Sweet Little Lovely: A Gothic Romance

Chapters

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Part 1

Sweet Little Lovely

He kept his eye on the hourglass and carefully counted each tick of the nearby clock. He dared not look at the mechanism itself, of course, lest he find himself irrecoverably distracted. Nevertheless, he knew the operation by heart and repeated the actions to himself in sequence as he listened. The iron weights suspended from the body of the clock drove the center wheel. The center wheel drove the third wheel pinion. The third wheel drove the fourth, and the fourth drove the escape wheel. The escape wheel drove the escapement, which regulated the turning of the gears and was itself regulated by the motion of the pendulum. An adequately lubricated mechanism with a correctly weighted pendulum would produce exactly three hundred evenly-sounded ticks by the time the small hourglass ran out.

"Boy, are you listening?"

"One moment, father …."

Without another word, his father snatched the hourglass from the counter and gave his mane a hearty ruffling – just a bit more hearty than he would have liked, truth be told. "A customer needs assistance, son! You can work on the clock later."

As if roused from a heavy sleep, he found himself looking into the smirking, mustachioed face of his father. Carefully smoothing down his tousled mane, he looked about the shop as his bearings returned and was met with a number of knowing smiles and playfully rolled eyes.

"Yes, father. I'm sorry I –"

"Never mind that, just go help Mrs. Winterlocks with her bags."

"Right!"

With stumbling haste, he made his way around the counter and across the shop to where the venerable Mrs. Winterlocks stood in her wide, pink summer hat, waiting beside a well-stocked shelf of various feeds and grains.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, ma'am. Same as always?" he asked, already lifting a heavy bag of chicken feed from the lowest shelf.

"Same as always, Marvelous," she answered.

After delicately balancing the bag of feed on his back, holding it carefully in place with his magic, he led the way outside, making sure to hold the door open for the older pony lest he should once again raise his father's ire. The two had only just stepped away from the door when the sound of hoofbeats and clattering cartwheels drew their eyes to the dusty roadway ahead.

"Well, well, well! Good morning, Mr. Carver!" Mrs. Winterlocks greeted over the ruckus as the cart settled into the grass.

"And a good morning to you two, as well!" came the reply, tinted with Mr. Carver's thickly foreign accent and toothy grin.

"Finally decided to visit, eh? It's not good for a body to sit at home all the time, you know."

"An old fella like me won't die from a lack of conversation, madam. That condition only afflicts the mares."

"Oh, hush!" she laughed.

With that, she turned away, and the pair was soon approaching her own small cart on the opposite side of the road. "You know, Marvelous," Mrs. Winterlocks began quietly, "my granddaughter has been going on and on about the box social the Longhorns are holding next weekend. I expect that you and your brother will be attending as well?"

"Yes, ma'am. Well, that is, I will be. Grand considers the whole thing a bit too juvenile, it seems."

"Is that so? And I wonder, is there any young lady in particular that you're hoping to meet?" she asked with the sort of knowing smirk one can only earn through years of proper gossip.

It was lost on Marvelous however. At that moment, his head was turned about to watch Mr. Carver help his daughter down from the back of their cart.

As it happened, Mr. Carver was less famous for his undeniably fine cabinetmaking than for his undeniably beautiful daughter, Little Lovely. Her long, golden mane was the envy of all the girls in the village, and it was said that in the rare event that a pony could catch a glimpse of her at night, he would see her snow white coat glowing like the moon itself. Little Lovely was well known throughout the town as the prettiest unicorn in the countryside, and also, as the mare who had the eye of Marvelous, the handsomest stallion in the countryside.

"I'm sorry, did you say something, ma'am?" he asked, still turned in the opposite direction, staring quite obviously at Little Lovely as she gathered the frills of her long, black dress in her hooves and shakily stepped into the grass.

Mrs. Winterlocks could only laugh. "Oh, Marvelous, we'll see you married yet. And I'm sure there'll be quite a few young mares crying themselves to sleep that night, my granddaughter included."

"Married?" he remarked, finally turning back with a disbelieving smile as he guided the heavy bag from his back and onto the bed of the cart. "Have you been speaking with mother again, Mrs. Winterlocks?"

"You can't blame her, child," she said with a wink. "A mare can only stay a mother for so long before she finds herself possessed with the funny urge to be a grandmother."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Marvelous returned to the shop to find his mother and father already conversing pleasantly with Mr. Carver – no doubt taking his large once-a-month order for the old farm – while his big sister, Splendid, waited on the little filly quietly slurping a root-beer float at the counter.

He gave a smile and a nod as he passed Mr. Smelter, who was currently shopping about among the fishhooks, and quietly took his place by his parents. He did his best to remain discreet whenever he stole a glance at Little Lovely as she silently browsed the shelves of glassware and lace and assorted other household odds-and-ends.

"Three gallons of lacquer, three pints of formalin, and a gallon of linseed oil,” recited his father, “I suppose we can expect to see quite a few new pieces the next time you drop by, eh, Carver?"

"Indeed. I've a perfect idea for a lady's hope chest – something dramatic, very intricate. Oh, and that reminds me," he said, "add one quart of midnight blue paint to that list as well, if you please."

His mother shook her head as she drew her quill along the page. "It simply won't do to have you carry all of this back yourself, Mr. Carver." She glanced in Marvelous' direction with a clever glint in her eye. "We'll have one of the boys deliver it later today."

Just then, a shattering crash froze everyone in place.

Very deliberately, Splendid began rearranging the cases of candy on the wall behind the counter, the heavy sliding of the boxes the only interruption to the sudden silence.

Marvelous delicately approached Little Lovely, who stood over a pile of white and gold shards that had once been a very expensive teacup. Her hoof was still raised in the air, shaking with tremors.

"I-I-I'm s-sorry," she whispered. "I d-didn't …"

"Oh, it's nothing to worry about," he replied, gingerly lifting the pile of pieces from the floor. He met her sad, gray eyes with a smile, but she remained inconsolable, her body still trembling weakly in a series of short spasms.

Mr. Carver cleared his throat. "I'm very sorry about this."

Marvelous was quick to reply. "No, really, I'll have it repaired by tomorrow. It'll be no trouble at all."

"That's right, Marvelous is … well, marvelous with those sorts of delicate jobs, Carver. Besides, it was only an accident." His father offered a friendly smile. "It's just as the boy said, don't worry yourself over it."

"That's very kind of you to say. I thank you all, very much." He turned to his daughter. "Come, it's time we were headed home."

Little Lovely followed her father to the door of the shop, her head still held low in embarrassment, her legs trembling every so often and nearly causing her to stumble.

The shop remained quiet for just a moment after they had gone, shuffling hooves and sighs only adding to the somber mood. With extra care, Marvelous laid out the pieces of the broken teacup upon the counter.

"That poor girl," his mother said, finally speaking up. "Will she ever get better, do you suppose?"

"It's rather unlikely, I'm sorry to say," replied his sister, straightening her eyeglasses as she climbed the small stepladder in the corner and collected a nearly empty jar of peppermints. "I've looked into it, and I've become fairly convinced the little thing has some sort of neurological disorder." Splendid was a nurse for the local clinic, and being the only member of the family to have attended university, tended to be the authority on such matters.

His mother nodded sadly. "It's a shame." She ran a gentle hoof over her son's wavy mane. "Marvelous, don't you do anything foolish, now. She's a nice girl, and I don't want to see the little dear with a broken heart."

"You break her heart, I'll break your head, boy," his father added with a laugh. "But you know better than that, am I right?"

"Of course, father," he replied with a bit of a blush. "Little Lovely is a fine young lady, regardless of some … physical problem, and I intend to always treat her accordingly, whatever our future dealings may be."

He ignored the quiet snickering from his sister and tried to focus on the shattered cup. In truth, fixing it up would be a fairly simple job and he hoped to finish it quickly, as he was looking forward to a certain delivery later that day.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Mr. Carver's farm was rather small, and a farm in only the most technical sense. It had been, until a few years before, the sole possession of the Longhorn family, as was most of the farmland in the town. Eventually, hard times had come around and the family had decided to split the land into parcels to rent out individually. The low cost of the acreage made the land very attractive to poor immigrants and travelers looking to put down roots. It was likely that very thing that had brought Mr. Carver to the town, he and his daughter having only just arrived about one year before.

Unfortunately, the limited duration of their presence, combined with their notably reclusive nature, had given Marvelous very little opportunity to converse properly with the young focus of his attentions, a fact of which he was excessively aware and quite eager to change.

As he and his brother-in-law, Golden, approached the edge of the old farm pulling the cartload behind them, they found Mr. Carver awaiting their arrival.

