It was a cold, wet evening in late May and the rain was coming down hard. Spring was nearing its end, and soon kids from across the nation would be on their summer holidays. Ten weeks of fun, adventure and memories to be made.
Some families chose to spend this time abroad, journeying to foreign lands, whereas others preferred to remain at home. Nevertheless, these moments would be treasured.
But not for one family.
For one family, this time of year was always the hardest. Today would be their second anniversary.
Alone and in the middle of the room, a tall lumbering man sat on the floor alone with his thoughts. Wearing a battered leather jacket, He sat watching the fire flicker and dance upon the burning logs. The flying embers, revealing a honest face that had been carved years of grief. The odd sound of snap and crackle were soothing for his aching soul.
Within his hand, he held a soft toy horse that had endured years of love and play. He clutched onto the toy tightly bringing it close to his heart.
“John,” called a soft voice.
His mind was dull and numb as his gaze didn't flicker from the fire.
“John.” The call became more insistent.
“Yes, Mary,” he answered dully.
“Look at me when I am talking to you,” she responded.
He glanced away for a moment to the voice that called for him. His wife and childhood sweetheart was leaning on the archway on the outskirts of the room. Her soft hazel eyes peered at him whilst her brow frowned slightly with concern.
“I’m sorry, honey. What can I do for you?” he asked warmly.
She walks into the room and sits down on one of the red floral carpeted couches. Mary taps an empty spot beside her. “Will you come sit by me?” she beckoned as she clutched onto an old photo album.
John smiled at his wife sadly but lovingly. Groaning audibly, he forces himself to stand and moves away from the fire, shaking the stinging sensation from his right leg with each step. “Sorry Hon, the old leg’s not what it used to be,” he said between grunts.
Mary chuckled and shuffled her body giving more room for John. “Stop complaining, old man.”
“I’m not old,” he retorted. He straightens his back and rotates his shoulders, causing his body to complain with each movement. Mary raises her eyebrow and smirks at her husband. He pouts, responding to her incredulous look. “Don’t you know that we men age like fine wine. So I’m not getting old. I’m just maturing.”
“More-like Fermenting,” she joked before tapping the seat once more. He chuckles too and accepts Mary’s gesture, making his way and sitting beside her.
He shifts his weight into the lumpy cushions making himself more comfortable. When he was ready, Mary leant her head onto John’s shoulder affectionately.
She kisses John on the cheek and then opens the photo album. The first page revealed a picture of a happy and loving couple, expecting their first child. A much younger John was leaning down and holding his wife’s pregnant belly.
“Do you remember when this was taken?” asked Mary.
“How could I forget,” huffed John. “It was my dad’s old place. Four weeks early and wouldn’t you know it, five minutes later, you suddenly get contractions. Typical.”
Mary laughed. “Yes, you nearly threw the whole county into disarray when you went speeding down the highway.”
“Well, we were twenty-five miles from the nearest hospital,” he muttered in defence. “The old car couldn’t take it. If those damn cop-”
“I know, John,” said Mary dismissively. “I know.”
She turns the page again. “But you know, by the time she was born, we could have walked there and back.”
“Not with the way you were waddling,” smiled John as he looked at the picture of him holding his daughter for the first time. “She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. Her eyes glistened like the sun.”
The two of them continued browsing through the pictures of their family album.
One picture showed Mary with her arms out wide as their daughter stumbled her way towards her. The next page showed a picture of her blowing out her candles on her second birthday. A few more pages later they come to a picture of their child on her 5th birthday, surrounded by friends and loved ones. She wore a proud, beaming smile as her friends sang around her.
“You know what I remember most about her,” asked John.
“No, what?” replied Mary as she shrugged her shoulders.
“Her hair,” he murmured. “Do you remember how bright it was?”
“Hmpf, I remember how thick it got,” uttered Mary, “I swear almighty that girl’s hair was as strong as a thicket of bushes.”
“Yeah, she broke your favourite brush trying to brush her hair,” he snickered, trying to contain himself. “And then she came running to me shrieking like a banshee scared out of her wits because her momma was becoming a big scary monster.”
“I wasn’t that scary,” pouted Mary.
“She used to think so,” he giggled.
Mary squints at the photo before turning to look at John. “Isn’t that the same jacket?”
“As the one as in that photo, yes!” he laughed. “Don’t worry. Daddy will save you.”
John roared with laughter at the memory until Mary hit him playfully in the shoulder.
“She used to love that jacket,” said Mary.
“Yeah, she used to think it made me invincible,” he responded before muttering, “I actually made her one too.”
“Really, when?”
“A couple of years after this photo was taken. I wanted to give it to her for when she entered high school.”
“Awe, aren’t you sweet,” cooed Mary. “But what if it didn’t fit her?”
John shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, I never thought that far ahead.”
The two of them giggled and sighed before they continued browsing through the photo album.
