Notebook Found in a Deserted House
My name is Hayseed Pear. I’m ten years old and I don’t think I’ll get any older. I’m scared for myself, but I’m more scared for all you in Canterlot. I’m writing this down hoping that someone sees it before it’s too late.
I don’t know how I can prove I’m for real, that it’s really me writing this. My family has lived in the valley of Canterlot Mountain since before the settler days, but our kin moved on and out until it was just Pa and Uncle Greenie and me. They say the soil’s not too good for growing, and we’re too deep in the valley for ponies to visit just to buy pears. Pa sometimes took me to Canterlot with the wagon – maybe someone there remembers me, but all those fancy ponies seemed to have trouble looking down so I don’t think they will.
Maybe they know Von Raus. I think I’m spelling it right. You say it like a screaming cat, Von R-OW-s. I’ll tell you about him.
We’re ten miles from the nearest railroad, but we know about the big wedding and it was good for us. Plenty of work ponies and musicians and stuff need pears to eat and they bought up everything Pa could grow at darn near triple price. Uncle Greenie said I need schooling (which I don’t) and Pa said we need new seed stock, and they fought a little until they did the numbers and figured they could do both with more besides. They gave me a little cake to celebrate then wrastled each other all night in Uncle Greenie’s room.
Pa went up into town during all of this and sent a ‘gram to the family asking for more Pears, both vittles and kinfolk. Most of them got their own farms to fret or were making their own money off this, so nothing really happened until one day he got a ‘gram back saying Cousin Barlett would come help. I never met Cousin Barlett even at the family reunions and I don’t know whose cousin he is. Pa says he never settled down, that he lived in the city and never got a farm of his own. Pa liked him anyway, but Uncle Greenie gave me a little metal box with a lock and key and said to keep my bits inside while Cousin Barlett was here.
I remember I didn’t much like the idea of him coming because a couple peculiar things kept happening that put my hairs on edge, and Pa said it was times like that when I needed to pay attention because the hairs never lied. Sunset comes fast this deep in the valley, so all the bugs and critters that don’t like the sun lived around here and would always perch in our pear trees and hoot and buzz all night long. They always stopped when they heard a train or when fireworks from Canterlot scared them off, but one night last week they stopped altogether and never came back.
Something about that got to me so the next night I was bad and took a walk I knew wouldn’t end before nightfall just so I could check in on the nice barn owl and her eggs. It wasn’t so dark yet so I know what I saw – she wasn’t at her nest, and the eggs were broke. It wasn’t a fox or some other varmit because something had burned her nest and the tree and it all smelled like they cooked a rotten apple til it burst.
I know what happened next is true too, because it was real quiet and I started hearing a low whistle, like that you blow over a cider bottle. That ain’t normal so I looked to where it was coming from and I see the next tree down with a shadow beneath it. I kept looking because something was odd and then I saw the tree was moving in the wind but its shadow wasn’t. Like it wasn’t a shadow at all but something sitting beneath. And that’s when I noticed that low whistle was coming from the woods in the deep valley, but also from the orchard to each side and that’s when the shadow looked at me and I screamed and ran. I ran thinking all those whistles meant more things in the shadows and I had to skedaddle or they’d gobble me down.
Pa and Uncle Greenie were right about to go looking for me when I reached the house. They couldn’t get much out of me until Pa gave me a sip of whiskey and I told them what I saw, and I know what I saw but I didn’t say nothing when Pa nuzzled me and said I just got scared. Plenty of good reasons why the owl might leave and the tree might smell. As for the shadow looking at me, that was just cuz a growing colt shouldn’t be out past his bedtime when his imagination might start a’running. And Pa was so big and tough I couldn’t think of no shadow hurting him anyway so I got to wondering if what I saw was real because I didn’t know then what I know now. I let him tuck me in, though I did hear him and Uncle Greenie lock up for the night and they ain’t never done that before.
They got to talking, said all the commotion and noise up in Canterlot might’ve spooked the critters away, or maybe it was something with that big pink bubble around the city Uncle Greenie said was magic. We didn’t have time to get too curious because Pa kept taking pears to Canterlot to sell soon as us two could load the wagon so it was dawn-to-dusk farming until the day Cousin Barlett was supposed to show.
