The apples were going rotten.
She smelled them as soon as she stepped into the west orchards, that cloying sweet stench she associated with fermenting cider, and a hundred yards in, past the trees which had been harvested in time, she saw them.
Apples littered the ground, dozens of them, hundreds, even. Some were glossy, freshly fallen. Others had been chewed to a brown pulp by fruit flies and rabbits and who knows what other varmints.
It was a sight to make a mare cry.
Crying was off the agenda today. There was too much to do.
She’d brought the cart with her. It was stacked with empty buckets, and even with her earth pony strength and a life of hard labour, she struggled to pull it along. Normally this was her brother’s job, but he was unwell, maybe more than unwell, so it was up to her.
She unloaded the buckets and placed them around the base of the nearest tree, and moved on to the next one, and repeated the process until all the buckets were laid out. Then she returned to the first tree and hunched down by its trunk. The muscles in her back and legs tightened like wound springs. An instant later, her rear hooves snapped out, striking the tree just above its roots. It trembled. The supple wood hummed like a plucked string and, with a sigh, the boughs dropped their burdens. Guided by earth pony magic, the apples fell neatly into the buckets.
A glance told her that not all the fruit would be worth keeping. Some were wizened or bruised, or they had been snacked on by smaller mouths. The ponies at market, who expected only the best from Sweet Apple Acres, would not buy them.
You don’t get to pick and choose with life, she thought bitterly. It ain’t always bright and glossy. Sometimes, it’s plain rotten.
When sundown neared, she called it a day. The cart harness had rubbed through the hair on her shoulders, leaving the skin underneath raw. Her muscles ached. Sweat clothed her like a second skin. She had worked harder than she ever had, and still – still, darn it – there was another half of the orchard to be harvested.
The impact of her brother’s absence surprised her, though it shouldn’t have. He was taller, heavier, and stronger than any other stallion in town. He never balked at hard work, just accepted it in his quiet way and got on with it. She managed the farm and played mother and sister to her siblings, but it was her brother who embodied the heart of Sweet Apple Acres.
And if the heart stopped beating . . .
Cut that out, she told herself. He ain’t going to die. Twi will find someone who knows what’s wrong, and then he’ll be fine again. Just trust in Twi.
The sun grazed the horizon as she crested the last rise. The homestead unfolded in front of her. She paused to catch her breath and took comfort in the sight of her home.
Before the Apple family arrived, the lands of Sweet Apple Acres had been frontier territory. Resources were short, and her ancestors, unable to build both a house and a barn, had compromised, creating the homestead.
Since then, it had undergone many repairs and renovations. The barn became a kitchen. A roof divided the space above it in two, and this space was further separated into bedrooms. More recently, the rough-hewn exterior had been replaced with a coat of red paint.
In its present state, the homestead was a sprawling, mismatched, homely place, much like the family who had built it. Looking on, as the sun’s last light shone copper on the second story, she could forget her aches and feel content.
There was movement in one of the windows.
No, not any window. The window to the sunset room, her brother’s room.
Again, a small flicker, like a head turning. She squinted, hoping to pick out her brother’s silhouette, to see that he was alright. All she saw was a green glint coming from the back of the room, and then the light on the window slipped away and the interior returned to darkness.
There had been a movement, hadn’t there? She hadn’t just imagined it. If only she could check, but Twi had left with them a list of instructions which boiled down to a single order: do not open the door.
Do not open the door. What rubbish. Oh, she understood why she wasn’t allowed to see her brother – by sealing him away, Twi had prevented any contaminants from spreading – but it didn’t feel right. Her brother needed more than food and water and rest. He needed care. To deny him that was not the Apple family way.
But that was Twi’s order, and so she would follow it. She trusted Twi with her life. With her brother’s life.
She sighed and shouldered the weight of the harness and started down the slope to the homestead, where there were apples to be sorted and dinner to be had.
And the talk.
Again, the talk.
Dinners in her family were, to put it lightly, boisterous. Her granny, with the help of whoever was on roster, heaped the table high with plates of casserole, bowls of broth, and any number of pastries. These never remained in one place for long. They passed from hoof to hoof, spreading their savoury aromas across the room as each member of the family took their serving.
One time, she had invited Twi over, and the filly went away with a distended gut and the look of a rabbit in front of a stampede.
Noisy, messy, hearty. That was their family’s way of dining.
At least it had been. Tonight, they ate in silence.
