Spooked

by Mr. Grimm

Rating: teen
Tags: Dark, Original Character, Trixie, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 11169

Trixie is trapped in a haunted house by a powerful ghost.

What if you continued to exist after everything you ever knew was destroyed, after everything you ever loved and everything that ever loved you was dead and gone forever? What if you were forced to live in your home as it crumbles and decays around you? What would that do to you?

An unfortunate magician will find out, when the victim of these circumstances has a contemplation of his own: How far can a mare's mind bend before it breaks?

Published 2012-05-28 11:34:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-09-12 16:38:00 UTC

The Arrival

Trixie shuddered as she looked up at the enormous mansion. There was no doubt in her mind that it had once been beautiful. But that had been ages ago. Now it was a rotting shell of its former self, its walls weathered, its windows cracked. Bricks and other parts of the architecture had begun to fall off, and now haphazardly formed a ring of broken stones around the base of the building. Water-worn gargoyles perched on various points of the mansion, their features made even more hideous by their years of service. The front gate appeared as a cage containing the mansion, its rusted iron bars ensnared by countless vines of dead ivy. The yard was full of huge, thorny rose bushes that were once trimmed by the loving hooves of a long-dead gardener. Now they were feral, overgrown, without a single rose to be found on them.

The sight of the mansion struck fear into the unicorn. Not only because of its abhorrent appearance, but because she knew that at one time it was the most gorgeous house in all of Equestria. The thought of something so beautiful decaying into ugliness and obscurity frightened Trixie. Even the headstones in cemeteries, testimonies to the dead who rested beneath them, were slowly worn away by rain and weather.

Trixie took a deep breath of the crisp autumn air as magicked a key out of her saddle bag. Its blotched iron surface matched the rusted padlock that bound the front gates together. The unicorn inserted it into the keyhole, and turned. There was a sharp click as the lock snapped open. Trixie took a frightened step back as a piercing shriek suddenly echoed out through the air. It was less than a second before she realized that the noise had been produced the hinges of the gate, which had swung open the moment she unlocked it.

The mare could now see the mansion without her view being obscured by ancient bars of metal. It managed to look even more ominous than it had before. The light of the setting sun cast eerie shadows about the building and the surrounding oak trees. It was at this moment that Trixie considered turning to leave. But she couldn’t. Whether it was a matter of pride or the need of money, Trixie needed to continue. She looked straight ahead and tried to muster up the overbearing self-confidence she had during her shows. That’s all a séance was, really. Just a dramatic show for superstitious ponies.

It seemed an eternity had passed before the unicorn finally took a step onto the property. Some small part of her thought that something dreadful would happen the moment she touched a hoof to the grounds. When something terrifying failed to happen to her, Trixie felt her spirits lift slightly. She took another step, and then another. Before long she was walking down the dirt path towards the mansion’s doors. But she kept her distance from the overgrown hedges. That same irrational part of her put it in her head that there could be something within the thorny bushes waiting to reach out and grab her if she got too close.

Eventually she came to the front steps. Trixie quickly made her ascent up the cracked, moss-ridden stairs and found herself looking up at two of snarling faces against a backdrop of palled wood. A pair of iron doorknockers cast in the shape of lions held their mouths open to greet her with sharpened fangs. The unicorn stood still, waiting for herself to knock on the door. At last she finally magicked the knocker, which sounded off with several dull thuds against the damp, warped wood. Trixie stared at the door and listened for hoof-steps on the other side. Once again, time slowed to a crawl before she heard somepony come to answer her knock. Trixie was actually surprised that anypony answered at all, seeing as the mansion no longer appeared to be inhabitable. The tarnished brass handles suddenly turned with a sharp force.

Trixie stared ahead as the double doors opened with an ominous creak, revealing the dark depths of the manor. From where she stood the unicorn could see that time had not been kind to the ancient mansion. The walls, once vividly painted, were now stained and blotched with mold. Curtains and furniture were moth-eaten, and crisp leaves were scattered about the rotting carpets and cracked tile floors. Trixie could see a staircase that led to the upper levels of the building supported by dusty marble columns.

The magician was both fascinated and fearful of the scene before her. In her mind’s eye she reconstructed how it must have been in its full glory. A picturesque sitting room came to life before the unicorn, with lavishly patterned carpets and luxurious furniture upholstered with the softest of materials, their lacquered wooden trim carved with expertise that was no longer found in the modern world. The pile of cracked porcelain in the corner became a magnificent vase from a foreign country, and the ruined piano was restored to a shining ebon grace. Seated within the wingback chairs and davenports would be distinguished ponies in elaborate garb, talking well into the autumn afternoons.

But all of that was gone now. All that remained was a corrupted visage of what had been. It wasn’t even a memory anymore. The house had been decaying for so long that Trixie reasoned that any who saw it in the height of its glory would have passed on by now. It was forgotten for what it once was. To the townsfolk it was a place of fear; a hulking eyesore ridden with an eerie presence. Yet as with all things that cause unrest it was also a point of interest. That was why Trixie had been summoned. Whoever owned the manor wanted to communicate with its former owner, who was said to haunt the ruined halls of his home.

“…H-hello?” Trixie’s voice echoed in the abandoned structure. She slowly inched her head into the doorway. An eclectic odor crept into her nostrils; a musty, mildewed sort of smell composed of decomposing fabric and damp wood. The unicorn waited for a reply to come from the quiet confines of the manor. She partially hoped that she would receive none. The more she saw of the wretched place, the more Trixie wanted to leave. It was one of the few things that not even her extreme self-confidence could overcome. She felt fear creeping into her mind, and she did not like it.

Trixie’s heart skipped a beat when she heard the gentle chimes of a music box emanate from the middle of the room. Startled, she took a step back. The magician knew that there was no logical way that she could have been answered by a lifeless machine. Though frightened, the unicorn’s tensed muscles began to relax as the quiet melody of the waltz made its way past her ears. It reminded Trixie of a music box she’d owned as a foal, one that would play a lullaby while she was safe in her bed.

The magician managed to coax herself to take a step inside. A floorboard creaked loudly beneath her hoof. Trixie would have considered this a bad omen if it hadn’t of been for the soothing tune in the air. But her thoughts were focused on the music box at the moment. Her mind was abuzz with questions. The unicorn pondered if it could have been coincidental that it had started when she had spoken. Perhaps it had been left wound up from years past, and was just now finishing a tune it should have finished decades ago. Maybe it was enchanted to play whenever somepony new entered the manor, like a doorbell.

