It may surprise my readers that despite writing and publishing dark things; I’m an easily frightened stallion by nature. Timid and cautious around unfamiliar things and paralyzed with dread when it comes to more… tragic incidences. But I suppose I could contribute that indirectly to my little sister. (For the sake of the story, we’ll call her Lilly.) Before I became a teen, she one day suddenly and unexpectedly killed herself. Even now as an adult, I still find it hard to describe the shock, the painful grief, and the anger during those difficult months after Lilly died. I suppose what was worse about the trauma was that when it happened when I was so young, I could not understand why she did it; no matter how much I tried. My sister was young enough where she hadn’t grasped the concept of writing, so as far as I was aware, she didn’t leave a note to explain why.
For years, something about her death never made sense to me. Because my memories of her were happy ones. She was loved – that I remember much. I taught her how to draw in crayon and we spent hours in scribbling what was around us. Mom and Dad did care for us – my sister especially, to make sure we were fed, played with, and if we get hurt, we could turn to them to make it all better.
But after she took her life… our family home that was once upon a time a happy place was turned into years of gray grieving and dark blue depression. As a teenager, I didn’t find much joy in going home as the loss of Lilly hit my parents hard. While dad had on and off affairs, mom would take up drinking her pain away. Needless to say, that as soon as I had saved enough to move away – I took it. I decided to cut myself off from my parents. In fact, I wouldn’t see either of them again until I received news of their passing and showed up for the funeral.
Later when I grew up into an adult, I became an author under the penname Orion Inkguard. By day, I worked as a delivery guy that drops off groceries in Manehattan, by night I sit before a typewriter, dreaming. Trying to come up with short stories to novellas as a freelance writer. It took a while of experimentation, but eventually, I found my nitch in writing up dark, horror-related stories from your traditional ghost story to giving my own spin on urban ledges. However, with every passing year, it was getting harder and harder to come up with something original enough that would catch the public’s interest.
Then one day, I got the news that my foalhood home was still up for sale – if anything, it was going cheap as no one has bought the property since my parents died. So, I returned home, partly to see what has become of it, and partly in hopes to gain some inspiration for a future story. What I never expected to find, where ghosts of the past that were waiting for me.
“So, is this your first time here?” My cab driver asked. This caught me off guard from my daydreaming and I asked what he meant. “Seaward Shoals, I was asking if this is your first time here.”
Looking over to the side of the open carriage to a town made out of dull red bricks underneath a muted gray sky, I shook my head. “No, I lived here once.”
“Have ya?”
I nodded. “Well, I grew up here. Often walked along the beach on days like this. Fewer tourists about you see.”
“Got ya,” he nodded, “then again, nowadays we’d be lucky to have tourists, even on perfect days. I don’t blame them really given the state of the town.”
He was right. Despite being roughly the size of Ponyville, there’s very few that live here now. Between the dunes that swallow up abandoned homes to the broken-down businesses that held onto whatever bits by the teeth, Seaward Shoals isn’t the kind of place a traveler would want to visit. The locals somehow kept it functioning on life support, despite how frail its economy might be. A gray, worn, tired place that seemed ready to give up at any moment.
“To be honest,” I said, “I’m surprised it’s still here.”
“Barely.” He stopped a four-way stop to look about and ask. “Ya know, I get that this is none of my business or anything…”
“But?”
“…. Well aren’t you that author guy? I’ve seen your face on a picture in a couple of books here and there. What was it… Orion-”
“Inkguard?” I interrupted. “Yes, the same.” There was a pause. “Did you read any of my stuff by chance?”
“Eh, I dabble here and there. But I do remember reading that ghost story a while back?”
“Which one?”
“The… Give me a sec to remember the title.” My driver hummed in thought as we kept going. “I forgot. But it had to do with a haunted painting.”
“Oh! Portrait of Prudence, that was an old one.”
“Hey, I liked it.” He shrugged, “The atmosphere in it was good and spooky too.”
“Thanks.” I glanced aside to a sad-looking bakery. “Lately I’ve been thinking of writing up another little horror story.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s why I came back to my hometown.”
“To find some inspiration?”
“Hopefully.”
