Daddy says there’s a monster under the stairs.
He says it lives in the basement, behind the creaky door with the flaking paint, down in the dark. He says I can never go down there because then the monster will get me. I don’t want the monster to get me.
Daddy says the monster eats little fillies like me. He says monsters think we taste delicious, he says the monster is all teeth and claws, that it’ll gobble me up and nopony will ever see me again. I ask him if that’s what happened to Mommy. He says stop talking about Mommy. I ask why, but he gets very angry so I stop. He stomps over to the door beneath the stairs. I say aren’t you scared of the monster but he doesn’t say anything. He just goes down the old wooden steps into the dark.
I’m scared the monster is going to eat him. Daddy is big, and strong, and sometimes a bit scary too, but not as scary as a monster. But Daddy isn’t a little filly so maybe he’s not as delicious. Maybe the monster won’t eat him. I listen at the door even though I probably shouldn’t and my heart beats thump thump thump and my hooves shake from standing so close to the dark crack where the door isn’t quite shut. I listen for claws scraping against the stairs as the monster clambers up. I listen for teeth crunching on bones. I listen for a deep rough growl, one that rumbles so loud the house shakes.
And then I hear the monster, but it doesn’t sound anything like that.
It sounds like metallic squealing, it sounds like clink clink clink. It doesn’t sound like what I think a monster would sound like, but then how would I know what a monster is supposed to sound like? Maybe that’s just normal monster sounds after all.
It takes a long time before Daddy comes back upstairs. The metal squeals stop, the clink clink clink stops, and then I hear hoofsteps thumping upwards. I hurry back to my seat at the dinner table and pretend I wasn’t listening. Daddy shuts the door behind him and then looks at me and asks me what I’m still doing here. I tell him I was just thinking about stuff, but it’s a lie and I think he can tell. He looks suspicious.
He asks me if I went into the basement. I tell him I didn’t, and this time it’s the truth and he believes me. I ask him why did he go down the stairs, isn’t the monster dangerous? And he says the monster is only dangerous to little fillies. He says grown-ups are okay.
He looks okay, so this makes sense.
He says go to bed Ditzy and I tell him I’m not tired but he doesn’t listen. The smell of his cigarette smoke follows me upstairs.
***
Today Daddy calls me downstairs while it’s still early. There’s a stallion I don’t know in the dining room sitting with Daddy at the table. He is short with brown fur and a teddy bear for a cutie mark and he has eyes that look sad even when he smiles at me. He’s brought lots of papers that are spread out over the table. He asks me how I am and I say I am good thank you because that’s what you’re supposed to say and he says that’s good.
Daddy asks me to make him and the stallion whose name is Merry Thought a cup of coffee and I say okay. They keep talking while I’m in the kitchen, and it’s quiet and I don’t think they want me to hear them but I do hear some words anyway. Words like ‘confused’ and ‘adapting’ and ‘difficult’ and ‘loss’. The kind of words ponies use when they notice my eyes don’t line up right or when I think too many things too quickly they get all jumbled up in my head and I can’t think any more things.
I go back into the dining room and ask how Merry has his coffee and he says milk and two sugars so that’s how I make his. I don’t put anything in Daddy’s coffee. When I bring them out they’ve stopped talking and Daddy is reading one of the papers. It must be confusing because he’s moving his lips and normally he doesn’t have to do that.
Merry says I can sit with them if I want but it sounds like he’s not really asking so I say okay. He leans forward a bit to talk to me and his eyes are still sad. He says he’s sorry about Mommy. He says it’s okay to be sad or confused or angry or scared. He says those things are perfectly normal.
I say the only thing I’m scared of is the monster under the stairs.
He asks me what that means, and I’m about to tell him but then Daddy gives me a Look so I don’t. Daddy says that foals have Active Imaginations and I’m scared of the basement because it’s dark and old. Merry nods and says he understands, and then he tells me that it’s okay to be scared of things but there’s no such thing as monsters. I tell him there is and that it makes a clink sound, and he laughs.
I decide to stop telling him about the monster.
