There was a foal named Apple Bloom, who lived in a small farmhouse on the outskirts of Ponyville. She lived with her granny, her big sister, and her big brother – yet it was Granny who made her feel safest. It was Granny who had taught her to stand tall when the storms were howling, and to hum a happy tune to herself in the dark.
One night, Apple Bloom awoke drenched in the cold silence of the witching hour. She blinked. Was it the blizzard that had roused her, the fat snowflakes tat-a-pat-patting against the window? Was it the cool fingers of Lady Winter stroking her face and mane? No, she decided. Neither had the power to wake her, for she had slept through chillier, snowier nights than this.
Maybe it was the young mare beaming at the end of the bed.
Perhaps it was the mare’s gaze that had disturbed her.
She was very beautiful, thought Apple Bloom. Her coat reminded her of green apples picked fresh from the orchard. The mare’s ponytail rested on her shoulders like a smile, and the grin on her face was one for playing games on a July afternoon. She had no cutie mark – though if she had, Apple Bloom knew that it would have been of a steaming apple pie.
“Granny!” said Apple Bloom. “You look… different.”
“Oh hold yer horseshoes,” said Granny, voice as youthful as her looks. “I look as lovely as I ever did.”
Granny trotted to Apple Bloom’s side then kissed her upon the forehead, whispering, “You li’l princess, you.” And on a normal night, a bedtime kiss would have been followed by a story, and they were the best stories. Ballads of princesses rescuing princes from flesh-burning dragons. Tales of the old days of Ponyville, when the timber wolves had stalked through the streets at night, sniffing for plump juicy foals to devour in their sleep (“You had to mind not to be a greedy li’l filly back then,” Granny would say, “or else, BAM! No more foal. No more bed neither, depending on how hungry the wolves were.”)
There was no story that night. Apple Bloom wanted desperately to ask for one, yet couldn’t work up the nerve, not when filled with questions upon questions upon questions – so many so that she worried she would burst. “Wh-why d’you look different?” she said. “What’s happening?”
“Never you mind why I look different. But what do you want to happen? This here is your night, after all. It ain’t mine no more.”
What a peculiar thing to say, thought Apple Bloom. Regardless, she buried her questions in a disused corner of her mind, then said, “I’m wide awake now, so I wanna play in the snow! But it’s waaay past bedtime. Applejack’ll never allow it.”
“Aw shucks to Applejack,” said Granny, earning a giggle from Apple Bloom. Then Granny took away the bedsheet from her, hung it between two pictures on the wall—
Like a magician, she whipped it down, and where there had been a plain wooden wall there was now a doorway, a most glorious and magnificent doorway. Both the door and its frame were made from solid ice and decorated with patterns of stars. It glistened! And when Granny pushed it open, a staircase of ice led from the bedroom down to the garden, with thin banisters and steps twinkling in the lamplight. Apple Bloom had never dreamed the likes of it, and knew that she would never see the likes of it ever again.
“Well?” said Granny. “D’you like it?”
“I love it,” Apple Bloom whispered, though she bit her lip.
Why was Granny doing this? Why was she young again? Why was she acting so peculiar instead of making her feel warm and loved on this most freezing of nights? It was all Apple Bloom wanted, all she needed from Granny: needed it as living beings need air to breathe and hearts, natural or otherwise, to pump blood throughout one’s body. It was more than a yearning, more powerful than a Want-It-Need-It Spell, more wholesome, more pure: she loved her granny. She loved her with the strength of planets caught in the gravity of their sunshine mother.
Yet…
In her bones, Apple Bloom already knew the answers to her questions, though she wished that she didn’t. They made her want to hold Granny, hold her tight and never let go, never in a billion years.
Granny frowned. “You alright there, li’l princess?” she said. “Did I do somethin’ wrong?”
You darn well did, Apple Bloom thought. I want the old Granny back; I want you to look old, and then never leave me. Never, never, never!
Out loud she said, “N-nothing’s wrong. I’m just chilly, is all.”
“Then after you,” Granny said, gesturing to the open doorway, and to the promise of adventure waiting beyond.