But Trixie never found out why. Because the moment that she was inside the mansion, the music box stopped playing. Trixie jumped in terror as the double doors slammed shut behind her. A bead of cold sweat trickled down her forehead as she heard the two simultaneous clicks of the locks.

Trapped

Trixie felt her heart quicken its pace as she whirled around and gaped at the closed doors. The magician felt her knees grow weak as she gazed at the palled wood that seemingly moved all on its own. She stumbled over to the doors, breathing heavily through her grimace. The unicorn locked her hooves onto the brass knobs and twisted with all her might. They didn’t budge. Trixie tried turning them the other way. Again, nothing. The doors rattled furiously on their hinges as she pushed against them with her full weight. The mare let out a frustrated wail as she grabbed the knobs and threw herself backward in a frantic attempt to pry them apart. She only succeeded in losing her grip and falling over onto the damp floor.

Trixie sat up and gazed in dumbfounded fear at the doors. The fall had been enough to break her out of her panic. She was a unicorn--What was she doing? The mare quickly got to her hooves and aimed her horn at one of the keyholes. She knew from experience that lock picking spells were difficult. It was like sending a limb into the keyhole and feeling your way around, pressing down on the tumblers as you found them. Trixie’s horn glowed faintly as she sent the psychic probe into the lock. Her face twisted into fearful confusion. The lock was old, and its workings were unfamiliar to her. But her desperation forced her to press on. She slowly felt her way around the rusted innards, looking for anything that held the slightest resemblance to a tumbler.

An ecstatic smile made its way on to the unicorn’s face as she found one. Trixie pressed it down, and her effort was rewarded with a satisfying click. A little further in she found another. Trixie’s small smile grew larger as she realized that she was only a short ways from the other side of the keyhole. She felt around for the last tumbler, and almost jumped for joy when she found it. Trixie let out a sigh of relief as the whole lock let out a mechanical click. The unicorn tenderly touched the knob with her hoof and gave it a gentle twist. It turned perfectly. This victory strengthened the mare’s resolute, and she moved to undo the second lock. She was almost out.

Trixie’s mouth fell open as she heard the first lock click again. She stumbled as she tried to keep herself from falling. Her horn faded as she blinked back tears.

“N…no…” she choked. The magician gulped, trying to hydrate her terror-dried throat. Trixie’s already weakened knees gave out, and she sat and stared at the double locks, her mouth trembling in despair. The unicorn grimly understood the futility of her situation. She could have tried a dozen times to unlock the doors, but would only ever get one open before whatever was holding her relocked it again. This thought was coupled with an even darker realization: Trixie was trapped in the mansion.

The mare turned to look back at her surroundings. The moldering room was no longer only melancholy. It was terrifying. Trixie knew that everything within it had been left untouched for decades. It was clear from the extent of the decay, from the layers of dust. Every decaying object was a corpse of what it once was, and this place was the crypt they had been laid to rest in. The unicorn paled. She wasn’t trapped anymore. She was entombed. Nopony knew where she was, and nopony would ever think to look in this forsaken place. She would starve to death before long, and even if someday they did find her body, all that would remain would be a nameless pile of putrid bones.

Mindless panic crept into the mare once more. Without thinking she jumped to her hooves and began to pound on the defiant doors. Bits of mold and discolored paint flaked off with each strike. The blows echoed throughout the silent manor.

“Help!” she screamed for nopony to hear, “Help me!” But she already knew that help would not come. The nearest town was five miles away, and there were no houses nearby. But still she persisted, beating her hooves against the door until they turned red. Trixie gave one last slam, and then sunk to the ground. It was hopeless. She wasn’t getting out this way.

But a small candle of hope appeared in the darkness of her plight. Ironically it was born out of the doors that kept her in. There were two of them. It suddenly occurred to Trixie that such a large house would have to have more than one way in. But this thought was quickly snuffed out by another. Whatever had locked the front doors could just as easily lock any other door in the manor. Even if the magician found the courage to travel through the deserted manor, even if she found every door, it would be locked before she could open it. Once more Trixie was thrown into a spiral of despair. The unicorn sat on the dusty floor and put her face in her hooves.

The sound of wood scraping against wood suddenly cut through the quiet of the manor like a jagged knife. Trixie’s head shot out of her hooves, her face awash with fear. Her eyes were greeted by the same eerie tranquility she had first seen upon gazing into the mansion. The unicorn’s heart began to race as she looked over the ruined furniture. That same little irrational part of her brain told her that something was watching from between the tattered loveseats and half-collapsed chairs. It were as though she were peering into a thicket where an unseen predator waited motionlessly to pounce on its prey.

The noise sounded off a second time. Trixie’s blood froze in her veins as she saw a small wooden chair move all on its own, traveling an inch toward her. It did not give off any sort of glow to indicate that it was being manipulated by magic. Trixie shrank back against the door, scrunching up as tightly as she could. Her horrified eyes were trained on the chair as it once again moved in her direction, this time even further. Some part of her mind that wasn’t scared to death made her feel worse by realizing that she was being terrified by a chair, one of the most mundane objects imaginable. But it wasn’t the chair that she was afraid of. It was what was moving it.

The chair paused in its unnatural advance, the dust once gathered on its seat floating into the air surrounding it. Silence. Trixie waited for it to being again, too frightened to wipe away the accumulating sweat on her brow. The saline liquid trickled into her face and stung the edges of her eyes. She needed to blink, but felt that if she closed her eyes they might not open again. Trixie’s facial muscles twitched violently as they tried to resist the impulse.

In the split second she blinked, a series of high-pitched chimes shattered the dead silence. It felt like a physical blow to her heart. The unicorn’s eyes snapped open and looked for whatever was about to disembowel her. There was nothing but the chair, sitting where it had been moments ago. By now her fear-addled brain was catching up to what she had heard. It was the sound of somepony running a hoof over the first few keys of a piano. Immediately her eyes swiveled over to gave at the dusty piano near the couches.

The dark form blended into the shadows as the last light of the sun faded from the sky. It appeared to her as a massive black beast, baring its yellowed ivory teeth at her. It let out a dissonant roar as invisible hooves slammed down on the minor end of the keyboard, one, two, three, four times, growing louder with each strike. The noise was drawn out as the peddles were held down, becoming a vibrating growl. The mare’s palled face grimaced as she listened to the guttural murmur die out, returning the room to its eerie soundlessness. It was the calm before the storm, a storm that would never end.