The next page showed a picture of their daughter and another little girl who wore a Stetson hat holding a couple of frogs as her mother shivered in the background. Their large toothy grins, beamed through their dirty, muddy faces.
“She was so proud of herself, wasn’t she,” smiled John. “My little ray of sunshine.”
“Yes, she was a lovely child. A bit headstrong, like her father,” provoked Mary.
“Hey!”
“But at least she had your courage … and your strength.”
“Yeah, which often led to a dangerous mix,” commented John as he looked at a picture of a newspaper article. It had a picture of his daughter crying and holding onto a tree branch as John tried desperately to reach her. Mary giggled as she read the title ‘Local Man stuck in tree trying to save daughter’.
John then paused for a moment. His hand was hesitant to turn the next page. His wife sensed this and placed her hand over his, rubbing her fingers in between his.
John rubbed his nose and swallowed a large lump in his throat.
“It’s okay, John,” whispered Mary as she turned it with her husband’s hands.
The next picture was of their daughter’s school play. Unlike the previous photos which showed a bright, lively girl, the child in this picture looked ill despite her broad smile.
Finding the courage to continue, he proceeds to flick through the pages. Every page seemed to show the child becoming weaker and weaker. Until they reached the last page.
The last page. The last photo entry … was a picture of their daughter. She was lying in a hospital bed. She was hooked up to all sorts of machines and tubes running in her arm. Her once beautiful, bright, luscious hair were but gone replaced by a yellow, red and orange bandana. There were large bags were under her eyes which made her appear as though she was on death’s door.
But despite the months of pain and treatment that only seamed to have prolonged the inevitable, she smiled.
She continued to smile.
Their shining star. Their little miss sunshine. Their baby. Smiling.
It was the last picture before he turned the page.
She had died on a Wednesday in May. Two days before her 12th birthday.
“Do you remember what she said that night?” whimpered Mary as she stroked the empty page.
“How could I forget,” sniffed John. “ ‘My day may end this night, but my light shall burn forever and be high as the sun in the sky.’ She certainly had a way with words.”
"Yeah, she did," choked Mary.
Mary gasped as John places the photo album down onto the coffee table. Unable to contain her tears of grief anymore, she breaks down into great sobs, crying into his shoulder. He pulls her into a warm embrace, rubbing the back of her head gently.
“I miss her too,” he whispered as a tear rolls down his cheek. Mary sniffs and sighs, while she continues holding her husband ever so tightly.
Knock, knock, knock.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.
“John, will you go get it please,” Mary asked between sobs. She pushed John away for a moment and starts wiping her face. “Look at me, I’m a mess right now,” she chuckled.
“No, you’re beautiful,” said John as he wrapped his arms around his wife once more.
Knock, knock, knock.
It came again. The knocking. That damn, persistent knocking.
He embraced his wife tightly once more. He reluctantly breaks away from her, bringing his face closer to hers. She looks at him pleadingly, as she holds her face gently and wipes away a tear. “I’ll be right back,” he said reassuringly before kissing her forehead. “I promise you, my love.”
She sniffed and held his hand in place before she too released him. “Okay,” she smiled weakly.
He gets up and scoots around the coffee table, through the corridor and past the staircase. The wooden floorboards creak under his weight as he slowly makes his way to the front door.
He was meant to get that fixed, but with everything that had been going on these past few weeks, he couldn’t find the time.
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
“Hold your horses! I’m coming, I’m coming,” he growled at the door. As he near the entrance, however, he slows. The silhouette of a familiar figure can be seen on the stain glass window next to the door. Mary must have left the porch light on again.
“Hello?” a timid called from teenage girl could be heard above the pouring rain. “Is anypony there?”
“Any pony?” he muttered in confusion. He shook his head. Clearly, he misheard.
John unlocks the door but keeps the chain in its place. He opens it slightly and focuses his attention to a hooded figure.
“Hello?”
A teenage girl stood shivering in the cold. The sodden creature stood with the hood of her jacket obscuring her features.
“Excuse me, can you please help me? ” she begged. “I just need shelter from the rain. Please, it will only be for the night.”
The wind howled into the darkness, blowing the freezing rain onto the girl’s back causing her to shiver once more. John examined the girl, scrutinising her overall appearance while considering her request. Another runaway he summarised to himself.
On any other given night, he would have helped her. He would have taken her to the police station or a church, possibly even fulfilled her request. But not tonight. Not this night.
John looks at her sadly one last time but then shakes his head from behind the door. His decision was final. “There’s a shelter a few blocks south of here near the gas station. Trying going there first. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we can’t help you,” he says apologetically as he moves to close the door.
Suddenly the girl thrusts her arm forward onto the door refusing to be ignored. She was stronger than she looked and to his surprise managed to keep the door open.
“I’ve been there already. They don’t have any more rooms available. Please, I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she begged.
“What about the chur-?”
“Closed,” she interrupted between gritted teeth.
“We can’t help you,” he asserted.
“Please, I have been forsaken by everypony I know.”