My driver shook his head but said nothing. I knew why. Seaward Shoals could be described as a melancholic, almost a ghost town. A dying community by the sea. In truth, apart from my parents, this town was another reason why I left. Growing up, the town was mostly populated by old ponies that for a long time I was convinced they were here because they came here to die. Wait until they too passed away and let the sand cover up their homes. As to the foals, they were a few that I could recall from school and were scattered far apart. Safely to say, growing up here was an isolating experience.
Down a road between the dark pines and the beach, at least a good mile or two away was a more remote destination. A familiar one that leads up to a cliffside over dark blue water. My driver stopped in front of the “For Sale” sign that looked as if it had stood there for much longer than intended.
“Are you sure this is where you want to go to?” my driver asked as I hopped off and grabbed my things.
“I’m sure,” nodding, I ignite my horn to grab my saddlebag. “Thanks for bringing me.”
He looked at the house with unease. I don’t blame him for expressing such. My foalhood home with overgrown grass, weeds, and a barely perceived path towards a paint peeling, glass shattered, wood soaked to the timbers – it resembled more of a haunted house. He turned back to me again. “Listen, buddy, this has to be a mistake.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why would you want to come to this miserable looking place?”
“Because… I’ve been hitting writer's block and have no idea what to write about. So I’m coming back here to well… find my muse, hopefully. You may not believe it, but I lived here once upon a time.”
He hesitated, “Do you want me to come back later or…”
I thought about it, “Later tonight. For now, I want to be left alone.”
After a long pause, he promised that he would come back and began to walk down the sandy road. My attention back to the abandoned house, I pushed my way through the thicket towards the back. Following a path by memory to the yard where I found a decayed porch, and a rusty chain swing still attached to the branch of a tree. The swing moved in the wind, looking out to the dark ocean ahead, towards the cliff where Lilly... After giving both chains a strung tug to see if it was still strong enough, I carefully sat on the swing and pulled out my pencil and notebook.
While I waited for my muse to come to me, I looked about the decayed property for inspiration, as well as nostalgia. As depressing as the setting was, I still have impressions of foalhood implanted in my mind. For a moment, my imagination saw ghosts of the past, of me and Lilly playing hide and seek behind the pine trees. Here my mind’s eye saw my family in our swimming suits heading towards the path that leads us down the cliff and to the beach below. There, I could almost see Lilly on the swing and me pushing as hard as I could while she excitedly calls out “Higher! Higher!”
My attention then turned towards the decaying house. The once blue home with its two windows and door in the middle that looked out to the sea was like looking at the face of a dead creature. That growing up, I used to picture that the back of the house had a face that almost looked alive in my mind’s eye. Now that I look at it with its paint mostly sanded off, windows were broken and door missing, it’s like I was looking at the skull of foalhood itself.
I sat there for what probably was hours. Face to the sea, listening to the waves and the wind blowing. Letting my mind go to dark places to find something to write about. If anything, I almost was ready to give up and start the walk back to town. But as I was getting up, from the corner of my eye I thought I saw something moved. Whatever it was, it was coming from inside the house like a shadow in the window.
“Hello?” I asked aloud, almost hoping and dreading that someone was there at the same time. But there was no answer. “Is anypony here?”
Maybe it was a wild animal for all I knew. But at that moment, I was convinced that I saw something. What exactly that was, I didn’t know except that it was coming from the house. So, my curiosity drew me toward the house. For a brief moment, I envisioned the gaping door was the open jaws of a monster that lead towards a black void. Even the wooden steps that I gingerly climbed on creaked and moaned underneath me, making me worried that I could fall through any second.
When I entered my foalhood home… have you ever had this feeling where despite how familiar a place is where you know every floorboard and door hinge that at the same time it still seemed… unfamiliar? It’s hard to describe but stepping inside was like entering into a dream. That I know the dining room and kitchen of my youth and yet… there wasn’t a thing I recognized. From the stove being gone completely, to the empty cabinets, the mildew smelling carpet, even the bareness of the space that lacked anything familiar was unsettling. If anything, I was a little surprised that the doors were still on their hinges; including to the door to the basement. Although I knew that the house was cleared out when my parents passed away – somehow I was caught off guard in how decayed it had become.