Trixie screamed as a thunderous groan suddenly echoed throughout the mansion. It emanated from the very heart of the building, sounding as though a monstrous beast was waking up from a long slumber. Trixie became aware that she was running, though she had no idea where. The unicorn’s blood pounded in her ears as her heart worked double time, fueling her flight down a darkened hallway.

First Encounter

First Encounter

Trixie’s frantic hoof-steps resounded in all corners of the mansion as she stumbled down the dank, moldering halls. Leaves and cracked tiles crunched beneath her hooves as she dodged the looming shadows of half-collapsed furnishings. Dirt and dust made its way into her eyes and nostrils. She was barely able to see where she was going as she breathed heavy rasps out of her irritated throat. The halls seemed to stretch into eternal darkness, an endless labyrinth of deterioration. A ghastly shriek came barreling out of her mouth as her legs became entangled in some fallen table that had escaped her obscured vision. The unicorn tumbled painfully to the floor, feeling the cold, coarse strata that had accumulated in the span of a hundred years.

The magician lay in a crumpled heap, now partially smeared in damp filth. A fiery, shooting pain made its way throughout every inch of her being. The unicorn’s adrenaline-fueled body ignored the agony and struggled to get back up. Trixie squawked as she slipped in her mad attempt to right herself, not realizing her leg was still caught in the small table. The broken bits of tile beneath her crunched loudly as Trixie’s body slammed onto the floor, forcing the air out of her lungs in a painful wheeze.

The unicorn’s terror subsided as the black tentacles of despair wormed their way into her heart. Still breathing in ragged gasps, Trixie dragged herself away from the center of the hallway, feeling her leg slide loose from the clutches of the table. She weakly pushed herself into a sitting position and leaned back against the wall, shivering as her body made contact with the moist, mildewed wallpaper. The magician’s gasps slowly changed into quiet sobs as hot tears crowded around her eyes.

Trixie was hurt in many ways, but what hurt the most was just how fast she’d submitted to the terror inspired by what she now believed to be the ghost that haunted the manor. Trixie had always believed herself to be a brave pony, even if she hadn't truly defeated an Ursa Major. That belief had been shattered in mere minutes once she’d entered the desolate manor. The unicorn involuntarily remembered herself on stage. She’d always claimed to the crowds that she’d looked straight into the face of terror and never once batted an eye--but she’d never known true terror until this very day.

An icy chill suddenly filled the air surrounding the unicorn. It was far colder than any autumn breeze, more akin to a wind from the dead of a winter night. Trixie shivered as she pressed her forelegs against her chest. Her sobbing slowed to a stop. She saw her breath appearing before her in small clouds of vapor. Trixie grimaced miserably. She knew the cause of the cold. She curled up and closed her eyes as nervous sweat began to ooze out of her pores. The unicorn winced as she heard a single hoof-step somewhere in the darkness. She buried her face in her forelegs.

Trixie felt an unseen presence move toward her as another hoof-step echoed down the hall. It radiated something that made her recoil in fear, something that she could identify only as a bitterness so strong she could almost taste it. There was another hoof-step, and then another, and the horrible presence drew closer and closer. Trixie felt her stomach tie itself in knots, and her heart was about to burst at any moment. The coldness grew stronger, piercing her hide and working its way to her core. She was now in the middle of a raging blizzard, yet sweat continued to pour down her trembling frame. She could feel its unseen eyes boring into her, monitoring her every movement, hovering over her like a vulture patiently awaiting the death of its prey.

Trixie was too terrified to scream as a stone-cold hoof ran through her mane. In those few brief moments she felt as though the specter had created a direct channel of fear through her hairs, feeding unprecedented horror into the unicorn. She sat frozen in fear even when the hoof withdrew a short time later. She remained hidden in her forelegs as she felt the presence draw away from her, moving down the way she had come. As its hoof-steps grew faint, Trixie dared to peek out after it. She caught only a fleeting glimpse as it turned a corner, something tall and thin, cloaked in the blackest of shadows. The unicorn immediately retreated back into her hiding place.

Trixie had almost lost her mind the moment the spirit had touched her. To know that it had the power to make physical contact was a thought so mortifying that she had literally felt her sanity slipping away, bit by bit, each part falling off into some dark abyss at the back of her mind. They had all been pulled back into place at the last moment, but Trixie felt as though some of the parts hadn’t been put back quite right, almost as if they were loose. The unicorn knew that it would only take a little more to break them apart again, and this time they might not come back.

Trixie slowly looked back up from her hooves. Once more she appeared to be alone in the lightless tunnel of the hallway. But she knew she wasn't. The spirit was watching her as it had been since she’d entered the manor, waiting for the next opportunity to scare her. Trixie frowned as tears returned to her eyes. She had never felt so utterly helpless and alone in her life. The mare knew next to nothing about necromancy besides a basic Séance, and there was no way she was purposely calling that thing from the shadowy abyss where it dwelt. She had felt its presence. It only wanted to harm her, make her miserable. And so far it was doing an exceptional job.

The unicorn slowly rose to her hooves. She knew it was hopeless to try and escape. But she just couldn’t sit here and wait for the spirit to return. Her body still ached from when she had crashed, but the pain had been pushed aside for now. The unicorn’s horn began to glow faintly as she activated a simple lighting spell. Using her horn as a lantern, Trixie looked both ways down the hall. Both ended in impossibly black voids, hungry for light, and possibly more. She glanced back at the way she had come. The ghost had traveled that way when it left. It was only logical then for Trixie to travel in the opposite direction. Mustering up what little courage she had left, she began her journey down the hall.

The unicorn took painstaking measures to keep as quiet as possible. Each step she took was pre-planned, touching only where the floor was free of debris. Sometimes she stretched her legs out uncomfortably to avoid crunching a fallen piece of plaster, other times she shuffled around piles of crispy leaves. She had no idea why she took such precautions. The ghost knew where she was, it would have come regardless if she made noise or not. But the silence just seemed safer than tromping noisily through the mansion. If anything it gave Trixie a false sense of security.

The light produced by her horn proved useful in her travel, but at the same time made the hallway more eerie by casting wavering shadows. Trixie nervously looked from one side of the hall to the other. Faded wallpaper had begun to fray and peel from the plaster, and hung like tattered curtains from the walls. They had once been vertically striped, but the blue and green bands had meshed together to form the sickening bluish hue of rotting flesh.