There’s that word again. Pony?
“Please, no one else will help me,” she cried. In a last ditch effort, she throws her body onto the door, looking at him pleadingly with her large blue eyes. But he refused to even look at her.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated simply. “You must leave now.”
The girl cries despairingly.
Feeling, a pang of guilt, John though a charitable man was also a stubborn one. The girl would need to move on. There’ll be other folks to look after her, he assured himself.
“Honey, who is it?” Mary asked as she walked towards her husband. The large ruckus had snapped her into the present. Wiping away the last of her tears, she places her hand on John’s shoulder and gently moves him aside.
“Can we help you?” she asks softly as she looked at the figure for herself.
“Please, will you help me,” begged the teenage girl, pleading to his wife. John was becoming increasingly frustrated. He didn’t want this girl anywhere near them. Not now. Not this night.
He growled at her. “Listen, I told you-”
“Wait,” shouted his wife.
“But, Mary,” remarked a bemused John.
“John, just wait a minute,” said Mary sternly.
He rolled his eyes incredulously and groans. Tonight was their night. Their night to remember and be alone. Not to play the role of the good Samaritan. Bitter and resentful, he removes his hand from the door and walks a few steps away.
Mary glares at him for a moment, but her attention was diverted back to the poor girl outside. “Step back, girl, I’m going to unlock the door,” said Mary.
The teenage girl hesitates and contemplates the woman’s answer.
Mary sighs. “Sweetie, I understand but trust me. Please let me open the door for you,” assured Mary gently. “Trust me. Please?”
The teenager pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath to calm her nerves. She had been rejected by so many before, but for some reason, she trusted this woman.
“Okay,” she answered weakly. Reluctantly, the teenager takes a step back away from the door.
Mary attempts to look at the girl, but her features were hidden underneath her black hoodie. Suddenly the door slams shut, startling the teenager.
“I knew it,” she mutters bitterly. She had been a fool to trust them.
The teenager then collapses into a crouching position with her arms rested on her knees and head sunken. Unable to hold back the pain, tears began rolling down her cheeks.
These past couple of days have been incredibly hard for her.
Banished by her mentor. Alone in an alien world. Isolated and friendless.
The teenager wipes away her tears. This night she would vow revenge. Revenge on all those who wronged her. Against those who had forsaken her. Against those who had left her.
She stood up defiantly. She wasn’t going to give these damn creatures the satisfaction of seeing her broken state. She prepares herself to leave but stops abruptly.
On the other side of the door, she can hear a strange sound. It was the sound of the chain being slid from its lock and the door opening.
A woman stood, and the warm air escaped the house hitting her cheeks. The sight perplexed the teenager as the woman bore the kindest, warmest smile.
“I’m sorry, dear, my husband, John, had some lingering concerns he felt compelled to voice,” said Mary as she chastised her husband. “Anyway please come here, away from the cold.”
The teenager stood idle, taken aback by the situation. Just moments ago, she had vowed vengeance on the same couple who now invited her into their home. “We have a roaring fire, and I can heat up soup if you want,” offered Mary.
“But Mary-”
“Hush, now!” snapped Mary.
The teenager chuckled before extending her hands to her wet cheeks. Great more tears. “Thank you … Thank you so much … Thank yo-,” she sobbed weakly.
“My name is Mary,” said the kind woman. “You will have to excuse my husband, John. His bark is worse than his bite.”
The rain had finally stopped, and the moon beams pierce the night sky and landing on top of the teenager’s head.
Choking back the tears, the teenager pulls back her hoodie and looks at the couple. Her wet cheeks and dirty face revealed for the first time under the moonlight. Her orange, red and yellow hair reminiscent of the setting sun. She breaks into a proud smile. Their daughter’s smile. “My name is-
“It can’t be,” gasped John as he stands in a stupor.
Mary held her hand to her mouth. Her tears were returning once more. The teenager was perplexed at their reactions.
The teenager clears her throat hoping to introduce herself again. “My name is- Wha- hey” she tries to say but is knocked down as Mary pounces on top of her and holds her tightly.
The embrace was warm and pleasant despite Mary’s hair tickling her nose. Her coat smelt of rosemary and lavender, and fond memories of a home she’ll never likely see.
“Sally. Sally is that really you,” sobbed Mary. “I thought I would never see you again.”
Mary howls loudly, causing the neighbours to turn their lights in curiosity. The teenager was still baffled and looked to John for an explanation, but the scene was too much even for him. He leapt out to the door and off the porch, landing just above them and hugs the both.
“My little angel. My sweet little angel. She’s home,” he cried.
They remained stationary for a few minutes, as their neighbours gathered, witnessing the events unfold. Feeling slightly embarrassed, she pushes the couple away for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” sobbed Mary.
“It’s just been so long,” explained John unhelpfully, wiping away his tears.
“It’s okay; I’m Sunset. Sunset Shimmer,” said the teenager.
“Well Sunset, welcome to our home.”