“I’m heading out,” Cinnamon said as she stopped by Raven’s desk. She slipped a slim book from her saddlebag and set it next to Raven’s folios with a wink. “As discussed. Don’t work too late, hm? Taa!”
“Taa!” Raven chirped, but her eyes were on the book, discretely placed cover-down. A mass-market paperback, its spine cracked with white lines and its cheap paper frayed from the touch of many hooves. A silly grin pinched her cheeks, and for the rest of the afternoon shift she was a schoolfilly again, high on the illicit joy of harmless disobedience.
She worked diligently still – she was a professional, after all. But the book was right there, and the stenographer’s quill animated by her magic jittered as it recorded her subconscious thoughts on various legal briefs and petitions.
More than once, she had to correct its errant transcription of her overheated imagination.
* * *
Hours later, Raven finally collapsed on the couch of her Canterlot apartment. Outside, the lanterns lit one-by-one down the street. She considered all the things still left to do – make dinner, draw a bath, prepare tomorrow’s notes – but the book was inside her saddlebags, and the decision was never hers to make. She snagged an oatmeal bar from the box on her counter and raced upstairs to the bedroom. The covers were still mussed from the morning, but she jumped up on them anyway, pulling the tattered copy of 45 Reasons Why from her saddlebags. From the cover, a stunningly beautiful unicorn reclined with flagrant disregard for modesty amidst a field of heather and clover, her pale-yellow coat artfully stained with splatters of mud and the sparkle of sweat. It was a cheap, trashy and wildly popular romance, and now it was finally hers.
She shoved the rest of the saddlebag’s holdings – papers, a make-up case, the still-jittering stenographer’s quill – to the side, opened to the first page, and lost herself in the torrid adventures of Ginger Gypsy.
* * *
Later, in the deepening glow of summer twilight, Raven closed the book. It was only half read, but she was sweating and overheating and, frankly, really needed that bath. It was that kind of novel. She set it down carefully beside the stenographer’s quill, which stood upright at attention on her covers.
Wait. She blinked at the quill. It was still on.
“Oh no.” She looked about frantically for the nearest papers, realized with horror that the book was the nearest paper, and nearly tore the cover off to get to the first page. She stared at it, absorbed it, and set her head down.
“Oh… oh Celestia,” she groaned. The margins were defaced with the quill’s faithful record of her thoughts on each paragraph. From the first page’s description of Ginger Gypsy (“Yummy!”) through minutia and meanderings and many torrid scenes (“Yes! Just like that!” and, far worse, “So damn fuckable!”) to commentary on the various positions described (“No mare’s that flexible.”) It was a humiliating catalogue of thirst.
The worst part: it wasn’t even her book. Cinnamon would want it back. Raven imagined all the excuses she could use for the book’s destruction when her eyes alighted on a strange note beside an idle description of Ginger Gypsy in the bath.
“IT’S IN THE HOUSE.” Underlined with force. The letters were scrawled, strained, scratched on the page.
Huh.
Raven read and re-read the line. She scanned the entire page, searching for whatever it referenced; whatever was in the house.
She turned the page. Ginger Gypsy conspired to deceive her lovers. The quill recorded Raven’s doubts in the margins. Exactly as she remembered. She flipped past more banal notes to an interlude scene. The margins logged careless thoughts on dress and mood and then: “Too shallow to believe, no mare acts that—IT’S WATCHING YOU.”
Raven looked up. The empty room looked back. Outside, crickets heralded the arrival of night.
* * *
Later, in the bath, Raven left the door open. From it she had a clear view down the hallway to the stairs.
The old plumbing knocked as she drained the tub, rattling the pipes. The rafters and braces creaked as the house cooled. All sounds she heard every day. Every night. Nothing unusual about them. She repeated the thoughts over and over, mantra-like, as she toweled dry.
The downstairs was empty. Of course it was empty. It was silly to imagine otherwise. Still, she inspected the closets and laundry room – perhaps an animal had gotten in – before triple-checking the locks. Just a sensible precaution.
The bed was still unmade as she climbed in it for the night. Sloppy. She held the book, considered reading just a bit more, then set it on the nightstand. The stenographer’s quill she held and considered much longer.
It was a simple animation, one unicorns learned as foals. The quill took notes from the user’s subconscious, freeing the rest of the mind for more important thoughts. Sometimes, when daydreaming, its notes went too far afield, but they were never wrong. Just sometimes unexpected.
It’s in the house. What had her subconscious meant? She glanced down the hallway again. It’s watching you.
“Silly filly,” she whispered. “Daydreaming.”
She normally slept with the bedroom door open. After some dithering, she closed it, set the quill on the nightstand, and snuffed the lights.
* * *
A loud sound woke her. Sharp and deep, like the rap of a cane. Or a knock. She stared, frozen, at the nightstand in the silence that followed.
I imagined it I dreamed it I did not dream it. She lay on her side, unmoving, unbreathing. Instead, her magic reached out to brush the stenographer’s quill. It stood upright, quivered, and words appeared on the nearest paper – the spine of the cheap paperback novel. Inky lines like spiderwebs.
IT’S IN THE ROOM.
DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU.
DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU.
DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU.
DON’T LOOK BE
The words reached the end of the spine. The quill stood at attention, waiting patiently for more paper to resume its annotations.
