Middwich

The Seaport Hotel had an otherworldly air. Not a bit like the salty mist in the town; in fact, it was like the reception had all its humidity sucked right out. I felt my lips chap by the second. And the smell—I wrinkled my snout. Like snorting a pile of dust. Eye-watering fumes of disinfectant wafted from the carpet. Despite that, I felt like I needed a mask, else my lungs would absorb some ancient disease floating around. I darkly smirked to myself, pleased that it was precisely as dreary as I expected.

Behind the check-in counter there was a mare (another real live pony that actually existed, oh Gods!) intently focused on … whatever receptionists do. I supposed it was foolish to expect the hotel to be barren too, but relief swept over me. I’d half a mind to bound over and hug the stranger.

The unicorn looked well enough, I thought, if maybe drab. Her mane and tail hung flat like drapes, her chalky green and white colors reminded me of boring flowers. Her irises, though, were vivid, bright, bright yellow. I could have sworn they were glowing behind her bangs. She was glued to something on her desk, not appearing to notice us.

“You can just sit there and look pretty, Hot Legs,” Lyra teased, setting our two suitcases down. “I’ll check us in.”

I stuck my tongue out at her, then sucked it back in before it got dusty. She’d call me absolutely hilarious names like that whenever I couldn’t keep up pace. I firmly held that Lyra only went on those constant jogs around Ponyville to spite me. Still, I limped over to a lounge in the corner.

“Hi, excuse me—”

Crash!

Before I could sit, there was a cry from the reception. I whipped my head around. The pale unicorn stared wide-eyed at Lyra.

“No!” The desk mare yelped and jumped back, knocking down her chair, tumbling off books and papers. Dozens of keys jangled. She scrambled to the far end of the desk where she huddled and shook. “Please,” she whimpered, gripping her horn tightly, shakily. “Get … s-stay away!”

Lyra froze mid-step. She pleaded my help from the corners of her eyes, but I had nothing to offer. The desk mare’s jittery pupils darted from Lyra, to me, and back. Her breathing gradually softened as her terror hesitantly turned to odd curiosity. She tightened her brow. “W-wait, you …” She swallowed. “You’re not …?” Cautiously, she arose from her little ball in the corner. “Who … are you?”

Lyra blanked. “Uhh … I …”

“We’d … like to check in,” I finished, warily joining Lyra’s side.

“Er—right.” Lyra nodded and edged forward, raising a civil hoof. “And I’m really sorry if I startled you, ma’am.”

The receptionist’s eyebrows rose, and she stifled a gasp behind her hoof. “Oh … oh my goodness, I-I’m so sorry, I was so caught up in my … my work, I didn’t realize …” Trailing off, the unicorn rifled under her desk. She hefted up a big, wide book and flipped through it. “Um … we have plenty of vacancies. H-how long are you staying? Sorry …”

“It’s okay, really.” Lyra grinned awkwardly. “We’ll be here for five days.”

The desk mare lit up. “Oh! A-are you on vacation? Um, also, if you’d sign here you’ll be all checked in …” She scooted the logbook forward.

“We are, and we’re new to the town.” Lyra didn’t notice the mare flinch as she levitated a pen. “Are you from around here?”

The receptionist observed from a safe distance, then stowed the book once Lyra finished writing. On a big board behind her, from rows and rows of dangling keys, she reached up and picked one from the top dozen. It sharply scraped the wood as she hoofed it across the counter. “Your room number is 408, like on the key,” she said, ignoring Lyra’s question. “Also, have … you been to the beach yet? It’s very … very nice. It’s not very far, either; it’s just on—um, on the other side of the hotel.”

Lyra shook her head. “Not yet, but we’ve explored the Historical Society.”

The pale unicorn suddenly became lost. “The … the what …?” She scrunched her eyebrows together again, her yellow eyes wandering like she was solving a puzzle. “S-sorry, I just … can you …?”

“We’ll check the beach out later, thanks,” I interrupted, swiping the key. Leaning in to Lyra, I hissed, “Get the luggage and let’s go.”

* * *

“Look, I’m just saying you could’ve been nicer.”

I shot her a sidelong glare. “Yeah, sorry for not being friends with the psycho.”

“Bon, don’t be like that. She’s the only other pony we’ve seen and you were rude.”

