment, the girl began to hear a squelching sound coming from it. Like the skin and muscle was being pulled and rotated more than it should have been. Crackling and popping came soon after, now sounding like bone.
Then, all of the sudden, with a sickening noise, it ripped it own arm clean off.
The girl’s cheeks bulged. She nearly gagged as she watched the flesh where it connected immediately become gel-like and ooze back together like bread dough or custard. Even worse was that the severed limb kept moving even apart from the thing’s body. Nevertheless, it let it fall to the floor like dead weight. Humming a bit to itself, it reached for another limb and soon did the same thing.
The girl was soon forced to watch a rather grotesque process as the thing ripped off one limb after another until it was left with only four. After that, it gouged open its own remaining appendages and pulled out sections of bone until they were a more human-like length, before breaking off the tips of its fingers and toes until they were also proportional. Then it reached into its own back and ripped it open, yanking out sections of vertebrae and ribs next. Each piece was discarded in a growing pile on the ground.
After that, she went into her mouth. Seizing a tooth, she ripped it clean out of her head. The girl couldn’t watch anymore then. She managed to close her eyes, but kept hearing teeth come out one after the other. When it was finally over, she risked opening her eyes again after a moment of silence.
Bad move. She was just in time to see the thing yank out one of its own eyeballs.
She immediately shut her own eyes again and winced as she heard the others come out. When it was finally over, she risked cracking them open a second time.
On the floor was a pile of bloodless body parts of all shapes and sizes. Yet standing nearby it was the thing, although one would hardly know that by now. The body was the same size and shape of a normal human girl a little younger than herself. The only difference was one of its limbs. On the back of its hand was a strange circular symbol seemingly embedded in its skin. Only now did she notice the thing had hair. Pink, but also straight and flat and hanging down around her head; still wet from the rain. Its back was still to the girl at first, but it turned around once it was finished.
For a moment, she saw the two remaining eyes in the thing’s head, now in the same position as regular human eyes. They continued to swivel independently and in different directions, however, until the thing took its child-like hand and smacked itself against the side of the head twice. After the second blow, both eyes now moved together and blinked in unison. It smiled afterward from a normal child’s mouth.
“There we go!” it cheered. “Now I look just like you!”
The girl was dumbfounded. She didn’t know what to say or how to react to that. Instead, she grimaced at the pile on the floor…especially since each of the parts were still moving independently.
“Hmm?” the thing asked, and then looked down. “Oops! I really made a mess, didn’t I? Don’t worry! I’ll clean it all up! And I’ve got just the perfect place for all of this!”
With that, she bent over and began to pick up her body parts. It was quite a bit, but what made the process much easier was the severed limbs independently picked things up as well so that she gathered all the parts together in no time. Soon she had an armful of them and was rising again.
“Be right back!”
She went straight back to the window, dumped her load outside of it, climbed out, and then went off into the night. The girl could hear her singing to herself as she slowly vanished into the storm.
It was a good ten minutes before the girl finally risked going for the gun. As soon as she had it, and failed to see the thing pop back up in the window, she went straight for her mother’s shrine to Gaia Everfree, got on her knees, and began to pray harder than she ever had in her life. She realized she had to have been at it for hours when something finally changed again.
She was in the middle of finishing one prayer when she heard the thing letting out a childish giggle out front. Immediately, she snapped her head around, half-expecting it to come popping in and lunging at her, but she saw nothing and only heard the same laugh again. Taking up the gun and bracing herself, she very slowly rose and made her way back to her room at the front of the house. The laughter got louder there, and she saw something moving outside.
Steeling herself and her courage, she managed to reach out and open the door again. She nearly raised the gun to take aim at whatever was out there, but stopped soon after.
The thing was indeed out there, but it didn’t look like it wanted in. Rather, like a playful child, it was running around jumping in mud puddles, laughing and skipping, holding its head up into the sky and sticking out a human tongue to catch raindrops, and generally having a blast.
“Yippee!” it shouted between giggles. “It’s so great to be out in all this cool stuff! There’s squishy stuff between my toes and wet, cold stuff running through my hair and big noisy stuff coming from the black puffy stuff! This is so much more fun than the box!”
The girl stood there motionless. She wasn’t sure how long, but for as long as she stood there the thing kept playing in the rain, often singing to itself and spinning and skipping around. The thought occurred to her to shoot it now while it was unaware, but this time fear of the fact that the bullet would do nothing was only part of the reason why she paused. The carefree, innocent look on the thing’s face that seemed like just a normal girl was part of it now.