Afterwards Merry writes some things down on a piece of paper but he doesn’t let me see what he writes. He doesn’t let Daddy see either, even though I can tell Daddy wants to. And then Merry tucks it away in his briefcase and Daddy scribbles on another bit of paper and he puts that away too. Before Merry leaves he takes out a small bear from his briefcase and gives it to me. The bear is blue and has little buttons for eyes. Merry says the bear’s name is Fluff and he’s not afraid of monsters. He says Fluff will protect me from the monster under the stairs. I say thank you.
I like Fluff already. He is soft and smells of cinnamon.
After Merry has gone Daddy looks at me and his voice goes low and he asks me how I knew the monster makes a clink sound, and I realise I have made a Mistake. I tell him that I heard it when I was standing by the door which is the truth. He looks very angry but he is trying not to be. He says that I shouldn’t listen to the monster because it might try and lure me down there and then it will eat me. He says I shouldn’t tell ponies about the monster because it will scare them. I say Merry didn’t seem very scared and then Daddy hits the table really hard and it makes me jump. He says please just listen to him and I say okay. He says good girl.
I hug Fluff and Daddy goes to take a sip of his coffee but it’s gotten cold.
***
It’s dark when I wake up. I don’t like being awake in the middle of the night dark. It’s a different kind of dark to going to bed dark. Middle of the night dark is darker and it’s very quiet. Sometimes the house creaks and bangs because it’s old and small and it sounds really loud in the middle of the night dark.
I wonder if the creaks woke me up. They do sometimes, and so I hug Fluff close and I listen and I don’t hear any creaks but I do hear Daddy’s snoring. It’s hard to hear because his door is closed and so is mine but it’s still loud enough that I can hear it. It sounds like a buzzsaw.
I snuggle back into the pillow and try to sleep but then I hear a different noise.
It’s not a creak or a bang or Daddy’s snoring. It’s a far away thump sound like somepony has dropped something on the floor downstairs. I hug Fluff even tighter and tell myself that it’s just the house making noises even though I’ve never heard the house make that noise before. And then it happens again, and again, and I don’t think it’s the house anymore.
I open my door and step out onto the small landing outside. Daddy’s snores are louder now so I know the thump hasn’t woken him up. I don’t think I should wake him up either because he really doesn’t like it. Waking him up is scarier than whatever is making the thump noise. But it’s okay because I have Fluff with me and he will protect me. Merry told me he would. I don’t think Merry would lie about something this important.
I’m going down the stairs when the thump happens again and suddenly every part of me feels really cold like I just fell in a river full of ice. The thump is coming from under the stairs. From where the monster is.
It’s muffled because it’s a long way down and the flaky paint door to the basement is closed but as I stand there it happens again and it’s definitely below me. My legs shake a bit, and the stairs are steep and narrow and I don’t want to fall so I go down them quickly. But I miscount the steps in the dark because I’m distracted by the noise and I think there is one more step than there is, and so I do a wrong kind of half step that makes me stomp against the dining room floorboards.
The stomp is very loud.
I freeze again and watch the flaky paint door and I can hear my breathing is quick and short and I feel like the door is going to burst open and the monster is going to come out with sharp teeth that go clink clink clink as they chomp together. But it doesn’t. And then there is another thump and I realise if I’m going to find out what’s making the noise I have to go into the basement.
I don’t want to go into the basement, but I have Fluff. Fluff will protect me. Fluff will keep me safe.
When I open the basement door I realise there’s a worse dark than middle of the night dark, and it’s basement in the middle of the night dark. I can only see the first three steps and then it’s too dark. I wouldn’t be able to see what is making the thump and there’s no light in the basement so I go to the kitchen and get a box of matches. Daddy says I’m not allowed to use them because I might burn myself but I’ve watched him use them so many times to light his cigarettes that I won’t.
I go back to the stairs and strike one of the matches and an orange glow lights up the first four steps. It isn’t bright but it will be enough to find the thump. The thump hasn’t happened for a while but the monster has probably heard me by now so it’s stopped. Since Fluff will protect me I’m going to ask the monster to stop making a thump noise so I can sleep. I hope it will understand me.
The first match goes out when I am about halfway down the stairs. These steps are even more rickety than the ones in the house and since I can’t see I worry I’m going to fall down them but I try to stay calm and get another match out of the box. Even when I get a match it’s really hard to light it because I can’t see either hoof, but eventually I manage it. I’m careful to keep the flame away from Fluff so he doesn’t burn.