“How the hell was I rude? I said thanks.”

Lyra sighed.

Lyra had kept to herself a collection of different sighs. Each one reflected a certain feel, and on occasion, she’d create a new sigh to express some new form of distaste. I was most often on the receiving end of Lyra’s sighs, so I had more knowledge than anyone of their intricacies. I’d found that there was a limited set—that she would reuse them often enough for me to tell a pattern. Even to my trained ear, every sigh of the same type sounded precisely similar; I found this impressive as in the vein of carrying a tune or acting in theater. What Lyra had given me now was familiar: a short rush of air that stayed in her throat, accompanied by tight lips and strained eyes. It was her you’re too dumb for me sigh. It was old enough to evoke some nostalgia of our earliest years together, but it always mixed bitterly with irritation.

We finished climbing the third flight of stairs, now in a long hall lined with five doors on each side. We looked for the third on the left. My legs wept. My neck. I wondered if having a room on the top floor was another quaint little way this town could find to spite me.

“I guess we’re Salt,” said Lyra.

I dug my hooves into the carpet to stop from bumping into her. “What?”

She pointed at a door labelled 408, and … it said Salt. On the metal plate fixed to the door, under the room number, it nonchalantly displayed the word.

Lyra smiled. “Salt!”

“Alright,” I huffed. “And that means?”

She gestured down the hall. Another door down the row, 409, had Breeze on it; another, 410, had Coral.

“I was wondering why the key said Salt on it,” she said, turning over the bit of dark metal in midair. “The rooms all have their own names. I guess they’re all sea-related, isn’t that neat?”

“Maybe,” I hummed, more on instinct than in agreement. “But Salt? Really? That’s just gross.”

Lyra gave me a quick exhale through her snout, known to me as her quit whining sigh. She jammed the key into the slot under the doorknob and a thick clunk from the lock’s insides let us in.

* * *

408

* * *

The springs inside the mattress creaked and rocked as I flopped down and stretched out, popping the stiffness from my joints and falling pleasantly limp onto my back. A great sigh of contentment escaped my throat. In the room’s shade, I could have easily slipped right into a deep sleep … except for someone throwing herself onto the bed with me. I shut my eyes tight against the oceanlike heaving. The mattress sank as I felt four heavy hooves on either side of my body. With great effort, I peeked through one lid. Lyra’s shadowy form, silhouetted by the window’s grey light, gazed down at me with half-moons heavy with implication.

I groaned. “Not now, Ly.”

“Come on. How long has it been?”

“We did this three days ago.”

“Ooh, look who’s been keeping track!”

“Please, Lyra, I’m really tired. I just want to rest.”

A smile curled onto her lips and she drew in closer. “Oh, that’s fine,” she breathed, caressing my shoulder. “Just lay back and relax, my little Bonnie Bon. You don’t have to move a muscle. I’ll take care of you—”

“Lyra!” I snapped up and pushed her off. “Enough! Okay? Just leave it.”

She shrank back, taking her hooves away. A blank expression covered her face. “Sorry.”

I didn’t feel like I could fall asleep anymore, but I was still exhausted. My head sank into the cool pillow. Lyra stared into space. I studied the ceiling.

* * *

“Don’t roll your eyes at me,” she snapped.

“I didn’t.”

“I saw you.”

“I was looking out the window.”

Lying ass, told her sigh.

“You don’t have to be a bitch,” I said.

I couldn’t see Lyra’s face, but she didn’t answer. Not even with a sigh.

* * *

“Come look at this view, Bonnie.” She tapped on the glass that offered such little light to the room. “We’re not on the beach side, but I think you can see the whole town from here.” As Lyra hoisted the window open, it let out a whining screech, sliding up, wet wood against wet wood. Wispy curtains floated like spider webs, a damp chill set into the room, saline mist seared my nostrils.

“This place is so different!” Her excitement was almost as thick as the salt that hung in the air. “I’ve always had a soft spot for funny little towns like these, you know? My parents took me to places just like this when I was little. It’s offbeat, but it’ll grow on you. It’s really … traditional.”

I grimaced, wincing as my dry lips split open, stinging from the air. “How many words can you find to describe this place that aren’t ‘disgusting’?”

