A Scary Story on a Stormy Night
"Nonsense!" Applejack chuckled. "You look great in that hat."
"Of course he looks great in that hat, darling. I made it for him."
Big Mac snorted. He was examining himself in the living room mirror with Applejack and Rarity, the latter of whom was doing so rather intently. The outfit Rarity had prepared for him consisted of a red and white striped vest, a black sports jacket, and a fruity hat. Literally—it had tiny apples sewn onto the brim.
"If you girls say so."
Outside the Apple family farmhouse the sun had just set, leaving behind a starry night sky veiled by gathering clouds. Inside, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle tumbled and chased each other around the hooves of the three older ponies. Granny Smith watched the evening bustle quietly from her spot on the sofa. Applejack was wearing a simple blue dress, while Rarity was decked out in an extravagant gown studded with jewels.
"Now, that being settled, isn't it time we get going? We're going to be late for the ballot," Applejack said.
"It's a ballet, dear," Rarity corrected, emphasizing the ay. "And yes, I believe it's about that time."
"A belly-ay?" Sweetie Belle shrieked, her hooves going firm. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom promptly smacked into her and keeled over. "Is that where you guys are going? Oh, Applejack, Big Mac, I’m so sorry."
Rarity glared at her. "Now what do you mean by that, Sweetie Belle?" she demanded. "I thought you enjoyed our trips to see the Canterlot ballets."
"They're so boring! All the belly-wieners do is spin around and pretend they're swans!" Sweetie Belle returned Rarity’s glare with one of her own.
"Sweetie Belle! It's rude to say such things out loud! You never know when somepony in present company might want to become a dancer."
"All the dancers have stick-legs! None of us here have stick-legs!"
Rarity gasped. "Are you implying I'm fat?"
Applejack cut off Rarity's impending tantrum with a hoof to her mouth. "Don't worry about it, Sweetie Belle," she said. "We'd venture to the very pits of Tartarus for our friends."
Rarity hmmphed as she turned away from Applejack's hoof. "Now I wouldn't compare Tippy Horseshoe's production of Dabbled Dapper Dancers to Tartarus of all things, but if you insist on putting it that way. It wouldn't be fit for me to be seen at such an event alone, in any case. I'm the head costume designer."
"You've mentioned," Applejack grumbled.
Rarity continued as she started for the door. "Shame Twilight couldn't attend. You know how busy she's been with that little project of hers. Now Sweetie Belle, I expect you to be on your best behavior tonight for Granny Smith."
"And that goes for you too, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo," Applejack amended. "I don't want to hear from Granny Smith about how the three of you were trying to build a rocket ship out of the oven or something dumb." She turned to Granny Smith. "Are you sure you can handle 'em, Granny?"
"Oh yes, I'll have the three entertained all night," Granny Smith drawled. "Yes, this takes me back..."
Apple Bloom groaned.
Granny Smith continued, oblivious. "I remember going on dates with my friends all the time. We used to attend the annual Jam Lovers Jam, back when ponies could appreciate a good jam. In those days you could get two whole tubs of hoof polish for a bit. And it was some darn tootin’ good hoof polish too, let me tell you. They used bear saliva mixed with beeswax collected from the underground hives of the South Equestrian terror bees for hoof polish back then. I remember mistaking it for peanut butter.”
"Can I get some help over here?" Rarity called, bringing the room back to the present. She was struggling against the front door. "I can't seem to get this door open."
"You gotta jiggle it a little, Rarity," Applejack answered. She motioned towards her brother. "Uh, Big Mac?"
Big Mac trotted over and gently opened the door for Rarity.
"What a gentlestallion!" Rarity exclaimed. Big Mac sighed and went out into the darkness, Rarity trotting after him. Applejack followed too, but stopped before she left. She turned back to the three waiting fillies. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but it took a moment for her to say anything.
"Now girls..." she began. "You be careful and..." Applejack closed her mouth and frowned slightly in thought. "We'll be back before you know it," she finally committed. She left then, bumping the door with her hip so it would close after her. But before it closed completely, Applejack popped her head back into the light. "And good luck!" And then the door shut and she was gone.