Eventually, the girl stepped away from the window and back into her room. She kept ahold of the rifle but let it fall to one side. She stared at the floor, her own fear lessening for the first time. It didn’t disappear, but it did give way to a few moments of thought and consideration.
A very large lightning bolt, the kind that could have only come from striking near the house, flashed through the window. A moment later, the girl winced and cringed from the roaring thunderclap that resulted. It was so loud and shook the house so much that the thing outside was forgotten briefly, and she pulled back out of fear that the building had been struck.
However, the thunder diminished and slowly faded with a resounding echo. She heard a wet squelching again. Much slower this time, and also approaching the window. She turned to it, and for a moment a bit of the fear came back.
Moments later, the thing leaned in just enough to poke its head inside. It had a rather dazed look on its face, and its hair, which had previously been flat, was now curled to the point of being poofy and balanced on top of its head. The girl almost thought she saw a wisp of smoke coming from it.
“Those bright parts that burn and itch when they hit you aren’t so much fun…” it moaned, before it slumped forward headfirst. Gravity yanked it back in through the window until it pulled the rest of itself through to slump onto the floor. After that, it went still.
The girl didn’t move again, and was left staring at the motionless thing. After a time, she realized that it was breathing just like a normal child would but not moving. It actually seemed to be unconscious. The lightning had to have struck it and left it this way.
She again thought of the rifle. This time, she actually grasped it and began to pull it up. This was the best shot she would get. Point blank range and while it was unable to react. She might never get another shot of any kind. She grasped the stock and nearly aimed it.
Then she stopped.
The thing was breathing so gently and normally. The way its little body was slumped against the floor was just like how Limestone would be whenever she rolled out of bed and fell asleep on the rug. Even knowing what she had seen, it looked so much like just a normal child. Even mottled with mud from playing around in the rain like a normal child. Its laughter and giggling sounding so much like a normal child.
Slowly, the girl found herself releasing her grip on the stock of the rifle. She let it lower to her side again. She kept staring at it for a few more minutes before she turned and moved for her mother’s room again.
The storm broke at last not long after that incident. The rain tapered off and, following it, the sun finally began to rise. Yet even when it was fully in the sky the girl was still at the shrine in her mother’s room, continuing to pray. She was still scared, but found herself not as scared as before. The thing in her room never made a sound. At least…not at first. Eventually she began to hear a noise coming from the room, but on closer inspection she realized it was the thing snoring. She hadn’t checked again since then. By now, the rifle was to one side and well out of arm’s length.
The girl finished the Prayer of Protection and made her customary sign to signify the end. She bowed her head to the ground and touched it, then rose again. She nearly started another one.
“What’cha doin’?”
She gave a violent start and spun around, in spite of how simple and innocent the voice was. There was the thing, seated on the floor near the doorway. Her hair was still poofy, but her eyes, still completely normal, were wide-open and curious. She had taken the girl’s quilt off of her bed and wrapped her naked body in it.
Seeing her freeze, the thing seemed to think it was due to what she had on. “I’m sorry I took it without asking, but it was just so soft and warm I wanted to wrap up in it! Can I please wear it?”
The question was again innocent, and it looked imploringly at the girl. The girl stared back and saw it wait for an answer. At that moment, the truth finally clicked with her: the thing wasn’t going to hurt her. Realizing that allowed her to calm somewhat.
“…I don’t mind.”
The thing grinned again…the normal grin of an excited child with normal teeth. “Yay! Thank you! Oh! I almost forgot! I wanted to give you something!”
Immediately, it scrambled into the room, scooting on its rear end right up to the girl. She recoiled a bit, especially with how fast she came, but the thing was on her in no time. Soon it was seated right next to her and holding up its hand. On seeing what was in it the girl was caught yet again.
A fist-sized, boulder-shaped rock.
“When I was looking through the cracks of the box, I saw you try to get this. I thought it was yours, so I picked it up when I dropped my things off back in the box and brought it back to you. Is this yours?”
The girl took a moment to answer. “…Yes. It’s…it’s Boulder.”
“Boulder?”
A pause. “My pet rock.”
“Ooo! What’s a pet?”
Absent-mindedly, the girl responded. “It’s…it’s something that…keeps you company. That you can love.”
