In Which a Vacation is in Order
A Haunting in Hoofstatt
Chapter 1: In Which a Vacation is in Order
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“Brr…” You shiver, pulling your wool jacket tighter against you as you gazed at the map once again.
‘Welcome to the Humble Winter Town of Hoofstatt!’ was written in fine red ink along the top, with a small map of the northern town. You’d heard of the town before, it’s been reachable through Equestrian railroad for a while now, and with the Crystal Empire restored it was a fine, if not simple, town situated at the edge of Equestrian soil giving a view of the frozen forests to the north and the reflections of the Crystal Empire a good ways west.
The town itself was relatively small, only a few miles across in both directions and situated in a cozy square. The buildings were all wooden, smoothed down but unpainted to retain a rustic old-timey appeal, complemented by the fine layer of snow topping the roofs and window sills. Smoke from chimneys coalesced just above the snowy town, creating a swirling fog above the place just barely masking over the full moon beyond. Light pierced through the foggy smoke, creating the illusion of dancing lights amongst the towns inlets and dirt roads.
You breathe in the cool air, while you feel you under-dressed it was hard not to feel invigorated by the environment. The map had your ultimate location laid out for you. It was the only house not built inside of the ‘square’ that makes up Hoofstatt so it should be hard to miss. The address was listed simply as ‘1213’, no street name properly listed. That said, the isolated nature of the location appealed to you.
Not to send the wrong impression, over the past year you’ve grown to love Ponyville and the eccentric characters that populate it. However, there was one issue with the little town. It never, ever calms down. It seemed that every single day something big was happening, be it a celebration, a massive full-town musical number, Everfree invasions, Discord becoming bored… You needed a vacation. To somewherequiet. Thankfully Twilight was able to dig through maps to find a place matching what you were looking for and with a bit of diplomacy with the Equestrian Express railroads and some deals scratched off with Hoofstatt you managed to secure yourself a fine little cabin for the next week.
Before you could head into the trail to the north to where your getaway was stationed, you took the time to find a store still open at the hour and bought some necessities. Soup and bread, water, and admittedly splurged just a bit in some fine wines local to the area. Now with a weeks worth of groceries in one hand and your suitcase in the other (non-leather of course, ponies would object to anything else) you make your way to the edge of town. The snow gets thicker as you reach the border of the town, where the woods take hold of the horizon minus one lone trail. A small wooden sign, slightly rotten from the moisture stands before the trails opening. Written over it in bold black ink was ‘1213 Hoofstatt this way’. However, underneath that black ink you can barely make out something else. It appeared to be words engraved into the wood that makes you question just how old this sign is. Taking some time to analyze it, the sign originally read something along the lines of:
‘Th_ B__LAS TOY SH__’
For some reason the wind seems a little bit chillier. You admit you weren’t able to research into the property too thoroughly from Ponyville, but quickly disregard these concerns. A cabin is a cabin, that it used to belong to any sort of business is a simple norm of society. You have a week off to attend to.
The trail doesn’t follow too far, about a half a mile of walking through the forest. As you progress further you do notice the trail thicken. Even with the trees mostly devoid of leaves thanks to the wintery climate, the thick roots and twigs bunched closer to the opening of the path as you walk, eventually forcing you to manually part and break them away. You assume that without a proper owner not a lot of visitors go hiking in the area. Finally, the trail opens up again to reveal a fine circle cut free of brush where your temporary home lay.
If it was a business, it would be difficult to tell. The single story cabin was built of logs, rising fairly high for a pony home, but didn’t really bare any signs externally of being a business. It definitely was an aged home, a lot of the windows were iced over making it difficult to see what lay within. There was a front porch with a nice rocking chair set by the door, and what appeared to be a stone chimney coming from the back. A mailbox was set before the door, also constructed of wood.
This immediately strikes you as strange. True the property was for rent but that the sellers didn’t even bother to remove the prior mailbox or clear the trail regularly seemed very unprofessional. Then again, you were used to Ponyville society standards, where every last detail was always attended to, so it may just simply be that Hoofstatt has a different brand of priorities. Even if its age was present, it did look like a cozy enough home. However, curiosity bites you before you can bring yourself to properly enter the abode. Namely the mailbox.
It had a single wooden hinge to open, something very uncommon in Equestria. You assume the old owner of the place must have built it himself. Etched on the side, seemingly by some sort of blade, read ‘Residence and Shop of the Braustitch Family’. You notice that the final word, ‘family’, seemed more recently engraved than the others.
There lies the answer to why this shop was being sold for rent as a home. With the lack of care demonstrated on taking care of the property, the curiosity bug bites you enough that you bring your hand to the hinge of the mailbox. The second you touch the handle you feel an icy chill grab against your wrist that makes you immediately withdraw your hand. The chill leaves immediately and you clutch your wrist. There was no breeze… The whole circle was surrounded by very tall trees to block the wind. A spasm?