Granny Smith began snoring immediately.
Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle gathered around their sleeping sitter. There was a moment of silence between them, which Scootaloo eventually broke. "So, how about a game of Ponopoly?"
"Nope!" Apple Bloom laughed and jetted off for the stairs which led up to her bedroom.
"Charades?" Scootaloo tried with a grin, but it was no use. She and Sweetie Belle followed Apple Bloom, and almost crashed into her when she came charging down the stairs with her saddlebag on and that white book clutched in her mouth.
Apple Bloom had explained her plan for their sleepover earlier that day after school had ended. With stars in her eyes and a mouth full of ice cream, she had told them they were going to take turns reading from a book of scary stories to see if they could get scary story cutie marks.
"Terrifying Tales to Recite in the Darkness," Scootaloo read the title of the book softly.
"We're reading it in the cellar!" Apple Bloom exclaimed.
Are you crazy? Scootaloo wanted to say, but she instead said. "That sounds awesome! But why the cellar? Not that the cellar isn't awesome, or anything."
"Because it's the spookiest spot in the house, of course! If we want to get our cutie marks in scary storying, we have to do things right, and things aren't right if we're not scared." Apple Bloom led Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle to a flimsy white painted door that was obviously in need of something more than a new paintjob. She opened it, revealing a solid wall of pitch black. The first few steps of an ancient wooden staircase were the only evidence of something beyond.
"It's a bit dark in there," Scootaloo said to Apple Bloom.
"The darker it is, the better it is for reading a scary story!"
"...And the harder it is to read," Sweetie Belle snarked.
"That's why I got…" Apple Bloom exchanged Terrifying Tales for a long black cylinder from her saddlebag. She clicked a button on the side with her tongue and light shone out of it, illuminating a dirt floor at the bottom of the staircase. "Flashlight!"
"Isn't there a light switch?" Scootaloo asked.
"Yeah, but where's the fun in that?"
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo followed Apple Bloom's lead into the darkness. The air in the cellar was chilly and carried the vague smell of dirt and fruit, both fresh and aging. Apple Bloom swung the flashlight around as they made their way down the stairs, revealing barrels of apples, a variety of tools hanging from the walls, and...
"What in the hay is that?" Scootaloo yelped.
To Scootaloo, the thing lying on the heavy worktable at the center of the cellar looked like a lanky doll or puppet, except instead of polished wood this one was made of a cross work of sticks and dirty twigs tied together by ragged strips of burlap cloth. And unlike normal pony dolls, it was two-legged, and was so large its legs and arms reached out and hung at the sides of the sizable cellar table.
"It's the scaredycrow," Apple Bloom replied. She touched down on the dirt floor, kicking up a small cloud of dirt as she did. "At least that's what Twilight called it, I think. She and Applejack were working on it earlier. It's for scaring birds away from the crops."
"Remind me not to mess with your crops." Scootaloo pushed up against the wall as far as she could and carefully followed Apple Bloom. She was relieved when she settled down along with Apple Bloom at the far corner of the cellar, her back to the worktable. At least she couldn't see it from here.
Sweetie Belle joined them, shivering. "It's cold," she said to nopony in particular, but Apple Bloom was listening and prepared.
"No problemo." Apple Bloom turned to her trusty saddlebag once again to dig around some more. As she did, the distinct sound of raindrops on the rooftop began, audible even from the cellar. It was a soft pattering at first, but in seconds it grew into a proper torrent.
"Oh perfect! It's raining!" Apple Bloom said excitedly. She brought out a quilt from her saddlebag, threw it into the air, and allowed it to settle around her and her two friends.
When Sweetie Belle nosed her way into the center of the covering, she noticed Scootaloo was still shaking despite the sudden warmth. "Are you OK, Scootaloo?" she asked. "You don't look so good."
"Are you kidding? I'm great! I'm just so excited for all these scary stories! Go ahead Apple Bloom, read the first one."
"Well, if you insist." Apple Bloom jammed the flashlight into Sweetie Belle's mouth. "Here, help out, will you?"
Sweetie Belle obliged and craned her neck to give Apple Bloom the light she needed to read. Apple Bloom flipped past the book's introductory pages and began reading, saying, "Hey, what a coinkydink! The first story is...
