“I still think this was a bad idea, girls.”
Sweetie Belle paused on the sunlight-dappled stairs and listened to the sound of her friends bickering down below. A smile parted her lips.
“Huh, you ain’t scared are ya?” Apple Bloom’s cheerful drawl was mocking.
A snort echoed loudly off damp-ridden, mouldy walls. “'Course I’m not,” Scootaloo replied. “But come on, who’s ever heard of a ghost that haunts during the day? It’s stupid.”
“Well that’s what the rumour says, ain’t it? 'Sides, it’s not like we were gonna be able to come here in the middle of the night. Your mom buried that seed in sand before it even had a chance to grow.”
The two fillies trotted into sight on the landing below, the wooden boards creaking uneasily beneath them like the floor of a good haunted house should. Reassured by the time of day, because there wasn’t a ghost alive—well, dead—that could get you when the sun was out, Sweetie Belle beamed confidently down at her friends.
“So we might not get our cutie marks in ghostbusting, but you got to admit this has been fun.”
Apple Bloom grinned back, but Scootaloo merely rolled her eyes as she wrestled her scooter up the remaining steps.
“It would have been a whole lot more fun if Old Mare Winter’s Cry had built her attic on the ground floor.”
Old Mare Winter’s Cry,
Let me see your evil—
Sweetie Belle felt her conviction suddenly disperse, as though carried away by the draft rippling through the stairwell, and she licked her lips nervously. She knew it was silly, but even though both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom had spoken the rhyme aloud without being eaten, or worse, she just could not bring herself to even think it. There were just too many what-ifs: What if it actually worked when she said it—not now, perhaps, but later, when the moon was out and she was alone in bed with only Mr Mewington-Thomas there to protect her? Or—or what if it worked straight away? Maybe Old Mare Winter’s Cry was the only ghost who actually could appear during the day. Was there really a chance that she could find herself a prisoner in the painting on the old witch’s vase, never to be free again, despite fact that it was still early enough for them to be in Sugarcube Corner, eating one of Pinkie Pie's super-breakfast-muffins?
She swallowed thickly as the dark thought grasped tight and refused to let go, and her skin began to prickle uncomfortably. No more than a second later, however, she became aware of a tweeting that suddenly filled the air like the blossoming of flowers, and as her ears swivelled to focus on the warm sound the oppressive spell broke. It was morning, and the sun was shining. They were perfectly safe.
With the tune of the birdsong on her lips, Sweetie Belle gazed up at the door before them, feeling excitement once again beginning to stir within her. The dark crimson paint was peeling away in curling, mournful streams, revealing dark jagged cracks like warning signs, but it didn’t matter at all. They had done it—they had reached Old Mare Winter’s Cry’s attic.
“You know, this has been pretty creepy at times,” she announced, looking over her shoulder. “But I’ve enjoyed myself. It’s been good to do something that’s, well, me, again.”
Apple Bloom joined her on the landing, a thoughtful frown creasing her face.
“Honestly, I am surprised none of that stuff worked,” she said. “I mean, you looked like a real geek.”
“And you definitely sounded like one,” Scootaloo added. Breathing heavily, she propped her scooter against the wall before pushing the door open. “Come on.”
“Exactly!” Apple Bloom followed her friend through the doorway. “That’s what I meant. She looked the part and sounded the part. Button Mash is just dumb!”
With a roll of her eyes, Sweetie Belle trotted after them and paused to survey the attic beyond. It wasn’t as spooky as she was expecting—or was it? She just couldn’t make up her mind, having had limited experience of haunted houses in which to compare the room to. The piles of furniture under sheets and dust covers was a nice touch, as were the thin layers of dust and Spidertropolis sprawling from one of the corners of the room. Spiderville looked less impressive, but Sweetie Belle reckoned even Spidertropolis had to have started from somewhere.
