Winning Prompt!​

Write about his relationship with the paranormal.

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It was bittersweet, the birth of the unusual colt. He was told that it was the coat of his mother who stained his own, attempting to give him something to remember her by as she passed. But, of course, he doesn’t remember her.

 

He remembers the mare he was placed with, the kind, older mare who allowed him to suckle from her alongside her own filly. But he doesn’t remember any love from her. She accepted him dutifully, but that was about it. He was a duty for her to perform, all of her love poured into the filly. So, he spent most of his days gazing, lonely, out of the stable door, watching the humans as they passed.

His first memory of love comes from one of those humans. The old stablehand, pottering around in his retirement, attempting to stave off the loneliness of old age by working in the stables, didn't have many friends among the humans, but took a quick shine to the colt. The man, coming from an old era Ireland that was almost now forgotten, had an accent barely understood by the others, and was set in ways that many simply couldn’t relate to. Where some others shied away, Púca was fascinated by him - how those shuffling steps carried him so much more slowly than the other humans, how his body seemed to tremble even in the warmest of weather, how his pale, almost colourlessly blue eyes held water no matter his emotions.

Perhaps the man recognized the loneliness in Púca’s eyes, how it mirrored his own. He would stand with the colt for hours, running a soft brush over his pelt, or just sharing their hours. Púca never minded how he sometimes patted his neck too hard, or how he tugged the matts in his mane too roughly, how sometimes he needed to rest his weight against the colt’s young body to keep himself upright. Púca loved spending time with the man, who simply doted on the unusual youngster.

“How’s ‘bout a wee scéal, me Púcín?” The man would often say, words that Púca soon realized meant ‘I’m going to tell you a story now, my little ghost’. And, although he didn’t understand many of his words, Púca loved the man’s tales, the musical lilt of his voice often lulling him into a relaxed, meditative state.

 

His favourites were of the Kelpies, the Capaill Uisce, water horses, that dragged unfortunate souls to the depths of the waterways of Ireland and Scotland.

“One afternoon,” it would begin, “there were three wee lads, comin’ from a town just beyond me own, walkin’ down along the shore of the local lake.They came across a stallion, Púcín, as tall and strong as yerself, but with strikin’ black pelt, shinin’ in the sun like a gem. Well, the lads were delighted - they were poor folk, y’see, and they only had an old, knock-kneed mare at home. They had never seen such a stallion - as handsome as yerself, sher! With long, thin legs, perfect muscles, and a mane and tail more glorious than they could’ve imagined. Of course, they ran up t’ him - sher, he seemed friendly enough! One wee lad put his hand out onto the neck of the stallion, to pet him, y’see, while the others looked for a treat they might tempt him home with.” Every time, the man put a shaky hand onto Púca’s neck, sending shivers through the colt. “But, to his horror, he wasn’ able to pull his hand away, the stallion’s neck suddenly turning to tar. His friends couldn’t do nothin’ as the Kelpie began to walk, calmly, back into the lake where it had come from, dragging the boy, kickin’ and screamin’ into the waters. He was never seen again...”

Púca made it his mission to avoid water after that story, even his water bucket got wary glances.

 

As he grew, the man kept him company. He spent his hours in the pasture looking for his elderly friend, spent his stall time waiting for the gray old man to appear. Tales of old Irish folklore, of banshees and leprechauns, of Capaill Uisce and Fear Gorta - the Hungry Man - and even of trickster fairies known as The Púca themselves, filled the colt’s early days, and he revelled in them all.

He spent his nights straining for the cry of the banshee, hoping to hear her sorrows for himself, hoping that it was never his family she cried for. Each night time click of a hoof on a stone was investigated might it be the Dullahan - the headless rider upon a black horse who claimed the lives of all those whose name he called. Each snapping branch may have been the Abhartach, the evil dwarf coming once again to drink the blood of the subjects of his country. Every flock of birds who flew overhead were studied for fear they were coming from the West, may they be the legendary Sluagh, coming to escort another spirit to the underworld. Every missing stable object was accredited to the Fear Dearg, the trickster fairy probably revelling in the human’s confusion. Each disruption to water is fled from, for fear that it is the ferocious, dragon-like Oilliphéist coming for his next meal.

His world was filled with wonder, a meaning behind everything. He longed for his time with the old man, enjoying each story-filled moment.

 

Until he stopped coming. Perhaps he was just ill, he would be back tomorrow. Or the next day. Maybe next week?

He never came back.

And Púca grew up. Most stories became nothing but fuzzy memories, the face of the man nothing but a blurry portrait of what he may have looked like.

 

But, even still, on dark, stormy nights, when the wind is howling and the rain is lashing against the sides of the barn, Púca can almost imagine the tortured cries of a banshee, or the thundering footfalls of the Sluagh...

Or even, like a whisper on the wind, a soft voice reminding him of his first friend...

“Púcín."