"'The Scaredycrow'
"In a place far away where the sky is white with clouds and the ground and trees black with shade a magician existed. The magician was a powerful unicorn who had left a bustling city in search of solitude, which he had found at the edge of a great and quiet forest. Using his magic he had built himself a lodge there, and was for a time content living and studying alone.
"But eventually the weight of that solitude and the quietness was too much to bear, even for him, and he became unhappy. He longed for a friend. So the magician trekked out into the quiet forest and brought back bundles upon bundles of sticks. Using those sticks, spare knickknacks, and his own magic, the magician fashioned himself a friend.
"It was a tall and mangled figure of stick limbs and stained cloth with button eyes and a mouth of nails. It was the scaredycrow; a figure crude but it was enough for the magician. It was his friend, and he treated it as a friend, regaling it with adventurous tales and life lessons. Sometimes even, in the dark of night, the magician dared to tell it those secrets only a magician as powerful as he would know. And sitting on its wooden stool by the window, its head on its shoulder and its button eyes ever staring, the scaredycrow listened.
"For a time the magician was content with his new friend, but eventually he became unhappy again. The scaredycrow appeared to listen, but it did not speak and it did not move. It did not sit up and tell in turn the things it saw when it was but a scatter of sticks on the forest floor. The magician longed for something more. So he trekked back out into the quiet forest, this time not in search of sticks but something greater. And he found it.
"At first it eluded him, keeping its distance just out of sight far away in the forest mist. The magician tracked it with all his will, and finally, tired and broken, he confronted it in a misty vale in which grew flowers of many colors. It was a creature, black and beautiful. Unlike the scaredycrow, it spoke, in a voice that was as if many were speaking.
"The magician visited that vale a many number of times. Every day he visited, and was regaled each time with uproarious stories and lessons and things only a creature as ancient and beautiful as it would know. The magician was like a child at the hoof of a beloved grandfather, and for a time he was happy. But that happiness came at a price.
"Every day he visited the creature asked the magician for something to eat. It was hungry, always hungry, and the magician brought it everything he had. At first it was the furniture he had made, piece by piece. Then it was the food he had stored for the winter, parcel by parcel. Then it was the walls and the roof of his lodge, plank by plank. Then, finally, he gave it his books, page by page. Everything the magician had was devoured greedily by the creature, and then one day it asked for more.
"'I do not have any more,' the magician told it. 'I have given you everything.'
"'There is always more,' it said. 'Tonight we will come to where you sleep to take what you have to eat, and if what you say is true and you have nothing then we will eat what you love. We will eat the sky you love to watch, we will eat the magic you love to study, and we will eat your only friend in the world—the scaredycrow. Only then, when you have nothing left to give, and nothing left to love, will we eat you, and we will be satisfied.'
"The magician, horrified, galloped back to what was left of his home, where tall drifts of snow now served as walls, and where the scaredycrow lay sprawled on the floor because there was no place left to sit. Knelt beside his friend, such a figure who had helped him endure the blackest nights and the encroaching cold, the magician didn't know what to say, so he spoke terrible words which he had learned from the tales he was told in that misty vale—lifeay toay junkay thisay bringay—and motion was wrought into the scaredycrow. It..."
"Scaredycrow?"
"...sat..."
"Scaredycrow!"
"...up..."
"SCAREDYCROW!"
"Darn it, Scootaloo, what is it? This thing isn't easy to read, you know!" Apple Bloom looked up from her reading. Sweetie Belle was looking at her with wide eyes, the flashlight hanging loosely from her mouth. Scootaloo wasn't with them.
The two fillies struggled out from beneath the quilt to find Scootaloo standing alone in the dark with her head turned away.
"What?" Apple Bloom said again. "Did ya get scared?"
"Where'd you put the scaredycrow?" Scootaloo repeated for the fourth time. She turned back to her friends, exposing them fully to how badly she was shaking.
Apple Bloom pointed blindly into the dim cellar with a hoof. "What do you mean where'd I put it? It's right there!" Apple Bloom shut herself up when she looked where she was pointing.