Pa took the wagon to the train-stop, thinking to be nice and give his kin a ride to our farm. Uncle Greenie had mean things to say about that but they kissed and made up and he made sure Pa wore a jacket because it was starting to rain.
Us two kept working while Pa was gone, but soon we had to go inside because the rain was getting bad. Worse, that cider-bottle whistling kicked up again, just like that night with the shadow. And it wasn’t only coming from the orchard and out past, but the woods around our road to the train station where Pa had gone. Dozens, maybe a hundred, and Uncle Greenie said he couldn’t hear them but I know he could because he looked real scared and locked the door.
It started getting dark and I told Uncle Greenie we should go out and look for Pa, but he said no. He said the most important thing was keeping me safe, and besides, all kinds of things could have delayed Pa. Cousin Barlett’s train might’ve been slow or they might’ve been too scared to come in the rain and dark so they were sleeping at the train station. Uncle Greenie would stay up for them in case they came late, while I was to get myself to bed. Then he put on a big old brass horseshoe and set his rocker up in the living room so he could look out the window while he waited.
I slept just like he told me and dreamed of that whistling, so loud I couldn’t hear myself think. I saw shadows creeping through the orchard, all going in one direction like something was calling them. I heard a key turn in a lock, but then nothing else until I woke up and Uncle Greenie wasn’t there. The key was still in the door on our side, right where it was supposed to be. Like Uncle Greenie had mosied on out, leaving the door unlocked and his coat on the hook.
At first I thought he was seeing to chores. But I looked in the shed and the orchard and he wasn’t there, and now and then I heard a low whistle and I got to feeling scared again. His brass horseshoe was missing and I wondered why he would wear it to do chores. I locked the door when I went back inside and cried for a little bit. I waited for him to come back for a long time, just me and the whistling, before finally I got it figured he wasn’t coming back. And if Pa spent the night at the station he should’ve been back too, so I reckoned all I could do was head to the station myself and tell them Pa and Uncle Greenie were missing. I got on my mud boots and packed a little bag with bits and pears and was all set when there came a knock on the door.
Ain’t nobody ever knocked but visiting kin, so I opened the door and there’s this tall, yellow pony with a suit like the fancy city ponies wear, and he smiles with all his teeth and says, “Good morning! I know you, I’m your Cousin Barlett.”
I think I was so scared by then I would’ve been happy to see Nightmare Moon, let alone kin. I let him in and told him Pa was missing, and then he laughed.
“Your Pa ain’t missing! He met me at the train station, remember? He went on to Canterlot to sell my pears and told me to head back here.”
Something about this seemed funny, because Pa didn’t say nothing about him bringing vittles. I asked Cousin Barlett where he got the pears from.
“From my farm, you silly colt.”
“Pa said you didn’t have a farm,” I said.
Cousin Barlett kept smiling and shook his head. “Your Pa’s behind the times, I got one now.”
This was even funnier, because Pa told me Cousin Barlett didn’t have a farm after getting the ‘gram from him just last week. He didn’t look much like a farmer, neither. Too skinny, too fancy. And he didn’t smell nothing like pears. But my hairs were on edge and I listened real good, and they said I shouldn’t get sassy around Cousin Barlett because I didn’t know him at all even though he was kin.
“Anyway,” I said, “We have to go to the station and tell them Uncle Greenie’s missing.”
“What’s that you say?” Cousin Barlett looked at me real hard, and I wanted to fib but I don’t know how so I told him about how Uncle Greenie vanished during the night. I also told him about the whistling, and his smile came back.
“Alright young’un,” he said. “No need to go traipsing around raising a fuss when we don’t even know he’s really missing. He might be off with your Pa, or working in the orchard.”
“But I looked in the orchard! And he wouldn’t run off in the rain in the middle of the night without his jacket.”
Cousin Barlett nodded slowly. A creepy whistle came right then, and he cocked his head hard and his eyes went to the orchard, like something distracted him for a second before he looked back to me.
