The Hair of the Ghost Stallion

Prologue

The ghost watches his granddaughter, Elowen, five years old, sobbing as she lies in her bed. The news of his death has just been delivered to her. His heart—his metaphorical one, as he is nothing more than a specter now—shatters in his chest. He reaches toward her face and brushes a tear away.

A blue glow emanates from the tear track, and the ghost stumbles away, startled. It enters her deep, dark eyes, and in a moment, her irises have turned periwinkle; that, and the girl has stopped crying.

“That’s very interesting,” comes a voice from behind him. He whirls to face it.

The creature is horrible. The ghost’s unreactive granddaughter can’t seem to see it—or him. Its swampy, greenish gray skin stretches intensely to cover its bones, and terrible tusks come forth from its mouth. Its eyes are dark as night, including its sclera.

“Touched by a spirit,” the goblin continues, stepping toward the girl. “The spirit of her own relative, no less.”

The ghost steps in front of her defensively. “Who are you?”

The creature tilts its withered head. “That doesn’t concern you.” Then it giggles. “Oh, I love saying that.”

The ghost clenches his jaw. “What do you want?”

“Nothing,” the creature says. “Yet.”

“If you dare to hurt her—”

The creature giggles again, maniacally. “Believe me, I won’t hurt her. I just find her…” He snaps a finger, as if recalling the proper word. “Intriguing.” He waves his hand. “Now, off with you, sir.”

“Wait—” But the ghost is unable to say more, for the ghost is no more.

12 Years Later

“Hello?” I call out into the darkness, cringing as the sound reverberates. The rustling of grass meets my ears. The click of a hoof’s step comes from behind me. A breath disturbs the hair on the back of my head. I freeze.

“Diablo?” I whisper, unsteady fog coming from my mouth to draw anxious lines in the dead space.

Then a firm, gigantic jaw grasps me by the hair and all of a sudden, my feet aren’t touching the ground. I don’t even have time to scream before my ribs crash against a tree.

So, the ghost horse isn’t nice. Got it.

I gasp for breath, shivering as I scramble to sit up. The goblin, Mephisto—he didn’t prepare me for this at all.

My own research has told me that this horse, a vengeful or otherwise corrupt spirit (which I didn’t believe in until the beginning of this summer, when Mephisto came), can mess with me as much as it wants without becoming completely corporeal. In order to get the hair the goblin wants, I have to leap on the stallion’s back.

It’s 10:02 p.m. on July 31st. I have an hour and fifty-eight minutes before summer ends and Mephisto’s deadline hits. I can do this.

I have to do this.

If I don’t do it, he’ll kill them.

I stumble to my feet and pull my pistol—which I’m not licensed to carry—out of its concealed holster, pointing it at the ghost stallion.

“I wonder if you were a good horse when you were alive,” I tell the beast. He whinnies angrily, and his hooves beat against the ground as he gets closer and closer—

I shoot.

Despite my silencer, the round echoes, and I shudder. Good thing we’re in the middle of nowhere. Diablo dissipates as the bullet rips through his sternum.

He’s not dead. I know that. I’ve just bought myself a few seconds to return to the middle of the clearing, so I’m not cornered.

That’s when it occurs to me: I’ve never ridden a horse before. I have no idea how to get on. Have you ever had a thought in your life, Elowen?!

Diablo materializes again and charges toward me. I duck out of his way and leap toward his back, but I fly right through him, falling flat on my face.

How am I supposed to get on his back if I can’t get on his back?

I analyze the trees as well as I can in the faint light that radiates from Diablo’s body. For each of the other quests—I had to get sand from the bottom of a lake and some rabbits’ blood—the goblin gave me some kind of assistance. For the sand, he gave me a raft. For the blood, he gave me a bag of darts. For this…

There’s a rope hanging from one of the trees.

I curse Mephisto’s name aloud. I hate goblins.