Sweetie Belle hastily focused the flashlight on the table where the scaredycrow had been lying.
It wasn't there.
•
The storm outside the Apple family farmhouse had gotten worse since Apple Bloom had started reading. The rain was relentless now and violent, and thunder boomed in the distance like the steady footsteps of a giant. The screaming wind pierced down even to the dark and damp cellar where Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle sat in the dirt frowning.
"Where'd it go?" Scootaloo jumped at a particularly loud shot of thunder.
"It didn't go anywhere!" Apple Bloom tried to rationalize after setting Terrifying Tales down carefully on the barren worktable.
"Well it isn't here," Sweetie Belle said. She circled the table with the flashlight. Not a sight of it.
"Scaredycrows don't walk." Apple Bloom stood up on her hind legs to emphasize the statement. Nevertheless, all three confused ponies including her looked up in fright towards the open hallway door at the top of the stairs when a sudden CRASH! echoed loudly down from the kitchen.
"Maybe they do!” Scootaloo whimpered.
Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle made their way back up the stairs and popped their heads out into the lit and thankfully lonely hallway.
"All's clear, girls." Apple Bloom whispered. "Follow me."
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle obeyed and kept behind Apple Bloom as she crept towards the living room and the kitchen entrance. They found the living room desolate. Only a dent in the sofa marked the spot where an elderly green pony had been napping earlier.
"Where's Granny Smith?" Scootaloo tried whispering. Apple Bloom cut her off.
Shhhh.
A shadow, long and swaying, was being cast across the floor before them. Scootaloo traced the shadow to the kitchen entrance at the side of the living room, and the world became tilted and her breathing became rapid. She kept still and could only watch as Apple Bloom crept up to the kitchen doorway and peeked inside.
The kitchen was a mess, but just as desolate as the living room. Pots, pans, and plastic cups sat strewn across the floor and the counters, and most of the cabinet doors were swinging wide open, revealing emptied shelves. It was as if some brute had enacted a vendetta on kitchenware.
"All's clear." Apple Bloom reported. "Or, actually, maybe not so clear."
"Was it like this before, Apple Bloom?" Sweetie Belle asked, seeing the mess herself.
"Nah, Big Mac wasn't cooking today."
In the living room Scootaloo was having a crisis. The world had tilted too far too quickly and she could focus only on the living room ceiling fan as it rocked back and forth. Back and forth.
But Scootaloo was focusing her ears on something else entirely. Beyond the ceiling fan, she could hear creaking coming from the second floor of the farmhouse. The sound was loud and persistent, and was as if something heavy was shifting its weight on the floorboards above her.
"Scootaloo! Please don't panic!" Sweetie Belle pleaded after finding Scootaloo in her distressed state. She too had her eyes focused on the ceiling.
"Panic?" The word rose from Scootaloo's throat. "We're home alone with a walking lumber department!"
"Scaredycrows don'twalk!" Apple Bloom said again as she joined her two friends in the living room. Even as Apple Bloom said that, she was looking upwards. She could hear the noise too.
"Tell me then, Apple Bloom! What do they do? Do they glide, do they hop, do they dance? Do we have a baller-winner scaredycrow doing the pony-pokey upstairs?" Scootaloo mimed a twirling motion as she spoke.
Apple Bloom fumed. "They don't do any of those things! All they do is scare birds, and this one is doing that just fine, you chicken."
"Well, I may be chicken but you're a, uh, well..." Scootaloo sat on her flank and brought a hoof to her chin in thought. Down for the count.
"Maybe we should finish the story, girls." Sweetie Belle said quietly, her eyes on the ceiling. "If the magician in the story brought a scaredycrow to life, maybe he undid it at the end. Just in case.”
“The story didn’t bring the scaredycrow to life!”
Scootaloo ignored Apple Bloom. “Great idea, Sweetie Belle!” she said. “The book is in the cellar, right? You first!”
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes but obliged. She approached the cellar door and disappeared down the stairs. Scootaloo followed.
Apple Bloom stayed behind to ponder the situation. She focused on the creaking floorboards which had frightened Scootaloo so badly. It sounded like whatever was making the noise was located at the far end of the upstairs hallway. It also sounded incredibly heavy; the creaking had to be the floorboards straining under the weight. Could it be Granny Smith?
