The Scorpio Races (40 page)

I scowl at him. “Go ask at Gratton’s. They know everything.”

I try to turn Dove again, to push them away from me.

“Puck!”

I turn in the direction of my name, my insides raw, and there is Sean. Unlike me, who had to push through this crowd, he cuts neatly through the people. They make room for him as if unaware that they do. He is in only white shirtsleeves and he’s out of breath, which is to say that for a moment I cannot believe it’s him.

He comes in close, turning his back to the reporter, and ducks his head to me. I’m very aware of all the eyes on us, but Sean seems oblivious. He asks, “Where are your colors?”

“Gabe went looking for them.”

“They’re down on the beach,” he says. “You’ve got to pick them up down there.”

“Have you got yours?”

“Yes. I can hold Dove while you go get yours.”

Dove shudders as someone touches her rump. It’s too loud and too much for her. I’m worried that she’ll use up all of her spirit here on the cliffs, long before we ever get down to the beach. I remember Peg Gratton telling me not to let anyone else tighten my girth on race day. Sean, I decide, is not anyone else. “Can you make them leave her alone?”

He jerks a nod at me.

In a low voice, so he has to lean his head toward me, I say, “Thank you.”

Sean reaches between us and slides a thin bracelet of red ribbons over my free hand. Lifting my arm, he presses his lips against the inside of my wrist. I’m utterly still; I feel my pulse tap several times against his lips, and then he releases my hand.

“For luck,” he says. He takes Dove’s lead from me.

“Sean,” I say, and he turns. I take his chin and kiss his lips, hard. I’m reminded, all of a sudden, of that first day on the beach, when I pulled his head from the water.

“For luck,” I say to his startled face.

A flashbulb goes off and there’s appreciative hooting.

“Okay,” Sean says, as if we’ve just made a deal and it’s all right to him. He turns to the crowd and says, “If you want a race, you’ll give this horse some room. Now.”

As they scatter outward, I push my way through them toward the cliff path. Before I head down, I look over my shoulder to find Sean, and there he is with the wide berth around him and Dove, still watching me. I feel the island underneath me, and Sean’s mouth on my lips, and I wonder if luck will be on our side today.

CHAPTER SIXTY

PUCK

The beach is not as crowded as I had expected. It’s between two of the smaller races, and only the
capaill uisce
who are entered in the next races are on the beach. All of the spectators who were down on the sand before are now huddled up on the cliffs, pressed as close as they dare to the edge. The sky above them has cleared to a deep, deep blue like you only get in November, and the ocean to my right is dark as night.

I can’t think that I’ll soon be racing beside it or I won’t be able to move.

I quickly find the race officials’ table in the shelter of the cliff; two men in bowler hats sit behind a table with tantalizingly varied racing colors folded in front of them. I hurry across the sand and duck close so that I won’t have to shout.

“I need to pick up my colors,” I say. I recognize the man on the right; he sits near us in St. Columba’s.

“None left for you,” replies the other official. His crossed arms rest on a stack of them.

“I’m sorry?” I ask politely.

“None left. Good-bye.” He turns to the official next to him and says, “What do you think of this weather? Warm, isn’t it?”

“Sir,” I say.

“I’m not complaining about the heat, that’s for sure, but it’ll bring out the midges,” says the other official.

“You can’t just pretend I’m not here,” I say.

But they can. They make pointed small talk, ignoring my presence, until I swallow my anger and humiliation and give up. I tell them that they’re bastards, because they won’t say anything back to me anyway, and go back the way I’ve come. I meet Gabe on his way down the cliff road. The wind has made his hair a mess.

“Where are your colors?” he asks.

I don’t really want to confess it to him, but I do. “They won’t give them to me.”

“Won’t!”

I cross my arms over my chest. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll race without them.” But it does matter, a little.

“I’m going to go talk to them,” Gabe says. His righteous anger is a welcome thing to see, even if I don’t think it will help. Sometimes it helps just to have it shared with another person. “This is stupid.”

