The Maze of the Horse-Headed Shadow

Jessa Torres came to the Sierra Madre for a story.

She wanted footage of the Tikbalang, the horse-headed figure said to haunt the trails above San Mateo, twisting paths, mimicking voices, and leading the careless deeper into the green dark. With her skeptic friend Mark, botanist Ana, and local guide Lito, Jessa expects danger, tension, and a piece of folklore strong enough to carry her next project.

Then the trail begins to change.

A waterfall appears where it should not. Mark’s voice calls from three directions at once. A grove reflects what each traveler wants to deny. Roots form doors. Old symbols appear in mud, bark, and water. And somewhere ahead, hoofbeats move through the trees with the patience of something that has waited a long time for witnesses who do not yet understand the difference between filming fear and answering it.

The creature in the maze is real.

But the Tikbalang is not the only thing waiting in the Sierra Madre.

Beneath San Mateo lies an older hollow, one built from buried names, broken bargains, stolen children, and a history the town has allowed itself to soften into rumor. To escape the maze, Jessa and the others must learn what was taken, what was offered, and why the jungle keeps turning every path back toward the same truth.

The Maze of the Horse-Headed Shadow is a dark supernatural folk horror novel about the Tikbalang, a living jungle maze, public witness, old debts, and the terrible cost of treating the dead as payment for the comfort of the living.