I knelt awkwardly on the floor of my truck, parked in a multilevel garage somewhere in west Haycago. There was a camera in my hands, borrowed from the photography department at school. I touched the darkened screen of my cell phone, lying on the seat beside me. It lit up to display the time.

I carefully shielded the phone on the off chance that my target might see the light. He was a unicorn named Dealmaker, and he was a city councilpony who I was convinced was up to no good. He stood down near the end of the garage level, waiting on something.

Dealmaker was fifty-three years old, married, and had been involved in Haycago politics for more than half his life. He was a little overweight, and usually wore expensive glasses and other accessories. Tonight, he had dressed down. A possible attempt to go incognito, I thought.

Something hadn’t seemed right when I’d started researching him for a project I was writing for the school newspaper about local politics. I’d finished writing the article and submitted it weeks ago, but kept working on him. I’d followed him to the garage tonight, and it looked like my work was going to pay off. Nobody stands around waiting for something in the middle of the night for no reason.

I was far enough away that my parking there hadn’t aroused Dealmaker’s suspicions. The camera lens was probably on the small side for the distance, but it would have to do. As I watched, another car pulled up. It was a shiny Marecedes.

The driver was a hulking stallion who looked…serious. I quickly snapped a picture of him. Dealmaker greeted him, and I took another picture of them together. As if they didn’t want anyone to overhear their conversation, they began walking. Directly towards me.

I slowly lowered myself to the floor, doing my best not to make the truck rock. I was careful to get my head low enough that my horns wouldn’t show over the windowsill. My face was crammed up against one door and my hooves against the other.

From that vantage point, I noticed a screwdriver under the seat that I’d lost a few weeks before. It was part of the toolkit that I used to work on my truck when it broke down.

Driving a truck and fixing it when it breaks isn’t very ladylike, but I was glad that I was at least girly enough to sweep the carpet once in a while. If I wasn’t, I’d be covered in dirt when I got up off the floor.

I heard the murmured conversation of the two ponies approach. I hoped they wouldn’t find anything suspicious about my out-of-town license plates. They passed by, and I raised my head enough to look out the window.

Getting into position to take a picture would be difficult now that they were on the other side. I drove a full size pickup because I find most pony vehicles cramped, but the inside of the cab still wasn’t large enough to make movement easy.

It was darker on the other side of the garage, and the camera flash popped up as I focused. I couldn’t afford a bright flash of light, and held the flash down with my finger while I took the picture. Hopefully it wouldn’t be blurry in the low light.

The ponies kept walking away from me, and I waited until they were out of sight before sitting up. It was time to go.

It only took two tries to start the old truck, and I headed back for campus. On the darkened streets, I ran my fingers through my hair, checking to make sure the floor had been as clean as I thought it was. My hair and coat were brown and dark, inherited from my mother. I wished I’d also gotten her slim build, but not every minotaur can be a delicate flower.

I arrived back at my parking place and got out, heading for the dorm. To get inside the building at that late hour, I had to present identification. My ID card had some basic information: Tungsten Tammy, Student, University of Haycago.

Of course, everyone knew me. You tend to be memorable when you’re tall enough that you have to duck to get through the front door, but showing the ID card was procedure.

I went up to my room, camera in hand. I planned to download the pictures to my computer and have a look at them before returning the camera in the morning.

The lights in the hallway had been turned down, but I found my door. The Resident Assistant had created nametags for us al. My roommate, Cherub, had helpfully placed mine over the door, just about level with my eyes.

The door was unlocked, as Cherub hadn’t gone to bed yet. “Hey,” she said, smiling as I came in. Cherub was a pink pegasus with blue eyes and a blonde mane, along with a perpetually cheerful personality. Her cutie mark was a red dress. She was at college to study fashion.

Being a minotaur, I didn’t have a cutie mark but already knew that I was good at journalism. I just wished it didn’t come with such late hours and sacrifices of time when I could be doing homework.

“Was it a good night?” Cherub asked me, her country Ponyville accent unchanged despite living in Haycago for the last three years. We were both juniors and had been roommates since day one.

“Not bad,” I told her. Despite having a completely different set of life goals, Cherub had taken an active interest in my little crusade.

I sat down at my desk, tucking my knees so I could fit. The dorm furniture wasn’t designed with your average minotaur in mind, much less me.