"Apple Bloom!" Apple Bloom heard Scootaloo shout from the cellar. "Where'd you put the book?"
"The same place I put the scaredycrow!" Apple Bloom swung into the cellar doorway and pointed a hoof to the worktable. "Right there!"
"It's not here," Sweetie Belle said. She was standing beside the worktable, and she wasn't lying. Either she or Scootaloo had discovered the light switch, and the cellar was now lighted and clear. The book was gone.
"Dang, what's with that table?" Apple Bloom said.
"The scaredycrow took it! It didn't want us to un-bring it back to life!" Scootaloo wailed. "We're doomed!"
Apple Bloom tried to say something in response, but she couldn't. She had been so sure she had placed the book on the table. Things were getting out of hoof.
"I'm going upstairs to see what's going on," Apple Bloom announced after a moment.
"Are you crazy?" Scootaloo didn't hold her tongue this time.
"It's probably Granny Smith. It has to be Granny Smith! Right, Sweetie Belle?"
"Um, maybe?" Sweetie Belle said, wincing.
It was Apple Bloom’s turn to roll her eyes. The Cutie Mark Crusaders needed to work on their morale.
Regardless, Apple Bloom made for the hall stairs. She heard Scootaloo shout something, but she paid no mind. Once at the top of the stairs, Apple Bloom tried to waltz right around the corner and into the hallway to prove that she was unafraid. After all, it was just Granny Smith shuffling about in the hallway. It had to be. But as soon as Apple Bloom reached the top of the stairs her hooves refused to budge and she couldn't. She just couldn't. Instead she peered around the corner, and immediately pulled herself back and stumbled down the first few stairsteps, her eyes wide.
Somehow it had gotten stuck beneath a white bed sheet, but even then Apple Bloom could tell that the thing wavering silently at the end of the hall, its form so tall and awkward it had to hunch to keep from bumping the ceiling, was not Granny Smith.
Definitely not Granny Smith, or any pony at all.
Apple Bloom noticed her own heavy breathing. No, no, it wasn't the time for that. She quieted herself. She had to listen. She perked an ear and did so closely. Had it seen her? Could it even see from beneath the sheet?
Was it coming after her?
Apple Bloom listened, but she could only hear the continued and unperturbed creaking of the floorboards coming from the end of the hall. A gasp turned Apple Bloom’s attention to the bottom of the stairway. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had tried following her, but had frozen at the bottom of the stairs. From their own wide-eyed stares Apple Bloom could tell they already knew.
Back in the living room, Apple Bloom looked out a window into the rain. Her face and the rocking ceiling fan were reflected in glass that was shaking ever so slightly in its frame. "Oh, in this weather Applejack and Big Mac will never be able to get home! Was there even a storm scheduled for today?"
"I don't know. I didn't hear Rainbow mention while I was, uh, hanging with her." Scootaloo said. She had lain down on the living room floor, and was looking up at the ceiling. She could still hear the creaking. "You saw it didn't you?" she said to Apple Bloom. "What's it doing up there?"
Apple Bloom glanced up to the ceiling. "Well..." She hesitated to say, but spoke anyways. "It's just standing in the hallway with a sheet over its head."
"Look, girls." Sweetie Belle started. "With Granny Smith missing, we're good as alone. We can't just sit in this living room all night. Not with that thing hanging around."
"Yes, we can!" Scootaloo whined.
"No, we can't." Apple Bloom’s face was grim. "In this weather Applejack, Big Mac, and Rarity are probably holed up in a hotel somewhere. They won't be coming anytime soon, and we can't let Granny Smith just stay missing."
Apple Bloom looked back out the window. A sudden burst of lightning lit her face blue for just a second.
"We need a plan."
•
Scootaloo set the radio on the cellar table. Hopefully this doesn't disappear, she thought. Or come to life.
The plan was simple. Lure the scaredycrow down into the cellar with music, then close the door behind it from the living room using string. They would have to lock the door themselves. After that, they would be free to find Granny Smith wherever the scaredycrow had stashed her and wait until morning to get help.