"Hello, boys!" he greeted. "Prompt delivery, I see." He looked over the contents of the cart, cans of paint and varnish and chemicals, along with a few pieces of solid stock; it was a heavy load, but could have easily been pulled by one pony alone. "The workshop is just this way, in the outbuilding over there," he added. "Marvelous, why don't you join Little Lovely on the verandah? She's just made some lemonade."

"Thank you, Mr. Carver. I think I'd like that very much," he replied as he unhitched himself from the cart. Golden sent him a conspiratorial smile before he turned away with Mr. Carver and started off toward the small, dusty workshop at the perimeter of the property.

The farmhouse itself was a simple plank building, colored a dull gray and marked here and there with small embellishments – attempts to introduce a bit of character to the otherwise drab exterior which were no doubt added over time by Mr. Carver himself.

One such embellishment was the well-polished, hoof-crafted porch swing hanging from the rafters of the verandah, upon which was seated the lovely daughter. Her eyes bounced back and forth from Marvelous to the floor, as though in one moment she were ecstatic to see him and in the next found herself ashamed at the thought of being so artlessly forthright.

"Good afternoon, Marvelous," she said quietly, having apparently settled on being bashful.

"Good afternoon," he answered.

She nearly leapt from the swing. "C-could I offer you s-some lemonade?" she asked, grasping the thick glass pitcher in her hooves and lifting it from its place on the small metal table at the edge of the balustrade.

"Yes, thank you."

He watched as she very slowly and cautiously filled a glass, leaning over the table in full concentration, her trembling hooves tightly gripping the sides of the pitcher as she poured. She smiled in obvious relief as she finally replaced the pitcher upon its stand.

With a sparkle of magic, he lifted the glass to his lips. It had the tang he'd been expecting, as well as a certain flowery sweetness. "Say, that's nice! And it seems there's something that I can't quite place."

"It must be the honey," she said. "We make it here on-on the farm."

"Oh?"

"Yes," she replied, "Papa's always fussing about with his bees."

She fidgeted nervously with a lock of her mane, moving it this way and that to the side of her horn, still unable to meet his gaze for more than a moment at a time. And yet, even in her too-old-fashioned dress, her legs before and behind covered with long, white stockings, her beauty was entrancing, and Marvelous found himself nearly as tongue-tied as she.

"I'm sorry," he said, eventually tearing his eyes away for long enough to collect his thoughts. "That is, I'm sorry we've not had a chance to really speak before now."

"Don't be," she said. "Papa and I … well, w-we do so rarely get out of the house, after all. It's entirely my fault."

"But I must confess, I've found myself wishing quite often that I should have the opportunity." He smiled. "If I may – I wonder, what sorts of things do you find to occupy your time?"

"I'm afraid I haven't m-much to-to tell,” she thoughtfully returned. “I do what I can around the house. Papa doesn't like me being outside too much …. I n-notice that you have an hourglass cutie mark?"

"Hm? Oh, yes," he said, looking back awkwardly at his own flank, "I'm a clockmaker – a horologist. Well, in addition to my other duties at the store, of course."

"Those are your clocks on the shop wall?"

"You've noticed them?"

"They're quite pretty," she said. "I m-much prefer them to the ones papa makes."

"Mr. Carver makes clocks as well? I shall have to ask to see his work someday. In fact, I'm rather looking forward to it already! There's nothing quite so exciting as seeing a beautiful mechanism in operation, after all."

"Yes, I do think I understand." She gave a vigorous nod, "I've felt the same thing when I've finished a new dress."

"Ah, so you make dresses, then?"

"I made this one!" she said with a smile and a flourish, showing off the delicate frills and folds of her dress. "It's nothing as interesting as your clocks, of course. I make all of my dresses. Papa's clothes, too. But mostly I sew dresses for my dolls. They're so small that I can use scraps of cloth, so it doesn't matter as much if I … make a mistake."

He quietly sipped his lemonade, the soft breeze blowing through his mane and carrying the sounds of clattering lumber over the sudden silence of the porch. Little Lovely returned to the swing, rubbing the tips of her hooves together, anxiously, but without the tremors that had marked her earlier movements.

She looked away, a crushing melancholy in her voice as she spoke. "Thank you, Marvelous. You've al-ways been especially k-kind to me. It's more than I could have hoped for." He felt his heart ache as she turned to him with a wavering smile. "So, thank you."

"The Longhorn family is having a box social next weekend."

Her eyes, a moment before on the very verge of tears, were now filled with confusion.

"Did you not know about it?"

"I … suppose I didn't."

"Well, I, for one, would like very much if you could be in attendance that night," he said with a wide grin.

She sniffled discreetly, and laughed as she rubbed a stocking covered hoof against the corner of her cheek. "I'll have to ask papa."

Part 2

The door of the stately Longhorn home stood open to the balmy evening, spilling forth the smooth sounds of music and polite revelries and casting out a warm amber into the blues and purples of the summer dusk. And within, Marvelous stood tall and confident and walked about with smiles for familiar old friends. More than a few young ladies met him with eyes that sparkled shyly of romantic dreams and a lingering hint of sad resignation. Yet sweeping his gaze across the grand foyer, crowded about with mingling youths, Mr. and Mrs. Longhorn watching and conversing with the other chaperones on the second floor gallery, he could find nary a hint of Little Lovely.

Suddenly, he felt a weight fall across his back, one that smelled heavily of perfumes and ruffled with thin summer fabrics.

“Marvelous, I've been waiting for you all evening!”

His eyes rolled at the musical yet biting voice. “Good evening, Ginger,” he said with barely restrained disappointment. “Would you kindly remove yourself from my person?”

She circled about to his face. Her short auburn mane bobbing as she turned her head away, she watched him from the corner of her painted eyes with a hurt pout evident upon her mouth.

“Don't you feel unforgivably rude leaving a lady to fend for herself among such a terribly uncouth group of colts?” she asked, a poorly concealed smirk twisting her lips. “But, I'm sure I could be convinced to forgive you if you should offer … oh, maybe a dance or two.”

“I'm afraid that price is a bit too high,” he said as he stepped aside. “I'll try to console myself of the pain of your resentment.”

She followed at his shoulder as he strode through the masses of partygoers, her light, brown dress flowing about her legs and looking almost childish compared to the rich and colorful outfits of the other girls, dressed to the nines in their frills and flounces. “Oh come on, Marv, what's so special about her anyway?” It was, after all, common knowledge that Marvelous was interested in only one particular mare. “Any of the girls here would be just as good, wouldn't they?” she asked while obviously referring to herself.

He replied slowly and thoughtfully, a tired sigh in his voice. “I am sorry, Ginger. It's just a bit difficult, after all, to find any particular interest in the same girls you've known ever since you were a foal.”

“Well they don't have any difficulty finding an interest in you, you know.”

“Ginger,” he replied shortly, “I think I've made myself perfectly clear.”

She frowned as he left her behind – and as an afterthought, she defiantly stuck out her tongue at the back of his frustratingly handsome head.

He passed from the foyer into the small parlor to the side, the music softly fading to be replaced by quiet conversations of ponies who wished for a bit of seclusion and recess from the clamor. It was there that his eyes finally rested on the unmistakable golden locks of his esteemed young lady. She stood, thoroughly alone, at the window, looking out with an equal mix of anxiety and melancholy.

She noted his eager approach with a start before her face flashed with recognition and happiness.

“Good evening, M-Marvelous,” she greeted as she rubbed her hooves shyly upon the floor.

“Good evening indeed. My evening has just become significantly better, in fact. But, Little Lovely,” he said seriously, “I must say, it doesn't seem that you're having a very good time at all.”

“I was, um, waiting for you.” She turned back to the window now and again, her voice quiet and somber. “It seems that everypony here already knows each other. It leaves me with a certain feeling that I'd be imposing.”

He lifted her chin and looked into her ghostly gray eyes with a cheerful smile. “Well, that just won't do. If you would like, I'd be happy to introduce you to everyone.”

“I ….” She hesitated. She looked about the room, taking careful note of all the happy ponies chatting with the old friends they'd known for so many years. “I think that might be … nice.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The fading sounds of quiet conversation distantly behind them, Marvelous and Little Lovely stood together in the meager gardens of the old plantation house, watching as the fireflies blinked lime colored starlight over the long moon-shadows.

"Thank you for everything, Marvelous." Her voice was soft, melodious as the hum of a violin over the discordant chirps of the crickets. The sound brought to his mind the fresh thought of their recent hours together, the way her quiet, stuttering mumbles had eventually given way to laughter and lightness at his own persistent coaxing.