“Oh! Then it must be really important! Here you go!”
The girl didn’t move. She stared at it for several seconds more. Finally, she swallowed. Slowly and trembling, she raised her hand. Watching the thing the whole time, she reached up and over to its outstretched hand. Swallowing a second time, she forced herself to reach out and take it, barely avoiding snatching it.
The thing never made a move. It merely smiled back. The girl, on her part, looked down at the rock. She stared at it for a while and felt it in her hand, enjoying the familiar feeling and sensation. It made her feel more at ease and comfortable again…
“Look at that!”
The girl looked up again. The thing was grinning at her.
“You just had the corners of your mouth turn up! Just a teeny…tiny…bit…but that’s the first time I’ve seen them! What’s that?”
The girl blinked. “A…smile?”
“A smile?” the thing echoed back, before giggling. “You look like a different person with a smile! I like seeing it! Can you do it again?”
The girl blinked again, not realizing that the fear inside her was fading further as she put Boulder down at her side. “I’m…not a big smiler.”
“Aw…” the thing answered, sounding disappointed. “But you smiled just now, didn’t you? When I gave you Boulder? Oh, oh! Can I have him back and I’ll give him to you again, so then you’ll smile again?”
“It…it doesn’t work that way.”
“Aw! Why not?”
“You smile only when you’re happy…and I was happy for just that moment.”
“Oh, that’s no fun…” the thing frowned, pouting a bit as it…as she sank under the quilt. She looked up again soon after. “But what were you doing?”
The girl hesitated. She looked back to the shrine and then back to the thing. “I was just…praying.”
“Ooo! Praying! What’s that?”
The girl paused yet again. However, the thing continued to look innocent and curiously child-like. It put her more at ease. “It’s where you speak with Gaia Everfree.”
“Who’s Gaia Everfree?”
“She’s the god of the world. She created it and everyone on it, and she gave us the tenets by which we should live in order to ascend one day.”
“Oh!” The thing immediately spread herself on the ground, lying on her belly, and propped her head up on her hands just like a fascinated little girl would. “What does that mean? ‘Ascend’?”
The girl noted her behavior in silence for a moment, before she found herself turning to face the thing. “It means that when you die, your soul ascends to be with Gaia Everfree in paradise forever.”
“My soul?”
The girl opened her mouth to correct the thing, meaning to say she had been using “you” in the general sense. Yet after a short pause, she found herself continuing. “Yes. Everyone has a soul. That’s the part that gives life to the rest of you, and that’s what continues after you die. Gaia Everfree made everyone’s soul. And she wants everyone to be with her in the heavens.”
“What are they like? The heavens?”
“It’s a place where no one gets hungry or thirsty. Where no one gets sick or hurt. Where no one is sad or has to watch people die anymore. They live in peace and happiness forever.”
The thing looked more excited. “Do they get to have fun all the time too?”
The girl paused, but then nodded back.
She sprung up a bit. “And they get to always be happy?”
She nodded.
“And no one ever puts them in boxes and buries them and forgets about them?”
A longer pause, but a nod.
The thing let out an excited squeal. “I want to ascend!”
The girl blinked. “…Excuse me?”
“I want to go be with Gaia Everfree! Can you show me the way? What do I have to do?”
The girl was struck silent and motionless again. However, the thing only continued to look at her happily and eagerly. The girl remembered her father telling her in grim tones that what was evil and profane couldn’t abide the name or presence of Gaia Everfree. It would shrink away and wither like grass in wildfire. Yet this thing embraced both things eagerly, without the slightest fear or trepidation.
Seeing that made the last of her fear melt away.
“Wait here just a minute.”
The thing…the unusual girl…sat there grinning and eagerly squirming, while the girl rose up and went to her parents’ bedside. After searching a little, she found her copy of the Gaitian scripture that she had read to them many times before. She brought it back in front of the shrine and opened it up. The unusual girl scooted up to her side and looked at it, but soon only looked confused. “There’s a lot of funny looking things in this thing…”
“Those are letters and words,” the girl answered as she turned to one particular page.
“What are letters and words?”
“They’re things you read that tell you other things. It’s like being able to look at something and see someone talking to you.”
“Oh, neat! What’s that part say?”
She pointed. “This part right here is the 12 Tenets of Gaia. They’re the most important commands you have to follow.”
“Okie-dokie-lokie! What are they?”