Each of them knew that if they spoke, they would speak only about one thing. And each of them knew nothing good would come of it.
Each of them also knew that it was only a matter of time before one of them piped up.
Tonight, it was her sister who spoke.
“These are good carrots, Granny,” said her sister, poking at her plate. “I didn’t know we had any.”
“That neighbour of ours left ‘em,” her granny answered. “What’s ’er name? The one with the gorgeous locks?”
“Golden Harvest?”
Her granny clapped her hoof against the table. “That’s the one! Left us a whole basket, freshly picked. They still got the tingle of the earth to ’em. Good crop.”
“You shouldn’t have accepted them,” she said. “Golden Harvest’s still recovering from the blight earlier this season. She ain’t got crops to give away.”
Her sister frowned. “How could you say no to a gift, Applejack? That’d be rude.”
“You just got to say it the right way,” she said. “Say you appreciate the sentiment, but can’t accept it. It’s the right thing to do.”
Her sister paused to consider this. In her place, her granny spoke. “You sure about that?”
She rubbed her temples. She could feel the conversation already steering itself towards an argument. A week ago, she might have tried to redirect it, but tonight . . . well, tonight she would let it go where it pleased.
“You trying to say something?”
A dark look came over her granny’s face. It was familiar to her. She had seen it many a time as a foal, right before a scolding.
Instinctively, she braced herself, and, out of the corner of her eye, she saw her sister do the same. It sent a pang through her chest, but it wasn’t her fault. She had done nothing wrong. Nothing.
“If someone shows you kindness, especially someone who ain’t got much reason to be kind, then the gracious thing to do is accept,” her granny said in an iron tone. “If you think she needs that kindness more than you, repay it in turn. No matter how you word it, refusing ain’t right.”
Her voice softened. “You’re a proud filly, but that don’t mean you can’t rely on others every once in a while. Not everything is your responsibility.”
She sensed that her granny wasn’t talking about the carrots anymore, which made those soft words sting worse than the scolding.
“This has got nothing to do with pride,” she snapped.
“No?” Her granny chewed deliberately on a mouthful of carrots, her gaze unwavering. “You ever stop to consider that you ain’t the only one who’s worried about him, Applejack?”
Ah. There they were, the words that would begin the talk. There was no avoiding it now. They would play out the same conversation, as they had every other night for the past week, and it would carve away another sliver of their love.
She reached for her hurt and her anger, the only defences she had against what was to come. But before she could say something that she would later regret, her sister kicked her leg beneath the table and hissed, “AJ!”
She sighed.
“Of course I have, Granny,” she said softly.
“Then you won’t begrudge someone for trying to show that they care.”
She chewed on her words before she spat them out. “I guess I won’t.”
“Good.”
Silence filled the kitchen. They each nursed their thoughts, brooding over half-finished meals, all too aware of the empty place at the end of the table.
Her sister broke the silence. “Has Twilight found anything?”
She shook her head.
“How d’you know that? You haven’t even read today’s letter.”
“Last one said she would be back from the Zebrahara in a few days’ time to check up on him. If she’d found something important, she would come back sooner, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Her sister slumped in her chair. “I hate not being able to help.”
Truth from the mouths of foals. But it was more than not being able to help. It was not being able to try. That hurt the most. She had a duty to her family, to the Apple family way, but she couldn’t act on it. All because of Twi’s order.
No matter what, do not open the door.
“We’ve been following that list,” her granny replied. “We’ve been sending him everything he needs with the fancy charm that smart Twilight gal whipped up. We’ve been doing all that we can, so don’t you go pretending we haven’t.”
Her sister bit her lip and nodded. Her chest quivered. In a trembling voice, her sister said, “I miss him is all.”
“Now look what you’ve done,” she hissed to her granny. She slipped out of her chair and squatted by her sister’s side. She rubbed her sister’s back in small, circular motions until the trembling became an occasional shudder. Only then did she speak.
“We all miss him, Apple Bloom. We’re all worried. But you can’t let it get to you. Do you think Big Mac would have wanted to see you like this? No. Course not. He’d have told you that he was strong enough to fight off any illness, even the nasty sort.
“. . . And Granny’s right. We’re doing the best we can. It mightn’t feel like it, but imagine if we opened that door. We’d be undoing all of Twi’s work, and we might get sick too. Do you think he would have wanted that?”
“No,” her sister mumbled.
“What would he have wanted?”