Naturally, it was grimly dark, and the gray sky provided the only illumination. It took me a good minute or so to have my eyes adjust to the darkness. It was also quite apart from the wind outside. In a way, such a setting was what I almost imagined a haunted house to be like. Something that only the dead would want to inhabit. It was cold, dark, and uncomfortable.
I listened for… well… I wasn’t sure what. But I stood still, listening to hear something that stood out from the wind that blew and the creaking wood. At first, I almost was ready to leave until a sudden noise made me gasp in surprise. It wasn’t loud, but it was noticeable as in the darkness of the hallway that leads further into the house, there was the unmistakable sound of a rubber ball bouncing on the floor. Then another. Another. Until the tempo sped up as it came closer in which I saw the small rusty red ball rolling into the kitchen.
“Hello?” I called out, thinking that maybe it was a kid that got inside. “Hey, you’re not supposed to be here.”
Nothing.
“Kid? Kid! This place is dangerous, and you might get hurt. So, come out where I can see you.”
But once more, all was quiet.
“Hello?” Perhaps foolishly, I took my first careful steps into the darkness. “Listen, whoever you are, this isn’t funny.”
The decaying wood screamed in agony underneath my hooves as I made my way across into a place that I had walked thousands of times. Yet, from the overwhelming smell of mildew and dust that got stronger with every step I took, I searched for any sign of someone who might have been here. Carefully, I walked past the doors that lead to a few areas of the house I remembered, the laundry room, the bathroom, my parents’ room, but I stopped. The door to my room, there was a shadow in the dim light.
“Listen, I’m not going to hurt you, it’s just I’m concerned that anyone should be in here. So, don’t hide from me.” I reached to turn the knob of my door to push it open to find… no one.
“Huh… kid?” As much as I looked around the small room that was absent of furniture, even the closet door was missing, I stood there perplexed in how someone could disappear. It wasn’t possible. Even closing the door to make sure that maybe it was a trick of the light, but even then, the shadow didn’t reappear. I knew for a fact that I saw a shadow that was inside my old room, but where did it go?
For a long minute, I questioned if I saw what I did. Perhaps it was my growing paranoia that got the best of me, or maybe I had my first encounter with a ghost. Glancing down the hall, the rubber ball that attracted my attention was nowhere to be seen. Yet, did I imagined it all and not know it? Perhaps I was so desperate for something scary that I might have been jumping at shadows. “This place was never haunted,” I told myself, “you didn’t see ghosts before, why should they appear now?” After calming myself down, I turned back to my room. Opening the door, I looked at the room again.
Although my memory told me that this was my old room, it didn’t look like it. There were many reasons for this. For one, I didn’t remember my room being so… small. The walls I remembered were painted bright blue. But now they were covered up with a flowery wallpaper that curled and blacken with mold in certain places. I suppose my parents repurposed my room after I left. Of course, there wasn’t any furniture there. It too was empty except for the carpet that covered the floor. The carpet must have been new as I don’t remember having it when I grew up.
Now, it was at this point that I would be willing to get out of the house to go home. I mean, the shadowy figure alone might have been enough for me to write a story about. That was, however, until I spotted a bulge in one corner of the room. Like something was underneath the carpet. So, despite my better nature to get out of the house, I carefully walked across the creaking floor to feel it. Moving my hoof around to try to figure out what it could be, I noticed that the carpet was loose. So, pulling it over, I blinked at what I found.
Somehow, despite the house that sea had sped its cancerous decay, underneath the carpet in a dry spot was a pile of foal drawings. I could easily tell that they were made by someone so young by the simplicity of the drawings. The paper had begun to show a yellowish tinge, yet the color of the crayon drawings was still preserved. Yet, from the first upside-down page, I quickly realized that these were Lilly’s drawings.
I knew it was hers because it showed a crudely made family portrait. The earth pony outlined in dark brown was dad. The cherry pink unicorn was mom. The green outline of a colt was me. And the little yellow filly was Lilly. All of us were smiling. Happy as I remembered.