“The first one is that you can never intentionally kill another person. Killing is a horrible sin against Gaia Everfree. You have to treat all people as if they are your family. That’s why Gaitians never kill. Not even in a time of war.”
“I got it! I’ll never kill anyone! What’s next?”
“Well, for the second…”
It was well past noon when the girl had finished her “crash course” in the religion of Gaia. They had only covered the high points in the book, but she shut it just the same. The whole time, the unusual girl had never stopped listening with rapt attention and wonder. Only toward the end did she quiet down, all of the new thoughts seeming to run through her head.
When it was finally done, the girl turned to her. “Do you understand?”
“Hmm…” the unusual girl answered. “So…the biggest and best thing that Gaia Everfree wants us to do is to treat everyone the way we want them to treat us?”
The girl nodded.
The unusual girl stuck her tongue out of her mouth in a thoughtful expression and stared at the ceiling. She pondered this for several moments. Suddenly, her eyes widened as if she had a realization. “Oh, oh! What I want everyone to do is to make me smile and have fun with me so that I can be happy! So that means that I should make everyone else smile and have fun so that they can be happy, right?”
The girl thought about this reasoning for a moment. “I suppose so.”
The unusual girl grinned widely again. “Yay! That sounds like lots of fun! Alright…that’s what I’ll do!”
The girl blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I’m going to serve Gaia Everfree by making everyone smile, have fun, and be happy! And I want to start with you!”
The girl blinked again, a little taken aback. “Me?”
“Sure! You were nice enough to get me out of the box and let me wear your warm, soft thing and teach me everything about Gaia Everfree! And you looked so nice when you smiled! I want to make you smile more! Oh!” She suddenly sprang to her feet. “Are there other people around that I can do that for?” She began to glance about. “Do more people live here? Where are they at? Can I make them happy too?”
She began to prance about the room, looking about excitedly. The girl began to rise up after her on seeing her getting worked up. She reached out a hand for her, nearly telling her to stop.
However, before she could, the unusual girl stopped on her own. She was staring at something. The girl approached her and followed her gaze.
She looked at a tiny frame on the wall of the room. Inside it was a black-and-white photograph of the girl and her family.
“Are those the other people who live here?” she asked, far more calmly.
The girl again hesitated, but then nodded. “Yes.”
The unusual girl stepped toward the picture. “Who are they?”
The girl swallowed once, but then stepped forward and pointed. “That’s my father. That’s my mother. And those are my two sisters.”
“They look like me too. What’s a sister?”
The girl was caught. She looked at the unusual girl for a moment, who was still staring at the picture, before she was able to speak.
“A sister is a member of your family. You came from the same set of parents, and you live under the same house as them and do chores along with them-”
“Do they sleep in the same room as you?”
“…My sisters do, but that’s only because we can’t-”
“Do you get to have fun with them?”
“Sometimes, after you’re done with work for the day. Then you can go out and-”
“Do they make you happy?”
A longer pause. “…Yes, yes they do.”
“How? Do they give you things that make you smile or do nice things for you?”
“Yes, but…but that’s not why they make you happy.”
“Why do they make you happy?”
Another pause. “Because…they care about you. They love you.”
“They love you…like Gaia Everfree loves everyone?”
“Sort of. Only…you can feel it.”
“Feel it?”
“It’s a warm feeling you get in your chest. It makes you feel light. Like everything will be fine. Like they’re always with you even when they’re away. And it makes you want to be with them and remember them always. Even when you’re cold or alone or scared, none of that matters as much so long as you know they love you. It makes you want to do anything for them. It makes you happy to be alive because you get to be with them.”
This last part got the unusual girl to look at her. Her eyes widened in wonder at this last part. She stared at the girl for a long time.
“Could…” Her voice was the quietest it had been so far. “Could…I be your sister?”
Out of all of the unexpected shocks and surprises the girl had gotten since the previous evening, this was the greatest. She was left standing there speechless, staring at the innocent eyes and expression of the unusual girl as she looked back at her hopefully and imploringly.
Only now, however, did she realize she felt no more fear or even anxiety around her. She had never seen a girl like her before. How everything in the world seemed so fresh and wonderful and new, so much so that she was happy just simply being there talking to someone while wearing only a quilt. The girl herself was normally quiet and reserved. Limestone and Marble, while her sisters, usually didn’t see the world in too happy or bright of a light and talked little. She had probably talked more to the unusual girl in one day than she had to them in half a year.