Her sister raised her head and took a deep, steadying breath. “He would have wanted us to be strong like him and take care of ourselves.”
“That’s right,” she said in a thick voice. She drew her sister into a hug and, behind her sister’s back, swiped moisture off her cheeks. “He would have wanted us to take care of ourselves.”
She put her sister to bed and tucked her in. As she left the room, she lingered in the doorway. From there, her sister was little more than a lump beneath the covers and a small mop of red hair on the pillow. She smiled a small smile and closed the door.
It was time for a much-deserved soak. She headed toward the bathroom. As she passed the door to her brother’s room, she hesitated, then stopped to consider it.
For a long time, the door had been identical to the others in the hallway except for a single distinguishing mark: two words carved into it in the homestead’s early days, ‘Sunset Room’.
Recently, it had picked up two more features.
The first feature was a charm which branched out from the knob of the door in fine lines of chalk. The chalk formed a web, crowded with arcane symbols and strange scribbling. Her eyes couldn’t follow it for long without aching.
Its workings were a mystery to her, but she understood the charm’s purpose. It was to seal off her brother from the world. Seal him off so perfectly, so completely, that not a speck of matter could escape.
Her brother was trapped in his room, and until the charm was broken, that’s where he would stay.
The second feature was simpler: a veneer of dust on the door handle. Somehow, seeing this hurt her more than the charm did.
“’T ain’t right,” she whispered, wiping away the dust. There. The handle was as clean as the day it was made. Wasn’t that better?
She turned to go, but before she could take a step, she heard something scrape against the floorboards on the other side of the door. A faint moan followed it, distorted and muffled by the charm, but undeniably a moan. Her heart jumped from trot to gallop.
Could it be?
She crouched and lowered an ear to the crack between the door and the floor.
“Big Mac, is that you?”
No response came.
“Can you hear me?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
She heard the scraping again, fainter this time, and a creaking, popping sound. Beyond that, nothing.
He’s in pain. He’s in there suffering, and we ain’t even lifting a hoof to help, she thought.
What if he’s too weak to speak, just lying there, hungry, thirsty, dying? she thought.
What if Twi doesn’t get back in time? What if he—
She felt her eyes grow watery. It must have been the dust. Darn it. She swiped her cheeks.
Like that, she paused, one hoof pressed to her cheek. Then, almost reluctantly, she touched her hoof to the door handle.
Just through that simple contact, she could sense the turbulent magical energies contained within the seal. It hummed as though alive. The energy tingled across her hoof, almost inviting her to press down, to let the magic rest for a spell while Apple Family hospitality took on the job of caring for her brother.
Almost immediately, her mind argued against the impulse. Points and counterpoints spun back and forth in her head, weaving a web of rights and wrong.
She wanted to open the door. She wanted it so much.
She lifted her hoof from the handle and stepped away. Her eyes felt itchy. When she rubbed them, her leg came away damp.
This wasn’t fair, she thought. Not fair at all.
She drew a bath and stepped in before it was full. Her skin prickled uncomfortably as the hot water seeped through her coat, but soon that passed, leaving behind a deep warmth that loosened the tight bunches of muscles in her legs and back and neck.
She took off her Stetson and placed it on a hook on the wall. Then she untied her mane and tail in the same slow, methodical way that she laid out the buckets in the orchards and placed the hair ties below the hat. Once this was done, she gave herself to the water.
For a while, the warmth and comfort kept her thoughts at bay. There was no world beyond the walls of the bathroom. No orchards going to rot, no dying brother, no doubts or decisions to be made. For a while, it was just her.
Then her thoughts returned.
Was she doing the right thing?
It didn’t surprise her that this was the first question to come back. It was the one which had plagued her from the moment her brother’s health took a turn for the worse.
He had come home from clearing a fire break between their orchards and the Everfree forest. He said he had stepped funny on a piece of wood, and it had cut him. She knew he was lying. The wound looked too deep, too ragged, to be caused by a lump of wood.
But she hadn’t questioned him. Had trusted that he knew what he was doing.
How she wished she could take that decision back.
Her brother acted healthy for the next few days, but by the end of the week, his breathing was taxed and he was running a high fever. The wound stunk of infection. And to her eyes, untrained as they were, it looked like something was lodged deep inside his flesh
They called by the hospital, hoping for a quick remedy, but not expecting one. The doctors told them that they had never seen an infection like it. They said it was a magical infection. Something beyond their training.