“It’s peculiar, young Hayseed, and you ain’t wrong about that. But it’s like with your pa, see? You thought he was missing and there ended up being a fine, sensible reason for it. We’ve no reason to believe it ain’t the same for your uncle. He’ll come on back easy as you please, and you and I will be in a heap of trouble if we bother the guards over nothing.”
“Fine,” I said, though the hairs told me I was doing wrong. “You wait here and I’ll go myself. Then only I’ll get in trouble.”
Cousin Barlett wasn’t smiling no more. “Your pa asked me to look out for you, and that’s what I’ll do. You ain’t going to no station. We’ll go tomorrow if need be, alright?”
Wasn’t much I could do. He was bigger than me and I was mighty scared by now. I was pretty sure he was lying about having a farm. Which meant he was lying about Pa, and maybe the reason Pa was missing.
But all that didn’t scare me half as much as the way he cocked his head to that whistle. Like a dog when you call it. I started thinking he was lying about being Cousin Barlett. A shadow wearing a pony, who talks in whistles.
He made sandwiches and ate with me. I kept eyeing for a chance to slip away, but he came with me when I went to the bathroom, then to bed. He was smart and smiling the whole time, but I know he was watching to see if I’d try and run. Honestly I wouldn’ta tried anything by then. The whistling outside got real loud at sundown, so much that I think some came from inside the house. I hid under my bed all night and it took an awful long time to go to sleep.
It was past dawn and quiet when I woke up, and Cousin Barlett was out of my room. I heard voices downstairs and thought the others were back, so I went to tramp on down before I caught myself and moved quiet-like. Neither voice was Pa or Uncle Greenie’s.
Cousin Barlett was standing in the door talking to somepony, and even peeking from the side I could see him smile. “You’re mighty lucky to have wandered by. Ain’t nopony else around here for thirty miles.”
The pony he spoke to to wore a nice blue uniform, with little medals and ribbons like some of those fancy Canterlot ponies. He wore a helmet shiny as good silverware with a spike out the top and had a mustache like he was smuggling mice. He was a unicorn, but bigger than Canterlot folks and older than Pa.
He talked funny too, saying “Ya” instead of yep and “Zis” instead of this. And he had these shiny black boots that were awful muddy, and alla sudden I realized Cousin Barlett’s hooves weren’t muddy after he said he walked all the way from the station right after the rain.
The fancy pony gave a nod that was also kind of a bow. “Lucky, indeed. Short cuts make long delays… I won’t trouble you long, Herr Barlett. Just point me to the nearest rail station.”
“I’m afraid you’re about as far as it gets.” Cousin Barlett pointed towards the orchard and past it, opposite the railroad and to the untamed woods in the deep of the valley. “About twenty miles that way. Keep walking with Canterlot at your back and you’ll find a nice gravel trail that’ll take you right to it.”
Now, any farmer could tell you that was a load of squirrel turds. Y’all think we take a wagon through untamed forest each time we go to sell? But fancy ponies ain’t that bright, so Von Raus (I learned his name later) thanked him and turned around in the wrong direction.
I knew it was time to do something, because he was heading for where the whistling had started, and where the shadow looked at me and Celestia knows how many more were in the trees. I don’t know if I could wrastle past Cousin Barlett in the doorway and I knew he’d try to stop me, so I made a break for it. He hollered my name as I sped from the stairs to the kitchen and then out the back door. I heard him stomping and giving chase and I swear there was a low whistle as he ran, following me out the back. He chased me around the house but I was quicker by yards and ran after the newcomer, yelling for him to stop.
He turned, smiling all confused-like, and I got out what I could before Cousin Barlett caught up. “You’re going the wrong way! He’s fibbing, the rail station is ten miles up the opposite way. There’s a road and everything.”
Raus’ smile stopped, and his eyes moved between me and Cousin Barlett.
“Pay him no mind!” Cousin Barlett says, panting and whistling as he runs. He makes to grab my leg but I run around to the opposite side of Raus. “Don’t listen to him, the boy’s unstrung. Got crazy notions in his head about monsters in the woods. Going his way will take you twice as long.”
“You said you were here alone,” Raus said, real calm and easy.
“I didn’t want to raise a fuss,” Cousin Barlett said. “Much more of this and he’ll get committed.”