You set your curiosity aside, whatever lay in that mailbox was private anyways. It was private potentially decades or even centuries ago, but still private. Plus standing out in the open sends a brief sense of uneasiness down your back. As you look around it doesn’t feel like Hoofstatt is less than a mile away, the wooden poles of trees bunched together in too firm a circle, as if they were holding the property in and you feel a bit claustrophobic out in the cold. You move to the front porch, taking care going up the wooden steps to the porch. They creak loudly underfoot and you can feel them sway a bit under your weight. Luckily nothing breaks and you stand before the front door. You set your groceries and suitcase down beside you as you reach for the hoof-friendly doorknob.
“Hh… Hnh…. Hnnhnn…”
You immediately release your grip as you feel that… breathing? Moaning? Whatever in Celestia’s name it was seems to weave its way through your ears. You jerk your head behind you but see nothing more than the trail that brought you here and the cold white snow. You take a deep breath. You are being paranoid, this was a vacation to relax. You’ve been hiking before, noises happen. Recomposing yourself, you grab the doorknob and you don’t even have to apply pressure as the door seemed to practically open itself for you.
“Aw geez…”
You cover your mouth with your sleeve as a blanket of dust escapes from the front door, catching in the wind and flying into the woods. It takes longer than it should for thick clouds of brownish-gray to exit. Once you feel you are breathing clear oxygen again you take your first step into the cabin. You find that it opens into a fairly large room that served a variety of purposes. It was definitely a shop as two feet in front of you a wooden counter was built with an L-curve to the left of the front door. It had numerous shelves set within it, although all the goods that were sold here seemed to have been moved out or away. Aside from a few moldy sheets of paper there doesn’t appear to be anything on any of the shelves aside from a few clearly old spools of yarn and needles. Behind the shop counter on the right side of the wall lay a set of drawers and the most notable contraption in the room, a hoof-powered sewing machine.
Dust and a cobwebs coated the ancient contraption to the point that you’d be too afraid to so much as touch the antique for fear of breaking it. To the far left of the room past where the shopping counter ended was a cozy makeshift kitchen, with a stone sink, some pots and pans, and a stone ‘refrigerator’. The refrigerator is what really catches your eyes. Most ponies use magic to keep their goods cold, but you remember hearing about how Earth ponies used to use these stone, tight-lidded boxes to fill with ice and salt to keep drinks and fruit cold. While you doubt it would see much use in the winter, it’s still interesting to see and makes you ponder just how old this cabin actually is.
At the very back lay two wooden doors. The one on the right was parted just enough to make out a stone bathtub and sink, the other was closed. You walk to the counter in front of you. You set your groceries and suitcase atop it, the counter gives a loud creak and you worry it might collapse. As you tentatively watch the wooden shelf, you gander at the papers spread across the counter. Most are too moldy to make proper heads or tails of, but a few choice sentences are just legible enough to understand.
‘BRAUSTITCH BU___SS CL__ED INDEF____’
‘HOOFST___ HO__TA_ BILL: __43_ BITS’
‘__PPLY DISTR___ION: 45 LB CRI___ Y_RN, 10 SE__ING NEE_LES-’
You feel a bit of excitement peering through these old documents, you immediately wish you brought a camera of some sort so you could ask Twilight to try and estimate just how old they were. You don’t doubt for a second that if you were to actually touch any of the papers they would immediately crumble under your touch. Then you notice the shadow peering over the papers.
“Hey!”, you cry out, jerking to the direction of the shadow. … It was a book standing straight up, its pages spread to create a corner to stay aloft. It was thick with dust but didn’t seem quite as old as the rest of the material in the cabin. The book seemed to be bound in a leather-like material, the fact that it was bound in such already spoke of how old it must be, ponies nowadays are greatly opposed to the use of leather. At the front of it, written in golden ink in a fine calligraphy reads;
‘Property of Annabelle Braustitch’
Beside the book was something else you could have sworn wasn't there earlier. A plush toy, aged but still intact, of a teddy bear with black button eyes. -Make that eye, one seems to have fallen out, the black button laying before the bear. Beside the button was a sewing needle, with a thick curve at the end nestled between two plastic balls. You recognize the tool from Rarity’s shop, while unicorns have no need for it, hoof-friendly sewing needles had been around for centuries, after all. You pick up the book, examining the cover. There was no image or anything of note aside from the text.Braustitch…
Temptation bites you, but you set it back down, you could examine it later but after the mailbox situation you don’t feel quite comfortable delving too deep in. You’d give it a look after you get a bit more situated. You do however, pick up the bear to examine. Despite the thick layer of dust the quality of the stitching was impeccable. You expected it to fall apart in your hands but it stayed intact aside from that one eye. You rub your finger over the stitching, the embroidery fine and stable… When-
“Oh!”, you notice the tip of your finger begin to bleed as the lone bit of needle caught you. It wasn’t deep but you couldn’t imagine the cut being sanitary. You set the bear down to dig through your supplies for that first aid kit when-
Thunk!!