The only problem with the plan was that somepony had to turn on the radio in the cellar, then gallop back up to the living room before the scaredycrow came downstairs. Scootaloo, being the fastest, had to be that pony of the three of them.
There was also the possibility that the scaredycrow did not have a taste for music, which would entail falling back on what Apple Bloom had called "Plan B, as in Bait." Scootaloo, the fastest of the three of them, didn't like the sound of that.
Scootaloo placed her tongue on the notched radio dial. She was nervous, but not as frightened as she thought she would be—because she knew there was nothing in Equestria that could keep her in that cellar once she flipped the radio on. She had confidence in that.
She turned the dial. Music, mane tearing rock and roll, burst forth from the radio speakers, and in a blur of orange and pink Scootaloo was no longer in the cellar and was instead in the living room hiding behind the couch next to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.
The music was loud, but even then Scootaloo could hear the response from the scaredycrow. It was coming. Sprinting, dashing, its steps leaden upon the floor, it was coming, and it did not sound like one thing but a stampede of things rushing like a torrent throughout the home.
With her hooves planted firmly over her eyes, Scootaloo followed the rush of steps as it flooded down the stairs, into the back room where the stairway was accessed, and then, thankfully, into the cellar.
There was motion beside Scootaloo. She peeked through her hooves to see the cellar door close shut, the string connected to the doorknob taut.
Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle leapt from their hiding spot and slapped their hooves together in the air. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders do it again!” they sang.
Scootaloo felt a swell of relief rise inside her. Thoughts ran wild in her mind. Now that the scraredycrow was out of the way, they could find Granny Smith, wait for help, and never, ever go near a scaredycrow again. If only the birds knew scaredycrows could be stopped by just a… locked door.
Scootaloo’s thoughts quieted once her eyes settled behind Apple Bloom, who was busy performing a dance that would confuse even Pinkie Pie.
She didn't need to ask.
The slowly opening white door was enough.
"We forgot to lock the door," Scootaloo said.
The scaredycrow, still draped in its sheet, shambled out of the open cellar door with the radio clutched awkwardly in its arms. Music, now the light sounds of a ballet, was pouring out of the radio louder than ever.
Sweetie Belle couldn't hold herself together. "You boneheads! You're supposed to celebrate after making it to home plate!" she shouted to Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.
The scaredycrow’s reaction to Sweetie Belle's voice was immediate. In a display of shock, it dropped the radio it had been trying so hard to carry. The radio crashed into the floor and went silent with a burst of static.
It was upon them in an instant. Despite being so large and clumsy and tangled in that sheet the scaredycrow was unbelievably quick. Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle were unable to react to its convulsions except by slowly backing themselves into the living room corner.
The living room was more spacious than any of the hallways of the farmhouse, and the scaredycrow used that space to stretch itself fully, lifting itself up from its tilted hunch towards the ceiling. It steadily rose up and up and up over the three tiny fillies until—
CRACK!
It hit the whirling ceiling fan and was hurled down to the living room floor.
"RUN FOR IT!" Apple Bloom screamed.
Scootaloo took initiative. She blindly galloped towards the hallway as fast as her stubby legs could, screaming her face off as she did. Sweetie Belle followed, galloping almost as fast and screaming almost as loud, and Apple Bloom would have followed too hadn't a glimpse of white on the floorboards caught her eye. A book had tumbled out from beneath the scaredycrow's sheet.
"Catch, Scootaloo!" Apple Bloom galloped for the book, and in one swift motion bit into it and tossed it to the pony who was closest to the stairs. Scootaloo jumped up and caught it expertly with her teeth. "Get to my room and read it!"
The three fillies disappeared up the stairs just as the scaredycrow sat up. Scootaloo reached Apple Bloom's bedroom first. The window was open, letting in rain and a wind that swept through Scootaloo’s mane as she furiously began reading roughly from where Apple Bloom had left off.
"'You have come to eat what my friend has, but he has nothing, so you will eat what he loves,' the scaredycrow said in a raspy voice. 'I know him better than anyone. I have listened to his tales and lessons, so I will tell you what he loves the most of all things so you may eat it first.' The scaredycrow swooped then upon the creature, and, to the magician’s amazement, led it into a frantic dance.