Yet, at the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder why were these drawings here? Most crude drawings of foals get thrown away eventually. But why keep these? Perhaps my parents didn’t have the heart to toss them away after Lilly’s suicide, but why were these in my old room? In the carpet no less? There were so many questions and yet, I was intrigued that there would be so many this well preserved in such a rotten place as this.
So, I began to flip through the collection of drawings. At first, there were about playing with sketches of Lilly’s toys, the swing outside, the beach, and us drawing together. Things that anyone would expect a happy foal would put to paper. However, the last drawing in the bundle gave me pause. On the left, my sister and I were drawing on the floor. But on the right, my parents, facing one another with hardened looks in their eyes, and their muzzles opened while sharp lines came out from it. Was this an argument? I didn’t remember them being this angry looking before her suicide, especially big enough to have a child give much attention towards.
At this point, I was ready to leave. But stepping out of my room, I was startled as I heard something under my hoof. Looking down, my eyes went wide as there was another drawing. I was certain that none of the papers I held fell out of my aura, and I certainly didn’t notice it before. So, stepping back a little, I picked it up with my magic to look at it. This drawing was of my little sister with dad who looked like he was giving her a teddy bear. I smiled. Now, this I remember, that on her… I want to say her fourth birthday, dad got her that teddy bear. Memories came to me of how much she loved that toy to where she dragged it everywhere she went – even in the bathtub.
But my smile disappeared when I looked up the hallway. There was another drawing on the floor of the kitchen. “Hello?” I called out again, “Is there anyone here?” But I was met with the moaning of the wind outside. At the time, I thought that surely, if there were ghosts, they wouldn’t leave drawings out for strangers. I wondered that maybe there was a kid after all who probably has been teleporting all around me, leaving these drawings to get a rise out of me. However, that thought I realized didn’t make sense. What kind of kid would do something like this, even for a prank?
Carefully watching my step down the hall, I picked up the new drawing. This one also showed my sister and my dad. But this depiction left me confused. It showed Lilly looking up at dad – only there wasn’t a smile on her face like the other drawings. Her expression was almost blank, if anything, her mouth was drawn as a straight line. Dad’s, however, was drawn with a broad smile, big enough to show teeth. Yet, held up swimsuits that look like they were meant for my sister. A purple bikini or a yellow swimsuit that looked a touch too small for her.
For a long time, I struggled to process what I was looking at. Why was Lilly so uncomfortable in this picture, especially over swimsuits? Living near a beach for most of my life and so close, we all went there with swimsuits on and we got them in town. But then a thought came to me, why was dad looking this happy in this picture, especially holding up a choice of… I looked at the drawing again. Where they swimsuits he’s holding up for Lilly to pick? And why would he have one of those choices be a bikini for a foal so young?
“Are they supposed to be... Lingerie?” But that would have been absurd. I have done the laundry since I was a teenager, and what few clothes there were, I would have thought I would have seen them once. At first, I thought that maybe they were meant for mom, but I never saw those in the wash. Even if they were lingerie, why would dad show this to my little sister?
Then, my ears perked up as I heard the sound of rustling paper. It didn’t take me long to find the source, and my eyes widen where there, under the door to the basement, a piece of folded up paper was being passed through the thin gap.
“Hey!” I rushed over to the basement door, thinking that I finally caught my prankster. My horn flared up, grab hold of the door handle, pulled it open to find… nothing. It took my breath away that for the second time that day, that someone had disappeared from me. This time, I didn’t so much as hear the signature poof sound when a unicorn does a teleportation spell. It was completely silent, yet there at the foot of the door was the piece of paper that was being passed on to me.
Unfolding the paper, I found that it wasn’t just one sheet but two. The first was another drawing. It showed me and mom leaving the house while my dad and sister were left behind. All of us had smiles on our faces except for Lilly who looked afraid. The second made my eyes go wide. It was a crude drawing of the stairs with my sister being dragged behind by my dad, his face still having a tooth-bearing grin. But what popped out was that there was an arrow pointing downwards, towards the basement. Looking at this drawing, especially with the implications of it… I want to deny what I was seeing. Every bit of my nostalgia was screaming that no, this cannot be real. These drawings have to be faked because if they hold any ounce of truth then that would make dad… It was a sickening thought, especially the direction that this breadcrumb trail was leading me to.