The basement dark continues for a lot of steps. There are no thumps or squeals or clinks. There is only my heartbeat and the squeak of the steps beneath me. I don’t remember exactly how many steps there are down to the basement, but then instead of another step I see the dusty basement floor. The match goes out just as I step off the final stair and this time it’s much easier to light another match in the dark because I’ve done it once already. It flickers a bit because my hoof is shaking and I am hugging Fluff harder than I’ve ever hugged anything before and I try to listen for monster sounds but all I hear is a quiet rustle from one corner.
I don’t know if it’s the monster but I don’t think it could be anything else so I move towards it. The basement is mostly empty apart from dust and spiders, and the spiders skitter away as the light touches them because they don’t like it. I wonder if the monster is the same. Maybe it likes the dark and that’s why it lives down here. I wonder if I should call out hello because that would be polite but I don’t know if monsters understand politeness.
I take another step and there is something that isn’t dust or spiders at the edge of the light. It’s a mattress without any cover on, but I don’t know what it’s doing here. There is a nasty smell in the air that is sour and musty but I don’t know what that is either. I think the mattress is where the rustling was coming from though so I take another step.
Something moves. A flash of eyes and fur and glinting shiny and then the clink clink clink sound and even though I’m holding Fluff I scream and I make a Mistake. I drop him. I drop the matches, too, and the light goes out and then I’m in the dark and I’m all alone and the monster is coming.
I run. I can’t see where I’m going but I run even though my legs don’t really do what I tell them and I trip and stumble but I run and run and I don’t see the wall until there is a crunch that fills my entire head and then there is nothing.
***
My nose hurts.
I’m on the ground and it’s cold and hard and my nose hurts. I touch it gently and it hurts even more so I stop. My hoof is sticky after and I think I must be bleeding. I hope the monster can’t smell blood although I think if it could it would have already eaten me.
But even though the monster hasn’t eaten me I am in trouble. It’s too dark down here to see and I don’t know where I am anymore. I don’t know where Fluff and the matches are. I don’t know where the monster is either and that’s the worst thing.
I climb to my hooves and the world is spinny and I almost fall back down again. I don’t, but I stumble and my hoof stomps against the floor and the monster hears it.
And then it talks.
It calls out hello, and the sound echoes. It says are you still there?
I don’t want to answer because it’s probably a trick.
The monster says are you okay, I heard you run into something.
It doesn’t sound like a monster. It doesn’t growl or rumble or clink. It just sounds like a pony.
I decide I have to say something. I’ll be careful in case it’s a trick, but I was going to talk to the monster anyway so this is okay even if it’s scary. I say I’m sorry and I didn’t mean to disturb it. I just heard the thump sound and came to ask it to please stop because it’s loud.
The monster is quiet for a moment. Then it asks what my name is and I say Ditzy but most ponies call me Derpy. The monster asks why they call me that and I say because my eyes don’t line up right and I can’t think too many things at once. It thinks for a moment and then asks which name I prefer and I say I never really thought about it before, it’s just what ponies call me.
The monster says its name is Sunbeam. I say that’s a strange name for a monster and the monster makes a strange sound like it’s coughing but not quite. It says it’s not a monster but I think this is part of the trick. I say I know it’s a monster because Daddy told me so, and he also said I shouldn’t listen to it because it would lie.
The monster says it can prove it if I light another match. I tell it that I dropped them, and the monster says something very rude under its breath. It starts clinking again and I almost scream but if I do it will make it easier for the monster to find me in the dark and so I hold it in and press myself against the wall and try to be very small.
There is more clinking and then a scrabbling noise against the floor, and then the monster says gotcha and there is a scritch sound and then light as it strikes a match against the floor.
It doesn’t look like a monster. It looks like a mare with yellow fur and a light orange mane, but dirty and scruffy. It has wings like me but one of them is at a crooked angle that doesn’t look right, and also the monster has a big metal collar around its neck that glints.
The monster says see, just a pony, not a monster.
