The Haunting of Elm House

A pony’s internal clock can be a powerful thing. As always when she was away from home, Apple Bloom still got up before the sunrise. She stretched outand slid out fo bed, reaching out and pulling back the moth-eaten curtains to allow twilight into the room.

She walked around the bed and nudged Scootaloo awake.

“Not now, Apple Bloom” Scootaloo said, waving her away and hugging her toy. After so many sleepovers, she had come to recognize Apple Bloom’s “it’s morning, ya goof” poke instantly.

“Yes now,” Apple Bloom replied, grabbing the blanket in her mouth and yanking it off of her friend.

Scootaloo grumbled about the cold while Apple Bloom went over to wake up Sweetie Belle.

“Come on girls,” she said, “We have to get ready for school.”

“That’s why we don’t do sleepovers on school nights,” Sweetie Belle reminded her, yawning and rubbing her head.

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah… no, not really.” She rubbed her temples with her hooves. “But don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“I hope so,” Apple Bloom said, “Now let’s pack it up.”

Morning or not, it was still too dark in the house to walk around without a flashlight. Apple Bloom took the lead, the stairs still groaning under her hooves as she walked over them, and swiftly out the front door.

The sun was just starting to peak over the horizon. Hoping nopony was watching, they scurried down the path until they were on the sidewalk beneath the house.

Looking back up at it in the morning light, the house seemed to have a whole new appearance.

“We did it,” Apple Bloom said.

“We did,” Scootaloo agreed, smirking, “And you know what that means?”

“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle cried, “Now we don’t have to worry about Diamond Tiara for the whole rest of the year!”

“Come on!” Scootaloo said, “Let’s go. I want to see the look on their faces. So much for their haunted house.”

They all laughed. Apple Bloom added, “So that makes us the...”

“Cutie Mark Crusader Haunted House Heroes?”

“Cutie Mark Crusader Haunted House Homewreckers?”

“No... not quite.”

“Debunkers?” Sweetie Belle suggested.

“What does that mean?”

“I think it means to prove something wrong. Like the idea of a haunted house.”

“That works.”

“Yeah.”

The three put their hooves together and gave out a cheer: “Cutie Mark Crusader Haunted House Debunkers!”

“Did you do it?”

“What was it like?”

“Did you see any ghosts?!”

“How many were there?!”

“Did you get in trouble?”

The three had barely set hoof into the schoolyard when they were set upon by their fellow classmates. Scootaloo was more than willing to answer.

“Oh yeah, we got there and there were, like, a hundred ghosts. They all tried to run at the sight of me, but they just weren't fast enough to get away from the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” She struck a heroic pose to emphasize her heroics.

“What about you Apple Bloom? Did you see anything?”

“It's just an old house. I told y'all there's no such thing as ghosts. Right, Sweetie Belle? Sweetie Belle?”

The filly in question was cowering behind Apple Bloom, holding her head in between her hooves and looking like she was about to have a fit.

“What's wrong with her?”

“Is she okay?”

“Sweetie Belle?”

“She looks sick.”

Rumble, who was standing closer than the rest of the foals, stomped his hooves against the ground and cried out, “Alright, everypony! Give her some space to breath.”

The other students obeyed. Apple Bloom glanced Diamond Tiara through the crowd, looking none too pleased at the attention the three of them were getting.

“Are you okay, Sweetie Belle?” Rumble asked, trying to step closer to her. She just pushed him away, not even trying to respond.

Turning to the other two, he asked, “What happened to her?”

“Her headache started last night,” Apple Bloom explained.

“It couldn't be the house,” Scootaloo said, “That would just be silly.”

“Yeah,” Rumble said, “I guess we'll just have to wait and see if she gets better.” He looked back at her, biting his lip. Then he asked suddenly, “So then Diamond Tiara is going to stop bullying us now, right?”

“Hey, yeah,” Scootaloo said, her expression brightening, “That's right! We'll never have to put up with them again!”

“Ha!”

Diamond Tiara was standing there with Silver Spoon. She had a triumphant smirk on her face. “You didn't really think that we were going to leave you blank flanks alone just because you spent the night in a creepy house. Dear Celestia, you are so gullible!”

“Why you...” Scootaloo couldn't even form the words. Apple Bloom had to plant herself in front of Scootaloo to prevent her from charging forward.

“Yer a dirty liar, Diamond Tiara.”

The bully just rolled her eyes and retorted, “Like I really have to try to impress the likes of you three –”

“Shut. Up!”

Everypony turned to look at Sweetie Belle, who was stepping forward. Her eyes were lit up bright with magic. She approached with her horn down like she wanted to charge them.

She stopped right in front of Diamond Tiara. The bully looked like a filly staring into the mouth of Tartarus.

“We. Don't! CARE!”

In the silence that followed, a pony could have heard a gnat sneeze.

When the bell finally rang, everypony filed into the schoolhouse slowly. Not a word was spoken.

“My, you children are quiet today,” Cheerilee observed.