"Well, I'm happy you've enjoyed your night," he returned. "And you see? Everyone loved meeting you, as I knew quite well they would."

"I loved meeting them, too. It's been such a long time since I've had f-friends I'd feared I'd up-and forgotten some crucial bit." She looked away, her smile still sitting gleefully in its place. "But now, it's rather exciting to think of the sorts of things we could all do together. I'd like to imagine I'll be invited to tea someday or maybe even a trip into the city to see the shops with the other girls."

"I'm sure you'll get on splendidly."

They slipped into a long, comfortable silence. When he turned to her, perhaps to make a comment regarding the music or how Maple Toffee had commented so positively on her dress, he found himself frozen. Her cheeks, her neck – her white coat in the bright light of the moon shone like the blue of snow on a winter's night.

He, being thus transfixed, was unable to speak.

"I think my favorite part of the n-night was … being with you, Marvelous."

Their eyes met, and Marvelous found his heart gripped, and cursed himself when he felt a sudden unfamiliar absence of charm and confidence. His heart beat feverishly as he took her hooves, and he smiled an uneasy, nervous smile.

"Your … your hooves are cold," he said awkwardly. They both shared a quiet laugh.

"Little Lovely, I would very much like to … that is, could I see you again, after tonight?"

Her eyes shimmered with such happiness that words could scarcely hope to express it all. So she just quietly replied "I'd like that very much."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Not many days hence found Marvelous once more falling into the rut of routine and simplicity, and so he listened with carefully concealed boredom to the meandering tale woven by his elder sister, a story which was excessive in detail and wholly unnecessary as everyone in the family had been aware of the plans for quite some time; apparently she and Golden Silence had finally convinced the mayor to consider their plans for a public library. While Marvelous could honestly say that he was pleased for the two of them, his patience was waning in the little room, the drooping sun adding its heat to the cramped and crowded kitchen already warmed by the fading embers of the stove at his back.

His father smiled across the supper table. “You mean to tell me that Golden actually spoke the the mayor himself?” he asked. “What'd you have to do? Yank his tail to get his mouth to move? A bit of peanut butter on the gums?”

“Oh, daddy. Why, I'll have you know that Golden is actually quite eloquent given the right circumstances.” Her husband smiled at her side, his head drooping shyly from the unexpected attention, a comical sight as always and terribly unsuited to his naturally large and imposing frame.

“I'm sure. Still, it's nice to have someone in the family with some ambition.” He turned with a playful smirk to Grand. “A little drive now and then would be nice around here.”

Grand merely waved away the veiled accusation, his mouth still stuffed with food. “I'm perfectly ambitious, father. It just takes a different form is all.”

“Oh?”

“Of course. I have to leave a good social impression, after all, if I'm ever going to find a fitting wife.”

Marvelous could scarcely contain his snide laughter as his brother extolled his social graces while sputtering bits of food upon the table. “Come now, Grand,” he said, “a 'fitting' wife for you? I daresay you'll be hard pressed to find a sufficiently lazy mare in the entire county.” His sister laughed behind her hoof, and his mother sent him an admonishing glare, though her disapproval was clearly forced over a lingering smile at the corner of her lips.

Grand was unimpressed. “Before you comment on anyone else's laziness, maybe you should lift a hoof in real work for once instead of puttering about with your toys all day.” He grinned maliciously. “Though I suppose you would be an expert on mares, seeing how you're so much like one yourself. When I find a bride, perhaps you'd like to give her some advice on styling her mane for our wedding?”

“I look forward to meeting her. I suppose you'll find a girl who will appreciate your looks – a nice blind mare perhaps.”

“Hmph! So says the pony who's courting the cripple.”

Marvelous sat for countless angry heartbeats, his eyes down and his ears unhearing even as the quiet was cut with the scraping of silver upon plate.

“Marvelous,” came the voice of his sister as she hastily rose from the table, “I've been meaning to bring up some preserves from the cellar, but there's just so much old junk down there that it's become too hard to get around. I wonder if you'd help me?”

Giving a quick glance at his brother, who sat withered and shamefaced at his side, Marvelous followed her to the corner of the kitchen where the entrance to the cellar stood, a dull door of planks set upon aged hinges. It squeaked and groaned behind them as she shut it gently, immediately lighting the passage with a spark from her horn. “Don't pay any mind to Grand.” Her quiet voice sounded oddly close in the tiny passage. “Little Lovely really is a fine girl.”

With a nod and a sigh, he resolved to leave the incident behind him, counting it just another example of his elder brother's rather distasteful character.

“I do need your help though, as it happens,” she said as she continued downward on dusty brick steps. “There's simply too much trash piled up down here. Daddy really could stand to be more careful.”

The heat of the kitchen, the scents of spice and vinegar and manifold wafting odors which brought to mind old, nostalgic comforts and half remembered childhood conversations were set awash by the frigid, empty air that settled heavily beneath the old home.

The nearly silent taps of their hooves upon the heavy brick began to resonate as they stepped from the wooden walls of the passage into the cavity of the cellar itself. Immediately, their view was beset by the tall, splintering form of a bookcase, looming indifferently over the entranceway.

“You see?” Splendid asked with a clear smirk in her voice.

Through the slats of the shelf and upon the stacks of disorganized detritus piled throughout the room, his sister's horn cut harsh, hard swaths of golden light and left behind long shadows of unpierced blackness. The far corners of the chamber were left untouched, leaving the appearance of empty, darkened doorways that stood open and whispered the familiar anxiety that's so often encountered in the dark of one’s own home.

His sister spoke as they shuffled along the slim path left between the stacks of crates and broken half-forms of old furniture. “Marvelous ...” she said as he followed, “you understand that I do like Little Lovely.…”

“Yes?”

“But, well, I am a bit afraid for the two of you.” Her voice took on a solemn tone, almost apologetic, or perhaps with a hint of pity. “I worry about her sickness, Marvelous.”

He shook his head unconsciously as he shifted aside a dusty steamer trunk. “Well there's nothing to worry about,” he replied simply – even defiantly. “I know it may not be easy for the two of us. I don't want a wife just for housework or what have you, not like some colts around here.”

A smile grew upon his lips. “It seems that recently, I simply can't imagine living even one day without her.”

Splendid remained silent, leaving no further words to betray her still somber thoughts.

They came at a shuffling pace to their goal, the claustrophobic hallway of junk very abruptly ending in a dusty tool chest, behind which sat a meager shelf of jars – sugar syrups, jellies, and their mother's preserves stored since before the last year's fall.

“Well, here we are,” she said. “I think we can move this to the side and squeeze through. You get on that side, and I'll push from here.”

With heavy scrapes upon the old brick floor, they jostled and heaved the old chest aside. His sister looked over the old jars with glib satisfaction. “The bottom shelf, just as I thought.”

As she lifted her preserves, Marvelous found himself rather uncomfortably pressed between the old chest and the solid wall of the cellar. He began to extricate himself with careful haste, lest he find himself buried beneath the heavy weights of the stacked boxes about his shoulders. He struggled, finally making his way from the wall, when he felt his back hoof strike upon something solid, to be quickly followed by the rolling “tink” of heavy glass and the feel of some strange, sticky muck on the bottom of his back hoof.

A distasteful groan rose to his throat as he dug about in the blackness behind the crate and found, as he expected, the round form of an old jar, displaced from its proper position upon the shelf and its lid lost at some point in the past.

He lifted it into the light, the clear amber within showing its contents to be honey, though he couldn't remember when last they'd occasioned to use honey for anything, his mother being more particularly fond of brown sugar.

His eyes stayed fixed on the old jar, fastened to a curious shadow that seemed to fall upon it. He soon realized that what he'd taken for a shadow was, in fact, some sort of dark object suspended within. He lifted it to his face, turning it about this way and that as he squinted at the contents, and as it happened to catch the light in just the right way, the shape finally came into clarity.

He gave a start, only just able to keep the jar aloft as he found himself staring at the gray form of a mouse.

It sat motionless, floating dead in the honey, its paws lax, its big, black eyes open just a bit, leaving it with a rather sleepy sort of look.

Splendid had taken notice of his sudden stillness and peered in over his shoulder. “Is that a mouse?”

“Mm hm,” he intoned. “Disgusting. But I have to wonder, just how long has this old jar been here anyway?” He began turning the jar about. “From the looks of him, I'd say our little friend hasn't been here very long at all.”

“Actually, it may have been quite a bit longer than you'd think,” she said, taking the tone of the practiced student of medicine. “Honey is a preservative, after all.”