With growing worry, they visited Twilight. Her brother was shaking now, and sweating as though he had been working the orchard during high noon. Before examining him, she insisted that he rest and have something to drink.
Once her orders were complied with, Twilight launched a barrage of magical tests. The results were inconclusive, but Twilight deduced that whatever was lodged in the wound could be spreading throughout his body.
The next step was to remove it via magical means, but Twilight’s magic could not affect it. Her spells slipped off the contaminant like quicksilver on a glass pane.
The only solution, Twilight said, was to cast a spell which, apart from small periods in which to eat and drink, would put him in a state of deep rest. It would allow his body to fight the infection at full strength, while she searched elsewhere for a cure.
And, as a safety precaution, her brother had to be sealed away. Twilight would visit to check up on him, but she said that until they knew what they were dealing with, it was the safest option.
It had been the safest option, but as they returned to the homestead, she had asked herself: was she doing the right thing?
Was she doing the right thing?
She still didn’t have an answer to that, so she put the question aside and sank into the bath until the back of her head rested against the base of the tub. She closed her eyes and lay like this until her chest ached. When the ache became a tearing pain, she exhaled, slowly, and watched the bubbles rise to the surface in silver ribbons.
When her lungs were empty, she surfaced.
She sighed. Still no answer.
No matter what she did, the question wouldn’t go away. Could she say she was doing the right thing? Honestly?
No, she couldn’t.
Oh, she knew in her head that sealing away her brother was smart, was careful and prudent– all words Twi had used. She knew it was the safest thing to do, but her heart cried that it was not right. Her heart said the right thing to do would be to let him out and care for him as best she could.
‘Course, that might have been the right action a week ago, but her brother would have gotten worse since then. His sickness might even pose a threat to the rest of the family. Could she still call it the right thing if letting her brother out put her sister and her granny in danger?
No, she thought. She couldn’t risk that.
But I could send them away, came a sly thought. If they aren’t in the house, they aren’t at risk.
But what if she got sick? There might not be a cure, or Twi might not find it in time. Without her, the farm would go to waste. Her family would have to lease off the land, maybe sell the Acres entirely.
That might happen anyway, she thought. At this rate, we will definitely have to lease land. And who’s to say I’m not already infected?
More questions. She sighed and scooted over to the foot of the bath. Resting on the lip of the tub was a stiff brush. She picked it up, shuffled into a more comfortable position and started brushing grass seeds, knots, and burrs from her coat.
Her mind drifted.
The questions did not disappear, but they did slip down into some murkier part of her mind.
The top part was occupied by thoughts of chores and renovations and of the weekly café outing. Rarity was picking, this time. That mare always picked the most expensive place out. It might be worth apologising and excusing herself, this time around.
She debated it while she cleaned, and only when her coat was tidy, and the bath water cold, did she put the decision aside and return to the questions that mattered.
To her surprise, she discovered that only one question remained. A new one, frightening in its simplicity.
If her brother died in there, sick and alone, could she live with herself?
The answer was just as simple.
She sighed and pulled the plug.
“I think it’s time we did something different.”
They had been eating breakfast in the unusual silence that had become the norm over this past week. When she spoke, it cut across the quiet like the roll of distant thunder, disturbing the rhythm of everyone at the table.
Her sister was the first to recover. She put down her spoon beside her bowl of oatmeal and looked up cautiously, eyes narrowed. “What exactly do you mean?”
In hindsight, she could have picked her words better. She coughed to cover her slip. “I mean that if we go on harvesting this way, we’re going to lose most of our crop.”
She paused, expecting a response, but neither her sister nor her granny said anything, so she ploughed on.
“Right now, about a fifth of the produce I’m gathering is rotten. That ain’t good, but it’s not exactly terrible either. But at this rate, by the time I get the orchards done, I’m going to be harvesting an even split between good and bad crop. Maybe less than even split. For the same effort, we’re getting less usable produce.” She looked pointedly at her sister. “In business, we call that diminishing returns.”
Her sister rolled her eyes. “I know what that is, AJ.”
“Just double checking,” she said. “Anyhow, we would normally keep harvesting anyway, because some fruit is better than none. But because it’s going to take much longer to get the harvesting done, I’m afraid that what we’ve already got is going to start spoiling.”
“D’you reckon?”
She nodded. “I reckon so.”
Her sister bit her lip. “I don’t know, Applejack. That’s never happened before.”