Occasionally Trixie would see a painting still hanging on its rusted nail. One such painting was of a bouquet of wildflowers. It was simple and unprofessional, probably done by one of the former owners of the manor. But like everything else, it had begun to decay. The damp canvas sagged, and most of the paint had melted together to form a dark, grayish-brown color. It almost looked as though the flowers had actually rotted.

Most of the doors Trixie passed were closed, and she preferred that they stayed that way. But once or twice she would come across one that had been left open. Though she would only cast a sparing glance into these rooms, Trixie could make out that some of them were bedrooms. The light of her horn cast large shadows over collapsed canopy beds, their sheets and blankets shredded and mutilated by vermin, the pillows torn open to reveal ancient, yellowed feathers.

The unicorn eventually came to the end of the hall, though it took quite some time. She found herself looking at a pair of double doors made of polished oak, now covered in dust. The handles looked to be the same type as those on the front doors, made of brass. Trixie contemplated if she should continue. There was a chance the doors were locked, and even if they weren’t she wasn’t sure if she should continue. There was no telling what awaited her behind the two dark doors. It could have been the ghost, come again to frighten her out of her wits. It could have simply been an empty room. Trixie took a nervous look back the way she had come. She did not want to have to go that way again. Biting her lip, the unicorn tried turning the handles. They weren’t locked. She took a deep breath as she pushed forward. The heavy doors opened with a long, drawn-out creak.

Paintings

Laid out before Trixie was a stretching table that once hosted jubilant parties far grander than she could imagine. Its rectangular form was shrouded in a white cloth, the edges torn and moth-eaten. Beautifully crafted chairs were spaced evenly down the length of the table, and at each seat was a fine china plate and silver utensils were laid out in impeccable manner for guests that would never show. A row of silver candlesticks ran down the center of the table, wax melted down in thick, white stalactites that had bonded to the table cloth.

Everything on the table was blanketed with a fine layer of dust, looking as though an early winter frost had swept over the room. Beneath the dust, the silver had become tarnished and blotched, as dull and ugly as lead. Cobwebs branched off of every edge, forming jumbled, silken structures that meshed together to form a massive spider utopia. Trixie could see the small, black creatures nestled within their untidy nets, surrounded by the shells of former meals. In a way, a feast was still being celebrated at the table, one of macabre tastes and minuscule proportions.

Moonlight shone in through cracked windows, obscured by overgrown bushes. It touched on the dark, lacquered paneling of the room. At one time it would have been so tenderly waxed and polished that the light would have reflected off of the wooden surface. The dust had reversed its mirroring qualities, and the paneling now only devoured the light. The only shadow in the room was cast by a monstrous chandelier looming over the table on a thick iron chain. Its candleholders flowed over with melted wax, spilling onto the iron and silver that made up its body. It too was smothered in cobwebs, some hanging down on the table in hopes of forming a connection.

The malevolent presence was nowhere to be felt, but Trixie still felt misery tugging at her heart. What she was looking at had once been a dining room fit to serve the Princesses themselves. It would have been beautiful, a regality no longer found in the world. Now it sat here unused, a ruin that nopony wanted to remember.

Trixie spotted another pair of doors on the other end of the room. At once the morose contemplation was swept out of her mind, and her attention became focused on the possible exit. The unicorn took a slow step into the room wincing as a loud creak sounded off from the hardwood flooring. She lifted her hoof, only to have a second noise cut through the air. Trixie looked back at the doors with a grimace. The unicorn took another step far from her original attempt, trying to tread as gently as possible. Once more the floor squeaked at her in its loud, grating voice.

Realizing that there was no way she reach the doors without making a noise, Trixie let out a muffled whimper. Again she thought to herself that it didn’t matter how silent she was, as the ghost was always watching. The mare clamped her eyes shut and took another step. The floor didn’t fail to let out a creak. There was a long pause before the unicorn forced herself to move forward in a flurry of nervous steps, each one drawing a squeak from the dry floor. The unicorn halted and opened her eyes. She found herself only half way across the room, standing between the paneled wall and the abandoned table. She stood for a moment and tried to gather her courage for another attempt. She glanced over at the table. The light of her horn reflected off of the dusty crystal goblets, their once flawless transparency now turned opaque.

Trixie turned her attention ahead, focusing on the two doors. It suddenly occurred to her at this point that they may have been locked. She felt something inside of her twist uncomfortably, and tried to justify to herself that it didn’t matter as the hallway was worse. She took a breath and rushed forward again, creating a whole chorus of creaks as she went. The mare suddenly found herself looking into a dark cavern as the doors flew open all by themselves, sending out a cloud of dust into the air. Trixie was too shocked to stop, and was swallowed up by the darkness. The creaks beneath her hooves suddenly became muffled clomps. The unicorn finally stopped herself as the doors slammed shut behind her. In her confusion she found herself surrounded by monstrous shadows, crowded around her as if they all meant to leap upon her. She let out an earsplitting shriek of terror.

But as her eyes adjusted to the dim glow of her horn, Trixie discovered that what she took to be monsters were nothing more than a few oversized couches and chairs, all situated so that those seated could look at each other. Another forsaken piano grinned at her from the corner of the room, and an elaborate desk stood in the opposite corner, its top still covered in yellowed papers. On one wall was a shelf of ancient books that gave off a horribly musty smell, their shriveled spines fringed with strings that had come loose from their binding. But Trixie didn’t notice these. She was far too focused on the multitude of eyes that surrounded her.

Hung on the plaster walls of the room was a score of paintings, each one depicting a pony clad in the lavish fashions of long ago; a countess in a ruffled red dress seated in a garden, a baron standing tall by a towering oak. Though they appeared eerie, Trixie felt herself drawn to them. The unicorn took a step toward a picture depicting a lank unicorn in front of the manor. That one step was all she needed to see how cruel time had been to the pictures. For like everything else, they had aged. No longer did the ponies in the paintings appear as originally depicted. Like the bouquet painting Trixie had seen earlier, the beings within the portraits had grown old. The canvas had sagged and warped, the paint had cracked and dried, so it seemed that wrinkles and discolored spots had occurred naturally on their faces. Trixie looked away from the picture of the unicorn, but found that each and every painting had suffered the same fate. All except one.