Despite all of those points in its favour, the tall and steep roof made the attic feel both spacious and surprisingly cosy, and the sunlight streaming through the windows high up amongst the rafters reflected generously off the brightly painted wooden walls. Rarity definitely wouldn’t have approved of the décor, but Sweetie Belle wasn’t Rarity. She did concede that the attic needed a much more accurate word to describe it though. Sposy maybe, or perhaps cooky.
A moment later she realised something else. The air in the room felt strange—more than strange, actually. It was still and expectant, like the times she would hide in wait to surprise somepony on their birthday. A cold shiver rippled through her body as that momentary trepidation returned.
Scootaloo, clearly not sharing that trepidation, trotted boldly about—her hoofsteps sounding unnatural in the strange quiet of the room. A frown had formed on her face as she gazed from wall to wall.
“It’s no good,” she declared at last. “There aren’t any mirrors in here.”
Apple Bloom squinted up at the rafters for a moment before shaking her head. “We don’t need a mirror to summon her, you know. It’s kinda optional.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Scootaloo replied. “I thought closing your eyes and drawing that silly triangle and circle thing was the optional part.” She approached one of the dust covers and gently—or was that hesitantly?—lifted it up. “Come on and help me look. There’s bound to be one in here somewhere.”
“The triangle was for protection,” Apple Bloom clarified as she followed Scootaloo’s lead. “I think. I didn't really understand most of what that book was saying.”
Sweetie Belle slowly trotted over to one of the draped sheets and sighed. Exactly how many different versions of this legend were there anyway? She had felt excited when they had first crept into the old mansion, but since finding the attic the sensation had disappeared; replaced by—well, she didn’t really know what by really. A little bit of fear, sure, but something else too. Something that was really getting under her skin and making it itch.
Apple Bloom cast a look over in her direction and frowned. “Hey, you okay?”
“I would have been bored anyway.”
Sweetie Belle blinked upon realising that the dispirited voice was her own. A little surprised by the outburst, she looked hesitantly at her friend for permission to continue. When Apple Bloom nodded her assent, she dropped to her flanks and sighed. “I mean, I would have, right? Learning how to play video games and understanding those comic books might make me look cool to him, but it doesn’t make me actually enjoy playing and reading them.”
“Yeah, not to mention that Rarity would have totally lost it if you had kept your mane and tail that way for any longer.” Scootaloo snickered as she peered under another dust cover. “Hellooo? Any mirrors under here?”
Sweetie Belle realised she must have been making a face, for Apple Bloom quickly stifled her own giggle and patted her shoulder good-naturedly. “You did kinda look like one of Granny Smith’s pin cushions,” she added, unhelpfully. “Dunno why colts like him think that look’s cool. It’s just funny.”
“Oh, whatever!” Sweetie Belle’s voice cracked, and she stamped a hoof to distract herself from her embarrassment. The floorboard beneath her obviously didn’t approve of the strategy, for it groaned and wobbled, and the young filly leapt backwards with a yelp. “It’s all so stupid, isn’t it?” she continued, scowling at the floor. “We sat and watched all those movies and read all those books, and they all pretty much said that to get someone who’s different to you to like you, you need to change yourself to fit in with them. But why? What’s wrong with just being me? What’s wrong with singing and crusading?”
“Nothing!” Scootaloo snorted in exasperation. “So just be yourself, and ask him out already! It was starting to get a little creepy anyway. Now can we please quit jabbering about boys and sappy stuff? We’ve got a ghost to summon.” The filly lifted up another sheet and sighed. “If there were actually any mirrors in here, that is.”
“Can’t we just try it without?” Apple Bloom suggested. “I mean, it can’t be any worse than that silly ol’ vase idea.”
“Hey!” Sweetie Belle glared at her friend. “I said, that was just what I heard! Anyway, it was a better idea than watching you fill up that sink and hoping she’d appear in the reflection!”
Scootaloo threw her forelegs into the air. “Okay, okay! We’ll try it without a mirror.” She gazed once around the room before taking a deep breath. “COME ON OUT WINTER’S CRY, YOU SCAREDY-GHOST!”