Apple Bloom nodded, and
skip
trot
hop
down the stairwell she went, into the loving embrace of a midwinter snowfall. She was determined to smile away her worries and enjoy herself with Granny.
She’s doin’ this for you, she warned herself, she’s made herself young for you. So behave! Keep yer feelin’s to yourself and don’t upset her.
Snowflakes fell like motes of stardust, illuminated by the light from the bedroom window; and in the gentle glow, the two ponies threw snowballs at one another, ran about, slipped about, skidded, skated, laughed! For the first time, Apple Bloom thanked the stars that Granny was young again, because never had she played in the snow with her before. She had never played much at all with Granny, for the old mare’s joints were forever aching, and most days found her forever sleeping.
Tonight, Apple Bloom was the one who was out of breath.
“What next?” asked Granny as the red-cheeked filly flopped down at the foot of the ice-stairs. Apple Bloom wondered to herself.
What was next?
What was next?
She closed her eyelids and thought and mused and pondered, and after many snow-soaked minutes, after long ice-chilled seconds, the answer came to her. What they needed was something even more magical than snow, and what, she asked, was more magical than starlight? Why, they could sew their own star into the night sky, just the pair of them! Well and truly, she knew that would make Granny happy.
“We need to get to the sky,” said Apple Bloom, quite, quite calmly, “and we’re gonna sew a star up there. We don’t have wings, mind. Might be a problem.”
Granny snorted. “What kinda talk is that? Apples are resourceful, so use your head there!” Then she hurried inside to retrieve a saddlebag, a candle, and a sewing kit, and on her return she tumbled into a drift and made a snow angel. Apple Bloom joined her. Sure enough, as real as a pinch on your arm or a graze on your knee, when they stood back up, each of them had gained a pair of gorgeous white snow wings.
“Now FLY!” called Granny.
“Fly, fly, fly all the way high.
Take heart, take wing!
Into the sky.
Please soar, please sing!
Into the sky.
Take wing and sing, sing, sing!”
Granny spread her wings and took off, Apple Bloom flying close behind. Gales tossed her up and down and forward and back. Snowflakes clawed at her face, while half-formed hailstones were the fangs of the storm, biting at her legs, her hooves, her face. After a while, the blizzard was so thick that when she looked down, her house was a yellow star in the blackness: the light of her bedroom window.
Love for Granny beat inside of her. Love made her wings as much a part of her as her heart and her bones; but within Apple Bloom’s chest writhed a mighty scream, bulging in her lungs, forcing tears from her eyes. The wings were fusing with her muscles. They were growing directly into her tiny body, transforming her into something other than Apple Bloom…
But Granny flew beside her and the pain died. Everything was alright again.
It didn’t matter that the wind had teeth and claws.
It didn’t matter that snowflakes hurt her eyes.
It didn’t matter that her wings ached, for she and Granny played tag as they soared through the blizzard and then above the storm clouds. There, it was silent but for a million stars twinkling like the angels of the night, singing a handsome tune conducted by the moon; the moon Herself shone over a kingdom of fluffy silver mountains. Apple Bloom sighed wonderfully. In that place, it was hard, so beautifully hard to fret about how old or young Granny was.
Granny took her by the hooves. “May I have this dance?” she asked.
“Sure can!” Apple Bloom said, then granny and granddaughter danced in the midnight blue, waltzed to the singing of starlight, and jived to the song of the moon!
Halfway between the clouds and the moon, Granny stopped.
“Pass me that there sewing kit,” she said, keeping her wingbeat steady and glancing at the saddlebag upon her back. “And hold out the candle, would ya? Hold it in the moonlight.”
From the bag, Apple Bloom fished out a needle along with a spool of golden thread, before grabbing the candle and holding it out. Carefully, oh so carefully, Granny drew the thread through the eye of the needle, then pushed the needle through the wax. She did it again and again, and again and again and again, stitching, crossing, until the outside of the candle stick was decorated with thread woven into gorgeous patterns, elegant twirls, sumptuous swirls.
