The Scorpio Races

“Oh, he is,” Gratton says. “Threw a tantrum right in the shop earlier. Says you want him to lose and you can’t stand competition.”

“Oh, that,” Sean replies dismissively. He looks back out the window. We’re passing by one of the pastures that Malvern owns, and there is a splendid spread of broodmares grazing among the green.

Gratton taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “And then of course Peg went off on him.”

Sean looks back again. He doesn’t say anything, but just waits. I see how it pulls the words out of Gratton and gives Sean a subtle upper hand, and I vow to learn how to use this technique.

“Well, he was saying that if he was on that red stallion of yours, he’d be a four-time winner, too. So Peg told him he didn’t know a thing about horses if he thought all there was to the race was the horse under you. She had a short fuse this morning, because it was a day that ended with y, you see.”

I laugh, which reminds Gratton that I’m there, because he says, “And of course, you don’t need Mutt Malvern for competition. You’ve got your hands full with Puck right here.”

I vow to poison Thomas Gratton slowly, later. I want to sink into the seat and disappear. But instead I glare at Sean, daring him to say something.

But he doesn’t. He just looks at my face, frowning a little, as if somehow my reasons for disrupting his training will reveal themselves. Then he glances back out the window.

I can’t decide if I’m insulted or not. To not say anything at all seems worse than saying something awful. I turn to Thomas Gratton, ignoring Sean Kendrick. “You said you were looking for an apprentice?”

“That’s the truth.”

“What about Beech?”

Gratton says, “Beech is going to the mainland after the races.”

I open my mouth but no sound comes out.

“He and Tommy Falk and your brother Gabriel are all going at the same time. I should thank you, Puck, for giving us a few more weeks with him. I hear that your brother’s staying until after the race because of you being in it, and that held them all up.”

I feel, sometimes, like the rest of Thisby knows more about my business than I do.

“That’s the truth,” I say, repeating what he said. I feel darker, for some reason, now that I know that Gabe’s not going alone. “Tommy’s racing, though, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, he decided to, since he’s going to be here for it.”

“Are you upset about Beech?” After I say it, I realize it might not be the most sensitive thing to ask, but I can’t un-ask it.

“Ah, that’s the way of this island. Not everyone can stay, or we’d fall off the edges, wouldn’t we?” Thomas Gratton’s voice doesn’t match his light words, though. “And not everyone belongs to this island. I can tell you do, don’t you?”

“I’d never leave,” I say fervently. “It — it’s like my heart, or something.”

I feel silly for being so sentimental. Outside the window, across the water, I can see one of the tiny rocky islands near us, a little blue silhouette too small to be inhabited. It’s beautiful in the sort of way that you never get used to.

We’re all quiet, very quiet, and then Sean Kendrick says, “I have another horse, Kate Connolly, if you want to ride one of the capaill uisce”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

PUCK

Finn eyes me as he slowly uses his fingers to rend a biscuit into a pile of crumbs.

“So Sean Kendrick’s going to sell you one of the water horses?”

We’re sitting in the back room of Fathom & Sons. It’s a claustrophobic room lined with shelves of brown boxes, the floor barely big enough for the scratched table that stands on it. It smells less like the butter scent of the rest of the building and more of musty cardboard and old cheese. When we were small, Mum would park us here with some biscuits while she chatted with Dory Maud out front. Finn and I would take turns guessing what was in the brown boxes. Hardware. Crackers. Rabbit paws. The private parts of Dory Maud’s invisible lovers.

“Not necessarily,” I say, not looking up from my work. I’m signing and numbering teapots while nursing a cup of tea that’s gone regretfully cold. “I’m just looking. He didn’t say ‘selling,’ really.”

Finn looks at me.

“I didn’t say ‘buying,’ either,” I shoot back at him.

“I thought you were riding Dove.”

I sign my name on the bottom of a pot. Kate Connolly. It looks like I’m signing a school paper. What I need is more flourish. I add a curl to the bottom of the y.

“I probably still am,” I say. “I’m just looking!”

I’m blushing, and I don’t know why, which infuriates me. I hope that the little bit of light from the bulb above us and the narrow windows over the shelves doesn’t reveal it. I add, “I only have two more days to change my horse. I might as well make sure.”

“Are you going to be in the parade of riders?” Finn asks. He’s not looking at me now. Having completely taken apart the biscuit, he’s begun to squish the crumbs back together into something lumpier and smaller.

Every year the Scorpio Festival is held a week after the horses emerge. I’ve only been once, and even then, we didn’t stay long enough for the parade of riders, which is the culminating event of the night, when the riders declare their official mounts and betting goes crazy.

I get a little pit of nerves in my stomach thinking about it.