He hummed. “Really?”

“It's quite useful for treating wounds, in fact. It prevents infections. More to the point,” she added, “I believe that some ancient civilizations had even used it as an embalming agent. It's entirely possible this little mouse has been in there for, oh, a few years or more.”

Marvelous gave a snort as he cast the jar one last disapproving glance and thought that the whole thing seemed like nothing more than a waste of perfectly good honey.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The primary weights turn the center wheel pinion, and the center wheel drives the going train. The center wheel arbor is connected to the cannon pinion, which couples and decouples the minute wheel. The minute wheel turns the minute hand and then the hour hand via a precise twelve-to-one reduction.

A second weight drives the striking train, marking each hour according to –

"Well, what do you think, Marvelous?"

Marvelous turned with a start, his overly attentive nature betraying him and once more leaving him in a somewhat embarrassing state. "Hm? Oh, yes, it's quite nice, sir."

Mr. Carver's clocks were certainly "nice." Quite remarkable, in fact, and no less so for their peculiar abundance. There were, in this room alone, no less than half-a-dozen, each one splendidly and intricately fashioned, stained, inlaid, pieced together, and woven about with silver filigree. He noted a table clock of polished ebony crafted as a stunning representation of a noblecolt's chateau, each individual window and door carved and placed in perfect scale, and a cuckoo-clock which bore a bird of such miraculous detail one would swear that, in his amazing artistry, he had somehow created a living bird from the same material upon which it was perched.

So pervasive was the fruit of Mr. Carver's craft that the scent of fresh wood was inescapable. Marvelous found himself nearly overpowered at the potent odors of cedar, pine, and cherry woods, and the slightly bitter touch of chemicals and drying paint.

Yet, his attentions once more captured by the clocks, he did feel a bit distressed. He couldn't shake the knowledge of a number of slight imperfections, not in their form so much as in their mechanisms – an uneven tick here, an improperly weighted pendulum there, each one ever so slightly flawed. He would perhaps mention it some other time.

The shaky clattering of china marking her arrival, Little Lovely stepped into the room from the kitchen, carrying in her mouth a large silver tray upon which sat a simple white tea service. She gently placed it on the small table that sat in the center of the room.

Mr. Carver greeted his daughter with a warm smile. "Thank you, dear." As the two proceeded to join her at the table, he turned ever so slightly in Marvelous' direction. "You know," he said, "I wish that more young fellows could be like you, Marvelous. You've got a good head on your shoulders, and quite an eye for fine craftsmanship, if I do say so myself."

Marvelous stirred his tea about, dropping in a cube of sugar before taking a sip. "It's very kind of you to say so. I would be lying if I didn't confess a certain appreciation for beautiful things." Little Lovely looked away, a small smile playing upon her lips as he cast a sly glance in her direction.

"As it happens," he said, returning his cup to his saucer, "you've reminded me of an important matter, Mr. Carver." Gently placing his tea upon the table, he turned, and with slow and careful motions, lifted a small brown pouch from his saddlebags. Little Lovely and her father watched intently as, with a crinkle of tissue paper and a delicate tinkle of porcelain, he drew from the bag a fine, white teacup, its thin walls and handle woven about with flowering golden vines.

"T-that's the one I –"

"A gift," he said, delicately placing it down before her. "It was just as I said, a very simple repair."

She turned it about in her hooves, never lifting it far from the table. Each tiny fragment had been perfectly restored, and not a single crack could be seen on the glistening surface. "It's as good as new," he added.

But Little Lovely shook her head. "No."

"No?"

"Before it w-was just a cup. It was very pretty, of course. But-but this one … this is the one that you made." Her eyes, lifted with some effort away from the pristine glimmer of her gift, seemed to almost glimmer themselves as they fell once more on Marvelous. "This one is so much better than the other."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The two of them strolled together along the path separating Mr. Carver's field from the neighboring farm. Long, twisting waves blew across the prairie grasses, greens and browns and flecks of wildflower color all swaying beneath the sleepy afternoon clouds.

Little Lovely closed her eyes and lifted her face into the breeze. "It feels good, doesn't it?" Her golden mane was dancing in the wind, a flowing river glowing against the horizon. "Being alive, I mean."

He felt the wind pressing against every inch of his skin, heard its gentle flow in his ears. As he breathed, he realized that he could feel the beat of his heart.

She turned her eyes to him – her eyes that were like pale reflections of the soft silver sky.

He tasted her kiss, a startling sweetness on his lips; he felt the spark that lit in his belly and he smelled the delicate, flowery perfume that rose from her skin and mixed with the summer air.

Part 3

The doors slid open heavily, clattering upon the old iron tracks of the barn not far from Mr. Carver's workshop. The odor inside was singularly oppressive. Pens lined the walls, most of them occupied by large and healthy pigs jostling about with grunts and quiet, piggy noises.

"You keep pigs," Marvelous commented with carefully inoffensive evenness.

Mr. Carver merely smiled. "Are you not fond of animals, then?"

Looking about, Marvelous let his eyes meet those of one of the nearby beasts. It stared and wrinkled the flesh of its snout, its jowls bobbing as it chewed on some mysterious but undoubtedly disgusting thing. Marvelous found himself cringing away.

"Well, I'm certainly fond of some more than others," he replied, and turned with curiosity to his host. "But why keep them at all? I can't imagine you find much use for them."

He received another mysterious smile for his trouble as Mr. Carver started away toward the rear of the building. "They're not so much popular with the ponies as they are with some of our neighbors. Big markets for them out east. They keep us going during the hard times. Pigs, bees, I grow a little tobacco, too, when the season's right. Every little bit helps."

Marvelous, having grown up in his family's shop, had no experience to speak of regarding the particulars of farming, and so was at a bit of a loss. "I'm not sure I understand, sir. You breed and sell the pigs?"

Mr. Carver led him back through a tiny, quiet hallway. He answered over the rattling latch of an old, thick door, the paint worn down long ago and the hinges smooth with constant use. "We sell their meat, of course."

He threw open the door and Marvelous recoiled immediately, his vision engulfed by a flood of deep red – an overwhelming scene of blood and flesh – the flashing, grim wetness of dark, iron instruments. His head spun at the sight and he teetered and swayed on the edge of a sudden faintness.

Mr. Carver was quickly at his side. "Are you alright, boy?" he asked with genuine concern as Marvelous lay heavily upon his shoulder.

“Yes, I-I'm fine,” he said with distinct pallor evident upon his lips. “It caught me by surprise is all.”

Rising on wobbly legs, he looked once more about the room and found upon further observation that it was hardly as much a scene of carnage as he'd thought, a fact which left him feeling rather foolish.

The room was a bit dim, the only source of light being a few tiny windows under the perimeter of the ceiling, but it was actually quite clean considering its purpose. Tables along the wall stood stacked with small casks, and the tools of Mr. Carver's work sat hanging upon tidy rows of pegs.

It was the form in the center of the little room that had caused his initial panic. There, upon sharp and unforgiving hooks, was the corpse of a hog, split bodily down the center and hanging motionless upon heavy chains like the weights of some unimaginable, infernal clockwork. On a slab nearby lay its head and innards arranged into neat piles on a number of rubber sheets.

Mr. Carver studied him intensely. “You're disgusted,” he said.

“Oh, no!” he was quick to reply, fearing that he had finally managed to insult the old pony. “It's all just very … unfamiliar. But, if I may ask, why show all of this to me?”

“This is an important part of our lives, Marvelous. Perhaps it was simply curiosity. To be honest, I had intended to give you a bit of a fright,” he said with a smile. “I don't really expect that most ponies would have reacted any differently.”

“As I said, you'd just happened to surprise me.” He boldly stepped toward the center table, taking courage as his eyes roamed over the offal – meticulously separated cords of intestine, all a grayish-yellow, wet membranes still intact between the folds – kidneys and livers with offhanging threads and twisted ropes of slowly leaking vasculature – and he slowly worked his way up to the pink, hanging slabs that had once been a pig and now remained, irrevocably and undeniably, meat.

“You have quite a collection of talents, Mr. Carver,” he commented respectfully. “I would think that your carving would have taken up all of your time. How did you happen to learn about butchery?”

“I say, you'd be surprised how similar the two are. I learned to prepare meat when I was very young, from my father back in the old country. But that wasn't 'butchery,'” he said with a grin. “I learned all about butchery in the war.”

He gave a darkly humorous laugh which Marvelous could only echo halfheartedly. “I was a doctor back then, you know. But in the war, anyone who could handle a knife, they would give you a bonesaw and call you a doctor.”