Whether it was the manner in which the silence was shattered or the words that had been used to do it, Sweetie Belle could not say, but the cold shiver that passed like lightening from her hooves to her muzzle almost made her cry out.
“Don’t say it like that!” she squeaked. “You’ll make her angry.”
Apple Bloom unscrunched her eyes and looked quickly about the room. Her expression fell. “Well, at least she’d appear that way. That’s kinda what we want, right?”
Sweetie Belle nodded, hoping her friends couldn’t hear the sound of her heart thumping against her chest. “I... I guess so.”
A wicked smile broke across Scootaloo’s face. “Heh, looks like the legend has already gotten to one of us.”
“Which legend would that be?” Sweetie Belle replied dryly. “There’s so many after all. Anyway, I’m not scared.”
Scootaloo folded her forelegs; her face wore a challenge. “Prove it.”
Apple Bloom smiled encouragingly. “It'll be fine," she added. “Me and Scoots have both said it, and we’re okay.”
Sweetie Belle shuffled her hooves, and wondered why her chest suddenly felt so tight. It was daytime after all, and ghosts simply didn’t come out during the day. They were nocturnal, like badgers.
An image of a badger wearing a sheet with eye-holes materialised inside her mind.
It did not help.
Scootaloo’s laugh shattered her reverie. “Keep an eye on her flanks,” the filly chuckled to Apple Bloom. “Bet you there’ll be a chicken on them before we’re back outside.”
“I’m not scared!” Sweetie Belle chewed her lip, making a mental promise to Old Mare Winter’s Cry that she was scared really—just a smidge—in case the old ghost was listening in and thought she was being mocked. “Fine, I—I’ll do it.”
Her friends fell silent as Sweetie Belle stepped hesitantly into the centre of the room. It didn’t seem possible for the air to grow any more still and expectant, and yet in that moment it did.
It’s daytime, she told herself. Your friends are with you. Everything will be fine. It’s just two dumb old lines.
Acknowledging the rhyme forced another shiver through her body, and it took a moment more for her to convince her mouth to form and spit out the words. Her heart raced. Had this really been her idea? It didn’t seem like one of her ideas.
“Old M—Mare Winter’s Cry, let me s—see your evil eye.”
There was a moment when she thought she could hear whispered laughter. There was another moment when she knew she could hear Scootaloo’s. Nothing else happened though, much to her relief, and she looked triumphantly at her friends.
“You gotta do it louder than that,” Apple Bloom protested with a shake of her head. “I’ve heard that ghosts have really bad hearing on account of living in abandoned places all on their lonesome—or something like that.”
“Ugh, fine!” Sweetie Belle set her jaw and steeled herself inwardly. She could do this—she was a crusader, wasn’t she? Crusaders were strong and brave; crusaders were bold. If Old Mare Winter’s Cry really was waiting to be summoned, then it was going to happen on Sweetie Belle’s terms and hers alone. Glancing up at the silver-streaked windows, she drank in the sunlight before scrunching her eyes shut and drawing the type of deep breath usually reserved for the longest notes.
“OLD MARE WINTER’S CRY, LET ME SEE—”
“RRR, WHAT DO YOU WANT!?”
Sweetie Belle squeaked, forcing her eyes open in time to see a dark figure explode from the space above the rafters and land on the floor amongst them. Glittering ribbons of dust—or was it some kind of creepy ghost mist?—coiled down in pursuit, clinging to the creature like a living cobweb as it turned feral eyes upon them. It looked a bit like a pony. It looked a bit like a bat.
It looked completely like a monster.
The creature hissed, and took a single step towards them; slow and deliberate.
“Didn't you hear me?” Its voice was like autumn as it emphasised every word. “What. Do. You. Want?”