I plugged the memory card of the camera into my laptop and copied the files. The pictures looked okay but could probably use some enhancement. I hoped I had time for that, what with everything else in my schedule.

I got up and grabbed my shower things. Down the hallway in the bathroom I selected a shower stall, bending my knees slightly to make full use of the showerhead. Holding that position for a few minutes was uncomfortable, but I’d gotten used to it over the years. The biggest problem in the bathroom was me accidentally looking over the top of someone else’s shower curtain.

Back in the room, I looked unhappily at my pile of homework and settled down to it. There was no way I would finish tonight, but not all of it was due in the morning.

I worked at that as the clock grew later. At some point, I was going to have to sleep. When Cherub yawned and got up from her desk, I decided that I should also probably call it a night.

I got into bed and curled into the fetal position to keep my hooves from hanging over the edge. I tucked my tail carefully. Unlike a pony, a minotaur's tail is sensitive all the way to the tip and it’s always getting in the way.

Cherub courteously turned off the lights and flapped up to her mattress on the top bunk.

I had a few idle thoughts as I lay there, going over the events of the evening. I still hadn’t found anything to pin on Dealmaker, but I felt that I had taken a step in the right direction that night. It was encouraging, and I was asleep in minutes.

The weather website I checked in the morning seemed to indicate that it was going to be a warm September day. After leaving the dorm I stopped at the cafeteria to have a nutritious breakfast while I leafed through the day’s newspaper. As a journalism major, I had seen the paper’s outline the day before but it was nice to read the finished product and know that I’d helped create it.

My plates were clean before I finished reading. I debated getting more, but decided I didn’t have time. Eating another few bowls of cereal, a plate of hay, and some sweetgrass would take too long. At least the cafeteria was all-you-can-eat or I’d go broke.

I folded the paper and took it with me to drop off the camera. After that was my morning job at the newspaper office.

I worked at the advertisement desk that day. Ads were placed by e-mail, phone call or face to face. I had processed only a few that morning when two guys approached the desk.

One was a blue unicorn, the other a brown and white griffon. They both looked like nerds. Being one of very few minotaurs on an Equestrian campus, I tend to identify with social outcasts.

“We’d like to place an advertisement,” said the pony.

“Good, that’s what I’m here for. Do you know how you want it to look?”

The griffon took out a sheet of paper and placed it in front of me. “Can you just scan this page?”

“Sure.” That saved me the trouble of going through all the fonts and styles with them to design it. I took out a sample newspaper page with the ad sizes and prices listed. “How large do you want it?”

They quickly conferred and selected a modest size. Their decision may have been based on their available money. I asked if they had any special instructions, and they said no. They paid to run the ad only once, and I told them it would appear in the next paper.

Once they were gone, I had a chance to look at their ad. It was for a blog and forums website called the Hay-town Supernatural Society, or HSS for short. “Haycago’s own paranormal investigation,” read the tagline.

I blinked and slowly read it again.

I had once been a skeptic. Normal people don’t believe in ghosts and ghouls, after all. Unfortunately, fate hadn’t let me be normal, especially not in that aspect, either. In my high school years, I’d inadvertently been witness to a supernatural event that was so shocking that it was far outside the capabilities even pony magic. My heart began to speed up just remembering it.

A few of the participants had ended up dead. Some were undead to begin with. Ponies as a species are big on their magic, but usually within reason. This was something I had no desire to experience ever again.

Part of my decision to move to Equestria for college came from my desire to be as far away from that as possible.

Still, I reasoned, this didn’t mean these guys were a threat to my attempt to reset my life. For all I knew, they were making stuff up for money like the History Channel. My fingers rested on the keyboard of the advertisement computer. I could just make a quick check on their website to be sure. But then, what if they turned out to be the real deal?

I decided not to go to the website while I was at work. I told myself that I was just being prudent, but truthfully I think I was scared to. It was not something I wanted back in my life.

I waited all day and distracted myself with some lovely classes. Sometimes my schedule was a blessing. However, as I hurried back to the dorm room in the afternoon, I was so distracted that I rammed my forehead into the doorframe as I opened the door.

Cherub looked up. “Aw, streak broken. You had a good two weeks going there.”

It was lucky that my head was so hard, said everyone who had ever seen me hit it on something. That was a tired, worn out joke.

I shook the stars out and sat down to do some homework, forcing myself to think of something constructive. I think Cherub noticed that I was preoccupied, but she didn’t comment. Rather than check the HSS website before bed and run the risk of going sleepless if it turned out to be legitimate, I decided to wait until morning.