Marvelous shuffled about anxiously. “Yes, well, I … I'm not one for medicine, myself. My sister, she works at the clinic, she's the one who handles that sort of thing. I'll admit that I often find the things she talks about rather distasteful.”

“Distasteful? Oh, not at all, not at all! Medicine is a wonderful thing. Now I can't say my time in the war was particularly pleasant, but I am very grateful for the things I learned.”

He sidled up to Marvelous, gingerly gesturing to the entrails upon the slab, and his voice grew reverent and just a bit forlorn. “These things here? These pieces on the table? These are the mechanisms of life, Marvelous.”

His hoof passed over the veins of the kidneys, the lungs, and up the thick trunk to the heart, and Marvelous gazed intently at each in turn. “The blood, the breath – digestion, thinking, seeing, hearing – bones and muscle, everything a mechanism. And when a pony is lying on the ground, and you open them up and carve away their broken pieces only to put them back together with nothing more than hope that they can somehow fix themselves, you realize what a crime it was that any one of the mechanisms should ever be destroyed. That, Marvelous, is butchery.”

They stood there together, each lost in his own thoughts. Marvelous considered what Mr. Carver had said, and looked at the scene before him anew. He wondered. He traced the lines of bone and tendon with his eyes and swallowed back the creeping sickness that still threatened to rise in the pit of his stomach. He imagined hearts, throbbing and pulsing life through the chubby little animals grunting in their wallow. All such intricate and delicate machines.

He resolved that upon returning home, he would ask his sister if she would allow him to borrow some of her old medical texts.

He looked into the glassy, black eyes of the severed head. “Well, in any case, this poor fellow's mainspring seems to have wound down.” There was more kindness in his voice than his words may have suggested.

“I have to wonder though,” he asked, “what it must be like when your mechanism stops.” Looking at death more closely than ever before, he found himself thinking along rather dark lines. Even so, he was surprised at the intensity that suddenly came over Mr. Carver's demeanor. He stood at his side still, but his eyes were those of a pony separated by unfathomable lengths from the tiny room, and he rubbed a hoof along the chest of his thin jacket.

When he spoke, his quiet voice carried with it a grim, rasping heaviness. “From what I've seen,” he said, “I'd suppose that it's worse than anything you could ever imagine.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The months came and went for Marvelous and Little Lovely, and the two of them grew only closer as the leaves turned and fell and the gray skies spoke happily of coolness and rest, of harvests and holidays.

It was in the latter days of autumn that they sat together, lying shoulder to shoulder upon the forest carpet of golds and reds and browns. His head lay against her neck as she read from her book of poems. Her voice echoed sweetly in his ears like a wind blowing along snow covered mountain cliffs and over the flowering fields of the valley – a beauty beyond touch and time. Although it must be said that she did stammer a bit. And though she sometimes had to ask for the pronunciation of a particularly unfamiliar word here and there, he responded with patience and a smile and kissed her cheek until her own smile returned.

He spoke quite suddenly, his eyes closed as if he were only a moment from nodding off to sleep. “The air is growing a little cold, isn't it?” he asked in a soft and contented voice.

“Hm? Yes, I suppose it is.”

Marvelous pursed his lips and clicked his tongue. “Well now, I wonder, Little Lovely, if you were to be wed, what sort of weather would you prefer? Snow? Or maybe something just a bit warmer – something in the springtime?”

She paused and lifted her head from her book. “I … I d-don't know if-if-if I should … that is, no one has ever asked me to marry them.”

“And if someone were to ask?”

Little Lovely drew away, her expression mercilessly distraught. “Marvelous, don't say such things.” She turned away, leaves crunching violently under her feet and her gloved hoof nervously upon her cheek. “It's been so wonderful being with you all these months but … I could never wish you to marry such a s-stupid, ugly girl as me.”

And in spite of the grave seriousness of her unexpected proclamation, Marvelous found himself laughing aloud. “Surely you're joking? Little Lovely, you're far from stupid. And ugly? Why, you are without a doubt the most beautiful girl I've ever laid eyes on.”

“But I am … ” she said with sad desperation and a wavering voice.

He stopped her with a gentle hoof under her quivering chin. “You're wonderful.”

With her forelegs thrown around his shoulders, she sighed and fervently nuzzled him about the neck. “When you say it,” she whispered, “I almost think it could be true.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Marvelous made his way home in the encompassing light of late afternoon – that odd sort of hazy sheen which seemed to drive away the shadows to leave behind a dreamlike pall – his mind at peace but for the lingering question of Little Lovely's unusual distress. Where she could possibly have come about the idea that she was anything but beautiful he surely did not know.

He continued an easy pace along the long road into town, having taken the roundabout path that led along the millstream where the wind whistled through the bare boughs along the hills and hollows that stretched over the countryside. And suddenly, he found his steps arrested, the cause only just on the edge of his conscious appraisal.

It was on the side of the road, a little form of white and red caught by the corner of his eye, and, driven on by a strange sense of fascination, he drew closer – a chicken – dead, torn but not eaten, perhaps by a stray dog or somesuch wild creature. His gaze was fixed upon it, its feathers stained, roughed and broken, and missing in patches. A gash showed upon its belly, open over its legs with a hint of intestine protruding. Yet otherwise it seemed to be intact.

The smaller intestine – comprised of the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum – absorbs the nutrients of digestion via the mucosa, sending them to the blood.

The blood circulates through the vasculature by force of the heart.

Within the heart lay the ventricles and the atria – muscular chambers allowing proper pressurization and distribution of the blood, and which together create the characteristic steady rhythms of the heartbeat as directed by the excitation of the sinoatrial node.

Marvelous had taken voraciously to the study of the medical texts, enthralled at the wealth of intriguing new mechanisms to peruse, but had, unlike a true student of medicine, heretofore lacked access to any useful biological specimens.

After a careful glance about the road, he lifted the body from the ground and slipped it into his saddlebag. His family would think it a terribly odd thing to have, of course, so he would have to secret it away, and it would last for only a short time before it grew rancid. Nevertheless, he was unable to resist the scholarly allure presented in the bloody, white bird that lay upon its wing in the dirt of the forest.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Not many days afterward, in the somber and dreary aftermath of a long autumn drizzle when the heavy clouds had parted and the sun reached down to draw long, luminous golden fingertips across the prairies, Little Lovely had – through no small trouble on her part, owing to her particular constitution – made a stop at the general store to purchase a number of small household miscellanea. To the great surprise of absolutely no one, Marvelous, being nothing if not a gentlecolt, had insisted on seeing her home. And so they strolled together over paths dampened ever so slightly by the rain, their pace unhurried and at times faltering as Little Lovely endeavored to keep her heavy skirts from the ground, the tiny exertion significantly affecting her concentration and often causing her to stumble.

All at once, there came behind them the pattering sounds of hoofsteps, their light cadence wholly indicative of a subject at once jolly and filled to the brim with purpose.

“Marvelous! Fancy meeting you out here.” Ginger danced around him with a merry smile and a flowery sprig of lady's lace in her hair. “I just couldn't wait even one more moment to ask you about it.”

Marvelous, being more than a little perplexed at this point, muttered a quiet “What?” Though, to be sure, it was said more in confusion than genuine inquiry.

“Why, May Rivers' walking party, of course. Well, I suppose you wouldn't know about it, would you, since she only just announced it. But oh, do say you'll go with me!”

The situation at once clear in his mind – and no less absurd for that fact – he responded kindly, though his voice was tinted with the sort of scolding normally reserved for children. “Ginger, please,” he said as he motioned to Little Lovely at his side, “you're being quite rude.”

Ginger appraised her with indifference and offered a tedious “How do you do?” – ignoring whatever reply was made as she bumped Little Lovely aside, putting herself between the two in order to gain the more of Marvelous' attention.

His incensed response died upon the edge of his tongue when he heard a small, fearful squeak and the sound of hooves slipping over rain-slick grass.

He pushed past Ginger and watched as Little Lovely began to tumble down the brush-covered incline by the side of the road, his feet, and his heart, frozen at a sudden prescience of horror both unknown and tragically certain.

It was such a small thing, a sapling, merely a spike of trunk rooted to the ground, freshly cut by some well-meaning pony in an effort to keep the roadside clear – a thing which would have, on any other day, been passed over without notice.

So it was with bitterly sorrowful anticipation that he watched as her fall was abruptly and cruelly ended, and she lay, pierced through by the small wooden spike and left bleeding, gasping, upon the golden autumn leaves of the slope.