With hooves that spoke of a lifetime of skill, yet with the keen eyes of a young mare, Granny sewed the candle into the night sky. Quite what she sewed it into, Apple Bloom wasn’t sure – notches and crevices invisible to the filly but obvious to the old-mare-turned-young – and every time she pushed the needle into the material of the night, stardust bled from who-knew-where, and from who-knew-what.
Granny sang as she worked.
“Stitch stitch stitch,
Cross cross criss,
Knit knit knit,
Cross cross bliss.
“Stitch a little candle,
Sew it in the night.
Knit a little star,
Add a little light.
“Stitch stitch stitch,
Knit knit night.
Sew a little star,
Stitch a little light.”
Granny bit the thread in two and hovered back to admire her hoofwork. The candle was sewn into the night. It hung there, suspended in a web of gold, and Apple Bloom gaped at it with watering eyes – though her tears were less because it was the most wondrous sight she had ever seen, and more that Granny was the one responsible for it. Her granny. Her granny, her dear, beloved granny.
“Poke around in my bag again,” Granny said. “There should be a match, and you’ve gotta be the one to light this here candle of ours.”
Apple Bloom tilted her head. “Why not you?”
“ ’Cause flames is youth, and flames is life! You get my meanin’, li’l princess?”
She didn’t. But before she could rummage around for the match, a shadow fell over the face of the moon, the shadows of further clouds drifting upon the very edge of the sky. It grew darker. Colder. The cold reached deep inside of Apple Bloom, coating her bones with skins of frost, encasing her heart within a box of ice – never had she known such a dreadful freeze! She had never known that joy could darken so quickly into fear, and to the marrow of her bones, she sensed that they were no longer welcome in the night sky. “Granny,” she whispered. “I don’t like this, I don’t like it at all. Let’s go home.”
Yet one glance into Granny’s eyes, and Apple Bloom knew how important it was that she light the candle: it was more important than anything else in the world, more crucial than fear, more essential than life. Granny had never looked at her that way before, had never looked at her with endless hope and boundless love in her eyes, but with the dark sparkle of quiet desperation.
She was pleading.
More than that: she was making a promise without words. I ain’t gonna let anythin’ bad happen to you, she said with her eyes. Nothin’ will hurt you up her, ’cause I love you.
And Apple Bloom believed her. She believed her granny.
“Love ya,” the filly whispered, and she meant it with all her soul and body, and with her whole entire being. A second later, she retrieved the match and lit the candle, and its little yellow light shone in the night. The two ponies smiled at it, basking in its small warmth.
Far, far below, the shadows of dark spirits swam over the frozen clouds. High, high above, the creeping arms of icy creatures reached down to snatch them – creatures which, by day, lived inside of the moon, but at night sneaked down into the sky to spy on young foals and dream of eating them. Despite the cold, Apple Bloom felt them, she felt them, felt their endless malice and hunger never-ending. “I wanna go home, let’s go, let’s go!” she said, frantic. “Please, oh please, oh please!”
“Shush, filly,” Granny said, holding Apple Bloom to her chest, and her love was stronger than the darkness. “I won’t let nothin’ harm a hair on your body, and that there’s a promise.”
True to her word, just as the creature’s dreadful hands stroked the tips of their tails, Granny held Apple Bloom ever closer and zoomed through the air—
Shot through the clouds—
Blew through the blizzard—
Flew through the farmhouse door, which opened by itself—
Then she sat them both in front of the fireplace in the living room, in the cold, in the gloom. Apple Bloom fancied that over the wailing of the storm, she could hear the cries of those dreadful monsters deprived of their favourite snack – but they were creatures of air and moonlight, and so didn’t dare step foot upon the ground. She was safe.
The blizzard fell like a mountain, so heavy that the snow reached halfway up the windows, making a dark night seem darker still.
“What next?” asked Granny.
The answer was simple. It had been building inside of Apple Bloom all night long, and after escaping the creatures in the sky, the words were a lot easier to say – though she was careful not to look Granny in the eyes. “I… I want you to be old again,” Apple Bloom said in the tiniest voice in the world. “I want you to be you again.”
A pause.