But she couldn’t help it. She realized now the way the unusual girl doted on her, hung around her, listened to her every word…it was more than just cute and innocent. It made the girl feel wanted as well. Important, even. Worth being concerned over. And seeing her playfulness and youth, it actually made her feel different.
It actually made her…happier.
“Mom, dad.”
The Pies had scarcely finished pulling the wagon up to the front of the house when they both looked up. In the back of the wagon, Limestone and Marble, still pale but much healthier than when they left, looked up as well. It wasn’t just from the fact the girl was calling, but the fact that she was speaking at all. She never called out to them for any reason.
They found her standing in the open doorway with her rock in one hand. She remained there a moment, but then stood to one side. Skipping out from within the house, dressed in some of Maud’s own clothing although it was too big for her, waving eagerly and grinning, was a boisterous, happy little girl with a head of pink, poofy hair.
The Pies were surprised to see her to say the least, but the girl spoke up again.
“She followed me home soon after you left. She doesn’t have a home or family of her own to go to.”
When the unusual girl was brought out of the creek by the minister, her hair remained flat only for a fraction of a second before spontaneously popping back up into its normal poofy style. As for the girl herself, she gave a bit of a shake from the water now dripping off of her, but was beaming for joy that her baptism was complete. She turned and grinned at the Pie family.
Most of them were as stoic as always, as they had been for the baptisms of the rest of their children, but the girl gave her just a hint of a smile. Just wide enough for her to see.
The minister proclaimed the words over her.
“You are now a child of Gaia Everfree, Pinkamena Diane Pie.”
The group was as still as a set of statues. Their eyes were widened so much it looked as if they would fall out of their heads on hearing the story. They themselves seemed to have ceased to breathe in the wake of it, as the realization of who…and what…Pinkie was fully dawned on them.
Maud herself was quiet for a short time to let it sink in and then continued. “I never told my family the truth. I’m the only one who knew what really happened that night. To them, Pinkie was just a homeless orphan that we took in. They thought the symbol on her hand was just a scar of some kind. They were standoffish at first, but that didn’t last long. She loved being in our family and she loved making us happy. She loved making everyone happy.”
“Here mom! I found a whole patch of your favorite flowers just for you!”
“Open wide, Marble! I made you your favorite soup! Nom, nom, nom!”
“Look everyone! It’s my first cherry upside down cake! Eat up!”
“I’ll get the axe, dad! You just rest that back of yours!”
“Surprise, everyone! It’s a party!”
“She was so innocent, so sweet, and so eager that I started to forget about that night. I thought I had to have imagined it, because Pinkie didn’t have a mean or evil bone in her body. To prove it to myself, I eventually did go back to that rock face on the last day before we had to move back to our town. I wanted to find the box and see that there was nothing in it. That I just dreamed everything horrible that was on that night. I never found it, though. It wasn’t there, but that just made me think that I really had dreamed it all. I actually began to believe what I had told my parents. That she was just a girl who came to us in the night and my imagination just went wild.”
She bowed her head.
“Then, about two years later, we were both down by the creek when we saw a cottonmouth. Mother had warned us to look out for them. She told us how deadly they were. How one of her own sisters lost a foot to one of them before dying of infection. Pinkie was wary about them after that. She told me not to worry; that she’d protect me if one came out. Well…one came out near me. That’s when I realized I hadn’t imagined that night.”
Maud was expressionless as always, but inside her heart was racing as much as it had that night.
Two things now lay in front of her. One was the bloody skeleton of the cottonmouth. The other was the fleshy remains of the rest of it, still twitching as the last bit of life left its body. The only sound was the wet fleshy sounds it was making as it slowly stopped moving.
Maud swallowed once and looked up. Pinkie had learned how to read her expressionless face well in the past two years. As a result, she knew she had upset her. And it made her cringe even as her bloodstained hands continued to drip against the ground.
“I didn’t scare you, did I, Maud? I’m sorry! I just wanted to make sure the snake didn’t bite you! I just saw it and moved and something inside me told me what to do and… I’m sorry!”
In spite of telling herself to calm down and ease up, Maud was scared. And it was some time before she swallowed and nodded. “It’s alright, Pinkie. Let’s…go home.”