Ginger's mouth sat wordless behind her trembling hooves as Marvelous rushed past, nearly tumbling himself as he lept with abandon down the hillside. The ground tore under his feet as he rushed to his love, and with panicked words he cooed gentle and hushed reassurances as he took her pale little face in his hooves.

Her eyes – he shuddered to think it – seemed dim, yet she looked untroubled, strong and peaceful, even in this terrible situation, as she lifted her forelegs to his neck.

“You mustn't move, darling!” he admonished, his eyes falling with terror on the blackened stain glistening upon her belly where the jagged point rose in gruesome relief beneath the fabric of her dress. He shouted over his shoulder, only to find, upon glancing back, that Ginger had already taken flight.

“Someone will be here shortly, I'm – I'm sure of it!”

But still she lay with a ghostly calm. “Marvelous,” she said, her cold hooves in their white stockings still hooked about his neck, “t-t-take me to p-papa.”

He tried to resist, denying each time her request, his hooves stayed at the thought that he may, in his action, harm her more terribly than by his inaction. Yet soon her placid calm gave way to a touch of fear, and at the tremble in her voice and tightening grip on his neck, his resolve crumbled and gave way to immediate, unthinking frenzy. He lifted her from the ground and onto his back and hurried to the road. As he ran, his mind was pulled back to that awful moment, forcing him watch again and again as her body wrenched with pain upon the stake, forcing him every second to hear anew the grotesque pop of ripping cloth and flesh.

It was only when the squat gray form of the old house finally came into view that he came to his senses, feeling all at once the burning exhaustion in his legs and the wet, sticky heat of blood trailing down his side.

He burst through the door, meeting Mr. Carver's confused expression with shouts and panicked explanations.

The old pony's demeanor quickly faded from bewilderment to the grim, stern face of one familiar with the sorrowful operations of mortality. He lifted Little Lovely, gently, and placed her upon the floor where she lay with a quiet, absent air that seemed frighteningly incongruous with the gravity of the situation.

“It's just a scratch,” he said as he prodded gently about her midsection. “It's certainly nothing to go screaming about.”

Marvelous was left astounded. “Surely you can't be serious!”

But Mr. Carver made it clear that he had the situation well under control, and none to gently insisted that Marvelous immediately excuse himself.

And so there he stood on the verandah, alone, his body and his hooves still sticky with the blood of the one he loved.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

He returned only a few hours later accompanied by a trembling and inconsolable Ginger as well as one Doctor Castwell, who, while he normally kept practice in the large city just outside the village, often made rounds in the smaller outlying communities. It was to their great fortune that he had arrived in town that very day, and upon hearing of their dire situation, had immediately agreed to offer whatever aid he could.

Marvelous pounded heavily upon the door which, to his surprise, was opened immediately. The three of them were met with the wide smile of Mr. Carver. And at his side, in no apparent distress or pain of any kind, stood Little Lovely.

“Good evening,” he said happily, and offered Marvelous a friendly nod before turning to Dr. Castwell. “Is there something I can do for you folks?”

Neither Marvelous nor Ginger spoke a word, the strangeness of the situation leaving them uncertain whether to feel relieved or merely puzzled.

Finally, the doctor spoke up. “I was told there had been some sort of accident?”

“Accident?” Here Mr. Carver allowed himself an amiable little laugh, to their continued astonishment. “Well, I suppose it was something like that. But here now, come inside, come inside! It's no good for a fellow to keep his guests outside, yes?” They followed him obligingly into the cozy little entryway where he took the doctor's hat and coat.

“There was a bit of trouble on the road,” he continued. “Little Lovely took a little tumble, so I'm told, and it gave Marvelous quite a fright. But, just as I'd told him earlier, it was really no more than a scratch. The poor boy simply worries too much.”

Ginger's tormented expression melted away at the news, giving way to such palliated cheerfulness that she seemed once more on the verge of tears. But Marvelous could not so easily escape the needling intimation of unease that had pervaded his mind in the sudden absence of fear; it was a sense of incorrectness, an undirected suspicion that was only more strongly impressed upon him by the forlorn, almost fearful expression that he found on the face of Little Lovely.

With quiet whispers, he led her away, leaving the others to talk amongst themselves as he took her through the house, exiting to the dusty lot just outside the rear doorway.

“Little Lovely, are you feeling well? Really?”

“Of course,” she answered without lifting her head. “I'm j-just a bit tired, but I'm fine.”

“But how? When you fell I was sure that … well, it seemed ….”

In the silence, she met his eyes. There was something familiar in the cool prairie wind that shifted her mane. Yet in her gaze there was a sadness that was at once quite unfamiliar and wholly, inescapably, arresting. “Papa … fixed me,” she said.

“He fixed you? You mean he treated you, of course, but –”

“He's been fixing me for a long time. Ever since ….”

Marvelous stood breathless, feeling as if his soul were suddenly constricted, bound to be pierced by some great and sorrowful curse that lay ready to slip from her tongue. “Since ...?”

“Ever since I died.”

That familiar prairie blew across his neck, raising a shiver as Little Lovely slowly placed a kiss upon his cheek.

Her lips, he realized, were unmistakably cold against his skin.

Part 4

Afterward, Marvelous mentioned nothing of Little Lovely's words, and of the accident he would say “It was only a misunderstanding.” But if one were to catch his eyes, they would find his gaze distant, as though constantly searching in his mind for some memory – some thought or forgotten word gone missing at the most irritating moment.

Though he had always tended toward distraction, each passing day saw him ever more withdrawn. He spoke only rarely and, to his family's great surprise, made no efforts whatsoever to see Little Lovely. The days progressed into weeks and their surprise grew into concern, and from concern into worry.

One particular evening, his mother found her way to his small workshop, fretting as mothers often do, only to find herself gripped by a fearful sense of powerlessness as she looked upon the pale, wretched face of her son staring at the turning wheels of some mechanism upon his work-table.

“Marvelous,” she called. Yet he continued to stare with unabated intensity.

“Marvelous,” she called again a bit more loudly. He didn't give a start, but instead turned quickly upon her with a flash of anger.

Or perhaps she had been mistaken, for when he answered, there was no sign of any expression upon his face but a cheerful smile. “Yes, mother?”

“Are you … are you feeling well, Marvelous? You look as though you haven't slept.”

“Oh, I'm all right,” he said, and he turned back to his work. “Sleep? Yes, that must be it,” he mumbled. “I suppose I've had a bit of trouble sleeping lately, but it's nothing to worry over. I feel perfectly fine.” Of course, he said nothing of the darkly alluring visions that flooded his mind with wakefulness in the darkened hours of the night. He did not mention the mysterious temptations of dreams both horrific and beautiful, of gruesome, tragic phantasms passing unbidden before his eyes, or the constant, droning echo of questions sounding in his mind like the grinding gears of a tower clock.

“Perfectly fine,” he said.

But as his mother quietly walked away, she was little comforted by his reply.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Marvelous hovered over his crafting table, the candles perched here and there glowing with a brown, faded light too feeble to hold back the suffocating darkness of the room. His head lay heavy upon his hooves, his nostrils filled with the scents of oil and smoke and sickly-sweet decay, his eyes down, settled miserably on his latest work.

Brass and green copper, gears within a shell, the shell within a carcass – it lay inside the gaping belly of the chicken, gleaming behind the weaving shadows of the remaining entrails.

The cogs turned. The wires wound themselves upon their spindles. The intestines fluxed. The lungs pulled breath through a headless throat and crippled limbs twisted and flailed in nightmarish spasms.

It lay on the table, flapping like a broken puppet, and Marvelous breathed a shuddering hiss. It was a mockery – a rotting look-alike, no closer to life than the birds in his clocks. For he could mimic the actions of life but not the function. There was, to his knowledge, no magic so subtle, no trick of biology so precise, no mechanism so intricate as to match the delicacy that he'd seen inside even these simple beasts.

His teeth ground in frustration, and every thought in his mind screamed with questions.

Little Lovely had spoken the truth, of that much he was certain. But what she had said – it was simply unbelievable.

She had died, and had been “fixed.”

The cold touch of her lips, the constant chill of her hooves, so many things that he'd overlooked before now only seemed to confirm it. It was the stuff of children's stories and old tales of alchemists and long forgotten gods, but he could not deny the truth of it. She was a dead pony – a dead pony that speaks, and breathes, and moves, and thinks.

But for all of this she was no less beautiful. Nay, rather, she was only the more beautiful because of it. He could see it all in his mind's eye – her delicate features, her perfect operation – construction that he could only imagine, the work of unparalleled genius.