Trixie’s mouth fell open as she spotted one painting that had yet to decay. But it wasn’t the condition that both astounded and terrified her. It was that the portrait depicted herself. The unicorn rushed over to the painting, hoping that she had been mistaken. But when she was a foreleg’s length away it became quite obvious it was her. She had been painted in beautiful detail, from the shine of her hair to the pearly grin on her face. She stood majestically on the stage of her cart, surrounded by an equally detailed and life-like audience.

The mare was terrified, but was too transfixed by her own beauty to realize it. It truly was a marvelous work of art, something that captured her radiance in its entirety. But as she basked in its glory, she noticed something strange. The magician was so focused on the painting that she noticed the minute changes that began to happen a few moments after she looked upon it. The look of admiration in her eyes vanished and was replaced by alarm. She saw the faintest of lines appear around her portrait’s magenta eyes, but as time passed they became thicker and more noticeable. Horrifically, the Trixie in the painting continued to smile, unaware of what was happening to it. The Trixie witnessing the disquieting metamorphosis, however, bore a mortified frown.

The changes began to become more noticeable as she realized what was happening. First she was twenty, then twenty five, and then thirty. The unicorn watched as her youth began to slip away, carried by the years as they slid by unrelentingly.

“…No…” breathed the terrified mare as tears began to seep out of her eyes. She saw herself entering middle age as her belly became pronounced, and her hips flared out unflatteringly. Her white teeth began to stain, fading to a sickly jaundiced yellow. Her mane no longer shone, and hung limply across her wrinkling face.

“Stop!” bawled the unicorn, unable to look away, “Stop it!” Still, somehow, things became worse. She climbed past fifty and sixty, now entering later life. Her body began to deflate and sag as most of the weight she had gained began to disappear. Her blotched skin now hung loose on a frame of atrophied muscles and weakening bones.

“Stop!” she screamed, “Stop!”

She was old now. Her hair was stringy and white, and her eyes were clouded and near sightlessness. Her face had sagged so much that her grin now looked like a frown. Her majestic pose had been reduced to a feeble stance atop hips that looked too weak to support her tail anymore. At that moment Trixie realized that she stood alone in the portrait. The audience was gone, as if there had never been one at all. All that remained was a mare so old that she could hardly stand. Trixie blinked to clear her eyes of tears--and when they opened, she saw the portrait itself beginning to crumble.

She should have felt some kind of relief to see the thing that had caused her so much pain fall apart, but somehow she felt worse. In a fit of panic she tried to scoop up its powdering form as it began to drop off bit by bit from the frame. But as the pieces of the painting fell into her hooves, they dissolved completely to dust. Trixie let out a heart-wrenching wail as she hung her head in despair. The destruction of the painting only served to remind her what would happen after her death. She would be forgotten completely, as if she never had been at all.

Once more the magician was drawn into memories of her performances. She saw herself in a completely different light. The mare on the stage was a boisterous little popinjay, conceited beyond all reason. Now Trixie realized she was no different than anypony else. She was mortal. She would age, fade away and wilt like a rose, and then be forgotten. And the worst part was that she doubted anypony would even try to remember her. Who would ever want to recall being humiliated by a loudmouth like her? But it was too late to change now. She’d had her chance, and by wasting it she’d landed herself in a desolate manor, tormented by a malicious ghost until he decided to scare her to death.

The unicorn looked back up at the portrait. She let out a gasp as she found herself not looking into the decaying remains of her painting, but into the ruined portrait of somepony completely different. A tall, thin, unicorn, clad in a top-hat and jacket, standing in the manor’s garden. Attached to the ornate frame was a tarnished plate of bronze. It was inscribed with many small words, but Trixie was too distraught to read anything else but the two largest: Von Waltz.

Out of the corner of her eye, the unicorn saw something. Too sorrowful to even think of what it could be, she turned her head to look at it. What she saw drove her out of her remorse and back into reality. Standing next to the piano was a pony made of shadow. He looked solid, as though he were corporeal and coated with an impossibly black shade of paint. He was tall and thin, and his featureless body was adorned with a top-hat and jacket. Trixie fell over terrified, then bunched herself against the wall. The pony stood absolutely still as it looked at her with eyes she couldn’t see. As she took in his appearance, Trixie suddenly recalled what she had seen moments earlier. She knew who it was. The pony’s faceless head slowly nodded once. The equine suddenly dissolved into the shadows, winking out of existence.

Into The Shadows

Trixie sat against the wall, remaining there for quite some time after the ghost had departed, her mind in a turmoil of fear and misery. Every time she blinked she saw herself in the portrait, aging away into senility. The mare could not for the life of her understand how her already shaken psyche had survived the awful experience intact. But rather than relief, she felt frustration. It could go on forever like this, with the ghost terrifying her to the brink of insanity, only to stop at the last moment to let her recover. Trixie briefly wondered if perhaps she herself was dead, and this was the punishment she would endure for eternity; to be horrified senseless in a decaying house by its otherworldly inhabitant.

Trixie glanced behind her at the portrait. There stood the skeletal unicorn, his form blurred and smeared by years of moisture and frost that had crept into the manor through broken windows. The paint that once formed his eyes had run down his face, and now appeared as dark rivers of tears dripping from his sockets. The pale cream color of his face had faded to a yellowish-white, now looking more like a skull. The portrait really did look as though it was depicting a cadaverous ghoul instead of a refined gentle-colt. Trixie looked away from the corrupted image and instead focused on the bronze plaque that adorned its frame.

His name was Kasper Von Waltz, and he had lived from 1806 to 1856. There were other smaller words on the plate, but they had been obscured by oxidation. Trixie doubted they would have said much of anything anyway. The mare turned away from the painting and back at the empty room. She still felt the eyes of the portraits looking at her. The lifeless, palled faces, almost seemed like a mocking imitation of the crowds she so desperately desired, their attention focused on her and nothing else. Unlike her other audiences, they had witnessed the real Trixie. They knew she wasn’t brave, they knew she was vain, and now, so did she.

As she sat alone in the darkness, the unicorn wondered what she would do next. After witnessing the horrors that the spirit was capable of, she felt no desire to go forward. It would be there to pry her apart, to break her down, each time finding a new insecurity to exploit. But once again Trixie was confronted by the fact that it could just as easily come back to his location and scare her anyway. She would lose either way. Frustration slowly built up in the mare, and she found herself clenching her teeth so tightly that her neck hurt. It wasn’t fair. Terror was inevitable no matter what she did, and she was powerless to stop it. Trixie let out a muffled growl that rose to a quiet screech.

