I don’t want to do this.
I say, very quietly, “Then, Mr. Malvern, I quit.”
He turns his head and one of his eyebrows is raised. “What’s that?”
“I quit. Today. Find another trainer. Find someone else to ride in the races.”
The faintest hint of a smile moves his lips. I recognize it: disdain. “Are you trying to blackmail me?”
“Call it what you like,” I say. “Sell me Corr, and I’ll race for you one last year, and I’ll keep on training your horses.”
On the gallop, a dark bay gelding lopes along, breathing hard. He’s not in racing condition yet. Malvern rubs his hand over his lips again, an action that somehow reminds me of Mettle.
“You overestimate your importance to this yard, Mr. Kendrick.”
I don’t flinch. I’m standing in the ocean, feeling it press against my legs, but I won’t let it move me.
“Do you think I can’t find someone else to ride your stallion?” Malvern asks me. He waits for me to answer, and when I don’t, he says, “There are twenty boys I can think of dying to get on the back of that horse.”
The image splinters in my heart, and I’m sure he means it to.
When I still don’t speak, he says, “Well, that’s that. Have your things out by the end of the week.”
I’ve never had to be this steady. Never had to make myself so still and fearless. I can’t breathe, but I make myself hold out my hand.
“Don’t play that game,” Malvern says, without looking at me. “I invented it.”
The meeting’s over.
I might never ride Corr again.
I don’t know who I am without him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
PUCK
Most of the time, I trust Dove more than just about anybody, but she does have her moments. She doesn’t like to be in water above the knee, which on Thisby is probably wisdom instead of cowardice. As a filly, she had an altercation with a sheep truck and she has yet to make her peace with them. And she’s generally daunted by anything that could be described as weather. I can forgive her these, though, because it’s not often I need to plow through a river or race a sheep truck or trot to Skarmouth in a gale.
But by the time I return to the cliff tops that afternoon, there is definitely weather. The wind cuts straight and low across turf made deep, dark green by the clouds pressing overhead. When the gusts blast across Dove’s face, strong enough to check her speed, she spooks and shivers. The air stinks of the capaill uisce. Neither of us wants to be here in this night-dark afternoon.
But I know we ought to stay. If there is wind or rain on the day of the race, I need Dove to be solid. Not the slippery, jerky animal that she is right now.
“Easy,” I tell her, but her ears are swiveling to catch everything but my voice.
A howl of wind sends her skittering dangerously close to the cliff edge. For a moment I see the hump of the cliff grass where it falls over the edge of the rock, toward the froth of the surging ocean far below. I feel the timeless, swimming sensation of possibility. Then I jerk one of the reins and kick her forward.
Dove shoots inland, still out of control, twisting and impossible to sit on.
I use everything my mother ever told me about riding. I imagine a string attached to my head pulling down through my spine, tying me to the saddle. I imagine I’m made of sand. I imagine my feet are stones hanging on either side of Dove’s belly, too weighty to be shifted.
I keep my balance and slow her down, but my heart’s hammering.
I don’t like being afraid of her.
This is when Ian Privett arrives. Under this iron sky, he looks dark as a funeralgoer. He rides up on his sleek gray, Penda, who’s not so much dappled as streaked with white like the storm-crazed ocean down below. A few lengths away from him is Ake Palsson, the baker’s son, on a chestnut uisce mare, and with him is a bay capall uisce ridden by Gerald Finney, who’s a second cousin or something of Ian Privett’s. There’s an attending group of men on foot, noisy and wind-tossed.
I can’t imagine why they’d be coming up here, full of purpose, until Tommy Falk trots up behind them on his black mare. When his gaze finds me, there’s a warning in it.
Ake Palsson leads the way toward me. He looks like his father the baker, which should be bad, since giant Nils Palsson has wild tufts of white hair, deep crevices for eyes, and a paunch that looks as if he’s smuggling a bag of flour under his shirt. But Ake’s squinted eyes only make the shock of his blue eyes more impressive, and his white-blond hair is carefree instead of startling. He’s intimidatingly tall, and if there are sacks of flour in his future, his hard frame has no hint of it now. My father always liked Ake. He said, Ake gets things done, which is a compliment because on this island, so many people don’t.
Curled on the back of his chestnut, Ake calls, jolly, “And how is the third Connolly brother doing today?”
This earns him a laugh. It’s not until the laugh’s over that I realize he means me.
Finney’s bay snaps at Ake as they trot closer. Just a squabble, but the sound of those teeth snapping makes Dove flinch.
“It’s a shame what passes for humor these days,” I reply. I try to hide how much work it’s taking for me to hold Dove steady. The wind was bad enough, and now capaill uisce.
“It’s got a bit of currency,” Ake says. I can’t see the important parts of his expression in this light, so I can’t tell if his smile is a funny one or not. “Down on the beach, they’ve started calling you Kevin.”