Cherub was still asleep when I got out of bed and turned on my computer. I was still unsure if I really wanted to do this, but I dutifully typed in the URL when the browser opened.

The site seemed polished and contained only tasteful advertising. I clicked through the forums, which allowed people to post and discuss topics related to the supernatural. Surprisingly, there were several thousand members.

The main page contained information on the latest investigation. A small sidebar listed popular links and gave a short biography of the two guys who ran the site. I assumed they were the ones who’d come to place the newspaper ad. The unicorn was named Transmitter and the griffon was Hickory Stump.

I checked the investigation report at the top of the the main page. It was about a house in which a grisly double murder had been committed about ninety years ago. Transmitter and Hickory had debunked any rumors of haunting, however. I thought it was brave of them to post a negative report when the entire site was based on this kind of thing. I found a disclaimer at the bottom that reminded people that there were many more supposed paranormal events than actual ones.

I checked the popular topics. Near the top was “Interview with an advanced magic user.” I clicked on it. A mare, who wished to be identified only as Cloud, talked with Transmitter and Hickory about the supernatural.

“I’m a historian, mostly,” she said. She had what amounted to a small library of resources and old books. She talked about the discovery of little-known magic and some of its uses.

“Nearly anypony can learn to do it, unicorn or not. Of course, some are more naturally talented than others.” That surprised me. Not that I was interested in learning, but as a non-unicorn, non-pony, magic wasn’t something that often occupied my mind.

The bottom of the page had a color picture. The mare in it had her face hidden. It was a high quality photo taken in a well lighted room. A good picture is harder to fake than a grainy one. That didn’t prove anything, but I couldn’t easily see anything that indicated it wasn’t real.

To my surprise, the mare in question was a pegasus. She was doing something with a ceramic bowl and herbs. The concoction was giving off a brilliant spark of light, something I had seen before. The caption of the photo read Cloud performs a simple spell.

I began to feel something strange. It definitely wasn’t relief, but more like camaraderie. It was bad that the supernatural world I had been running from for several years had caught back up to me, but it was great that I suddenly wasn’t alone. There were other people out there who knew about it, too. They weren’t exactly normal people, but we suddenly had something in common.

I found the “Contact Us” section. It listed an e-mail address to send messages to. I opened my e-mail client and copied the address to a blank message. I suddenly stopped.

What am I doing? I thought. Trying to start a support group? If I talked to these people, I would basically be throwing away all the effort I had put into separating myself from the supernatural. On the other hand, maybe they could help me.

Cherub’s alarm clock started beeping. I shut the lid on my laptop as she sat up and turned the alarm off. We exchanged good mornings and she went off to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

While she was gone, I made the decision to go ahead and write the message. If I read through it and decided it sounded stupid, I could just delete it. Typing hesitantly, I drafted a brief letter explaining that I had firsthand experience with supernatural activity, but wished that I didn’t.

When I finished, I read back over it. I altered a few pieces of grammar, but could find nothing else to change. After hesitating for a few more moments, I signed it “Shorty” and clicked Send.

Cherub returned soon after. “Can I ask you a favor?” she said, as she patted her mane dry with a towel.

“What did you have in mind?”

“The fall fashion show is coming up. I have some ideas for what I want to do, but I need a model.”

I waited for a few seconds until I realized she was talking about me. “Modeling? I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“You’d be good at it. You have great legs.”

My face flushed. “I don’t know.”

“I promise to make you look good.”

She worked on me for a few more minutes and I eventually gave in. I tried to argue that my schedule wouldn’t allow it, but did agree to participate in the end. Maybe it was because modeling seemed less extreme than revealing my deepest secrets to strangers on the internet. It took Cherub ten minutes to get my measurements, hovering around my head and shoulders with a tape measure.

“How much do you weigh?” she asked as she made a few final notes. Her expression changed. “I’m sorry, that’s insensitive of me.”

“No, it’s okay,” I said. I weighed exactly what I should for a minotaur of my height, but I still had more than a hundred pounds on Cherub. I knew I wasn’t fat, but nobody wants to admit to weighing that much.

“Remember, the show is next Saturday,” Cherub said. She grinned and went out the door to go to class.

I began to pull my things together. I hadn’t even left the dorm room that morning and it was already turning into an interesting day.