Still shrinking, she nodded as she fell in next to Maud again. They began to walk, and as they did Maud quivered a little as she stepped over the remains of the snake. She forced her head forward and walked normally. Pinkie tried to skip next to her, but it was halfhearted and hesitant.
Maud took her straight to the spring first before heading home, telling her to wash her hands off. Fortunately, none of the blood stained her clothes. After that, they walked on for about another half mile before Maud calmed enough to speak.
“Pinkie?”
“Yes, Maud?”
“I want to tell you two things about that. First, I don’t want you to ever do anything like that in front of anyone other than me ever again. You’ll probably scare people.”
“Sure thing, Maud. Whatever you say. I promise.”
“Second.” She had to stop again to steady herself. “I don’t want you to ever even think about doing that to another person.”
“Oh no, Maud!” Pinkie immediately cried. “I’d never, ever, ever do that to another person! That would be a sin against Gaia Everfree! You told me that!”
“Alright then. In that case, I don’t think we need to tell mom, dad, Limestone, or Marble about this.”
“Okay…”
Maud turned her eyes to Pinkie. Her sister was still looking downcast and worried, like she wasn’t sure that everything was ‘back to normal’ even after hearing that, and that she was still afraid she had upset her. Maud looked forward afterward.
“Why don’t you stop by the bakery on the way home?”
Pinkie looked upright, beginning to smile again. “Really?” She paused afterward, smile fading again. “But…are you sure? I thought mom wanted us to beat out the rugs?”
“I’ll do that. Just make sure to be back before dark.”
The girl smiled again at that, before leaning over and wrapping her arms around Maud’s shoulders and giving her a hug. “I know you get tired of hearing this, but you’re the best sister ever, Maud!”
In spite of herself, Maud smiled slightly back.
Maud looked up afterward and back to the group. “That was the last I saw of it. And for years, our family was poor but happy. Then, like I said, came the trip to Cloudsdale. Yet as it turned out, I could still be there for Pinkie even after that happened. There were certain advantages to my new…condition. Somehow, I knew certain things about myself. I knew now what that symbol on my sister’s hand meant. And I knew what I had to teach her so that I could be at her side whenever she needed me from now on…”
“Pinkie.”
“Yeah, Maud?”
“I want to teach you a new prayer today. It’s a very special prayer. It’s one you only have to say once, but after you say it I’ll be able to come help you whenever you call for me.”
“Really? Wow! That sounds great! What do I do?”
“Here, face me.”
“Ok!”
“Now…repeat after me… Valiant spirit, my household opens its doors to you.”
“Valiant spirit, my household opens its doors to you!”
“I, Maudileena Daisy Pie, the Sage Geologist, pledge myself to the House of Pinkamena Diane Pie.”
“I, Maudileena-”
“You don’t repeat that part, Pinkie. Say this instead… The binding is done; may our souls be as one.”
“The binding is done; may our souls be as one!”
“…And the rest is history.”
The group continued to stand in stunned silence, no one knowing what to say. Fluttershy began to quiver after a time and shrink down. Applejack looked too astonished to even think. Sunset held a hand to her mouth for a time, then lowered it.
“So…the reason we can see you and talk to you even though you’re an Anima Viri…?”
“I’m assuming it has something to do with Pinkie. Wherever she came from, she’s definitely not like other people. I could tell after speaking with you the first time that she wasn’t even like the rest of you. Though even now I’m not entirely sure that’s the whole reason…”
“You said you never even told your parents about Pinkie,” Twilight asked next. “So why are you telling us?”
Maud blinked once. She paused for a long time. “You told me you were her friends. Even after everything I just told you, are you still her friends?”
Twilight looked caught. She turned back to the others. Discomfort went across each of their faces. Airs of unease and uncertainty. What they had just heard couldn’t be simply ignored or dismissed after all. Yet slowly their own faces eased as they remembered all of their own times with Pinkie, her innocence, her joy, and the times she had tried to make them happy as well. They finally looked back at Twilight with more resolve. As a result, she turned back to Maud. After a second longer, she nodded. “Yes…yes, we are.”
“Then telling you was the right thing to do. You deserved to know the truth. Pinkie deserved you knowing the truth. She deserves people accepting her in spite of where she came from.”
Maud rolled her head back, looking up to the night sky. She stared at it as she continued.