But if this saves my parents—the ones he took from me—it saves my parents. Though I’ve never prayed in my life, I can’t seem to help it now. Don’t let them die. Please don’t let them die. I need them. I need them to be there when I graduate high school. I need them to be there when I go to college. I need them to be there when I maybe get married someday.

Their deaths are out of the question.

And maybe, after this, they’ll finally believe in me.

I take a deep breath, look up at the rope, and gather my courage. I have to be as brave as my mom always tells me I am.

I jump and grasp the rope. Instantly, my arms burn. I cry out as pain rips through my muscles. Hand over hand, I climb my way to the top. Diablo paces beneath me, a confused, animalistic look on his spectral face. I squeeze my eyes closed, curling my knees as tightly as possible to become as small as possible.

“Please don’t crush my bones,” I whisper into the dark before opening my eyes, swinging on the rope a few times, and then flinging myself onto the stallion’s back. I land on my gut—on the horse’s spine.

Diablo screams—and I mean screams—before he begins to thrash recklessly. I cry out and grasp his mane, pulling myself into a straddle atop his back.

What am I doing again? I’m not sure. I think I’m frozen.

Oh—the hair.

I reach forward, carefully plucking a hair from the beast’s mane before allowing myself to be thrown off. The impact is harder than I’d imagined it would be. I can’t move, and no matter how hard I try to make my lungs expand, they won’t.

All I can do is watch as the horse walks to stand over me, opens its monstrous mouth, and—

Disappears.

A slow clap comes from within the trees. “Brilliant job, darling,” says that familiar ragged voice.

“Mephisto,” I wheeze.

“Ah, so we’ve reached a first-name basis,” the goblin taunts, crouching down beside me. “Ghost stallion hair, please.” He pauses before adding my name. “Elowen.”

“Will you tell me something first?”

Mephisto’s eye twitches, and he groans. “What could you possibly need?”

I glare at him. “Why did you choose me?”

For a moment, he’s startled. Then he giggles. Giggles. Have you ever seen a monster with tusks jutting from his lower lip giggle? It’s horrifying and smells like a sewer. Or his breath does, anyway. He says, “I think you’re far less ordinary than you think you are, sweetheart. You will figure it out someday.”

I furrow my brow and tilt my head at him. “So there is a reason.”

“Yes. Give me my hair.”

“Tell me why.”

“Need I remind you that I owe you next to nothing?”

I sit bolt upright. “You owe me human decency, you son of a—” Blood rushes to my head, and I pinch my nose bridge against the migraine. I’m seeing spots. I hit the ground too hard.

Mephisto’s long, thick nails grasp the horse’s hair, carefully tugging it from my hands. “I owe you one thing,” he hisses, “and it’s what I took from you.”

He waves his hand, and all of a sudden, I’m sitting in my bed at home, caked in mud, water, and grass. I scramble out of it and scream in frustration.

“Elowen?!” my mother—alive—cries as she darts into my room, my father close behind. She gasps upon seeing my clothes. “What happened?! You’re filthy!”

“I went horseback riding.” I try my best to stay deadpan, but my eyes are filling with tears. I rush to my parents, embracing them both at once. “I thought I lost you.”

My father struggles his way out of my muddy hug. “What are you talking about?”

I look between them, and in their concerned faces, something becomes clear: they have no idea what happened. My heart sinks.

“It’s August,” I offer, wondering if that will jog their memory.

They don’t believe me at first. Then they check the calendar, their phones, their watches, and it becomes clear I’m telling the truth. I tell them how it happened. I tell them about the goblin Mephisto and how he gave me all these quests. I tell them that I had to do all of it before summer ended.

And they’re impressed.

As I lay in bed that night, my face is flushed with pride. Because I did something that even some of the strongest men and women alive could never do.

I saved lives.

And, man, I’m never going to forget this. Ever.

That doesn’t mean I don’t hate Mephisto, though. Screw that goblin.

But, hey—my family is back. And really and truly? That is all that matters to me.

I don't even care why I was chosen.

At least...that's what I'm going to tell myself. Forever.