She tisked and elbowed my side. “Oh, come on, Mrs. Grumpy. We’re out here to have fun. Nobody is going to have a good time if you get into one of your bleak moods again. I bet it will be nice and sunny tomorrow. We can even go to the beach!”

“The only bleak thing here—” I pointed at the grey abyss outside “—is the freaking weather, Ly. Nobody can have fun here. That’s why it’s abandoned. It’s not going to clear up tomorrow. It’s not going to clear up ever. So for five days, we’re going to sit in a damn moldy hotel with nothing to do but stare at the wall.”

“Why the hell don’t we just leave then?” She whipped around and glared.

I shut up. She bared her teeth.

“If you hate this place so much, why don’t we just go home already? You’ve complained at every single turn, and it’s getting hard for me understand why I dragged you along. I tried to keep your attention. I tried to make it fun. I tried to give you chance after chance after chance, but you never look on the bright side!”

And now she was yelling. Already, I wanted to shut her out. One of these fits again? Lovely. Even back in Ponyville, she’d been on this loose trigger for a good while. Step on her the wrong way, and bam, she shuts on me like an iron trap. It made me grind my teeth like nothing else, but I sat and endured it like always.

“And you know what?” she went on. “This place does suck! It’s awful! But because you refuse to find something good in this trip that I saved money for, we all have to suffer. The whole reason—”

That’s far enough.

I shot up from the bed. “Is that it? I refuse to wear your rose-colored glasses, so I’m the big bad guy here? This trip …”

“That’s not—”

“… that you saved money for? Yeah, your money, right? Not ours?”

“Bonnie …”

“And what the fuck made you think this was a good place for a vacation? In fact, what the fuck made you think, ‘oh, we should spend our money on a vacation,’ anyway?”

“Listen to …”

“You’re right. You shouldn’t have dragged me along. If this fish town is so great, you should have just gone here by yourself.”

“Bon Bon!” she screamed.

“What?”

She grasped my shoulders hard. Since the argument I hadn’t paid any attention to her face, but I saw her now, staring into me. She was shivering. Her cheeks were wet. Her bright yellow rings had gone pale and misty. “For Gods’ sake, look at us, Bonnie!” she choked. Her trembling grip rocked my shoulders. “I know this place is shit. I don’t care. The reason I brought us out here is so we could get away from … this. This has been our lives for the past … Gods, I don’t know, a year? I just wanted to have fun together. I wanted … I just—”

I yanked out of her hooves. “So you took us to a discount tourist trap? Is that how you’d prefer to deal with it—just sweep it under the rug? Fuck me.” I stormed towards the door.

“Bonnie … wh-where are you going?”

“Out. I’ll be back.”

Before she could respond, I ripped open the door and slammed it shut in one swift movement. My legs carried me briskly, hotly, down the hallway, nowhere precise in mind. I needed to cool off, and I sure as hell couldn’t inside there.

* * *

I winced at the occasional vibrations of my hooves grazing the asphalt. My stride stayed low and quick as I glided off down the lane, away from Seaport, retracing that road, West Dustford—not for any reason, certainly not for pleasure—because it was a place to go. A place that didn’t have a Lyra. Only me, my thoughts, and the pavement. That’s all I wanted.

Whenever I got flustered and went on a walk (which Lyra had named “Grumpy Time”, bless her), I always came back with one of three very specific, very contained results.

The first result: after thinking with a cool head, I’d lay out the situation into something resolvable. Things like spending too much money or not cleaning the house for three months—there’d be a clear solution. This was Lyra’s favorite result and mine too.

The second result was more difficult. I would come back … unsure. Or “all frowns”, she’d say. Unsure how to fix things, unsure of our future, unsure about us and we. Our problems weren’t always so pleasantly material; things like a family member getting sick or dying, whether or not one of us cared, paranoia of being with other people, true or false, no trust, no faith—a lot of things. Unsure. I really, really hated being unsure.

The third … I’d get worse. That’s it. And she’d wait. Lyra had a fairly accurate premonition of how my walks would end up, and she’d always await them at home with a cup of tea and a book. How she’d feel then, waiting for Bon Bon Number Three to get home, I hated imagining. Waiting to hear that twisted creature stomp up the sidewalk, catching glimpses through the window; how her poor heart survived it, I didn’t know. I didn’t know how she survived Number Three crashing through the front door, roaring and spitting and giving her night terrors, flashing its fangs, leaping after her, making marks, I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t—

Where am I?