"For some time the magician watched as the scaredycrow and the creature danced, spinning around and around, and when the scaredycrow finally stopped, it spoke, pointing to the stars above. 'You can eat the sky the magician loves to watch.'
"'Yes, we will eat the sky first,' the creature replied.
"'No!' the scaredycrow shouted. It began the dance again. 'There is something more!'
"When the scaredycrow stopped the second time, it spoke, motioning to the snowy world around them. "You can eat the magic he loves to study."
"'Yes, we will eat magic first," the creature replied.
"'No!' the scaredycrow shouted. It began the dance again. 'There is something even more!'
"When the scaredycrow stopped the third time, it was the creature who spoke first. 'If he does not love the sky the most, and he does not love magic the most, than what does he love the most?' The creature asked, reeling with dizziness.
"'It's YOU! YOU ARE THE THING HE GAVE EVERYTHING FOR.'
"And the thing, with a tremendous and awful roar, opened its many mouths and took it into itself, consuming itself until it was but a speck of darkness lost in the endless fields of snow."
Scootaloo turned to the last page of the story, only to find the beginning of a new one. The tell-tale signs of torn paper between the pages told her all she needed to know.
"The last page is missing!"
"What?" Sweetie Belle yelled over the wind. "No way!"
"It's missing! It's missing!" Scootaloo cried. The young pegasus pony quieted quickly when she heard a familiar creak right outside the bedroom door. "You locked the door this time, right?" she yelled to Apple Bloom over the wind.
Apple Bloom groaned. "Applejack doesn't let me use a lock anymore! Not since that one time with the matches and the egg yolk!" In desperation, she looked at the open window. "Scootaloo, do you know how to fly yet?"
"No!"
The bedroom door slammed open then, revealing a flurry of billowing white cloth and slivers of dark and rotted splinters of wood.
"Well now's the time to learn! Abandon ship!"
The farmhouse was silhouetted black against the clouded, rainy sky, and was starkly and only briefly lit by the occasional bolt of lightning falling behind it. Out of a window pouring pale light on the second floor three small ponies sailed into the stormy night. "Save me, Rainbow Dash!" one of them yelped as they tumbled down at the mercy of the wind and the stinging rain. They splashed down in a puddle of mud, sore but alive.
After a moment of torment tasting mud, Scootaloo opened her eyes and peered upwards. Her heart near stopped once she did. The scaredycrow, still shrouded in that sheet, was leaning dangerously out of the open window.
"Get up, girls!" Scootaloo found herself yelling. Lightning cracked overhead as the three muddy fillies struggled to their hooves and, against the rain and the wind, rushed for safety.
There was a heavy THUD and a spray of filthy water behind them as something hit the mud with the force of a sack of rocks. A stained white sheet at the mercy of the howling wind flew over their heads and into the night.
Drenched and whimpering, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo cowered against the front door of the Apple family farmhouse. Sweetie Belle was desperately pawing at it. "It isn't opening!" she cried, almost in tears.
"Jiggle it! JIGGLE IT!"
The three ponies half galloped, half fell into the house then, the door finally giving in. Apple Bloom was the last inside, but she stopped just as she was about to shut and lock the front door.
"Close it!" Sweetie Belle screamed, but Apple Bloom couldn't— not yet. She squinted her eyes to see through the storm.
She saw it illuminated in the dying light of a falling lightning bolt. It had changed since Apple Bloom had last seen it clearly lying still on the cellar table, being twisted and lop-sided more than it had been before. A snarl of snapped sticks jutted out from its right shoulder like the spines of a dragon, and it moved, unlike before—moving upwards from the earth as a golem would rise from the mud, and the scaredycrow was rising still when the lightning expired, and the whole world outside collapsed back into a primordial darkness.
Apple Bloom couldn't have slammed the door any harder.
•
"In a place far away where the sky is white with clouds and the ground and trees black with shade…"
Sweetie Belle woke up hearing those familiar words. Morning light streamed from the now shut window in Apple Bloom’s room. She sat up in Apple Bloom’s bed and yawned. Scootaloo was snoring in a heap besides her.