It was so funny, Sweetie Belle reflected. She was absolutely terrified. Her legs weren’t working the way legs were supposed to, and her heart definitely wasn’t working the way a heart was supposed to, but in that moment all she could think of was how much louder Scootaloo and Apple Bloom had shrieked when the creature had appeared. Strangely, it made her feel better. It made her feel strong.
“Y—you aren’t Old Mare Winter’s Cry.” It was neither a question nor statement, and her voice sounded terribly brittle, but at least she wasn’t running away. Not yet. “You’re much too small.”
The creature blinked in surprise, and then frowned. The sinister expression returned. “That’s right, little filly,” it whispered. “I’m her phantom... pet, left here to guard her remains from those foolish enough to come here. And you woke me from my slumber.”
“S—sleep?” Apple Bloom had found her voice, or at least a shaky version of it. She stepped back as the creature turned its gaze upon her. “But… but you’re a ghost ain’tcha? Ghosts aren’t supposed to come out during the day.”
It stomped a hoof angrily on the floor. “C—can too! We're just out more at night, that’s all. We’re usually asleep during the day—”
“Told you,” Scootaloo whispered to Apple Bloom, her teeth chattering against the words.
The creature grinned, revealing a mouth of teeth. Not needle-sharp teeth. Not teeth like daggers or teeth like the sharpest pickaxe. But teeth nevertheless. Teeth that meant it could bite things and eat things.
“—and we get real murderous when silly little ponies wake us up.”
Sweetie Belle decided that this whole dumb enterprise had definitely not been her idea. It had probably been Scootaloo’s, and she had just been dragged along for the ride. Who wanted a cutie mark in ghostbusting anyway? It involved busting ghosts after all, and that involved actually meeting ghosts.
Why hadn’t they realised that before?
“Run!” she squeaked, before repeating the command more loudly. Before the creature could recover from her piercing shriek she was bolting through the door, the sounds of her friends’ hooves right behind her. They thundered noisily down the staircase, and through the puzzle-locked door room and the dining room that had definitely felt safe and sunlit. They galloped through the cobwebbed pantry and the dust-drenched sitting room that had definitely contained no ghosts whatsoever, and out through the front door and into the brilliant, warm sunshine. Even then, with the sounds of the birds in the trees and ponies walking down the street outside, they didn’t stop running, not until they were safely down the overgrown garden path and beyond the rusted iron gates. There was a place for ghosts that defied the laws of the sun and the moon, and that place was as far away as possible.
Apple Bloom slumped to her flanks upon reaching the dirt path, her tiny chest contracting and expanding faster than Sweetie Belle thought was possible. “That was—“
“—a really bad idea,” Sweetie Belle finished, joining her friend on the floor.
Scootaloo looked away for a moment, her own chest slowing in its contractions. When she turned back, a cocky smile had almost successfully fixed itself to her face.
“Hah, what are you fraidy-fillies talking about? That was fun!—I mean, we wanted to see a ghost, right? And we totally could have taken him down if you two hadn't started running. He was only small.”
Apple Bloom scowled at her, before looking her friend up and down. “Hey, what happened to your scooter?”
Scootaloo looked down, and then blanched. “Oh no,” she whinnied in dismay. “I—I must have left it up there.”
Sweetie Belle was attempting to form a sentence that was both sarcastic and consoling when she noticed two colts trotting down the path towards them. Her stomach fluttered instinctively as she leapt to her hooves, and she cursed it under her breath.
“Hi Button Mash!”
The young colt waved a hoof at her. “Hey Sweetie Belle; hey girls.” His gaze drifted between the fillies and the rickety house behind them, and his cheerful expression wavered. “Uh, what are you all doing outside Old Mare Winter’s Cry’s house? You’re not thinking about looking for her evil vase are you?”
Sweetie Belle turned triumphantly to her friends. “I told you that story was true,” she declared. “That’s why we never saw her, and that’s why we got stuck with that… that creature instead!” A shiver passed through her body at the recent memory. She’d never look at badgers wearing sheets in the same light again.