I watch him descend and cross the sand, but I can tell from their faces as they watch him approach that he won’t get a different answer. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to look like one of them. I don’t need to belong.

“Sod them,” Gabe says when he returns. “Old Thisby biddies.”

Beside us, someone shouts out that everyone but the entrants in this last match race need to clear the beach, because it’s nearly time for the final race.

That means us.

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

SEAN

By the afternoon, the sun is strong but cold on the beach. The wind tears the surface of the blue-black sea into a thousand whitecaps. Up on the cliffs, there is the silhouette of a crowd, watching the pale road of sand between them and the ocean.

Every so often, I can see the head of a
capall uisce
in the water, far out from shore, driven toward the sand by the November current. The ones we have caught struggle against us in bridles hung with bells and red ribbons, iron and holly leaves, daisies and prayers. The water horses are hungry and wicked, vicious and beautiful, hating us and loving us.

It is time for the Scorpio Races.

I am so, so alive.

Beneath me, Corr is powerful and restless. The sea sings to him in a way that it didn’t yesterday, and when another
capall uisce
moves past us, he snaps at it. Before Puck, I’d never been so aware of how many of us there were on the beach for this race.
Capaill uisce
of every color pressing against each other, crushing, biting, snorting, kicking. The north end of the beach has never seemed so distant.

In eighteen furlongs and five minutes, this will all be over.

I find Puck in the crowd. Unlike the others, she’s not hanging last minute baubles and trinkets onto her horse’s mane. She’s leaned over Dove’s neck, her cheek pressed into Dove’s mane.

“Sean Kendrick.”

I recognize Mutt’s voice before I turn my head. He sits nearby on the piebald mare. When she tosses her mane, the bells he’s braided in her mane ring a discordant chord. I don’t see how he means for her to be fast under all of the iron he has hanging off her breastplate and her crupper.

“Don’t talk to me,” I say.

“This race is going to be hell for you,” Mutt replies.

Corr lays his ears flat back and the piebald mare responds in kind. I say, “You can’t intimidate me on this beach.”

Mutt Malvern backs the piebald away; she jangles and snorts. He follows my gaze back to Puck. “I know what you care about, Sean Kendrick.”

PUCK

I’m trying, unsuccessfully, to pretend that this will be just another sprint. I’m trying not to look at how far we have to go. I’m trying to remember that I not only have to survive but do well. I need to win. For a moment, I feel a pang of guilt, that if I get what I need, Sean doesn’t, but maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. If I win, surely there will be enough to both save the house and buy Corr?

“Puck. Climb off for a moment.” I’m surprised to hear Peg Gratton’s voice. She stands at Dove’s shoulder, looking up at me. Her hair is frazzled in the wind and her face serious. I obediently slide off. She’s holding her Scorpio bird costume in her arms, a fact that I can’t understand. “How are you doing?”

“Okay,” I say.

“So, terrible,” she says. “Gabe told me they wouldn’t give you any colors.”

I shake my head. I won’t let my face show anything.

Peg says, “Right, then. Off with the saddle.”

Mystified but trusting, I pull off the saddle and watch Peg carefully unfold the costume in her arms. I see now that the great, terrifying bird head is no longer attached; it’s just the back of the feather-covered cape. Peg lays it down on Dove’s back where the colors would have gone, and then she takes the saddle and looks to make certain that it won’t chafe.

“Now you wear Thisby’s colors,” she says.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.” Peg’s already walking away. “Show them who you are.”

I swallow. Who I am is crouched down inside this girl named Puck Connolly, praying that I’ll make it through the next few minutes.

“Riders, line
up
!”

How can it be time to line up? We’ve only just gotten down here and I haven’t seen Sean before the race. I swing onto Dove and stare over the
capaill uisce,
looking for him. If I can just see —

On the other side of the line, I see him lifting his chin and looking at me as well. Corr, wearing dark blue colors, is slicked with sweat already. Sean’s still looking at my face so I lift up my wrist for him to see his ribbon on it.