Raus nodded real slow like he was agreeing, but his brows up top were furrowed tight. “You lied once. Are you lying again?”
“He sure is!” I said. Wasn’t brave, just me thinking this was my last chance. “He came yesterday after Pa and Uncle Greenie disappeared, and he don’t want me to go to the station and report it!”
Cousin Barlett kept talking to Raus, all low and polite. “His folks haven’t disappeared; they’re in Canterlot like everypony else. Poor thing is scared to death without them.”
He tapped the side of his head, smiling. Raus didn’t smile. He looked at Cousin Barlett real hard, then to me. He knelt down so he was my height, getting his knees in the mud and asked me real nicely where my parents were.
“I don’t know! Pa went to pick up Cousin Barlett but only Barlett came back. And Uncle Greenie disappeared during the night. I gotta tell the guards they’re missing! Take me there, please? I’ll show you the way. Look, you can even see the ruts where we take our wagon to the station.”
Raus didn’t quite answer me. He stood and looked over to the wagon ruts in the dirt road, then to Cousin Barlett. “Either the colt tells the truth, or he is a more clever liar than you. We will take the road together.”
Cousin Barlett gave a sigh. “I suppose we will. I’m his guardian, I ain’t letting him out of my sight.”
He stepped forward to get closer to us, but Von Raus stomped hard in the mud. “Not you. You feel foul, and I don’t trust you.”
“I insist–”
Cousin Barlett took another step forward, getting real close. Raus’ horn glowed at his belt and whipped out a big black revolver and Barlett fell over himself taking a quick step away.
“Get back!” Raus yelled. “I am a Germane Graf and I will not be insisted upon. Take your ‘short road’ to the station and report me a foalnapper if you like, but one step closer and we shall learn the color of your blood.”
Cousin Barlett started walking backwards – not to the orchard, but the house. “You’re making a mistake, Hayseed. All this storytelling is putting you in a lot of trouble.”
Raus bumped his shoulder against mine. “Enough of him. We go.”
We kept walking, but he kept a real close eye on Cousin Barlett until he entered the house and we were on the muddy road to the station. He seemed to relax and put away his pistol, then smiled at me wide enough to bounce the mouse tails. “Now, perhaps introductions are in order. I am Graf Von Raus of the Germane States of Northern Equestria.”
“Hayseed Pear.”
“A pleasure, young...” Fancy ponies always had trouble with my name, even those from around here. “Hayseed. Now I don’t let everypony do this, but you may dispense with the titles and call me ‘Raus.’ Please, tell me what has happened to you and yours.”
I told him. Part of me wanted to fib and leave out the shadow with eyes and the whistling because it was the kind of things grown ponies laughed at, but I didn’t and he didn’t laugh. I told him how Pa never came back and Uncle Greenie vanished in the night without his coat, and how Cousin Barlett was powerfully insistent I don’t tell the guards.
Then I said something else that didn’t come to me til then – Cousin Barlett told Raus I thought there were monsters in the woods, but I never said nothing to him about the shadow that looked at me. Like he somehow already knew I saw it.
Raus kept glancing behind us as we walked, and I think he believed me because he was scowling like a bulldog, but was also real thoughtful and quiet like he was puzzling something.
“The whistling,” he said. “Was it like...”
He didn’t finish, didn’t need to. A couple of them were sounding back by the farm.
“That’s it,” I said.
He nodded real tightly. We tried to trot for a while but he’s old and I’m little so we had to go back to a walk.
He started talking. Said the Germanes had a story about things called doppelgangers – monsters that could take the shape of ponies. They were cruel and evil and his ancestors drove them out of the north, but nopony ever knew what happened to them after that.
They were clever, he said, but the old Germanes figured out their weakness. They could change shapes, but it was an illusion. You could touch one and know it wasn’t right, and they had holes in their bodies that made a whistling when they moved. They used those holes to talk to each other in ways ponies couldn’t understand.