I wasn’t sure how long I had been running. The last time I looked up, I was near the Dustford houses; now, I stood panting and sweating cold in the middle of town, rows of urban shops flanking me. Everything in between was a melty blur. So absorbed in thought, I had a fugue state. Great.

Navigating the street, I scouted for an intersection. Buildings loomed on either side, acting as walls that bathed the road in shadow. I shivered as I walked. The sun was getting low.

A sign!

The dense mist ahead revealed a guide. I quickened my pace to the street corner and peered up. Two crossed plates said:

Cat St.

Knell St.

In the four-way intersection, I was on Cat.

I frowned. Just where did I take myself? Must be the commercial zone, right? I sighed and gave the sign pole a passing kick, then swore as I shook my newly throbbing hoof. The metal sent long reverberations through the fog, bouncing between the buildings, sounding like an enormous instrument. If Lyra were here, she’d bust her sides, I'm sure.

Lyra…

I played her joyful laughter in my head and smiled faintly. “Lyra,” I murmured, wanting to hear the name out loud. “You probably miss me right now.”

I shook my head. With a deep breath and a strong guess, I turned left onto Knell Street. No map meant I was flying blind. I didn’t recognize the street or store names, but I had to end up somewhere familiar eventually. As I plodded along, all alone, looking up at storefronts for familiar names, I felt utterly small. Feeling small was all I could do until I reached the next intersection, where I’d make another blind toss. Would I arrive at a familiar sight or would the familiar escape? I tensed my body against the pervasive chill, damning myself for not packing a coat.

* * *

In a dash of luck, I had gone the right way—I was on Neighton now. Neighton Avenue spanned through the whole zone and led to West Dustford, so it was a straight shot back to Seaport. I silently cheered myself on as I hurried through familiar sights. The sign (YES, WE’RE OPEN). The shop with the broken light tubes. The empty clothes store with the shattered window. And of course, the Middwich Historical Society …

… was not there. Not anymore. I came upon the spot where it had existed—undeniably, I thought—where Lyra and I had visited a mere few hours before. Instead of something, there simply wasn’t. The sign out front, the jetty over the water behind it, those were still there, safe and sound. Clear as crystal. But …

Black sticks. Nothing but giant, black sticks held up by clumps of rubble, jutting tall into the sky like a comb’s teeth. Wide, splitting cracks veined their way through the planks, and a thin white grime coated everything. In the center, a black-dripping chimney towered alone, marking the building for as long away as the fog let you see. I gaped at the wooden skeleton, heart in my throat. The size, the location … I caught a piece of untouched wood; it was the same old bleached color. Was there always a chimney here? It was insane, impossible, but it was the same building. Right?

I approached where the front door once was. The concrete foundation was caked in blackness. On the “inside” of the museum, dark, oily curds gathered in piles; I was careful to step clear of whatever it was. I spotted a vertical board close enough to examine the white grime. It scraped off easily by my hoof. Salt. I flung it off, grimacing. That explained the watery, sour smell circling the ruins. The whole area was porous and moist; by the fog, the surf, the surely common storms, it felt on the verge of being washed away. Plaques, paintings, dioramas, any traces of Middwich past, I assumed they now resided in the black heaps on the floor.

Right in the center of the post-museum-house loomed a narrow smokestack that sat on a wide hearth. As I peered into the bare fireplace, I realized what most of the blackness was: wet ash. It had mixed and coagulated with the seawater, creating those unpleasant clumps that preferred gathering in corners. Someone must have been careless and torched the place … how long ago? Centuries of rot don’t just appear.

Leering past the hearth, I noticed a room behind it, hardly wider than the fireplace itself. With the walls burned away, exposed studs and joists clung together against the elements, yet they were considerably more intact than the rest. I thought something about the space felt off. Then as I narrowly squeezed between two boards, I got it—there were no doorways. There weren’t any gaps in the studs large enough. Secret? Lost in thought, I nearly tumbled face-first into the hole in the floor in front of me. In the middle of the tiny room, a set of stairs dropped steeply down into the concrete. A funny thought struck me. Your obsession with exploring stupid old museums … I get it now, Lyra.

* * *

Middwich Historical Society

* * *