“Apple Bloom!”

Apple Bloom jerked awake. The other children were laughing, and Cheerilee was giving her a stern look.

“Sorry, Miss Cheerilee.”

“Apple Bloom, you're normally so good at paying attention. Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing, Miss Cheerilee.”

“Then don't let it happen again.”

“I won’t,” she muttered, rubbing her eyes. A quick glance beside her showed that Scootaloo had her head propped up on her hooves. Her own eyes were red with fatigue and she wasn't paying the least bit of attention.

“Bad dreams?” Apple Bloom asked. Scootaloo just nodded, not even turning to look at her.

The bell rang for recess, and the class shuffled out. Everypony had forgotten the incident from this morning and were chatting happily with each other. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were the only exception. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo silently followed Sweetie Belle outside to sit on the porch and rest.

Scootaloo spoke first: “I guess this was all for nothing.”

“It sure looks that way,” Apple Bloom said, watching Diamond Tiara ordering around a smaller child. She didn’t have the energy left to get up and stumble over there.

“Why do we even listen to them?” Scootaloo asked.

“I don’t know. Fer some reason I thought they had a sense of honesty. I should have known better.”

“My tummy hurts.”

It was the first thing Sweetie Belle had said.

“We’re all tired,” Scootaloo told her, “How’s your head?”

“Better.”

“I can’t wait to get back to my own bed,” Apple Bloom droned.

“We need to go back.”

The other two just stared at Sweetie Belle, disbelieving.

She explained, “There's something wrong with that house. I know you all felt it too. We can't just leave it without knowing what.”

“That's ridiculous. We can't go back!”

“We have to!” She stamped her hoof once. “I don't know if it's ghosts or what, but there must be a reason everypony is so scared of it.”

“Well what can the three of us do?” Apple Bloom demanded.

Sweetie Belle winced and grabbed at her stomach before answering. “We can find out what it is. At least identify it so that somepony can know what's going on in there. Come on, we're the only ones brave enough to do it. What do you say?”

“I dunno...”

“It sounds dangerous.”

“Girls, we need to do this.”

There was a grim air about her that they'd never felt before. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom exchanged worried looks.

“Alright,” Apple Bloom said, “We can check it out one more time, I guess. This weekend, if our elders let us sleep over again. But if we don’t find anything the we’re leaving this all behind us and forgetting about it.”

Sweetie Belle nodded, but it looked like she was only half-paying attention. Something was swirling around in her head.

Apple Bloom sighed and exchanged glances with Scootaloo. At least they had a few days to try to talk Sweetie Belle out of it.

At any moment Applejack could come through her door and see the stuff she had lying out to put in her bag, and wonder what she was doing taking her own pillow, food, and their gas lantern to Sweetie Belle’s house.

The apple fritters were cold now, but she still wrapped them up in one of Granny Smith's cloth napkins anyway so they wouldn't break and spill over everything. They went in on top of the blanket and pillow that would go to whichever one of them slept on the couch that night.

“They'll know we're gonna be sleeping in the same room again, right?” she briefly wondered. Sweetie Belle had said that it felt safe in there, but Apple Bloom tried to ignore that memory. The house was as safe as any other. The only things messing with them were their own tired minds.

But it probably didn't help that none of them knew what had actually happened to the ponies living there.

Apple Bloom set down the little first aid kit she was holding and thought about it. She’d tried brining the subject up to Granny Smith, and then Big Mac, but their responses had been vague and wary, ending with a stern warning about poking her head where it didn’t belong.

If only she could convince Sweetie Belle of that.

Her sister called up for her. “Apple Bloom! Ya need to finish yer chores!”

Apple Bloom scurried to the sound of her older sibling's voice. Sneaking into an abandoned house in the middle of the night was one thing, but she'd get into a lot of trouble for not doing her chores.

“Hurry up, Apple Bloom,” Applejack told her as she made it to the ground floor, “Ya can't leave until yer all done.”

“I know, I know,” Apple Bloom replied, heading for the front door. But as she reached up to grab the handle, she stopped.

Applejack’s answer would probably be the exact same as everypone’s else’s, but it was worth a try. All she was really looking for anyway was some reassurance that there was nothing to worry about.

“Sis,” she said, “What happened to the Elm family? Because I know they were one of the first rich families in Ponyville, but nopony I asked seems to know…”

Applejack was awfully silent.

“Sis?” Apple Bloom asked, turning around.

Applejack's face was as white as a sheet. She wet her lips once and said, “Apple Bloom, I told ya not to be thinking about places like that.”

Apple Bloom's ears drooped. She had to come up with something fast. “I don't,” she lied, “It's just... I heard some kids talking about it today and I was curious –”

“Ain't nothing to be curious about!” Applejack cried, regaining some of her normal composure. Realizing that she was shouting, she added, “I'm sorry. I don't mean to yell at ya. But those kinds of stories y'all hear about aren't real. There's no such thing as haunted houses, and ghosts don't really exist, remember?”