The mare slowly rose to her hooves, avoiding eye contact with the silent paintings, thought she still felt their unbreakable stare. Trixie gave one last glance at the portrait of Kasper Von Waltz. She wanted to sneer at it, but found she had no confidence to back it up. Instead she simply turned and looked for a way out. The faint light of her horn showed a single door on the left-hand corner near the desk. The mare started for the door on near-silent hooves, passing by the ancient desk as she went. The yellowed papers that lay on its dusty surface wavered slightly as she drew near. Trixie froze, afraid that the spirit had returned. But as she looked back she saw that it was only her movement creating a light breeze.

She now noticed the papers were marked with faded ink in the form of music staffs, dotted with dark, slightly malformed dots that made notes. Trixie was not musically inclined, and the notes made no sound as she ran her eyes over them. She would have ignored them entirely had it not been for the title, written in large, looping letters. They were crooked and distorted with age, but they were as clear as day to the magician. The Untitled Waltz, by Kasper Von Waltz. Trixie looked back at the painting, where the gaunt figure of the unicorn stood amid a lonely garden. Never had it occurred to her that the ghost once had a life beyond roaming the desolate halls of the manor.

But that had been a long time ago. The thing that remained was a beastly, miserable creature, its only intent to terrify her. The unicorn continued to the door, and placed a hoof on the rusted knob. The cold metal flaked in her grasp as she turned it, and she felt something inside of it break and crumble. The door opened with a quiet, almost moan-like creak. Trixie stood in the doorway and peered inside, not knowing what to expect. The light of her horn reflected off of a large, filmy mirror on the other side of the room, filling the room with a pale, purplish glow.

She found herself looking into a predominately open room, its tile floors covered in coarse layers of dust and dirt. Several chairs sat with their seats against the walls, completely smothered in cobwebs. All of this was centered around a large instrument that towered to the ceiling. Trixie looked up along the copper shafts that had faded to a sickly green, the pale strands of webbing from long-dead spiders laced between them. The pipes ran down to an enormous ebon organ, its palled keyboards stacked on top of each other as if to form a grimacing mouth. Cobwebs looked as though they’d been draped over the stops like a death shroud, making the organ appear as some kind of casket. Trixie stared at it with a look of horrific anticipation. She knew what was likely to happen if she stepped inside, yet was afraid all the same.

But across the room was a doorway. Not a closed door, but an open doorway. It was the first one Trixie had encountered since entering the mansion. The unicorn was suddenly overcome with an impulse to madly dash for the opening. In seconds it was no longer an impulse, but a reality. The mare found herself running frantically over the tile floors, her hooves making uneven clops as she ran. Time slowed down in her mind, and she was struck hard by regret. The door would close just as she reached it. She knew it would. The door behind her would too, and she’d be trapped all over again.

Cobwebs fluttered in the draft created by the doors as they slammed shut simultaneously. Trixie came to a halt inches from the closed door, just as she had predicted. The unicorn screamed in frustration as she slammed her hooves on its wooden surface, attacking it with a combination of anger and terror. But ultimately they morphed into a sullen hollowness as the mare slid down to the floor and crawled into the corner, kicking up dust as she went. Trixie felt like a frightened foal as she curled up among the fallen cobwebs and dust-bunnies. She looked out at the room. The shadows cast by her horn reflected onto the yellowed walls, forming twisted shapes that looked as though they would come to life and attack. Trixie wanted nothing more than to turn out her light and make them disappear, but the thought of darkness terrified her even more.

The unicorn cringed as a piercing shriek broke the silence of the room. She saw a single key of the organ pressed down, and nearly wept when she realized what it meant. The long, drawn out note was cut off and replaced with another, which was followed by another. The notes repeated themselves, gaining speed and coming together. They were joined by more notes scattered throughout the keyboard, each one adding to what was becoming a waltz that was both terrifying and melancholy to the ears of the fear-ridden magician. Dust billowed to the ceiling as stagnant air was forced out of the great bellows that powered the instrument, carrying cobwebs along with it. Trixie covered her ears to try and escape the song, but found it impossible. The melody simply became louder, worming its way past her tightly clamped hooves. It crept insidiously into the depths of her mind, where it presided over her psyche like a malevolent fog.

Trixie could only stare in horror as a shadow appeared in the corner opposite of her. It was far darker than the others surrounding it, as dark as the magician could imagine. The unicorn shrank back as the shadow began to grow, spreading across the walls and floors. What she was seeing was not possible. The faint rays of light given off by her horn were being consumed by the shadow as it crept along the chipping paint of the room, their magenta glow fading to black. Trixie squirmed in her corner, knowing that the light would soon be gone all together. Her heart raced uncontrollably as the blackness approached her, now only a few feet away. The mare watched as it encircled her, destroying the last of the light. A ragged scream escaped her lips as she was swallowed by the shadow.

A Living Death

Trixie was blind. The darkness that had enshrouded her was so utterly black, so utterly devoid of light, that it was as if she had been stripped of her sight altogether. All other sensations were replaced with an emptiness. The air was noiseless. The floor and wall Trixie curled against seemed to melt away, becoming nothing. Even the musty smell that perpetually hung in the air was gone. The unicorn couldn’t even feel herself breathing anymore. All she was left with was her mind, and she wasn’t sure how much longer it would last.

Trixie began to think, desperately trying to use the only thing that reminded her she still existed. But all she could think about was the manor and what it had done to her. The mare had been terrified beyond all reason, far more than anypony should ever be. It had shattered her once powerful ego, reducing her into nothing more than a loose bundle of self-doubt. It had shown her the misery and decrepitude that awaited her in years to come. And now it had trapped her in darkness, leaving her bereft of her senses. Surrounded by the unnatural blackness, unfeeling and frightened, Trixie found herself unable to move. The mare couldn’t tell whether it was the work of the spirit, or if it was merely her own body too scared to move. Maybe it was her mind realizing that moving would be of little use if she couldn’t see anything.

But whatever the cause of it, Trixie’s mind began to race with horror as a dreadful realization took place. The unicorn was experiencing a living death. Her mind was suddenly filled with screams she couldn’t scream; with tears she couldn’t cry. Left bare of any sort of feeling, she was little more than a spirit trapped in a useless body. Trixie’s mind became a churning cauldron of fear. She didn’t want to be dead, even if it meant being spared the gruesome fate of becoming a hideous crone. Now she was aware that a mortifying emptiness awaited her after death, a cold void that only offered loneliness, misery, and fear. To exist in such a state for eternity was a thought too horrible for Trixie to imagine.