I think I believe her, but just in case I go to where I dropped the matches and search the ground until my hoof hits something soft. Sunbeam asks what I’m doing and I say this is Fluff and he protects me from monsters because you might be lying.
Sunbeam says she isn’t, but I still don’t know why a pony would want to be in our basement and so I ask her. She gives me a look that is sad and angry at the same time and says she doesn’t want to be here. She lifts up a chain that was behind her and it goes clink clink clink. The chain is connected to her collar and goes all the way to a metal plate on the wall.
She says Daddy locked her down here.
I say that doesn’t make any sense why would he do that, and she gives me another strange look. She says I wouldn’t understand because I’m too young. She says Daddy is a bad stallion. She says he’s dangerous. And then she says I have to help her get out of here. She says please.
Even though I believe Sunbeam is a pony now this still seems like a trick. I don’t know why Daddy would have locked her down here, or why he would lie to me and tell me that Sunbeam is a monster. Daddy can be scary and angry sometimes but I don’t think he’s a bad stallion. I don’t think he’s dangerous.
But even if Sunbeam is a monster it’s not okay to leave her locked up in the basement on a dirty mattress and so I say I’ll help her because that’s the right thing to do.
Sunbeam says that Daddy has the key to the collar. She says she’s been trying to kick the chain out of the wall and that was the thump sound but it’s not working. She says if I can get the key she can
But she doesn’t finish her sentence and her ears flick down to the sides of her head and she stares up and behind me.
I turn to see what she’s looking at and I have that cold ice river feeling again as the basement door opens and Daddy steps through holding a lantern. He is muttering something as he stomps down the steps and they creak under his hooves. Behind me Sunbeam puts out the match and whispers that I should hide, but my legs don’t listen to me when I tell them to move. They just stay still instead and hold Fluff tight.
Daddy steps into the basement and Sunbeam tells me to move again but I can’t because my legs still aren’t doing anything. Daddy says what are you whispering about and then I’m in the lantern light and he stops. I hug Fluff tighter as he stands there and his eyes are wide and he’s breathing very heavily through his nose but otherwise he’s quiet. He calls my name but it’s like a question. He says he told me not to come down here. He says I’m not supposed to be here, why didn’t I listen to him?
Sunbeam tries to speak but Daddy says shut up and calls her a rude word I’m not allowed to say. He says Ditzy get away from her.
I ask him why he lied about the monster.
He says I won’t understand, which is the same thing Sunbeam told me. He says he can explain everything, just please listen to him and get away from her. But as he says these things his voice is different and not like he normally sounds.
I tell Daddy no, even though it’s scary to say and I have to hug Fluff to be brave enough.
Daddy’s mouth does a little twitch and he stomps his hoof against the ground. I take a step back without really thinking about it and I bump into Sunbeam, and she pulls me close. Daddy shouts at Sunbeam and he says don’t touch her you don’t get to touch her. He says Ditzy come here, but I don’t.
Sunbeam is shivering as I hide against her leg and Daddy takes another step closer and the lantern shines on his face and I see he is crying. But also he looks angrier than I’ve ever seen him, and I’ve seen him be very angry before. He says he’s going to count to three and I better be standing next to him or I’m going to regret it.
I tell him he needs to let Sunbeam go, and Sunbeam goes stiff when I say it.
He says one.
I tell him he’s a bad stallion, and his mouth does another twitchy thing.
He says two.
I say Mommy would let Sunbeam go.
He doesn’t say three.
Instead he just charges towards us and I scream and close my eyes but Sunbeam pushes me away and I fall onto the ground again. When I open them Sunbeam has grabbed the lantern and she’s trying to pull it out of Daddy’s grip but he’s stronger and she can’t. She spits in his face as they fight but then Daddy manages to pull it out of her hooves and then lots of things happen at once and it’s hard for me to think them all in the right order.
Sunbeam tries to grab the lantern again but Daddy pulls it up out of her reach. The chain goes clink and the collar pulls her back because she goes too far and she almost falls over. Daddy lifts the lantern up high and I realise what’s about to happen and I scream again but it doesn’t matter, and then he brings it down fast and hard and it smashes into the side of Sunbeam’s head with a loud crunch sound. There is a crash of glass and a burst of flame, and then the light goes out and there’s a thump and a metal squeal of springs as Sunbeam falls onto the mattress.
