The Scorpio Races

CHAPTER TEN

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in Skarmouth after dark, and it reminds me of the time that Dad cut his hair. For the first seven years of my life, Dad had dark curly hair that was like me – in that he told it first thing in the morning what he wanted it to do and then it went and did pretty much whatever it wanted to do. Anyway, when I was seven, Dad came back from the docks with his hair close shaven and when I saw him walk in the door and kiss my mother on the mouth, I started to cry because I thought he was a stranger.

And that’s what Skarmouth has done, after dark: It’s turned into an entirely different Skarmouth from the one I’ve known my whole life, and I don’t feel like letting it kiss me on the mouth anytime soon. Night has painted the entire town dark blue. All of the buildings press against each other and, clinging to the rocks, peer down into the endless black quay beneath them. Streetlights make brilliant halos; paper lights crawl along wires tied to telephone poles. They look like Christmas lights or fireflies, spiraling up toward the faint dark outline of St. Columba’s above the town. There is a legion of bicycles leaned against walls, and more cars than I knew existed on the entire island are parked along the streets, streetlights caught in their windshields. The cars have disgorged unfamiliar men and the bicycles have bucked off half-familiar boys. I’ve only ever seen this many people in the streets on fair days.

It’s magical and terrifying. I feel lost, and I’m only in Skarmouth. I can’t imagine Gabe making his way on the mainland.

“Puck Connolly,” shouts a voice that I know belongs to Joseph Beringer. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

I park Finn’s bicycle as close to the butcher’s as I can get it and lean it against the metal rail that is meant to keep you from falling into the quay unless you absolutely mean to. The water smells weird and fishy tonight and I peer down to see if there are any fishermen’s boats down there to account for the smell. There’s nothing but black water and reflections, making it look like there is another Skarmouth submerged under the salt water.

Joseph crows something else that I don’t pay any mind to. In a way, I’m grateful that Joseph’s here being an oaf, because he’s such a fixture of life here that he makes everything else seem more familiar.

My head jerks as Joseph pulls my ponytail. I whirl around to face him, hands on my hips. He gives me his too-big smile. He is pimply under his blond hair. His mouth goes whoo like he’s impressed that I’m looking at him.

I try to think of something catchy to say, but there’s nothing but irritation that something that was funny to an eleven-year-old boy is still funny to a seventeen-year-old one. So I just say ferociously, “I don’t have time for you tonight, Joseph Beringer!”

This is true always, but truer tonight. I’m supposed to sign up as a race participant today, I think. Because of my hurry, Finn graciously offered to feed Dove for me. When I left, he was looking at a bucket as if it was the most complicated invention he had ever seen.

Beside me, Joseph is going on about my bedtime again – he likes to just take a topic and worry it to death, never a danger of missing anything subtle with him – and I simply ignore him as I hurry down the walk to Gratton’s, the butcher shop. As I look at all the people, some of them tourists already, I think about how Mum used to say that we needed the races, that this would be a dead island without them.

Well, the island’s alive tonight.

Gratton’s is a riot of sound, with people spilling out onto the walk. I have to push my way through the door. I wouldn’t say people in Skarmouth are rude as a rule, but beer makes people deaf. Inside, the place is abuzz with noise and a crooked line leads around the walls. The ceiling feels low and crowded with its exposed timbers close overhead. I’ve never seen so many people in here before. In a terrible way, though, it makes sense that the butcher’s should be the unofficial center for the races, on account of this is where all the riders get their meat from.

Except me.

I see Thomas Gratton straightaway, shouting directly into someone’s ear by the opposite wall. His wife, Peg, is behind the counter, smiling and chatting, a piece of chalk in her hand. Thomas may own the place, but Dad said that Peg ruled it. Every man in Skarmouth is in love with Peg. Dad said this was because they knew that Peg could cut their heart out neat and they loved her for it. Certainly isn’t for her looks. I heard Gabe say once that Mutt Malvern had bigger tits than Peg. Which I suppose is probably true but I remember being very shocked at my brother saying something so crass and unfair, because what say does a girl have in how big her chest gets?