“I remember” Apple Bloom replied, deciding not to mention that she didn’t say a thing about ghosts or haunted houses.

“Good, good,” Applejack was barely paying attention, “Now, go do yer chores. I need to go sit down.”

Whatever the truth was, Applejack knew it. And it scared her.

Sweetie Belle, what did ya get us into? Apple Bloom wondered.

The sound of Applejack’s voice again startled Apple Bloom.

“Hey, do ya need me to walk you to Sweetie Belle’s?”

“No,” Apple Bloom said. Trying to think of a good reason to turn down her sister’s offer, she quickly blurted out, “Scootaloo is gonna pick me up on her scooter!” and dashed out the front door before another word could be said.

Sweetie Belle grunted and pressed down again on the latch of her saddlebags.

“Come on!” she cried, putting all of her weight on it. She wasn't bringing anything more than she had the night before, but this time she'd simply tossed it in her bags with no regards for organization.

“Finally!” she moaned when it snapped in place. Without bothering to even try her magic, she slid the saddlebags onto her back.
She didn’t understand why everything had to be so difficult lately. At least it wasn’t as bad as a few days ago, when she ended up throwing an entire dresser drawer across the room in anger. It was a good thing her parents hadn’t been home to hear that.

Her parents were in the living room, but she didn't so much as glance at them as she made her way to the front door.

She had her hoof on the knob when her father spoke.

“Sweetie, it's getting awfully late,” he said, “Are you sure that you don't want one of us to walk you over?”

“Yeah honey,” her mother chimed in, “we don't mind coming with you if it makes you feel better.”

Sweetie Belle just took a deep breath to calm her nerves and turned the knob.

“Sweetie?” her father asked again.

“I'm fine, daddy,” she cried back to him, swinging the door open.

“Sweetie-poo,” her mother cooed, walking up to her, “Are you not feeling well? Is something wrong?”

“No, I feel fine,” she insisted.

Why wouldn't they just leave her alone?

“Well, okay dear. But we want you to know that we're here for you if you need help.”

Her only response was the slam of the door behind her.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were waiting for Scootaloo when she arrived. She was running, and in between gasps of breath explained that it was “apparently ‘too late’ for me to be ‘messing around’ on my scooter.”

“Are you girls ready?” Scootaloo asked, once she had caught her breath.

“Yeah, we're ready,” Apple Bloom told her, “Are you feeling okay, Sweetie Belle?”

“Yeah, I am,” Sweetie Belle said, smiling gently, “Just a little... off. Just a headache. I'll be fine.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Scootaloo asked her. Apple Bloom could hear the slightest quaver in her voice.

The sun was already behind the house when they reached it. Now it was nothing more than a silhouette, surrounded by a burning orange glow.

Apple Bloom took a bit of a gulp, remembering her sister's reaction from earlier. A quick glance at Scootaloo showed that she was similarly concerned. Sweetie Belle was wincing in pain.

Not sure that she wanted to know the answer, Apple Bloom asked, “Did... did either of you find out anything new about this house?”

“I… didn't think to ask,” Scootaloo admitted, “You?”

“No, I didn't learn anything. What about you, Sweetie? Sweetie?”

“Hmm?”

“You didn’t answer.”

“Did you ask me something? Oops. Sorry,” she gave off a weak laugh, “Just thinking. Did either of you girls think to ask somepony about why the house is empty?”

“Can we just get this over with?” Scootaloo pleaded.

Apple Bloom nodded and took a deep breath. The house seemed to glare at her through its empty windows. The curtains in the dining room window swayed back and forth as if touched by some invisible hoof.

Cutie Mark Crusaders Haunted House Debunkers, she reminded herself, starting down the path to the porch. Her friends fell in line after her.

What did Sweetie Belle think they were going to find in there?

Apple Bloom stopped at the porch steps. Now that they were closer, she could see the difference in the house that had been unnoticeable from farther away.

The front door was ajar.

“Apple Bloom?” Scootaloo asked, her voice trembling.

“We must have left it open a crack when we left,” Apple Bloom rationalized. The thought offered no comfort.

Sweetie Belle brushed past her and ascended the steps without hesitation. Before their eyes, she slid up to the door and peered inside.

“Sweetie Belle! Don't!” Apple Bloom made to reach for her, but tripped over the first step and landed face-first against the splintering wood.

When she looked up, Sweetie Belle had swung the door open wide to expose the black gaping maw of the doorway.

Somewhere in that darkness, Apple Bloom knew, there was something that Sweetie Belle wanted to uncover.

“Are you okay?” Scootaloo asked, helping Apple Bloom up.

“Yeah, thanks,” she replied.

“Girls!” Sweetie Belle whined through the flashlight already in her mouth, “Hurry up!”

Scootaloo gave her a dark glance but said nothing. Apple Bloom saw the impatience in Sweetie Belle's eyes and moaned with worry.

With their flashlights out, the three walked into the house once again. Sweetie Belle closed the door behind them.