Before I can stop them, my fingers dart self-consciously up to the edge of my hat to feel if any of my hair curls out. Gabe once joked, years ago, that Finn and I looked alike if you looked at just our faces. I’m a bit ashamed at how much the idea that I might be mistaken for a boy distresses me.
“That’s hilarious,” I say. “I’m riding in the race, so I must be a boy.” As Ake and Finney come closer, I let Dove trot around in a small circle to hide the fact that I can’t hold her in a full stop.
Ake shrugs, like he could’ve thought of better. Behind him, Finney’s bay crow-hops, crashing into the chestnut, who nearly stumbles into Dove. Dove’s fear shivers through the reins.
Ake laughs as Finney hurriedly gathers up his bay.
“Pisser,” Finney says, pulling his bowler hat down to restore his ego. He jerks his chin in my direction. “Come on, Kevin, let’s see what you got.”
“Don’t call me that,” I reply. He and Ake circle me; their horses dwarf Dove. They must know that it’s driving her to a frenzy. “And I was just finishing up.”
Finney says, “Come now, be a sport. They said you were a whip.”
“I’m not racing you right now,” I say. I grid my teeth into a smile. “But I’ll watch you boys.”
Ake laughs. It’s not a mean laugh, but it’s not a thoughtful one, either. He says, “Tommy says you’d race us.”
I find Tommy beyond them. He shakes his head.
“Then Tommy doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” I reply.
Finney asks, “Where are your balls?”
I need to get away. In the back of my head, I’m thinking that this is going to be a problem, that Dove’s going to have to deal with a lot more than this on the day of the race. But that’s a faraway concern. The more immediate one is that Dove is shaking and ready to break.
“You’re the one who said I have them, not me.” I glance behind me, looking to see if there’s room to back Dove away from them. A few drops of rain spatter across my face. The worst of it is that there’s nothing mean about Finney and Ake; they’re being just like Joseph Beringer. Only Joseph Beringer never teases me from the back of a massive capall uisce.
“The bookies are here,” Finney says, elbowing back toward the onlookers. “Don’t you want to show them something better than your forty-five to one?”
Finney lets his bay jostle into Ake’s mare again, and the chestnut shoves against Dove, hard. I hear teeth snapping and Dove squeals, the wind ripping through her mane. I cling to her as she rears. Behind her left ear, I see a shallow scrape where the capall’s teeth grazed her. The blood wells up in a dozen small drops.
“Give me some room!” I shout.
I’m simultaneously terrified and humiliated as I hear myself. It’s the voice of a scared little girl.
Ake and Finney hear it, too, because their faces change. Ake hauls on his chestnut’s reins so hard that she nearly rears. Finney kicks his bay away from Dove.
They’re both looking at me, Ake especially, with apologies in their expressions.
Dove lifts her head to the wind and whinnies, shrill and terrified. Ake keeps backing his horse away. I’m relieved to have distance between her and the capaill uisce, but at the same time, I’m ashamed down to my bones by this space suddenly surrounding me.
From their vantage point nearby, the bookies wipe moisture from their hats and murmur to each other before they walk away without a glance back for me. Ian Privett, still watching from Penda, nods to Ake before he turns as well.
“Later, Kate,” Ake says, not quite meeting my eyes, suddenly demure. He lays his reins against his chestnut mare’s neck and she pivots back toward Skarmouth. Finney touches his hat and is gone as well.
The cliff top seems quiet now, just the wind and the sound of intermittent drops sinking into the grass around me. I cannot stop hearing the sound of my own voice, and every time I do, I feel a little smaller.
Tommy’s face is pensive. For a moment it looks like he’s starting toward me, but at the movement of his uisce mare, Dove squeals and lays her ears back again. So he merely waves at me with just one hand close to his reins, and follows the others.
I’m left alone, the gusts beating the breath out of me. I’m furious with Dove for being so fearful, but I’m more furious with myself. Because it doesn’t matter how brave I’ve been or how brave I will be. It only took a casual handful of minutes to convince everyone here that I don’t belong on the beach.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
PUCK
That night Finn and I make a picnic in Dove’s one-sided lean-to. Dove is still strung out and fretful, and I don’t think she’ll touch her hay unless I’m out there with her. And Finn says that the storm’s going to keep us inside for a few days anyway, so we might as well be outside while we can. Also, Mum used to tell us to picnic outside when we were being horrid and loud in the house, so it has a sort of comfortable nostalgia to it.
Of course, it’s getting dark, and it’s drizzling fitfully, but still, under the lean-to it’s dry, and an electric lantern provides enough light to see our soup by. I break open one of the cheap bales of hay to use as a blanket over our legs and we lean back against the wall of the lean-to. Finn, sensing my black mood, clinks the edge of his bowl against mine as a cheers. Dove stands half in and half out of the lean-to and picks at her hay. I have a clear view of the scratch on her neck from here, and again, I hear the sound of my cry on the cliff top. I can’t stop wondering what would’ve happened if I’d just galloped with them when they’d first asked. I can’t stop seeing their faces as they pulled their horses back from Dove.
