Misty Simon

“Bring in the pony, Verla!” Narcissio Paladin barked at me from the middle of the jousting field. He stood at around seven feet tall and was almost that broad from shoulder to shoulder.  I don’t know why I had thought he’d look more like Ichabod Crane when we’d spoken on the phone, but I couldn’t have been further from the real thing if I’d tried.

Instead, he was more like a tree trunk, and I really hoped he’d be gentle with the beautiful kelpie I was putting in his care. Seawaddle wasn’t wild, necessarily, but I had to know this kelpie could follow some basic commands and listen to someone if I needed him to. So far, he had done what I asked him to whenever there was trouble. I just wanted to make sure he could take commands when things weren’t completely out of control.

He hadn’t done anything wrong, but I’d also kept him in the stables whenever we had visitors, and I felt bad that he couldn’t be a part of things. I’d asked our regular horse master, but he’d deferred, so I’d called in Narcissio at my boss’s recommendation. Well, on my mother-in-law’s recommendation and with my boss’s okay.

Narcissio’s corded arms rose in the air like he was about to direct some massive orchestra, and his long thin nose almost quivered as I brought the “pony” to the arena.

Except this wasn’t a pony. Seawaddle was a kelpie, a horse from folklore that was made to lure people to their deaths as it rose from the depths of any body of water. They were known for enticing the person to ride them, and then plunging down, back into that water, until the person drowned.

Some said the victim was then transported to the realm of the fair folk, or fairies. There, he or she would be imprisoned to do the horse’s bidding until eternity came to an end, which of course meant forever. I had no idea if by doing the horse’s bidding it meant that they were supposed to shovel shit and always have carrots in their pockets, but I was very happy not to have to find out.

Because Seawaddle had come to the right place when he’d been created. He hadn’t led a single person to their death in all the days he’d been here. To say I was thankful for that would be like saying I was thankful there was such a thing as a corkscrew when I wanted to open one of my favorite bottles of wine. Total understatement.

He was a misfit like the rest of us. A paranormal creature who was designed for one thing, but incapable of doing it, or unwilling to. And we had plenty of people and creatures just like him at our Renaissance Faire.

But since this was the top horse master in all the world of paranormals, I was not going to argue with Narcissio when he said “pony.” One just didn’t do things like that. Especially when he’d been so intrigued by having the chance to train a kelpie that he hadn’t demanded we pay him his usual fee—three virgins and a goat. The price was so archaic I wouldn’t have paid it anyway. Not to mention that I wouldn’t even know where to find a virgin, and I wasn’t going to ask Peggy to give up her goat, Herman. But not having to tell that to Narcissio was another bonus. A gift horse I wasn’t going to look in the mouth, if I wanted to get cheeky about it.