And yet this was the very source of his misery. He could not extract from his mind that maddening question of “How?” And yet he had found not even a hint of an answer, not for all of his ferocious study, not for all of the long nights spent awake over a pile of rotting, bleeding flesh.

With the sudden force of his anger, he brought his hooves down upon his puppet thing, twisting and snapping the strings that pulled its bones, laying to rest its horrible movements, and then ran a hoof through his mane. He sat there while his candles burned low and watched the raindrops rolling over the ghastly, venomous reflection that gazed back at him from the frame of his window, then finally, Marvelous turned toward the door.

He took his failed mechanism as he left. It would remain unfound, rotting in the brush outside the old tenant farms.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

His hooves pushed through the short winter grass, the sound of his steps smothered by the rolling din of the storm that left his body wet and numb and cast a moonless cerement over the plain, to be pierced by neither moonlight nor the meager glow of his horn. His mind enveloped in a drowsy, dreamlike haze, he crept to the wall beneath Little Lovely's window and rapped upon the pane, at first gently and then, when he perceived no response, more firmly.

All at once the room was alight with a soft, amber radiance that lifted, in that same moment, the darkness that had settled upon his heart. A shadow danced across the wall and a trembling hoof struggled upon the latch.

And then, there she stood, looking down upon him through the open window. As he crouched below, unmoving, the rain washing over his matted hair – as he watched the lamplight cast that wonderful glow over her snow white cheek and set a twinkle upon those eyes which held the silvery mist of the morning – he knew that never before had there been upon the Earth any creature of such magnificence.

“Marvelous?”

“I'm sorry to wake you,” he said. “I had to see you.”

She hesitated for only a moment, and then extended her hoof, beckoning him forward to lead him quietly inside.

After fastening the window, Little Lovely, clad about in a heavy robe, stepped aside to a porcelain basin, and taking the pitcher in her still shaking hooves, began to pour. “Y-You sh-should w-wash your hooves,” she spoke softly.

Her room was small and simple, the floor left bare, the walls empty of any artwork or decoration. Piled about the corners of the room were scraps of cloth, and peaking out from their shadowy places upon the wall were a number of elaborately dressed wooden dolls.

As he cleaned his soiled hooves, he noticed a tremulous sound at his side. He turned and was struck by the telltale glimmer of tears.

“Little Lovely? Whatever is the matter?”

She looked away and brought a hoof to her cheek. “I … I was c-certain that you had left me f-forever.”

He rushed to her, and gently laid his hooves about her shoulders. “No, never!” he whispered. “Never.”

She accepted the comfort of his touch, and her trembling soon died away as she stood in his embrace. And then, very slowly, she began to draw back, and cast at him a suddenly curious look. “Marvelous,” she asked, “why are you here?”

“Just as I said, I simply had to see you.” He drew a hoof over his rain-slicked mane and then leaned close. “You told me, all those weeks ago – you'd told me that you had died. And I think … I think that I understand what you'd meant.” Her eyes wavered from his as he spoke. “But I must know for certain. I must see the truth with my own eyes.”

She pulled from his grasp. “Marvelous, why m-must you do this to me?” she softly implored. “What you ask now…. I can show you … I can give you your answer but y-you could never love me afterward!”

Immediately, he was upon her with gentle kisses for her tears. “No! Little Lovely, you must believe me when I say that I will always love you! But you don't know what this question, this terrible mystery, has done to me! Please, let me settle the matter in my mind, if only a little.”

Her voice was heavy with sorrow, and she sniffled as she gave her reply.

“Do as you wish, then.”

She looked away as his hooves lay upon her shoulders. He slid the robe from her back, leaving her standing shamefaced and trembling in her nightdress, and for the first time, he saw her limbs uncovered.

He took her pale hoof in his and lifted it from the floor, and with his other, he drew a long, slow caress along her foreleg. The body in his grasp held nothing of the supple softness and warmth of youth. Instead, his hoof slid over cold, thick skin, the flesh beneath unyielding, exhibiting a distinctive feeling of bloat. He could see at her joints ragged, gray patches of flesh which gave way to unmistakable protrusions of bone, as though her body had worn itself through like a threadbare suit of clothes.

He carefully stroked the skeletal hinge of her fetlock. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” she said, “I can scarcely feel anything anymore.”

He kissed her, softly. Her lips were cracked and dry. What once would seem a result of the winter cold he knew now to be the artifact of decay. Yet her kiss was still beautiful, in both sentiment and flavor, for upon her flesh was a subtle, flowery moisture which lingered familiarly upon his tongue.

“Could you feel that?”

She smiled, but her smile could not lift the sadness from her eyes. “Not as much as I would like.”

He pulled her gently into his embrace, and she lay upon his neck. They stood together, and the winter rain fell with cold indifference upon the earth. As he held her, stroking her back tenderly, he felt, in the fine fabric of her nightdress, a coarseness, as if something lay beneath. A glance back revealed, through the diaphanous lace, a bandage which enclosed her completely from haunch to breast.

“Little Lovely, your injury, how did your father fix it?”

“He just fixed it,” she said in a voice that carried with it the evidence of a hundred experiences which had long since stripped away any notion of novelty or the unusual. “He … took out the pieces that didn't work, and put in new ones”

“May I see it?”

“I won't stop you, Marvelous.” She paused. “But could you really love me, even if you could no longer look upon me without disgust?"

He gently lowered her to the floor. “My love, I give you my word at this moment – in no way, at no time, could you ever disgust me,” he said. He kissed the tip of her nose and then lifted her gown to her chest.

He stood back, and with the magic of his horn, he slowly and carefully unwrapped the manifold turns of white linen. All the while, Little Lovely lay with her head tucked timorously within her folded forelegs.

Marvelous soon came to the final folds of bandage, revealing beneath a fine rubber sheet wrapped fully about her abdomen. In truth, he had not known what it was that he had expected to find beneath – perhaps no more than a small cut upon her belly. But as the sheet opened and fell away, he was left astonished. His mind, heretofore addled with sleeplessness, was left paralyzed with shock.

For the black rubber curtain had parted to show no delicate alabaster belly, no small wound, nor even the mangled flesh of a long-ruined corpse. Instead, there lay within the lurid, sanguine coils of bare entrails – which, as the sheet fell away, promptly spilled upon the floor.

After only a moment, his senses returned, yet still he gazed upon her with unabated amazement. There, between the solid form of her hips and her lilly-white chest lay a spreading mound of viscera. Her innards glistened in the wavering lamplight, and he drew close; his senses were awash in the sweet, warm fragrance that filled the room as his eyes traveled past the delicate, rosaline form of her stomach to the undulating, distinct pouches of her intestine, each rolling mound like a pale, polished bead of soft carnelian. And there he kissed her, a light and careful touch which nevertheless drew a gasp from her throat. On his lips he found a thin, sticky film, and at once he realized the source of that constant, familiar flavor – honey – honey which pervaded every part of her, honey which now pooled thickly beneath her very organs.

He lifted his head and laid a heavy kiss upon her lips. Here too was the intense, intoxicating taste of honey.

Little Lovely's eyes were wide in surprise. “Marvelous? I'd never thought –”

“Have I hurt you at all?”

“No. No, but ….” She wrapped him tightly in her grasp, and whispered through fresh tears, “I've never felt your kisses so keenly before.”

He laughed as he gently loosened her grip. “And you shall feel many more such kisses.”

True to his word, he kissed her upon the neck, and then once more upon the breast. As he finally kissed her, carefully, upon her stomach, he could actually see her shuddering gasp as the thin muscle beneath her lungs quivered before his eyes.

From where he lay, he could also hear the curious sound of her heart – though, to his surprise, it beat with a steady, solid “tick,” in the familiar resonance of brass and iron, neither speeding nor slowing, but always sounding each heavy pulse with perfect regularity.

Setting aside this curiosity in his mind, his gaze settled upon the scene before him. To his continued wonderment, he watched the contractions of her stomach and intestines, the vacillating, fluid motion of her digestion laid bare before his eyes as Little Lovely fidgeted shyly with a lock of her mane.

Woven throughout her entrails was the complex path of her circulation, like a thin and delicate sweep of lace knit with unfathomable intricacy in tiny threads of red and violet. As he searched intently about her body, he noticed, dotted about here and there, a number of small mechanisms – rings and wires of silver which served, he suspected, to hold and connect the various pieces together. And as always, Little Lovely lay watching with shimmering, ghostly eyes flooded with admiration.

With effort, he composed himself as he drew once again to her lips. “My darling, my wonderful girl,” he said, his voice tremulous with emotion, “how could you ever think I would be disgusted by you?”