“We’ve never been in this situation before,” she shot back, a little harsher than she intended. She took a deep breath. “What I mean is, in the worst case scenario, the mould from the rotting apples spreads to the good ones, in which case we lose the whole crop. It ain’t worth the risk.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“We ought to take a day, maybe two, to sort the good from the bad. Preserve what we got before we go looking for more.”
There, that sounded reasonable. She had been thinking about the apple problem over the past week. Last night, the answer had come to her, offering not just a solution to the problem, but a way to get her family out of the house as well.
And without lying. An added bonus.
Now she needed to put at ease any misgivings her sister or granny had. Then the house would be hers. She could bar the doors, shutter the windows, and do what needed to be done.
Soon, she thought. Soon.
“AJ?”
She shook her head. “Beg your pardon?”
Her sister frowned. “I asked you a question. Are you okay? You seem kind of . . . off.”
“I’m fine,” she said, slipping into what she hoped was a convincing smile. “Now what was your question?”
“Well, I was thinking, why don’t we get in some farm hooves to help us harvest? Caramel would help out, and Apple Fritter’s in town.”
Her knee-jerk reaction was to say no, but that would only stir up more of a fuss. Instead, she nodded slowly.
“I think that could work. Why don’t we sort apples in the morning, and, during lunch, I’ll take a walk into town and put out the word. Good thinking, Apple Bloom.”
Her sister smiled, the first true smile in a week.
“Good to see you ain’t letting your pride get the better of you,” said her granny, with a small smile. “Keep that up and you’ll make a fine mare someday.”
She gave the two of them a smile of her own, but it felt wooden. Hollow.
“You keep saying that, granny, and it might even come true,” she said. “Now why don’t you two head on over to the barn while I tidy up?”
She watched her sister and her granny from the kitchen window. Her sister walked in front, a slight spring in her step. Her granny followed behind. Her lips were pursed, singing a tune that she might never hear again.
If this went sour, how long would it be before they could walk with a spring in their step and a song on their lips, she wondered. Too long. Maybe never.
But she had made her decision last night. She would not change it now.
She went around the house, bolting the doors and shuttering the windows. She left the kitchen until last, just in case one of the others looked back and saw that the house was boarded up. She had to avoid distractions at all cost.
As she shut the kitchen window, she placed a hoofwritten note on the sill. The message was simple, an apology and an explanation. Hopefully they wouldn’t need to read it.
With the downstairs area secured, she made her way upstairs. She crossed the corridor and stopped outside the door to the sunset room.
She had expected to be confronted by doubts, this close to the door, and she was not disappointed.
She wondered what would be waiting for her on the other side.
She wondered whether she should stop now and go back downstairs, unbolt the doors and open the windows and, for another day, trust Twi.
She wondered if she was doing the right thing.
She looked into herself and, as she had done many times before, asked herself what her heart was telling her to do, asked herself what her mother would do, what her father would do, in her place.
Before she could think twice, she put her hoof on the handle and pressed down.
The handle depressed with a click.
She felt something pop and whizz in the air around her, as though a plug had been pulled and the energy that powered the door was rushing down it, disappearing into some infinite well. The sensation passed. She was left facing the door, which had opened just a crack.
Cautiously, she pushed it open and stepped inside.
The room was dark. The rising sun faced the other side of the homestead, and its light did not come close to touching the room’s one window. It was called the sunset room for a reason.
She stood still until her eyes adjusted to the gloom. From what she could see, the room was untidy, but that was nothing new. The bed was unmade, its sheets dangling over the foot of the bedframe. Her brother’s yoke slouched against his bedside table. Clumps of dirt and bark dotted the floor. Her brother never had been one for neatness.
She hadn’t noticed anything untoward, nor any signs of sickness. This gave her pause. Shouldn’t the air have stunk of infection, even if her brother had miraculously recovered? Twi had said that nothing but sound and light could escape the seal, which meant the smells should have stayed put.
And speaking of whom, where was her brother?
She wet her lips. “Big Mac?” she whispered.
In the corner of the room, something creaked. She spun around, eyes wide. Nothing. She could see nothing of the far corner, except for a dull, white gleam. But she had heard something.
Settle down, she told herself. Why you acting like a frightened foal?
She forced her muscles to relax and breathed in deep. She stepped away from the corner, not turning her back to it, until she reached the bedside table. On the table was a gas lamp. She fiddled with it blindly until her hoof found the release valve. She turned it and pushed it in. The lamp sparked and flared to life.