Then Granny said, “It’s mighty chilly in here. I’ll put the fire on, shall I?”
Apple Bloom’s ears perked up, for Granny’s voice… it was different, more familiar, the voice that had cradled her through a thousand lonely nights. When the fire flared into life, Granny was old again! Old with wrinkles, hunched with age, and with shaking knees and the greatest smile. And yellow heat washed over the floorboards, the tatty couch, the hand-me-down cabinets, the heirlooms, the photographs. The fire made the shadows deepen. Their wings melted, yet Apple Bloom didn’t care, didn’t care at all, not with Granny back to normal and with her heart overflowing with love.
She threw her hooves around Granny, bawled, sobbed, “I don’t care if you’re old, don’t change again, don’t you dare! I love you just the way you are. I love you. I love you.”
She hugged Granny tighter and buried her face against her body – her warm solid body. There, right there! Was that the beating of Granny’s heart in her ears? Was that the gurgle of her stomach? Perhaps Apple Bloom merely imagining these sounds. So used was she to the feel of Granny that she couldn’t not hear her heartbeat, couldn’t not feel her warmth.
Apple Bloom added, “You’re not going to be here when I wake up, are you?”
It was hard to miss the shiver in Granny’s voice. “No, I won’t… in fact I won’t be seeing you for a while now, I hope… but what next, li’l princess? What would make this night real special? Just you name it, and it’s yours.”
Apple Bloom thought of all the marvellous things she had ever wished for, and which she was sure that Granny would be able to grant her, tonight, on this most peculiar of nights. Yet after a while, she realised there was only one thing she wanted. “You’ve given me a bedtime kiss. You haven’t told a story yet.”
The floorboards creaked. The cold sneaked in around the edges of the fireplace, and Apple Bloom thought of mice trembling in the walls of the house, chilly without fires of their own…
Granny began in earnest.
“There was once a mare,” she said, “who lived in a farmhouse with her granddaughters and grandsons. She loved them all very much.”
“What were their names?”
“Never you mind!” snapped Granny, though with a grin in her voice and a ruffle of Apple Bloom’s mane. “They were Plod Pony and Plough Girl. Fine names for fine grandfoals.”
“Weren’t there three of them?”
“And there was one called Question Filly. That there’s three names for three ponies, plus the mare too – though she didn’t have a name. Anyways, like I was sayin’.”
Now the night drew in around them like a blanket, and Apple Bloom fell into the tapestry of Granny’s words. “The mare loved her grandfoals very, very, very much,” Granny said. “But time weighed heavy on her heart. Li’l tasks became big. Short naps became long. In her dreams flowed a river born in faraway mountains, running through wide forests and ‘cross vast fields where the grass never died, and where the sun and the moon danced together in the sky, never setting. It was no ordinary river: it could speak, and so it called to the mare in her dreams.”
Apple Bloom saw the mare in the fireplace. She saw those mountains, saw those forests and fields. When she squinted her tired eyes she spied them amongst the flames, and the mare’s longing for adventure became her own.
Granny’s voice dropped. “Now one night,” she said, “the call of that blessed land grew so strong that the mare couldn’t rightly ignore it no more. So she slipped out of dreams, she fell out of waking, and she answered the river. Yet she didn’t leave right away. First, she said goodbye to her grandfoals each in their own special way, and only then did she leave to join the long march, the last march, the longest journey of ’em all. But even after she joined all them souls wanderin’ down the riverbank, always in her heart, she remembered home. In the nights that followed, all her family need do was to look to the candle in the sky: lit with love, burning with love. Whenever those precious, precious foals looked up into the night, Granny was home again. She was home with ’em, ’cause she loved ’em, she loved ’em so.”
The blizzard rattled the windows but the fire kept flooding the room with fierce orange warmth. Apple Bloom smiled. Listening to the story was the safest she had felt all night long, and she closed her eyes on Granny’s lap.
Then Granny faded, and Apple Bloom was alone. She sniffled – she was cold. But then she thought of the candle in the sky, lit with love, burning with love, and she refused to shiver…
She stood tall in the howling storm.
She hummed a happy tune in the dark.
