The Scorpio Races

I strap my schoolbag over my back and take the bicycle because Dove has earned a day off if she’s earned anything, and I bike through the benevolent day to the Malvern Yard.

As before, when I get to the yard, it is bustling with activity. Grooms with horses going out to pasture, riders taking thoroughbreds out to the gallops for their run, stable boys sweeping down the cobbles.

“Kate Connolly,” says one of the grooms. “Sean’s not here.”

I didn’t think he would be, but I don’t like to hear it anyway. Still, I say, “I’m looking for Benjamin Malvern, actually.”

“He’ll be up at the house — is he expecting you?”

“Yes,” I say, because if he wasn’t expecting me before, he’ll be expecting me when I walk in.

“Well, then, let me,” says the groom. He pulls open the gate for me and my bicycle.

I thank him and walk my bicycle up to the Malvern house. It sits behind the stable and is a big, grand old thing. Like Malvern himself, it’s impressive and powerful-looking but not particularly handsome. I lean my bicycle against the wall and walk to the front door and knock.

For a long moment there is no answer, and then Benjamin Malvern opens the door.

“Good morning,” I say, and I step past him into his center hall. It is a naked thing, just wide-open ceiling and a little drawing-room table against the wall. I see a sitting room beyond it and a single cup sitting in the middle of a white tablecloth.

“I was just having tea,” he says.

“Good timing, then,” I reply. I don’t wait for him to invite me and instead step into the sitting room. Like the center hall, it’s nearly empty. Just a round table in the middle of a high-ceilinged room with nothing but brass sconces on the walls. It seems rather lonely. I wonder if he was just sitting in here wondering if the sea would ever spit out the piebald or Mutt Malvern again. I sit in a chair opposite to the one already ajar.

Malvern’s mouth works. “Milk and sugar?”

I fold my arms on the table and eye him. “I’ll have what you’re having.”

He raises an eyebrow before making me a cup of his odd tea. He pushes it to me and settles down opposite, crossing his legs and leaning back.

“What brings you blowing into my house like a hurricane, Kate Connolly? It’s quite rude.”

“I expect it is. I’ve come for three things, really,” I say. I tip the cup against my lips and he watches me. I close one eye. The tea is almost precisely like drinking a scone or licking the carpet. “Three things I’d like.”

“That’s quite a lot of things to like.”

I reach into the schoolbag and place a small stack of notes on the tablecloth. “The first thing I’d like to do is pay everything owed on the house.”

Malvern eyes the money but doesn’t touch it. “And the second?”

I take another big drink of tea for emphasis. It requires quite a bit of heroics on my part but I manage. “I’d like you to give me a job.”

He sets down his teacup. “And what is it you think you’ll do in this job?”

“I think I’ll probably muck stalls and ride horses and push wheelbarrows, to start, and I think I’ll be good at it.”

Malvern considers me. “Jobs are not the easiest thing to be had on this island, you know.”

“So I’ve heard,” I reply.

Benjamin Malvern rubs his fingers over his mouth and looks up at the empty ceiling high above us. There’s a bit of a crack in the plaster and he frowns at it. “I think I could manage that. And what is your third thing you’d like?”

I set down my teacup and look at him, quite hard. If I am ever to look terrifying, this is the moment. “I would like you to sell Corr to Sean Kendrick even though Sean didn’t win.”

Malvern makes a face. “We had a bargain, he and I, and he knew it.”

“That horse is useless to you, and both of you know it. What is it you think to do with him?”

He opens one of his hands skyward.

I say, “So you might as well sell him. Unless you just fancy tormenting Sean Kendrick.” I consider adding like your late son fancied but figure that might be more foul than the situation requires.

“Did he ask you to ask me?”

I shake my head. “He doesn’t know I’m here. And he might feel a little odd if he knew that I was.”

Malvern looks into his tea. “You two are a strange pair. You are a pair, aren’t you?”

“We’re in training.”

He shakes his head. “Fine. I’ll sell him. But the price isn’t changing just because the horse stands on three legs instead of four now. Is that all from you?”

“I said three things and that’s what I gave you.”

“Indeed it is. Well, then, leave me to my tea. Come back on Monday and we can talk about your wheelbarrow.”

I stand up, leaving the notes sitting untouched on the table, and head out into the yard. The breeze runs long and low across the ground, sweeping up the sea and the island grass and the hay and the horses. I think it’s the best smell in the world.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

SEAN

The November sea is a jewel in the evening, dark and glittering beyond the ruddy stones. Corr and I leave the white cliffs behind us as I lead him toward the water. As when I first pulled him from the sea, he wears just a rope halter. I have long since pulled the wrap from his hind leg; it won’t heal him. Holly tells me that they have ways in California of setting the bone, but that he’d still never race again. He tells me that there’s nothing more foolish than for me to buy Corr only to turn him back into the ocean.

But Corr could no sooner go to California than he could fly, and in any case, I’m uncertain what a life like that would hold for a capall uisce. He loves the sea and to run, and while I could give him one of those things, we were happy.

And so now I walk him slowly down to the surf. In the sea, his clumsiness will disappear, his weight cradled by the salt water, and he won’t notice so much that his hind leg is not what it was.

I don’t want to say good-bye.

Back by the cliffs, Puck Connolly and George Holly wait for me, both of them with their arms crossed over their chests, their postures identical. They give me this moment alone, and I’m grateful for it.

Despite his painful progress, Corr’s ears prick to the sea. This November ocean sings sweetly to him, luring him and caressing him, quickening his blood. Together we step into the frigid water. In this light, he’s red like the sun before night, a giant, a god. His ear flicks back as the ocean plays over his injured leg and then back out to the horizon. The sea out there is black and depthless, hiding more wonders, perhaps, than even the waters of Thisby.

It wasn’t that long ago that Corr and I splashed in this surf, here at the base of these cliffs. Now he couldn’t even take a step without thought.

I run my hands down his neck, over his withers, down his shoulder. It’s something I’d taken for granted, just the presence of him. I rest my cheek against his shoulder, my eyes closed for just a second, and then I whisper to him. Find happiness.

Then I can’t stand because my legs won’t hold me here a moment longer. I blink to clear my vision and reach up. I pull off his halter.

I back out of the surf, watching him. His ears are still pricked on the horizon, not toward me. The ocean is his love and now, finally, he’ll have it.

I flip up my collar and turn my back to him as I pick my way back up toward the cliff base. I don’t think I can watch him disappear into the water. It will break my heart.

Puck’s scrubbing her eyes busily as if she has something in them. George Holly bites his lip. The cliffs tower above me and I try to console myself, I will find another capall uisce, I will ride again, I will move to my father’s home and be free. But there’s no comfort in my thoughts.

Behind me, the ocean says shhhhhhhh, shhhhhhhhh.

There’s a thin, long wail. I keep walking, my bare feet slow on the uneven stones.

The wail comes again, low and keening. Puck and Holly are looking past me, so I turn around. Still at the shoreline, Corr has noticed my going, and he stands where I left him, looking back at me. He lifts his head again and keens to me.

The irresistible ocean sucks around his hooves. But still he looks over his withers at me and he wails, again and again. The hair on my arms stands with his call. I know he wants me to go to him, but I can’t go with him where he needs to go.

Corr falls silent when I do not come to him. He looks back out to the endless horizon. I see him lift a hoof and put it back down. He tests his weight again.

Then Corr turns, stepping out of the ocean. His head jerks up when his injured leg touches the ground, but he takes another labored step before keening to me again. Corr takes another step away from the November sea. And another.

He is slow, and the sea sings to us both, but he returns to me.