It was in the midst of their kiss that the door burst open to the heavy sound of hooves on the floor.

“Papa?!”

The light which had so kindly caressed Little Lovely's youthful cheek lay now upon the sallow, grim features of Mr. Carver. His eyes were tired, his face lined with dark crevices of age and bereft of its smile, now set with a bitter, weary glare upon Marvelous.

“Little Lovely,” he said, “get yourself cleaned up and get down to the cellar.”

With her flickering, faltering magic, she began to wrap herself with the rubber sheet. “D-d-don't-don't be angry w-with him, papa!” she begged as Marvelous stood at her side, carefully enclosing her about with the bandages once again, though his eyes were still fast upon Mr. Carver.

She stood, quaking with fear, her hoof upon her belly as she stumbled toward the door. “Papa, please –”

“Get down to the cellar.”

She quickly left without another word. Mr. Carver shut the door behind her. The sound of her delicate hoofsteps quickly died away, and Marvelous' ears were left ringing in the deep, oppressive silence of their absence.

“Now, what are you doing here so late at night, Marvelous?”

Carefully, he considered his response, knowing now that nothing less than the truth would stand. “I had to see with my own eyes if it was true – Little Lovely, she'd told me that she'd died, you see. And she'd said that you fixed her – brought her back to life, I'd assumed – and I-I simply wanted to know how it was possible.”

“And it seems you weren't at all unhappy with what you'd found,” he spat. “You expected to take advantage of my daughter then? Knowing her secret, you make your wicked demands and she must comply or be exposed to the town as a monster? Is blackmail your game, boy?”

“Blackmail? A monster?” he nearly stumbled in his shock. “Not at all! I care about your daughter very much, Mr. Carver!” He composed himself, and quietly, sincerely continued. “She's … a very beautiful pony.”

Slowly, the harshness began to fall from the old pony's face as he breathed a tired sigh, “I must say, you always did strike me as a very strange boy, Marvelous,” he said.

Now absent the dangerous bearing of an angry father, he seemed suddenly older, pressed beneath the weight of many years as he sat himself down by Little Lovely's simple dressing-table. Silently, he took a doll from her shelf with a wisp of his magic, looking upon the carefully crafted little toy with eyes that knew the sting of bitter sorrow. “But you are wrong; I did not, as you seem to believe, bring a dead pony to life.”

His gaze grew ever more distant as he continued. “It was after the war ended. After such a long time and so much fighting, I'd decided that I'd seen enough of the border. Besides, it had grown too crowded, too noisy. So I said to myself, I would look for a new home. I packed with me what little I had and traveled north, where there would be snow, and pine trees, and solitude. I found myself a little village. I learned to carve furniture, to make clocks. And very soon, I was married.”

“She was such a good girl, Marvelous. She was so filled with love. And then came our first child and I tell you, I had not seen such happiness in all my days.” His accent seemed to grow thicker with each sentence. He smiled as he spoke, and his voice wavered with laughter that threatened to break into tears. “With everything in her, she wanted to love that little child. She spoke of it constantly, of course, and she bought it gifts, and she would tell me stories of how our child would grow up and make us proud.”

“And as you probably suspect, the child did not live. He was my first son.”

“My second son did not survive also, some two years later.”

He gripped the little doll between his hooves. “My little wife, she was destroyed, Marvelous. As much as her happiness was beautiful, her sadness was awful. She was wasting away, and as much as I tried not to think it, I sometimes feared that the sadness would be her death.”

“But then we found that she was with foal once again. We were both afraid for a time; it was not at all certain whether her body, or her soul, could endure such a trial. But in the end, she gave birth to a little filly. That little filly, she was the most beautiful thing in the world to us. She was our Little Lovely.”

Mr. Carver's tired face broke into a wide smile. “For a while, we were happy again. When she looked at Little Lovely, all the light came back into her eyes. She looked like the beautiful unicorn I married, full of life and joy and hope.”

“But, of course, it couldn't last,” he growled, his face grim once more. “It could never last. When she was still young, too young even to have a cutie mark, Little Lovely grew very sick. For months, she could not so much as leave her bed. And my little wife was there every minute by her side. I could see that horrible sadness coming upon her once again.”

“But there was something else too, Marvelous; she had a fire inside her. Her eyes, they told me that she would die herself before she lost Little Lovely.”

“I remember the day that Little Lovely's heart stopped beating. And my wife, she just sat there, angry, and she reached in with her own magic, into the little girl's chest, and she pumped her heart herself. She kept at it for hours, and Little Lovely lay there the whole time watching her momma keep her alive.”

“Eventually, Little Lovely's heart started to beat on its own. But she wasn't getting any better, and eventually, we knew, it would only happen again.”

He finally met Marvelous' eyes once more. “I told you once, Marvelous, that when I was in the war, I learned many things. And I had a fire inside as well, you know. I would not stand by while the two ponies that I loved wasted away. I knew I couldn't heal Little Lovely, but maybe, I thought, I could fix her.”

“Her heart wouldn't beat, so I said, I'll make her a new heart. And so, I made her a heart that would never stop. When her stomach wouldn't take food, my wife, she went out in the night and she killed one of the neighbor's dogs. I put the stomach inside Little Lovely. The war, as I said, taught me many, many things.”

“But I knew that no matter how many pieces I could put back, Little Lovely would never truly recover. You see, the source of the sickness was inside her bones. One day, I let it slip to my wife that if I could just somehow give Little Lovely new bones, she would finally be free of the sickness for good. When she looked at me then … of all the things I've seen, in the war and since, there is no memory that fills me with such horror.”

“She gave Little Lovely new bones, Marvelous. She gave her a whole new body.”

The short silence that followed seemed so much longer in that small room where the rain fell relentlessly, and the wind roared, and the world ignored the quiet words of the old pony. “Little Lovely's mind was touched by the ordeal. And the nerves, they die too quickly. I was never able to give her a sense of feeling.”

Marvelous spoke quietly, “And … and I suppose that's why she can't use magic?”

“Oh, no. She can use magic very well, Marvelous. She just doesn't know it. Perhaps in a way she understands, but anymore, I suspect that it has become something that she simply doesn't think about. As I said, the nerves die too quickly; I was never able to connect her mind to her body. I had feared that she would be left an invalid, confined to her bed with only the most basic capacities for the rest of her life. But you see, she surprised even me.” The doll in his hooves did a little dance as it floated to the ground, the glimmer of Mr. Carver's magic just visible upon it as it cantered along the floor. “Her magic is what allows her to move, Marvelous. She can walk and speak and even feel, all from the magic that she uses to carry herself every moment of every single day, controlling her own body as though it were a little wooden doll.”

He looked to Marvelous once again, his lips curled in bitter humor. “So you see, Little Lovely isn't some amazing, mystical creation, my boy. She's just a … sick little filly who grew up in a broken body.”

Marvelous stood, pondering, silent and unmoving. The little doll continued its walk along the floorboards until it struck his hoof, and he watched as the magic flickered away and it fell, softly, to the ground.

“So you have your answer, though I'm sure you're rather disappointed” he said. “And now that you know the whole truth, what will you do?”

As he lifted the doll from the ground, Marvelous began to speak. “You and your daughter have certainly suffered a great deal, Mr. Carver. And I would … never wish to add to your troubles. But if I could, I suppose that I should like to ask for your blessing.”

“My blessing?”

He responded with a smile. “On our marriage, of course.”

Mr. Carver quietly laughed, and even in the lamplight, his eyes seemed to shine once more with their familiar friendliness. “You are a very strange boy, Marvelous. But you know,” he said, “you are also a very good boy.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Marvelous had asked her once if she'd have preferred a wedding in the winter or in the spring. In fact, Little Lovely wished most of all to be married on the first day of summer.

And so it was, on a cloudless day when the air was cool and still fragrant with the scents of late spring flowers, that Little Lovely and Marvelous were wed. The affair was fairly simple, held in the town square where even the townsfolk who weren't personally invited were obliged to watch with smiles from their windows. Marvelous' family had been at work the entire morning preparing the decorations and had left the center of town awash in fresh blossoms and ribbons tied on ivy greens.

There she stood, Little Lovely in front of her groom, wearing the flowing white gown that she'd stitched herself, her golden mane aglow in the summer sun. Even the most jealous ponies would later declare that she was, predictably, the loveliest bride they could ever hope to see.

He gazed into her eyes – eyes damp with joyous tears, that spoke of laughter and whispers and embracing under the soft blue moonlight. In the midst of the cheers and applause of the villagers, he kissed her for the first time as her husband, and tasted once more the honey-sweet flavor of her cold lips.