Free The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton

run all night to get away from it. I had to hobble him, had to tie his feet to keep him from bursting his heart.”
    “Horses?” said Thomas. “Papa, horses?” He was on his feet, forgetting his fear of Pluto. He thought of Pesty and that Darrow boy, and the black horse they had with them.
    “Mr. Pluto has three horses, son,” said Mr. Small. “I told you he uses two at a time for the buggy he gets around in. At night, he keeps them in the cave on the other side of the hill from here. The black has simple fever, which is odd, isn’t it, Mr. Pluto, in a horse of such dark color? I thought simple fever hit horses with lighter coats, such as the whites and grays.”
    “Yes … well.” Mr. Pluto thought for awhile. He seemed to struggle with his memory, and Thomas watched him. Indeed they all watched him, as though he were not just strange, someone they’d only heard of, but a man beyond their knowledge.
    “If it was just a heat problem,” Mr. Pluto began, “say heat like they have in India, it wouldn’t have hurt the black. It wasn’t the heat though, it was nervous shock.”
    “I had no idea nervousness could act on a horse’s heat centers,” Mr. Small said. He had taken another step forward, and Pluto became agitated.
    “Not nervousness,” Pluto said. He squeezed his gloved hands together. “Nervous shock. Nervous shock! By haunted things nothing living should have the unhappiness to see!”
    At once Thomas had a vision of night and Mr. Pluto’s black horse grazing the hillside. A specter floated slowly nearer, until it was beside the horse. The horse lifted his head, standing there for a second before falling with a thud to the ground.
    “Papa, ghosts!” Thomas whispered. “He’s talking about ghosts!”
    Mr. Small looked sternly at Thomas; after that Thomas stayed quiet. Then Mr. Small looked hard at Pluto. At that moment, Thomas saw the faintest trace of amusement on Pluto’s face. His father didn’t seem to notice it.
    “You have a sick quarter horse on your hands,” said Mr. Small. “This is a lonely stretch of country. I’m sure the town boys like fooling around along the stream. Thomas, didn’t you tell us you met two children out here today? One of them was a little girl called Pesty. She was riding a black horse, Mr. Pluto, and I believe she left the impression the horse belonged to you.”
    They all stood still in the room, with the quiet slowly closing in on them. Mr. Small’s meaning had been clear to Mrs. Small and clear to Thomas. But if he had meant to startle Mr. Pluto with his knowledge of an unhobbled, seemingly well horse, he had been mistaken.
    When Pluto started speaking, he didn’t even bother to lift his voice above that hostile silence; he seemed not to consider that Mr. Small had raised the possibility he might be lying. Now he kept his eyes on Mr. Small’s feet moving steadily forward.
    “That Pesty!” Mr. Pluto said, fondly it seemed to Thomas. “She can do more with a wild animal than any small child should be able to do with anything!”
    “You mean to say a child could unhobble a full-grown quarter horse suffering from simple fever?” Mr. Small’s voice was angry now.
    “No,” said Mr. Pluto quietly. “No, I mean to say that Pesty can ride that black anytime. Anytime at all, as long as it’s day. But once night hits, that horse has the fever of nervous shock. And I have to hobble him so he won’t burst his heart with running.”
    “You’re not talking sense, man!” said Mr. Small. He was well on Pluto now and with a few more steps, he would be able to see whatever it was he was obviously looking for.
    “Sense!” The word hissed around them, stopping Mr. Small’s forward movement. There was a twisted smile on Pluto’s face. Thomas still couldn’t see that face as well as he had when the firelight had played on it.
    “Sense,” Pluto said again, less in anger than with sadness.
    He looked gently at Mrs. Small. He looked at Mr. Small with that