The whistling was getting louder. It was raining again, big black clouds. Raus had his gun out. He kept talking, saying he came for the big wedding but because of the magic bubble his airship had to land far and he tried to hoof it. Lots of fancy ponies from all over were on their way… meeting unexpected problems, having to make their way through a country they don’t know, having to trust strangers… all the princesses and the Elements of Harmony were gonna be there for the wedding, along with a bunch of other dukes and mayors and grafs and such… not many were soldiers like him…
He grabbed me tight alla sudden, had to shout above the whistling. I saw shadows move between the trees as he said I was young and fast, I should run for it and not look back, and never to trust a word he said again. I didn’t know what he meant but the shadows weren’t sticking to the trees no more, they were walking out ahead of us on four legs like a pony, looking at me and fluttering bug wings. I could never get past that many in front so I turned to the woods and ran for all I was worth. Raus yelled something in a funny language and his gun went off three times. He must’ve hit something because there came this awful scream that nothing natural could have made and I hear them stampede so I kept running. It was coming down in buckets and I think that might’ve saved me because there was such a jumble of hissing and whistling there had to be twenty of them shadows and I somehow got away. Raus screamed, but there weren’t no words or shots this time.
I don’t know how long I kept at it. I ran and ran, before having to stop so I hid best as I can for a few and kept running. The whistling wasn’t so loud now, but it kept coming from all around me so I kept on running forever.
I saw a building past the trees, and Celestia save me I made for it hoping it was the station but of course it wasn’t. It was my house – I ran in a dang circle.
The forest, the orchard, even deep in the valley was all up with that evil whistling. They wouldn’t let me by, no chance. They know it’s just one little colt now and they ain’t got reason to be careful no more. Just careful enough to make sure word doesn’t spread.
I walked inside, figuring they could take me if they want. Nopony was there, not Cousin Barlett or nothing. I ate and drank. Cried a lot, feeling sorry for myself and Pa and Uncle Greenie, because they’re either dead or no place good.
I didn’t care to run for it, not in that whistling forest nor the road they’re walking in broad daylight. But I did get to moving. I took some nails and boarded up all the doors and windows, except for this tiny circle window in my bedroom too small for a grown pony. I took all the lantern and kitchen oil I could find and laid it about the walls and floor, along with all the fireplace kindling.
Pa always said a fire in the valley was bad news. Maybe a big one will get somepony’s attention. Maybe they’ll come and find the doppelgangers and sound the alarm. Maybe the doppelgangers will just run, but that’s why I wrote all this out for you. I’m gonna put it in the metal box Uncle Greenie gave me, maybe it’ll survive the fire. Maybe someone will open it and find out what happened.
Cousin Barlett tried to make his way in. He tried the doors and windows but I had already blocked them out. He called to me. I didn’t answer.
Raus called too, or at least something that sounded like him. He said he escaped and everything was fine now, we could go to the station together just as planned. But he was talking in a way like he was playing at being Raus, saying ‘ich’ and ‘ach’ a lot so I knew it wasn’t him. I just hoped they killed him quick and clean and heroic like soldiers are supposed to go.
Now I know why the real Raus said not to trust him again. What he was saying about doppelgangers, and how easy they’ll have it in Canterlot.
I’m in my room now. I can see them out the window as the sun goes down – buzzing on insect wings and whistling, hundreds and hundreds of them, moving like in my dream. All in one direction to Canterlot. Like locusts among the trees. They must be real close to whatever they’re gonna do now that they’re moving so many at once.
I wonder why they didn’t break down the door. Maybe they know I can’t get away so they think I’m harmless. Maybe they’re still careful enough that they won’t try it til night.
I’m gonna wait til dusk so the fire is nice and bright. I’m gonna set it in the kitchen, then get out that window and run. I don’t think I’ll make it but I can’t think of anything better to do.
I’m plenty scared, but I ain’t too scared for myself. I know all those fancy ponies in Canterlot don’t stand a chance and what comes next…
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD BELIEVE ME PLEASE EVERY WORD OF THIS IS TRUTH
Listen for the whistling and see who whistles. If Raus is there, check him first. Show this to Celestia and anypony, you gotta believe me or they’ll getcha just as they got Pa and Uncle Greenie.
I hear them whistling out the front door. The sun’s going down. Now or never. I’m putting this notebook in the box. Gonna light the fire and jump, just like I said.
I SWEAR I AIN’T FIBBING