You jerk back around to find that the book and bear were no longer situated atop the counter. Did they disappear? No… You peer over the counter, the book and bear now set on the wooden floor in a mess. They just fell over. How they fell was the mysterious bit. You press on the counter with your non-bleeding hand, feeling if the wood had warped at any point enough for the book and bear to slide down. Before you can apply any pressure you stop as you feel a chilling, wet sensation touch the tip of your other hand.
You try to jerk your hand away but find yourself paralyzed. At least your arm. Chills run down your spine as you stand in place, frozen and unsure of what was going on. You hear the sound of whispers circle the room, a few of the sheets of paper on the counter begin to twitch before blowing away, some scattering to bits in midair. Then you feel it again, no physical force, but a chill that numbs your finger rub against you. Your fingertip begins to glisten and you can tellsomething is there, but you can’t see anything. The appendage seemed to phase through you, at first you felt the strange sense of expanding force lay against your fingers edge but now it seemed to have actually entered your finger. You can feel tingling forces expand and shrink, slowly shifting location inside your finger as you start to automatically adjust to the chill.
You can barely breathe, only your mental faculties remain alive, jumping through every Equestrian Wildlife/Phenomenon book you’ve read to try and figure out what was happening. Nothing adds up or comes to mind, and before you can bring the courage to use your other arm to shove away at the invisible force …feeding or doing whatever it was to your hand, the sensation disappears and the wind dies out. You feel life return to your hand as you stifle the urge to scream. You quickly bring your hand to the open door, using the moonlight to try and get a decent image of what had happened. For one your hand was glistening and had a strong scent to it, it reminds you vaguely of icyhot back home-home, something you hadn't smelt in a long time. But what was most curious to you was where you had cut your finger seemed to have already begun to completely close up, the same gooey substance suturing the finger together.
The urge to book it and not look back immediately strikes you. Equestria was home to a lot of strangeness but having been here for a good while now, you knew what sort of strange activity to be prepared for at this point. This wasn’t one of them. Before you can make your legs move to leave this place the front door begins to creak, slowly shutting. You grab it, ready to force it open. You expect it to slam, possibly breaking your fingers in the process, you expect something horrible and strange, but the door stops. And you feel the pressure against it end. That’s quite enough, you grab your suitcase and decide to just leave the groceries. You are curious, but you have no idea what in all of Equestria was going on and that this sort of job wasn’t something you’re qualified to find out. Supernatural phenomenon does fascinate you and while whatever is going on may not be malevolent, you know the value of playing it safe. Suitcase in hand you make your first step out the door.
Psh!
You feel a light shine behind you, and reflexively turned around to see the counter. There was a plain sheet of paper set at the center, but what really catches your eyes is the bright blue flame glowing where the long, long dead candlestick was set.
This is where you leave. Right now. Do not give in to curiosity. You repeat this in your head as you set your suitcase in the snow and make your way back indoors. A chill permeates the room again, and while the wind isn’t as powerful as when your finger was in its grasp, it was definitely present. You fight the urge to sneeze from the dust being raised. Then you notice the quill. A simple feather quill, glistening with the same goo your hand is, was moving on its own. It was writing in thick letters on the old sheet of paper in bright blue ink.
‘PLEASE DON’T GO.’
The writing was erratic, the quill clumsily dancing about as though the controller was struggling to keep a steady hand. Beneath it, the writing continued as you begin to hear a pained gasp begin to sound around you. There was no source of the noise, it seemed to resonate between your ears, breathing directly into your brain.
‘STAY HERE WITH ME.’
The breathing slows and you feel your spine freeze up as a soft sob sounds out. Your mind immediately jumps back to every scary story you had heard growing up before finding yourself in Equestria, yet your eyes can’t leave the paper. The quill pauses, as though thinking, before writing down one last line.
‘STAY JUST ONE NIGHT PLEASE’
As the final word was written the quill fell, dripping the strong-scented goo onto the paper. The sobbing was growing a bit louder, it wasn’t a wail or moan, just slowly drawn sniffles. A part of you is afraid yet another feels a strange sense of pity, when the sobbing stops and the whisper sounds off in your head, clear and without a doubt present.
‘I promise… I won’t… Hurt you… Pleeease...’
As her voice enters your head you can feel a wave of emotion, a wave of despair hit you like never before. Your eyes go watery as the blue flame of the candle glows brighter. You hear slow gasp of surprise from the whispery voice as you feel yourself go light and your vision darkens. Your knees buckle and you are out before you can hit the floor.
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