But, at the same time, this latest drawing gave me a direction to go towards. Whatever it is that is laying this suggestive story out to me, seemed to be telling me to go down to the basement. Down to the palace that has to cause the most pain, to understand what happened.
I looked over my shoulder to the open back door. Surely, what was preventing me from just leaving? I’m not being held against my will; I could just go at any time and I’d bet that even this ghost couldn’t stop me otherwise. Yet… these drawings were giving me clues to what happened to Lilly. If this home was haunted by her, what if she’s trying to explain to me what happened in the best way she knew how? Lighting my horn, I turned towards the stairs down to the basement.
Carefully, slowly, I took careful steps going down the soaked stairs to avoid any rusty nails. For I was scared that at any moment, the wooden planks underneath me would break. Each board screamed up at me as if in pain underneath my weight. At times I could have sworn that the wood was bending underneath my hooves on the way down. All the while, there was the stench of mildew, dust, and rot that was so overpowering that it nearly made me turn around. For a moment, I imagined that this damp, musty place was like stepping inside a tomb. Even the cobwebs and dust in the darkness was like walking through a Nightmare Night haunted house where I nearly expected a ghost to jump out at me to yell “boo!”
Yet, when reaching the bottom step and touching the wet concrete floor, I looked around in the light of my horn. As I had expected, it was an empty, dark, and fringed place that seemingly bare. For a while, I didn’t know what I expected to find. Like the rest of the house, whatever furniture or possessions that were here have been taken after the death of my parents. But there was part of me that wondered why – whatever it was – wanted me here. My horn showed that the only things here were a puddle, the rusty furnace in the corner of the room, pipes and beams overhead, a mattress and…
Blinking, I turned back to the mattress in a tucked-away corner of the house. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing as I was sure that every piece that belonged to my folks was gone. Nothing should have remained here. So, as I drew closer, I wondered where did it come from, and how was it that nopony has found this before? If it did belong to my parents, it must have been here for years due to the sweat stains, the torn fabric on the edges, the moldy black spots near the floor, and the imprint of springs that no longer held up the mattress itself.
However, what caught my attention was that in the glow of my horn, I spotted a piece of paper that stuck out from it. I confess that for a long time, I hesitated because of my fear of what it might show. There was no need for me to be a low-grade detective to deduce what these drawings were trying to say. My nostalgia of my foalhood wants to call all of this a pile of lies; that it must be my dark imagination that’s crafting a false memory of Lilly’s fate. Even the suggestion I found to be insulting as to say that my memories of an ideal foalhood that were changed from one bad day – never happened. It might be the truth for all I know, but if it is, it’s a prickly, poisonous thing that acts like a monster than a reassuring comfort.
Yet… If I were in her horseshoes if someone did this time me, wouldn’t I have tried to tell someone that they’ve hurt me? How would Lilly feel if that after all these years she finally found a way to convey to someone she trusted what happened to her and I turned away; all because I didn’t have the courage to look at the truth in the eye.
I swallowed and used my horn to pick up that scrap of paper. It was folded up, and as I picked it up, a polaroid photo fell out, twirling onto the mattress like an autumn leaf. My eye caught on that photograph. Although it was upside down, the picture showed my sister on that mattress with tears in her eyes, her hooves had reached down to cover up. It was only a glance, but I didn’t need to see it in detail as to what it was about. If anything, the drawing that was folded up in it only confirmed my worst fears. On the left, it showed Dad – his eyes violently scratched out – smiling as he walked away from a violated Lilly, curled up on the mattress, and with huge blue tears coming out from her eyes.
This was too much for me. Haunted or not, I wanted out of this place. So as quickly as I could, I ran out. Up the creaking stairs, across the kitchen, and back outside in the ocean air. I felt so ill, so disgusted at what I discovered that I heaved from the bile in the back of my throat; yet nothing came out. Suddenly, what she did long ago finally made sense. Dad molested her, and being so young, she had no idea what to do.