Again, her eyes had to adjust, but this time to the sudden light. She squinted, and, slowly, the room came into focus.
Immediately, she saw that white gleam she had noticed earlier belonged to a tower of porridge bowls. They sat, piled in a circle of chalk – the remnants of the spell Twi had rigged up to let them send her brother sustenance between her visits.
It seemed that it hadn’t done much good. All of the bowls sat untouched, the food inside them mouldering.
Maybe he just lost his appetite, she thought. It happens when you’re feeling poorly. Ain’t nothing more than that.
She thrust the line of thought aside. She would know the answer to her question soon enough.
As her vision sharpened further, she saw that the plant litter – bark and dirt and scraps of green – became denser closer to the corner. She could make out the outline of something pressed against the line where the walls met. It looked vaguely pony shaped.
“Big Mac? Is that you?”
She crossed the floor and stopped in the middle of the room. Not because she could make out what was in the corner, but because she could smell it, suddenly smell it, the scent she had been both expecting and fearing: the stench of rotten flesh.
She gagged, but didn’t move away. She couldn’t. The smell meant only one thing, and the knowledge of her brother’s death wicked away the strength from her legs. Her hindquarters fell to the floorboard. All of a sudden, she felt old and tired, so very tired.
“Big Mac, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’ve screwed up something awful, haven’t I?”
As if in response, the shape in the corner moved.
She jerked to her feet, eyes wide. “Big Mac?”
The shape moved again, but as it moved, it made a crackling, creaking sound, like old rope straining against a wooden pulley. No pony could have made that sound. No pony should have. She retreated a step.
“Are you okay, Big Mac? Tell me if you are. You’re making me a mite bit anxious.”
The shape bulged and stretched. With a tearing sound, it deflated, and something heavy landed on the floorboards. It was followed by a rush of warm, humid air that smelled like wet earth after the rain.
She retreated to the lamp, gripped it in her teeth, and, like this, advanced. The lamp’s glow reached into the corner of the room, spread over and revealed what was there.
She almost lost her grip.
In the corner, the oak boards were no longer visible. Creepers of dark wood and poisonous-looking leaves had wound their way through, across, and around them. They knitted into each other, forming a sack of vines and leaves.
In front of the sack stood her brother. At least, what was left of him.
As with the oak boards, the creepers had worked their way through him. Wood burst from his coat, wrapped around his frame, and pushed back into his flesh. Blood oozed from the wounds. Leaves covered his coat. A layer of thick bark had grown around his hooves and his face, obscuring his features.
She struggled against the urge to vomit.
“B-Big Mac?”
She wanted to say more. Wanted to ask him if he could hear her. Wanted to know if, somehow, through all the infection, it was still him. But before she could gather the will to say more, her brother opened his eyes.
They were green. The green of a forgotten forest glade. The green of an algae bloom in the sun. A glowing green that caused every muscle in her body to lock up.
She had seen eyes like these before, and she knew that whatever was looking through them was not her brother.
The brother-beast shook itself and stretched, like a dog stiff from lying down. It didn’t take its eyes off her. When she stepped back, it growled, but didn’t move to stop her.
“Okay, Mac,” she said, fighting to keep her voice level. “I’m going to be going now.”
She took another step. The growl deepened.
“I’m going to go see how Apple Bloom and Granny Smith are doing. You remember them, right? Sure you do.”
She took another step. The beast stepped forwards.
“I’m—” She gulped. “I’m going to leave you here for a bit and shut that door that Twi was so nice as to rig up for us. Why don’t you just, uh, rest here for a spell?”
She was no fool. She knew her words meant nothing to the creature, but saying them was better than saying nothing. They made it easier to keep walking.
‘Course, she was walking backwards and looking forwards. Her granny would tell her that was a recipe for disaster.
Her rear hoof knocked into something hard and round, and sent it skittering backwards. Without thinking, she glanced back and saw it a moment before it shattered into pieces. A bowl of half-eaten porridge. Likely the last one her brother ever ate.
As she looked around, the beast’s growl deepened and broke into a roar. Her head whipped around, lamp swinging wildly, in time to see it leaping towards her.
Her body reacted of its own accord. She crouched and leaned sidewards, one smooth movement, and her legs, hard and taut from years of apple bucking, snapped out. Her body flew sidewards and landed rolling, while the body of her brother, the beast, collided with the wall in front of which she had been standing.