Button Mash blinked. His eyes drifted between the fillies and the house once again.
“You’re kidding right? You actually—” his voice dropped to a whisper “—you actually went in there?”
Sweetie Belle nodded. Her lungs ached and her nerves were shredded, but all of that melted quickly away upon seeing the look of awe on Button Mash’s face. Now this was something she could build on, not silly games and comic books.
“We sure did,” she replied proudly. “We’ve been crusading for our cutie marks in ghostbusting. We saw one you know.”
“Woah, really?” Button Mash exchanged a look with his friend before turning back to Sweetie Belle. His warm eyes found hers and seemed to anchor them in place. “That is so cool.”
Sweetie Belle felt warmth rise in her cheeks, and she glanced quickly at her friends, who gave subtle gestures of encouragement. Turning back to the pair of colts Sweetie Belle attempted to place her eyes anywhere but on Button Mash’s own, fearful that doing so would put her under a spell so deep she wouldn’t be able to give voice to her thoughts.
A spell much worse, and yet so much better, than the ones Old Mare Winter's Cry was supposed to cast.
“Yeah… say, do you want to, um, go for a milkshake or something?” She looked pointedly at his friend and scuffed a hoof across the path. “Just the two of us? I could tell you more about my morning... and you could tell me about yours?”
Button Mash fiddled nervously with his hat, and when he looked back at her Sweetie Belle felt a smile rise to her lips. All those movies and books were completely wrong. You didn’t have to change anything at all — you just needed to be yourself and everything else would work out fine.
“No, that’s okay.” His face looked vaguely apologetic. “I mean, it sounds fun and all, but I kinda don’t want ponies at school getting the wrong idea about us, you know?”
An unintelligible sound escaped Sweetie Belle’s lips. Given voice it might have been a scream, or a sob. It might have been a curse.
It might have been something even worse.
But Sweetie Belle chose not to give it a voice. Instead, she simply turned her muzzle up at the two colts and stomped away down the path. A moment passed awkwardly, before Apple Bloom and Scootaloo climbed their hooves and set off in pursuit.
Inside the dusty old attic, a bat pony peered out the window before nodding in satisfaction. He gazed up at the rafters as he drifted back to the floor and waved a hoof triumphantly.
“And that’s how you scare a pony.”
Laughter echoed down from above, and several more bat ponies emerged from their hiding places to join him. Some were clutching blankets and sleeping bags, whilst others carried snacks and milkshakes.
“That was awesome,” one filly squeaked, ticking something off on a clipboard. “This is the best sleepover-day-in-a-haunted-house ever!”
One of the colts sipped at his milkshake. “I just can’t believe the ponies here still believe in that silly old rumour," he snorted. "I mean, I know our parents made it, but I bet if we put our heads together we could think of something even better.”
Chattering noisily in agreement, not a single bat pony noticed the scooter rolling silently into the attic towards them, a small, intricately decorated vase resting atop of it.
Author's Note
Thank you for reading!
As already mentioned in the description, this story was written in response to a writing prompt — cliché — and thus attempted to explore and subvert one or more clichés within its short lifespan. I was taking (gentle) aim at two in particular; namely, the insistence of so many haunted house investigations in taking place during the night, and teen romantic comedies where the 'will they/won't they' tension is resolved by having one party undergo a makeover and/or personality transplant so as to fit in with the leading man/woman, and thus become popular in the process.
The urban legend was kept deliberately vague, as these things tend to sprout so many different interpretations once they fall into the public domain; plus, doing so suited the tone of the story and the characters in it.
There were a few other nods in there too — both subverted and celebrated — and I can honestly say I quite enjoyed writing a tale centred around the CMC. I like to try at least one new thing with each story, and this time it was about crafting more humorous scenes and exchanges. I don't think I'm ever going to be a writer proficient at delivering laugh-out-loud comedy, but hopefully parts of this raised a smile, if not a chuckle.
Until next time!