“Riders,
line up
!”

I wish I were next to Sean and Corr, but there’s no time. Three race officials are pressing us back into lines behind great wooden poles. The lines ring and shrill with hundreds of bells on dozens of hooves. The
capaill uisce
snap and snort, paw and shudder. I keep Dove as far from her neighbors as I can. Her ears are flattened back to her head. She’s surrounded by predators.

Beside me, the
capall uisce
shakes its head and foam cascades down its neck and chest.

They’re counting down.

The ocean says
shhhhhhhh, shhhhhhhh.

They lift the poles.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

PUCK

We explode into action. There’s no rhyme or reason; the only thing I can remember is to pull Dove to the inside. No one wants to be near that November sea unless they have to be. Dove’s hooves touch the edge of the surf, and salt water mists my face. Somehow there is salt between my fingers and the reins, and the crystals burn and grate.

Something crushes my leg, hard, the buckle of my stirrup leather grinding into the bone, and I turn in time to see a great bay
capall uisce
pressed against me. I jerk Dove farther into the surf just as the bay twists and snaps at her. Her ears flatten all the way back into her mane just as I see that it’s Gerald Finney. His fists are white-knuckled around his reins and he doesn’t glance at me. I can tell by the shiver working through the saddle that Dove recognizes his
capall.
I clamp my legs on either side of her.
Don’t be afraid yet, Dove. We have a long way to go.

I remember, too late, that I’m supposed to be conserving Dove’s energy and I check her speed. Horses charge by us; the green of Ian Privett’s colors, the light blue of Blackwell’s, the gold of the piebald mare. No red stallion under dark blue, though. I have no idea if he is so far ahead that I can’t see him or if he is behind me.

SEAN

I look for Puck or Dove, but I can’t see anything in this crush of bodies. Corr’s strong in my hands; my exhausted shoulders already ache from the weight of him. My calves burn with the friction of the stirrup leathers. I’m not sure how long I should hold Corr back behind the pack to look for her. The back is the worst place to be; the
capaill
back here lag not because they’re slow but because they’re fighting with each other or fighting with the sea. The hooves in front of me kick sand into my face. My eyes sting, but I can’t spare a hand to swipe at them.

To my left are a gray and a chestnut tearing at each other. They try to incorporate Corr into the skirmish. I hold him true and press him forward: not too far, because if Puck is behind me, I don’t want to leave her behind. My hands are buried in the sweaty mane at his withers, and I feel his muscles shaking at the touch of the November sea. I whisper at him to be steady.

I look under my arm to the right for Puck; there’s nothing but the gray halfway into the surf. He’s already mostly a creature of the sea. His eyes are slits in his lengthening head. The gray twists and scrabbles, more anxious for the rider on his back than the race before him. Seawater sprays from somewhere, the cold of it like claws on my cheek.

Another
capall
pushes on my left side; she snaps out and grazes my leg before her rider jerks her away. I can’t stay back here. I’ll get out in the open and find Puck. If she’s not out of this rabble by now, she might already be dead.

I lean over Corr’s neck to whisper to him, but for once, I can’t think of what to whisper.

But it doesn’t matter. Corr knows what I want without me having to speak, and he surges out of the bunched
capaill
in the rear.

There is a narrow corridor open right to the very front where the three front-runners are fighting it out. Last year I would’ve been through that hole with Corr and they would have been counting the lengths between the rest of the pack and Corr for the remainder of the race.

But I don’t take that move.

I wait.

PUCK

It only takes a minute for Dove to be bitten and another few seconds for me to be cut by some razor-sharp edge that I don’t think can be horse teeth. I don’t have time to look at the wound or guess what has cut me. We’re trapped in a crush of bodies. Even over the rush of the wind in my ears, I hear their squeals and roars, the clucks and growls as they fight.

From the slice in my thigh, I feel the disconcerting heat of blood running down my leg but no pain, yet. Whatever cut me was sharp enough that the wound was clean.