“Yes, are you?” Dory Maud’s voice carries into the room. She stands in the doorway, one of her eyebrows arched. She’s wearing a dress that looks like she stole it. It has lace sleeves and Dory Maud does not have lace sleeve arms.

I frown at her with bad temper. “You aren’t going to try to talk me out of it, are you?”

“The parade, or the race?” Dory Maud pulls out the third chair at the table and sits down. “What I don’t understand,” she says, “is why such a clever and useful girl as yourself, Puck, would waste so much time looking like an idiot or being dead?”

Finn smiles at his biscuit.

“I have my reasons,” I snap. “And don’t tell me that my parents would be so sad about it, either. I’ve already heard it. I’ve heard it all.”

“Has she been this short all week?” Dory Maud asks Finn, who nods. To me, she adds, “Your father would be displeased, but your mother — she wouldn’t have much room to talk. She was a hellion and the only thing she didn’t do on this island was ride in the races.”

“Really?” I ask, hopeful for more information.

“Probably,” Dory Maud replies. “Finn, why are you eating that? It looks like cat food.”

“Brought it from home.” Finn sighs heavily. “At Palsson’s, they were setting out cinnamon twists.”

“Oh yes.” Dory Maud begins scratching something on a piece of paper. Her handwriting is so utterly illegible that I have to believe she works at it. “Even the angels could smell them.”

Finn’s expression is wistful.

I feel guilty about the load of hay and grain I just bought. I’m not sure it’s a better investment than cinnamon twists would’ve been.

“Could I get an advance on some teapots, Dory Maud?” I ask. I push a signed and numbered one toward her so she is convinced of my dutifulness. “Horse food’s expensive.”

“I’m not a bank. If you help me set up the festival booth Friday afternoon, I’ll do it.”

“Thanks,” I say, without feeling much gratitude.

After a moment, Finn says, “I don’t know why you aren’t just riding Dove.”

“Finn.”

“Well, that’s what you said.”

“I’d like to have a chance of winning money,” I say. “I thought it might actually help to ride, you know, a water horse in a race for, you know, water horses.”

“Mmm,” remarks Dory Maud.

“Exactly,” Finn says. “How do you know they’re faster?”

“Oh, please.”

“Well, you are the one who told me that they don’t always go in straight lines. I just don’t see why you’re changing your mind now just because some expert told you.”

I feel my cheeks warm again. “He’s not some expert. And he didn’t tell me anything. I’m just looking.”

Finn presses his thumb into his pile of crumbs, hard, so that the tip turns white. “You said that you weren’t riding one of them on principle. Because of Mum and Dad.”

His voice is even because Dory Maud is there and because he’s Finn, but I can tell he’s agitated.

I say, “Well, principle won’t pay the bills.”

“It’s not much of a principle when you can just change it like — like that. Overnight. Like —” But he must not be able to think of what else it’s like, because he stands up and storms past Dory Maud’s chair and out of the room.

I blink after him. “What? What?”

I think brothers are the most inexplicable species on the planet.

Dory Maud brushes invisible crumbs from her paper and studies what she’s written. “Boys,” she says, “just aren’t very good at being afraid.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

SEAN

That evening, I saddle up a filly named Malvern Small Miracle, so called because she was so motionless and quiet when she was born that everyone thought she was stillborn.

I’m worn and tired. Something’s wrong with my right arm where one of the horses jammed it earlier today, and I want nothing more than to crawl into my bed to consider whether or not my meeting tomorrow with Kate Connolly is a poor idea. But there are two buyers here, just off the boat, and word’s come that I need to show two of the three-year-olds to them while there’s still light. Why it won’t hold until tomorrow, I don’t know.

When I walk out into the golden evening yard to meet the buyers, I’m surprised to find that the other filly, a gray named Sweeter, is already out there, someone on her back. It only takes me half a moment to recognize the silhouette as Mutt Malvern’s, and something in my gut snarls and turns. Three men stand at her shoulder, their attention on Mutt. He turns his head toward me, face in shadow, and I know he means for me to see that it’s him. That he thinks that it’s any of his business to be showing Sweeter offends me badly enough, but when I hear him tell one of the buyers how much he loves this filly, all I can think of is him standing at the point of the cove, waiting for Fundamental to be pulled under.

Miracle’s hot. She skitters sideways and then shoots across the yard to where Mutt stands, bold enough that Sweeter moves out of her way. Our blue shadows stand beneath us.

“Sean Kendrick,” says George Holly gladly. At my name, the other two buyers turn to observe me. I don’t recognize either of them. Fresh blood, perhaps.

“Sean will be riding the other filly out,” Mutt tells them, his expression paternal. He smiles. “Since I can’t ride two at the same time.”