Looking up at the cliff, I saw another drawing that was held underneath a rock, flapping in the wind. Although as ill as I was and dreading what this one could be, I approached the edge towards the sea. Using my magic, I levitated the drawing up to me. On the cliff, it showed a younger me, galloping and screaming while Lilly had already jumped off. As I looked at it, the paper decayed before my eyes, becoming blacken with mold and falling apart in the wind. I then realized the other drawings that I had with me were decaying too, and in my shock, I tossed it in the wind. Over the spot where Lilly had jumped to her death to escape from Dad those years ago.
On the edge of the cliff, I did something that I hadn’t done since I was a colt – I cried. The past not only came back to haunt me but finding all of this out was a hard kick in the gut. Not since those bleak months of the funeral had I grieved so much. I couldn’t tell how long I spent there just crying my eyes out, wailing in the cold, salty wind that brushed against my face. Truth be told, my morning took up so much of my senses that I didn’t notice the driver approach.
“Hey, hey! You okay?” I didn’t hear the guy coming up from the grass and weeds. If anything, I was startled when he put a hoof on my back. “Easy! It’s just me. What happened? Are you okay?” I tried to talk but I was choked on my depressed state. Of course, he didn’t understand the garbled gibberish that came out of my mouth, so he picked me up. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back for a good twenty minutes, so I got worried. Here, let’s get you out of here. There’s nothing much for you here anyway.”
My driver carried me over to the carriage before he hooked himself back up again. Silently in my whimpering, I looked back up at the house again. I still don’t know if I imagined this or not, but before we pulled away, I could have sworn that in the window that used to belong to Lilly, I thought I saw a shadow of her waving to me. Given the state I was in, I couldn’t tell if what I saw was real. And given the circumstances, I didn’t care.
On the way back, my sobbing had dissipated enough for me to finally calm down. Before we reached into town, my driver looked over his shoulder. “You doing alright back there?”
I sniffed, “Sorry that you had to see that.”
“Nah, you don’t have to apologize for anything. Still, I know it’s none of my business but what happened up there? You were grieving more than anypony in a funeral.”
“I uh…” I cleared a tear from my eye. “Remembered something I forgot. Something sad.”
“Yeah?”
Shaking my head I told him, “You know how we remember foalhood as this great time in our lives where everything was so perfect?”
“I don’t think I would know,” my driver shrugged, “I take it yours wasn’t?”
“No… just that it wasn’t what I thought it was… or seemed to be. For a long time, I thought I remembered what it was like, that we were all happy and safe. Only to realized we never were.”
“Yeah…” Nodding, I heard my driver was humming thoughtfully and I asked him what he was thinking. “Ya know… I don’t what happened to ya. But you crying all like that… call me crazy, but I think you’ve taken the first step in the right direction.”
“What?” I asked in disbelief.
“Well, think about it, you being a horror writer and all. Do you know why we have ghosts?” I told him not really. “Well, maybe it’s the reader in me that’s talking, but sometimes ghosts aren’t just dead ponies poking about saying ‘boo.’ I mean, maybe they represent something like… I don’t know, those bits about our pasts we don’t like. The more we’d like to pretend they don’t exist, the more likely they’ll come back to bite us in the flank later on. And when they do come back to haunt us, they do so with a vengeance.”
“You have no idea.” I told him, deadpanned.
“Sure, if it hurts, I guess that’s because we were caught off guard by not giving it enough attention.”
“What does that mean?”
“If you only look at the best parts of your past, you might be overlooking the darker stuff that’s unpleasant but still important as it makes a complete picture. Sometimes I think that’s partly why there’s so much insanity in the world – that ponies have ignored the bad stuff for so long that it just explodes like a pressure cooker. Ya gotta learn how to not ignore it, but not do what your past says either. Sure, you may have been younger and didn’t know what was happening or all the stuff, but you’re an adult now. Just because your foalhood wasn’t some fairytale doesn’t mean that you should let it define you.”
“Huh, and I never thought a driver could be so thoughtful.”
“Hey, just because I drive folks everywhere, doesn’t mean that I don’t have a brain. Frankly, I wish more ponies use theirs more often.”