The room shook with the impact. When the beast stepped back, she saw that the wall had splintered and crumpled. She thought she could see into her bedroom through the hole. Then the beast’s head swung towards her, and thoughts of her bedroom fled her mind.
She pushed herself to her hooves, wincing at a sudden pain in her side. One of the shards of bowl had penetrated her hide. Perhaps more than one. There was no time to check. She had to hope they hadn’t cut her up anything serious.
“Big Mac, if you’re in there, and I’m thinking right now that you ain’t, please don’t . . .”
What was she going to say? Don’t hurt me? Don’t kill me? She didn’t know which was harder to contemplate: her own death, or that it might come at the hooves of her brother.
She settled for silence and backpedalled out of the room. The beast turned and hunched, ready to charge. She swung the door shut and closed the latch.
She had been expecting the spell to take over, to seal the sunset room. But there was no sizzle of magic, no brightly lit runes. She understood then that the spell was a one-time deal, and she had broken it.
An instant later, the door burst open.
The beast didn’t directly catch her in its charge. Rather, his shoulder clipped her. She was thrown into the far wall and bounced down the hall. The lamp flew from her mouth and cracked against the floor.
She looked up, eyes unfocused. The beast stood in the wreckage of the door frame, staring at the ground, as though shocked at what it had done. Maybe this wasn’t the first time it had tried to break down that door, she thought.
Either way, it gave her the time she needed to get back to her hooves. Her body ached, and she could feel hot needles beneath her pelt, where splinters and shards had pressed through her skin. She ignored the pain, turned heel and ran, stopping only to pick up the lamp.
The beast charged after her.
She vaulted down the stairs into the kitchen and looked around. Which way? The doors were locked, the windows shuttered. Her own fault. It would take a while to unlock – time she didn’t have.
And did she want to go outside? She could find help, but the ground around the homestead was clear for a hundred yards. She couldn’t outrun the beast. It would get her.
And who says it will go for me?
She paled. She couldn’t let her family be hurt by her brother’s body. By her own stupid mistake. Her own stupid pride.
There was no time for thinking. She knew that she couldn’t go outside, and she knew that she couldn’t outrun her brother in the house. And she knew that if her brother lived and she didn’t, then it was only a matter of time before he got out. She had to make a decision.
A foul smell rankled her nose. She looked at the lamp. The compartment holding the kerosene was cracked, likely from the fall, and was letting out noxious fumes.
Absentmindedly, she tilted the lamp so the gas wouldn’t touch the flame. The last thing she needed was to catch fire.
Fire.
Darn it all, that was the answer.
The beast had recovered from its stupor. She could hear its heavy hoofsteps coming down the corridor, towards the stairs. She needed to move quickly.
She rushed over to the stove. It was a wood-fire stove, but her granny kept a bottle of lighter fluid beside it for the days when the wood was wet and stubborn. She grabbed the bottle, unscrewed the lid, getting some of the bitter fluid in her mouth, and rushed to the base of the stairs. She poured two thirds of the bottle on the first step, then threw the rest onto the upper landing.
Hopefully, it would be enough.
She picked up the lamp and waited.
She could hear the beast’s hoofsteps come closer, and then it was standing at the top of the stairs. Its head turned to her, those green eyes glowing, and roared.
“I’m sorry, Big Mac,” she said. The fumes were strong enough to make her eyes water. She struggled not to cough. “I’m so sorry.”
The beast leaped, landing halfway down the staircase.
She threw the lamp.
It sailed through the air, tracing a neat arc, and struck the corner of the second step. The weakened compartment shattered. Fluid and flame mingled and burst into a wall of fire. The force of it hit her chest, a weak thud lost among the sudden heat.
The beast, her brother, caught the worst of it. The fluid beneath its hooves took to the flame like dry hay in summer, and some of the kerosene splashed against its chest. The leaves of its mane shrivelled and blackened. The vines began to twist. It screamed in agony and tried to retreat up the stairs, away from the rapidly spreading pool of flame beneath it.
But it was too late. It carried the fire with it. And the last she saw of the creature that had once been her brother was a dark figure silhouetted by flames, disappearing back towards its place of birth, running for the sunset room.
She watched it go. Her eyes watered, and not just from the heat. She looked down and saw that the fire had spread across the kitchen and was crawling towards her.
Part of her wanted to let it take her, the way it was taking her brother, her home.
Another part told her to run, and she listened to it.
She turned heel and surveyed her options.
The front door was locked. She didn’t have the key. She could buck it open, but it might take time.