Something made a noise in the darkness that nearly stopped her heart. It was the quiet creak of a grimy door hinge. But it shattered the vacuum Trixie had been trapped in, roaring in her ears like thunder. Next came a blinding sliver of light in the darkness as the door opened an inch. Once her red, tearful eyes adjusted to the pale moonlight that peeked in from the other room, Trixie’s senses returned in a flooded frenzy. The mustiness once again entered the air she breathed, and she found she could move her legs. Dull pain shot through them as she slowly rose to her hooves, reminding her of her terrified flight down the hallway.

But the regaining of her senses was only a half-victory. Once again she was susceptible to the horrors wrought by the ghost, who no doubt had freed her from her deathly state for his own twisted purposes. She looked ahead at the long sliver of light in the darkness. It had lost its appeal as a savior, becoming a portal to a place where she would continue to be frightened by the mansion’s otherworldly master. Trixie felt a seething anger flare up inside of her, its flames tempered by bitter despair. The ghost was prodding her forward again, presenting her with a choice of either remaining in her current horror or rushing into a new one.

Trixie quietly crept towards the open door, fearing that it might pull shut the moment she grasped its handle. But it remained still as she telepathically gripped the brass knob. The aurora of her magic blinded her; it was far brighter than the moonlight that poured in from the sliver of the doorway. She waited to grow accustomed to it before gently pulling the door open. Her tired muscles stiffened up as she apprehensively awaited to see what lay ahead.

She found herself looking into a short hallway, with the silvery hue of the moon pouring in through a small, broken window on the right-hand side. There were two other doors. One was set into the cracked plaster wall to her left, the other lay on the other end of the hall. Trixie stood still for a moment, collecting her wits. The window’s glass had been smashed out, leaving it to look like a square mouth lined with jagged, uneven teeth. Though it led directly to the outside, it was far too small for her to crawl out of. With that option gone, Trixie turned her attention to the door at the end of the hall.

She took a step on the moldering carpet that adorned the sagging floor. Once it had been a vivid red, but had faded to the dark, ugly black of dried blood. The unicorn hurriedly scuttled across the hall, her hooves squelching on the damp carpet. Icy autumn air had poured into the hall from the window, chilling Trixie as she passed it by. She soon came to the door, and grabbed its rusted knob with her magic. She had barely turned it an inch before it jarred to a halt. Locked. Trixie grimaced as she released it from her grasp. Her frown opened to let out a squeal of terror as a loud bang sounded off behind her.

Trixie whirled around to see the door she’d left open closed, plaster dust pouring off of the subsiding wall surrounding its rectangular form. The unicorn broke into a mad dash the way she had come, letting out a miserable moan. She stopped midway, already aware it wouldn’t open again. The mare bowed her head for a moment before turning to look at the third door that lay across from the window. Its placement made the unicorn wonder if it was a closet. But if there was any chance that it was a step closer to escaping, Trixie was going to take it. The unicorn reached out for the handle with her hoof. The burnt-orange rust flaked off as she pulled the door open.

Trixie’s mouth fell open in a silent scream as she saw a black void tunneling into the ground before her. The faint rays of the moon poured in from behind her fear-frozen body to shed light on a warped stairway of rotting planks that led into the earth. A sudden draft of clammy air came rushing from the depths of the lightless pit, bringing along with it a smell of moist soil and stale air that wormed its way into Trixie’s nostrils. Cobwebs fluttered above her head as the draft entered the halls, tearing some of the tangled structures free.

She felt panic overtake her mind once more. The only way out of the hall was to descend down the steep, narrow stairway into the unknown. Trixie’s breath came in short, stiff rasps as she backed away from doorway, too frightened to close it. The tunnel seemed to be beckoning her to her grave; to join the dead as they rotted in the earth beneath her hooves. The torrent pounding of her heart told the mare that she still alive. So did the sweat that poured down her shaky frame.

Trixie let out a whimper as she realized the inevitable. No matter how terrified she was of the hungry tunnel, no matter how much she loathed it, she was going to willingly walk down its steps into the mansion’s very foundation. The unicorn had driven herself further and further into the derelict house, and knew she would keep going until she escaped or died trying. She tried her hardest to not think of what the cost would be. Slowly, almost painfully, she took a step into the dank stairwell.

The ancient wood immediately collapsed beneath her hoof. Trixie didn’t have time to scream as she fell forward through the doorway, turning at odd angles as she tumbled into the darkness below. Through the storm of fiery, unending pain and the sickening cracks of her body crashing against the stairs, Trixie managed to let out a fragmented wail of agony as the door quietly closed behind her.

The Cellar

Trixie fell face forward onto an icy surface, bringing her descent to a jarring halt. The fiery pain that she felt across every inch of her body was met by the freezing slab of stone that she had landed on, but did not provide any relief. Trixie lay unmoving, eyes blazing with agony, her mouth open and trying to regain the breath she had lost. Her body heaved as she inhaled the moist air. It rushed back out in a twisted wheeze across the floor, stirring up dust and dirt into her eyes. The unicorn felt as though the fall had shattered every bone in her body, torn every ligament, wrenched every limb from its socket. Everything felt broken.

Pain turned into panic as she felt something brush against her side. Something small, something covered in oily fur and droplets of moisture. Trixie spat out a cry of disgust as the something slithered along her body towards her head, feeling sharp claws needle into her flesh as it scurried over her foreleg. Terrified, the magician called upon her magic to illuminate her horn. Immediately she found herself looking into the bristly face of a rat, its whiskers twitching as it sniffed the air. The beady black eyes shone like oily marbles in the pale light of her horn. Its orange incisors were exposed in an almost contemptible sneer.

Trixie grimaced miserably, feebly trying to wave a hoof to ward it off. But the little beast was unafraid as her foreleg scraped against the silt-covered stone. The unicorn wanted to smack it right in its hideous face, but couldn’t bring herself to touch it. Thus it remained before her, persistent as ever. Trixie could now see the instinct that lay behind its seemingly thoughtless eyes. It was waiting for her to die, just as a vulture would. A horrific image of herself appeared in Trixie’s pain-ridden mind. She saw a pony’s corpse, palled and damp, staring ahead with lifeless sockets as dozens of rats systematically gnawed their way into its putrefying flesh.