This gave me pause for a long time as my driver continued to drive towards town. Even if all the horror I saw was in my head, or even if the ghost of my sister was trying to reach out to me – perhaps for me it was a wakeup call. I have neglected those negative sides of my foalhood because for a long time it was easier. That for me, the narrative that once upon a time there was a great foalhood until it all changed unexpectedly and for no reason. Now I saw there was a reason.
But he was right, if I’m expected to have a future, I’d need to confront my ghosts.
West from Seaward Shoals, about a few miles away from the sea and underneath the shadows of the pines lay the cemetery. It is a lonely place as it is only accessible through an eroding dirt road, almost up the side of the Smokey Mountains. A poor place where the fencing is made out of logs and branches while most of the grave markers are made of wood. Yet, in this cold place, I came with a bouquet and a teddy bear.
I followed the fence that looked out to the sea, there I approached a sadly familiar place between a boulder and a leaning pine tree. Between those were three graves, and by the tree was Lilly’s little, modest marker. Just a stone that was cut in half that had her name on it. I sat down between her and mother’s, first laying the flowers down near her headstone.
“Hi Lilly,” I began. “I know it’s been a really long time, Goddesses knows that I have been too sad to come up to say hello. So, I hope you don’t mind, but I got you a little something to keep you company.” I placed the teddy bear down. “I know this isn’t much of a replacement for your Teddy, but if you give this little guy a chance, I’d bet he might become your friend too…”
I sighed, for a moment I looked up at the shoreline at the town and my eyes wandered over to the house. “Lilly… I know the teddy can’t make up for what happened to you. Truth be told, I have no idea what I would do if it happened to me – so young. But all I can do is imagine how… scared you were. That dad hurt you and you have no idea what to do. That not even mom could make it better, and you probably didn’t know how to talk about it. You might have been afraid of dad doing it again so… you found a way out.” I put my hoof on the grass of her grave. “I don’t know what I would have done as your big brother. But in some ways… I wish I’ve known so I could at least do something. What exactly, I don’t know, but just something, anything so you wouldn’t get hurt again instead of…” I swallowed, fighting back the tears that threatened to fall, “watching you jump.” I whispered.
For several long minutes, I stayed silent, trying to put myself back together before I said anything else. “I don’t know if it was you that now haunts the house but if it was… you were brave to finally speak up in your own way. And I know there’s no amount of sorry’s in the world to make up what happened to you. If somehow, you’re listening, your big brother still loves you; and he’s sorry for not helping you sooner.” I sniffed, trying even harder not to burst out crying.
Getting up, I looked over to the grave that was nearest to the boulder – Dad’s grave. The monster’s grave. My eyes narrowed, “Tartarus is too good for you,” I said, almost growling, “I hope you rot in that house.”
Returning to my sister’s grave, I used my magic to adjust the teddy bear’s bowtie. “Lilly… I came back to say goodbye. Not because I hate you – I couldn’t do that. You have made what was a bleak foalhood into something… sweet. I’ll still be going to hang on to the memories of us playing and drawing, but at the same time, I promise not to overlook the dark side either, to remind myself that such bad things that happened to you – to us – they deserve mourning. Lilly, I need to move on because I don’t want to be tied down to misery. Both of us in our own way had enough of that. If you’re in a better place, away from the loneliness, the cold, and the heartless… maybe I could give it a try too. I’m gonna try to find a way to be more at peace. Between us, you deserve the most of it.
“So… goodbye sis. Wherever you are, I hope you can find peace too.”
Slowly, I made my way to head back into town; to catch the next train to Manehattan. As far as I’m concerned, my ties to Seaward Sholes have been permanently cut. Yet, before I left for good, I did stop to have one last look at the cemetery. Perhaps it was the trick of the light or my imagination, but for a moment, I could have sworn I saw a shadow of a filly playing with the teddy bear. I smiled and turned back to the dirt road, I was finally heading home.
Author's Note
To be blunt, as far as writing dark stories for the month of October is concerned, this here has to be one of the hardest things I've written in recent memory. Not only was I not sure where to take this story, but trying to figure out how to write some rather... uncomfortable things without being too explosive about it. Still, I'm satisfied with what I've made and I can only hope that you, the reader, might have enjoyed it.