The window, then?
Yes, the window. She galloped towards it and leaped, bringing up one hoof to protect her face. Her other hoof struck the glass. It resisted, for a moment, and then gave beneath her. Her momentum carried her onto the porch, where she landed ungracefully.
She lay still, lost in a blaze of pain that stretched from her shoulders to her hips. Risking a glance down, she saw that the glass had torn her flanks to ribbons. The pain hadn’t registered yet, but when it did, she knew it was going to be unspeakable.
Still, she couldn’t stay there. She clenched her jaw and, in one brisk motion, hauled herself up. Pain flared down her sides, white-hot, like the sting of a brand. It took all of her strength to stay on her hooves. She gasped and spluttered. Screaming between her teeth, she staggered away from her burning home.
Halfway to the barn, she collapsed. A meteor of pain crashed through her side, and for an instant, her vision went dark. She curled in on herself and retched.
Slowly, the pain eased, replaced by a creeping numbness. As it did, she heard voices, hushed and anxious, near her head. Hoofbeats, galloping away. Shouts and calls. The hiss of water on burning wood.
At last, she felt brave enough to look up. Her vision darkened at the edges, but she could see clearly enough to make out her sister sitting beside her.
Noticing her gaze, her sister touched noses with her, and said, “Don’t worry, AJ. I’m here. It’s gonna be fine.”
“You’re a . . . terrible liar,” she answered in a weak voice.
Her sister opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and sealed her lips. She didn’t need to ask what the question was, and she didn’t want to answer it.
Instead, she focused on ignoring the pain.
At first it was unbearable, but she felt a bit better. The pain seeped away, and in its place came a comforting coldness. Except for one place on her haunch, just below the hip. It did not feel cold or painful. It felt itchy. Wrong.
“Apple Bloom,” she whispered.
Her sister lowered her head. “Yeah, sis?”
“Is there something in my flank?”
Her sister blinked, and then laughed. It began in her chest, like the rumble of a chuckle, but somewhere along the way, it got lost, and when it came out, it was as a sob.
“There’s a lot of stuff in your flank,” she said thickly.
That made sense. But the itch was more than the dull throb of lodged glass. It felt almost alive.
“Is there . . . wood? Dark?”
Her sister looked. “Yeah, I think so.”
She sighed. “Pull it out.”
“I’m not sure I—“
“Quickly.”
Her sister hesitated, and then took a deep breath. “Okay, but this might hurt.”
Her sister leaned over her flank and pulled out the piece of wood. It did hurt, but the itching went away.
“Did you . . . get all of it?" she said, trying to look around.
"Huh?"
"Is there any . . . left?"
"I think I got it all," said her sister uncertainly. “What is it?”
“Don’t matter.” She nodded toward the homestead. “Throw it. Fire.”
“What?”
She tried to repeat herself, but her mouth felt thick, clumsy, and she couldn’t make the sounds she wanted. She sighed, and let her head fall against the dirt.
So be it. She doubted her sister would have left her side anyway.
For a time, she drifted. Her granny joined her sister, and together they bound her sides with cloth. Pegasi arrived. Rainclouds boomed and deluged. The fire hissed. She found herself being lifted onto a stretcher, screaming when a stray hoof brushed against her side.
She noticed these things, but most of her attention was elsewhere, on her sister’s unspoken question: why did you do it?
Why? At the time, opening the door had seemed like the right thing to do. It was to comfort her ailing brother, to care for him.
And they call you the element of honesty, drawled part of her.
It was the truth, she told herself.
But was it really? Twi’s spells gave him the best chance of recovery. Twi’s visits made sure he was surviving. Twi’s research might have saved him
He was cared for. All by Twilight Sparkle. Not her. Not Applejack.
It hadn’t been enough that her brother was taken care of, had it? It had to be her taking care of him. Had to be her saddling the burden, making the sacrifices.
That sun-forsaken door had not opened for her brother’s sake. She had opened it for the sake of her pride.
The stretcher lurched as the pegasi at either end took to the sky. They spiralled upwards, and she saw the homestead burning fiercely, with every colour of the sunset. The rainclouds arranged above it made little difference. In minutes, it would be ash – her home and her legacy.
All for the sake of her stupid, rotten pride.
She felt tears trace their way down her cheek, and, for the first time since her brother’s sealing, she didn’t wipe them away.
Author's Note
Written for the December writeoff: Behind Closed Doors