That thought alone was enough to drive the unicorn to scramble upwards. Pain shot through various points of her body as she climbed to her hooves, but she couldn’t tell exactly where. It all seemed to be a jumbled mess now. The physical pain of her injuries, the emotional and psychological pain of the whole experience. They were all part of the dagger being driven again and again in to her heart. The ghost was trying to break her, and it wasn’t going to stop.

The unicorn watched as the rat turned and fled into the darkness ahead, letting out a faint squeak that became muffled as it disappeared into a wall. Trixie tilted unsteadily, her legs feeling limp and useless. She looked around at her surroundings, and found herself standing in a dark corridor made of cold, unfeeling stone held together by damp mortar. Bits of the sealant had fallen along the corners where the wall met the floor, forming two trails of powdery dust that was slowly integrating with the soil that arose from the cracks in stone. Trixie could hear the rats traveling behind the walls in the utter silence. She heard them hissing and squeaking, disturbed by her presence.

The magician started limping down the hall, hearing the vermin draw deeper into the foundation as she passed by. Her hoof beats echoed in the clammy darkness, supplementing the dull roar of blood as it rushed in her ears. Trixie tried not to think about what might lay down in the tomb-like squalor of the manor, but it was inevitable. Thoughts of secret crypts and grisly torture chambers sprouted from the seeds of fear that had been sown in her imagination.

Eventually she came to a heavy oak door on her right. There was a handle in the form of a rusted ring folded against the thick planks, buried in a gauze-like layer of cobwebs. Trixie quietly grasped the handle with her magic. She winced as a big, black spider scurried from the webs as the ring rose up. Its legs beat silently against the door as it fled into a crack in the wood. Trixie ignored it and pulled the door open. The hinges groaned loudly under the weight of the door, moving for the first time in ages. The light from Trixie’s horn reflected off of a damp, cobblestone floor as she poked her head inside, the rocks shining a variety of browns and grays. They helped her illuminate the room in a faint magenta glow. The mare slowly stepped into the room, stumbling as floor dropped unexpectedly.

Warped shelves and cracked barrels cast shadows against the ceiling and walls. There were racks on the shelves holding dark wine bottles, their green-black surfaces filmed and paled by dust. Yellowed, crinkled labels hung half-peeled from them, the ink blurred and no longer readable. Some still held a decayed liquid held in by a cork sealed with moldered wax, but most were dry and filled with webs and debris. As Trixie journeyed into the room, she saw piles of broken glass near the shelves, concentrated around dark patches where the wine had stained the floor.

The magician tenderly stepped around the sharp, knife-like shards as she spotted a door on the other side of the room. She twitched as she was hit with the strong, tart scent of ruined wine, and did her best to get through it. She brushed against an ancient barrel as she painfully stretched a leg over a broken crock, glancing down at its jagged edges fearfully. Once on the other side, she turned to face the door, which looked nearly identical to the one she’d entered the wine cellar through. She breathed a sigh of relief as she noticed the lack of cobwebs surrounding the handle. The unicorn opened the door, which opened with a similar moan as the first one had.

The next room was larger than the last, but not by much. Their was a faint smell of rot in the air, as if something had decayed long ago and only traces remained. Trixie’s nose wrinkled in disgust as she quickly saw the source. The walls were lined with shelves bearing glass jars made opaque by brown filth dried on the inside. Trixie ventured forth into the room, carefully keeping an eye on the floor for glass, but at the same time gazing at the jars. The light showed that the lids had rusted out, allowing bacteria to fester inside and eat away the contents. The bottoms of the jars now only held indistinguishable remains mixed with rust and the droppings of scavenging mice.

There was an opening in wall at the end of the hall-like room, which at first Trixie thought was a cabinet with the door missing. It was only when she trotted up to it that she saw that it wasn’t. It was deeper in the wall, its square edges lined with rusted sheet metal. There was a pulley built into the wooden bottom, with a tattered rope threaded through it. It suddenly dawned on Trixie what it was. Very cautiously she peeked into the cabinet, twisting her head to look upwards. The rope went up a long shaft for a great distance before into darkness. She quickly drew back and looked at it the bottom. It was a dumbwaiter. The magician looked back at the rancid jars and wondered if it had once been used to carry food up to a kitchen.

Her thoughts were broken by a loud slam, followed by a series of rattles and ear-splitting crashes that made her grit her teeth. Trixie turned around to see that the door had slammed shut. The repercussion had made a great many of the countless jars fall from their shelves and smash into bits against the stone floor. The wickedly sharp shards reflected Trixie’s light back at her, making the floor look as though it was covered in stained crystals.

Trixie looked around the room, a dark realization appearing in her eyes. There were no other doors. The ghost had sealed off her only exit, completely trapping her in the cellar. The mare’s head jerked from side to side as she looked about the walls for a door that wasn’t there, her heart racing. There was nothing behind the shelves. Only stone and mortar. No wood, no metal, no opening of any kind. She only noticed she was hyperventilating when she began to cough. Her tired lungs contracted violently inside of her bruised ribcage, unable to process the heavy amounts of mold and dust that hung in the damp air.

Overcome with panic, the mare rushed forward to the door, kicking out the glass beneath her as she ran. Once or twice she felt it nick at her hooves, but the sensation was lost in her fear. Trixie reared up on her hind-legs as she reached the door, slamming her hooves against it. Dirt and mortar rained down on her head as the pounded on the planks, her eyes watering from dust and despair. Her tired, injured muscles didn’t even budge it. The doorway may as well have been sealed up with bricks.

At last the unicorn realized the futility and turned away, letting her body fall against the floor in a defeated heap. Trixie glanced over at the broken glass. There was no doubt it was sharp enough to slit an artery and end her life. But even with no hope left, she bitterly realized she was too much of a coward to kill herself. Fear of death would make her fight to her last, painful breath, and even with its promise of ending the agony she would be terrified of its embrace. What now awaited her was an end so cruel and humiliating that she wondered if the ghost had planned it out. She would starve to death in a cellar. She would die emaciated, ugly, and alone.

As she looked out over what was to become her tomb, Trixie saw something that appealed to her instinct to survive. The dumbwaiter, a little black hole in the wall. The immense misery that was crushing her prevented her from smiling, but there was a spark of joy in her heart. The spark was enough to draw her from the ground and stare at the dumbwaiter. It was ancient. The pulley was rusted and stiff, and the rope had been gnawed on by rats. There was little chance Trixie’s idea would work.

But it was all she had.