"Morning," Apple Bloom said. She was lying on the bedside with Terrifying Tales open out in front of her. Her eyes were bloodshot.
"Good morning, Apple Bloom… Did you stay up all night?"
"No! I mean… yes. Somepony had to!" Apple Bloom nudged the book closed. The clown face which graced the cover was as hideous as ever. "It might as well have been me." She kept her gaze on the book, her face clouded in thought.
"What's wrong? Nothing happened, right? We found Granny Smith okay." said Sweetie Belle. After searching the house top to bottom the night before, the tired fillies had discovered that Granny Smith had fallen asleep in the washroom. Again, according to Apple Bloom.
"Well, I told Cheerilee I would bring the book back in perfect condition, and now look!" Apple Bloom flipped the book back open to where the last page of "The Scaredycrow" should have been, but wasn't. "It's missing a page! A book minus one page isn't perfect condition, not at all!"
"Don't worry about it, Apple Bloom. Maybe it was like that when you got it. I saw Snips reading it in class last week, and you know how he is around paper."
Apple Bloom bowed her head and turned away from Sweetie Belle towards the window. “Look, Sweetie Belle… About last night; it could have gotten back inside if it wanted to. But it didn’t. It might be waiting for us outside.”
“Or maybe it wasn’t after us in the first place.” Sweetie Belle said. The scaredycrow’s admiration of the radio was fresh in her mind. Perhaps screaming at her friends like she did hadn’t been the best idea.
"Yeah, maybe." Apple Bloom wasn't convinced.
“I don’t think it's waiting for us,” Sweetie Belle added, her voice low.
"Good morning, guys." Scootaloo said through a yawn.
"Good morning, Scootaloo." Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle said in unison.
Still drowsy with sleep, Scootaloo stretched and hopped off the bed. "Well, it's been fun and all, but I got to get going. Rainbow Dash is supposed to be having breakfast at Sugarcube Corner with Pinkee—I mean me. She's having breakfast with me, so I better get going before I miss her. Do you want a ride into town, Sweetie Belle?"
"Yeah, sure. Rarity told me to wait at her place if she wasn't back by morning," Sweetie Belle said.
After saying their goodbyes and arranging to meet later, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle left together. The last thing Apple Bloom said to them was to be careful. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle promised they would.
The world outside the Apple family farmhouse was frigid and clear. The storm had passed in the night, leaving behind an unreal blue sky and a chill that surprised Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo as they ventured out into the morning air. Stuffs of cloud sat piled behind hazy mountains in the distance, and the earth was wet with rain and drenched in morning shadows cast by the many apple trees.
Without either saying much of anything, Sweetie Belle climbed into the Cutie Mark Crusader wagon and Scootaloo plopped her helmet down on her head and boarded her scooter. Before long she was tugging Sweetie Belle and the wagon along the bumpy dirt road back to Ponyville.
At some point on the road where the surrounding apple trees seemed the densest and the morning shadows darkest, Sweetie Belle felt something bounce right off the back of her head. Behind her, lying in the wagon as if it had been there all along, she found a crumpled piece of paper. Sweetie Belle plucked it up and unfolded it slowly.
The missing and final page of "The Scaredycrow" was marred with mud and rain and bleeding ink. It was for the most part unreadable. Sweetie Belle could make out only the final paragraph.
"'I am old now. I will rebuild my home and live here alone and content for the rest of my years. You however are instilled with new breath. You are my friend and I yours, that is true, but you have dreams, and now you may stride for those dreams. Walk and allow me to rest. Whatever debt you feel you owe has been paid many times over.' The scaredycrow nodded with his head of cloth and string. He went out beyond the snow and the trees, never to be seen by the magician again."
Sweetie Belle sighed, then turned to the apple trees behind her where the page had been tossed to her. As Scootaloo pulled the wagon towards a Ponyville bustling with morning life, she couldn't shake a feeling she knew wasn't strange. The feeling of something watching her from beyond the apple trees, and something prancing between those apple trees when she wasn't watching for it—the scaredycrow.