And then it’s dark.
Daddy calls out my name in the dark but I don’t answer him. This time I made sure I know where the stairs are and so I start to go towards them being as quiet as I can. Daddy didn’t make sure he knew where the stairs were, and I can hear him walking around trying to find me. He keeps calling my name and he still sounds angry but also a bit scared. One of my legs brushes against fur and I almost scream but I think it must be where Sunbeam fell. I want to check if she’s okay but if I do then Daddy will catch me so I have to keep going even though I don’t like it.
I almost walk into the wall again, but this time I’m holding my hoof out. It’s still sudden and it hurts but the worst thing is that it makes noise. I hear Daddy start to come towards me and I try and follow the wall towards the stairs and then I hear a thump and another bad word behind me as Daddy hits the wall. But that means he’s very close.
The next time my hoof bumps into something it’s the bottom stair and even though I’m glad I found them Daddy would have heard the knock against the wood and so I start running up as fast as I can. It’s hard in the dark and the steps creak loudly as I climb and I hear heavy hooves at the bottom of the stairs as Daddy finds them and starts to climb too.
He is bigger and faster than I am. Even though I started up the stairs first he’s still catching up. I can see moonlight coming through the cracks of the flaky paint door ahead of me, and I think if I can just reach it before he catches me then I might be okay. But I’m trying to be careful and Daddy isn’t. He gets closer and closer and his hoofsteps are so close behind me now.
There are only a few steps left but then I feel him grab my hindleg and I fall onto the stairs and it hurts. He growls and says stop running from him but he trips against the stairs too and I wriggle out of his grip. I climb to my hooves and try to get to the door and I realise that I’ve dropped Fluff again but it’s too late to go back for him even though I really want to.
I reach the door.
I pull it open and run through into the moonlight and turn around to see Daddy on the last few steps too and he’s coming up so fast that there’s no way I’ll be able to run from him, and all I can do is wait for him to catch up and worry about what he’ll do to me.
But Daddy hasn’t noticed that I dropped Fluff.
His hoof slips against Fluff on the stair and he trips forward. His head bangs against the door frame really hard and he grunts and stumbles back and his eyes go wide, and then Daddy tumbles backwards down into the dark.
There are a lot of thumps as he falls, and I try to count them but they are too fast and loud. And then they stop. Everything is quiet. I go to the top of the stairs and look down into the dark. Fluff is there, but one of his eyes has been pulled a little from where Daddy stepped on him and now they don’t line up right. I pick him up and hug him close, and when I call out to Daddy down the stairs he doesn’t say anything at all.
***
I am making coffee. One with sugar and milk, one without anything in it. Fluff sits on the counter and watches. I like Fluff. He is soft and has eyes like mine and he protects me from monsters.
When I’ve finished I bring the coffees through to the dining room and Sunbeam smiles as I put down her coffee and she says thank you. She is looking much better. Her fur is still tufty on the side of her face and her eye is misty and she can’t see out of it anymore, and she says she thinks she looks ugly now. I think she still looks very pretty but whenever I say that Sunbeam says she hopes not, that was the problem. I don’t know what that means.
When Sunbeam sees the other coffee I made she stops smiling. She gets up and unlocks the flaky paint door under the stairs and tells me to be careful. I say I will and I bring Fluff too.
There is a light in the basement now so it’s easier to see than it used to be, and it’s not so hard to bring the coffee down the rickety steps with Fluff perched on my back. The mattress is still in the corner, but now it has sheets on it. The light doesn’t reach all the way to it but I know not to get too close anyway, and when I get near there is a clink clink clink. A shape rushes out of the dark but then the chain goes taut and pulls him back with a choking sound.
I put the coffee down and push it across the floor. Only a little bit spills.
Daddy says I can’t do this to him anymore, he says we have to let him go. I tell him I’ll be down later with some food. He says Ditzy please, he says he’s my father, he says let him go. He always says it. But when I go to leave he stops saying please and starts screaming at me, and his shouting follows until I close the flaky paint door and lock it.
Sunbeam worries what will happen if somepony comes to visit, but I’m not worried.
I’ll just tell them there’s a monster under the stairs.