“It’s been over ten years since I broke open that box in the quarry. If I wanted to be completely honest, up until the day I died I wondered sometimes if that was the right thing to do. I want to believe it was. I want to believe that Gaia Everfree wanted me to make this world a better place by opening it, but I honestly don’t know. I only know that the purpose of my life was to open that box, whether it ends up leading to something good or something bad. I was created to be Pinkie’s sister. And I came back because she still needs me to be her sister.”
She lowered her head again.
“Maybe now that she has all of you, I won’t need to be here much longer.”
“So what will you all do now?”
The group halted on the rock trail, turning and looking behind them. They had left Maud…or at least what was left of her…behind a while ago now and were making their way back to the Pies’ shack. Just around the corner the roof would come into view, but before they could reach that point they heard Sunset call out as she brought up the rear.
She faced them all with a critical look. “Is that really it? You’re just going to go back up to that…that thing and act like nothing happened? You don’t even know what it is.”
Applejack frowned back. “She ain’t an ‘it’. She’s my friend.”
“Mine as well,” Rarity spoke up. She bowed her head and gave a shudder. “While…I’m not sure I needed to hear everything back there, she saved my life in the mines outside of Griffonstone.”
“She saved all of our lives, and maybe those of Greater Everfree, when we went against Nightmare Moon and you,” Twilight Sparkle added a bit more forcefully. “She’s earned our trust.”
Sunset frowned back at them, but sighed and pressed the issue no further. “Alright. Let’s try a different question, then. What in the world is she and who put her in that box? For all we know, she was buried alive in there for years.”
“Igneous said that was an unholy place for unholy things…” Fluttershy spoke meekly, scaring herself with what she was saying. “You don’t think she’s…she’s a…a demon, do you?”
Dash snorted. “There’s no such thing as demons, Fluttershy.”
“Yes, but, um…I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as people who can take off their arms and pull out their own bones too...”
“You heard what Maud said, right? She never found that box. Maybe she imagined that part.”
Fluttershy gulped. “Unless…someone took it…”
“Well, that’s just plumb crazy,” Applejack cut in, even as she began to look a little uneasy herself to be talking about this. “Who in their right mind would…would go around stealin’ a box full o’…o’ b-b-body parts?”
Twilight’s own look grew thoughtful. “What I keep thinking about is when Maud found her. Pinkie has a Promethian Sigil like the rest of us. But even Celestia never showed me that she could make the Anima Viris…come out like that. Not to where you could actually talk and interact with them.” She began to rub her chin, her eyes glancing down to the two symbols on her own hand. “What if…”
“I hate to break in,” Rarity suddenly spoke up, interrupting everyone’s train of thought, “but as things stand I would say we have quite enough ‘on our plate’ as it is. I’m not so sure we should spend time worrying about anything new.”
“I think she’s got a point there,” Dash added. “We’re going to be worried enough as it is trying to get all these Gaia Everfree nuts out of here. Maybe this is a problem that can wait?”
Twilight held, glancing back to the symbols on her hand, but eventually frowned. “Rainbow Dash has a point. We don’t really have the luxury of time to wonder about this. Trottingham could make their move at any time, so bright and early tomorrow we need to be making a plan. Let’s head back and get in some sleep while we can.”
The others hesitated momentarily, but eventually all nodded in agreement. Sunset looked a bit irritated at the issue being brushed aside, but simply sighed and said no more.
“Right,” Twilight added, beginning to turn to head on.
The moment she did, she winced in surprise and recoiled. The others were soon alarmed as well. Maud was standing right in their way on the path ahead. She looked as emotionless as always, but the mere fact she was suddenly there was enough to shock them all.
“Sorry,” she apologized quietly. “It’s just that I remembered one other important thing that I meant to tell all of you before you left. You know how I told you my sister’s hair used to be straight and flat, but then after she was struck by lightning it became curly and poofy?”
Twilight took a second to compose herself, but then nodded back.
“Remember this. If there ever comes a time where you see her hair go completely flat…run.”
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Ok, that’s wasn’t I expected to be in this chapter, but it great! And now, I go to the dark corner & mumbling myself.
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The flashback was actually one of the very first ideas I came up with for this story. I've been sitting on it for about two years now waiting to write it.
So...what do you think Pinkie is?
damn, future tech, secret labs, monsters, magic and war all after an apocalypse was cancelled, something fishy is going on to say the least.
I love 'Pinkie isn't normal' ideas and this one was definitely unique!
Love love love the story too!