The Bell Beneath the Mill

Big Mac had been part of the show I watched back home. I’d spent years wondering what he did when he wasn’t in the frame, which was a strange thought to have while he sat across from me in Twilight’s library, patiently choosing a pencil for a game character.

Spike had invited him, Apple Bloom, and Twilight to play. I’d promised to run the mill owner again, and Spike had spent the morning adding details to the map beneath the mill. My notes from Brindlehook stayed sealed in the envelope beside Twilight’s bookbag. The trial was still going; the schedule remained Nettle’s business, and the afternoon belonged to a pretend cellar.

“Do I need a name?” Big Mac held up the pencil. The point had snapped against the paper.

“Only if you want one,” Spike told him, smoothing the map with both claws. “You can be yourself. You’re a millwright who knows how these old buildings work.”

Big Mac sharpened the pencil with a pocketknife. “That’ll do.”

Apple Bloom had drawn a courier with a satchel nearly as big as she was. Twilight picked a traveling mapmaker, then asked Spike whether the mapmaker could have a compass that pointed toward underground water. Spike considered this with the gravity of a pony asked to approve a bridge inspection.

“Only if it’s wrong sometimes,” he decided.

Twilight added a tiny compass rose to her character sheet. “Fair.”

I’d thought the unfamiliar part would be playing a pony in a world I used to watch. Instead, it was knowing Big Mac’s face and having no idea whether he liked mysteries, or maps, or sitting at a table while his little sister made up a courier. The screen had shown me a character. The stallion across from me was choosing how much to write on a scrap of paper.

Spike put a small wooden token on the map. “You’ve followed the water channel under the mill. There’s a stone landing, two doors, and a note pinned between them. One door is oak. The other has an iron handle. The note says: ‘If you hear the bell, leave the iron door shut until I come back.’”

Apple Bloom leaned across the table. “Who wrote it?”

“Your characters can tell the ink is old,” Spike answered. “The writing’s hurried, and it’s the mill owner’s hand.”

That was my cue. I sat straighter and rested my forehooves on the table. “I wrote it before I went up to fix the wheel. I thought I’d be back in ten minutes.”

“Your mill owner sounds like he has a bad habit of leaving people in basements,” Apple Bloom said, making a note on her sheet.

“He’s got a mill to run. It’s a demanding profession.”