I edge into the single line of people that leads to where Peg writes names up on the chalkboard. I am standing behind a man in a dull blue jacket and a hat, and his back is so high he blocks my view of everything. I feel like I’ve become a toddler in a room that dangles with meat hooks. Thomas Gratton roars to the crowd to stop smoking in the shop and men roar laughingly back at him about Thomas not being able to stand any heat near his meat.

I begin to feel uncertain, like I’m not sure I’m even supposed to be standing in the line. I think people are looking at me. I hear people at the counter placing bets. Maybe I’m wrong and this has nothing to do with signing up for the races. Maybe they won’t even let me sign up with Dove. The only positive thing is that I’ve lost Joseph Beringer in the process.

I step to the side of the giant in front of me to read the chalkboard again. At the top it says JOCKEYS and then, to its right, CAPAILL. Someone has written meat in small letters next to JOCKEYS. And then, beneath all of that, there is a gap, and then the names begin. There are more names under JOCKEYS than there are under CAPAILL. I feel like asking the mountain of a man in front of me why that is. I wonder if Joseph knows. I also wonder if Gabe has gotten home. And I wonder, too, if Finn has managed to work out how a bucket works yet. Mostly I can’t think about any one thing for too long.

And then I see him. A dark-haired boy who is made of all corners. He is standing next in line by the counter, silent and still in his blue-black jacket, his arms folded across his chest. He looks out of place and wild in here: expression sharp, collar turned up against the back of his neck, hair still windblown from the beach. He is not looking at anyone or away from anyone; he’s just standing there looking at the ground, his mind obviously far, far away from the butcher’s. Everyone else is being crowded and jostled, but no one crowds or jostles him, though they don’t seem to avoid him, either. It’s like he’s just not in the same place as the rest of us.

“Oh, Puck Connolly,” says a voice behind me. I turn and see an old man, not in line, just watching those of us who are. I think his name is Reilly, or Thurber, or something. I recognize him as an old friend of my father’s, one of those who’s old enough that he had a name but I never needed to know it. He’s a dry, crinkly thing, with wrinkles in his face deep enough for gulls to nest in. “What are you doing here on this night?”

“Meddling,” I answer, because it’s an answer that is difficult to argue with. I look back at the boy at the counter. He turns then, so he’s in profile, and suddenly, I think I know him from on the beach: the rider on the red stallion. Something about his expression and his wind-torn hair makes my heart go thump thump stop.

“Puck Connolly,” says the old man. “Don’t be looking at him like that.”

Such a statement is too tantalizing to ignore. “Who is he?”

“Lord, that’s Sean Kendrick,” the old man says, and I lift my eyebrows as I half remember hearing the name. Like a bit of history you’ve been told a few times in school but don’t quite need to recall. “No one better than him for knowing the horses. He rides every year and I reckon he’s the one to beat. Always is. But he’s got one foot on the land and one foot in the sea. You steer clear of him.”

“Of course I will,” I say, though I don’t know at the moment where I intend to steer. I look back to him, attaching the name. Sean Kendrick.

He steps up to the counter then, and Peg smiles at him very brightly – too brightly, I think, like she’s proving a point. I can’t hear what she says, but I can’t stop watching as he leans slightly toward her, uncrossing his arms to make some sort of small gesture with his fingers as he speaks. He has two fingers held up and he presses them against the surface of the counter, tapping them twice like he’s counting. I can tell that he, for one, is not in love with Peg Gratton. I wonder if it’s because he doesn’t know that she could cut his heart out neat or if he does know and is just unimpressed with the knowing.

Peg turns around with the chalk and stretches all the way up and I see now that the space just underneath JOCKEYS was left there intentionally, because she doesn’t hesitate as she writes Sean Kendrick at the very top of the list above everyone else. There are a few whoops from the crowd around me as she finishes writing his name. Sean Kendrick doesn’t smile, but I see him nod to her.

One of the other men pulls him aside to talk and the line moves up. I’m one step closer to signing up. My guts do a small little dance inside me. Another step up. I’m wondering if it’s nerves or the pressing heat of all these bodies that’s making me light-headed. Another step up.

My stomach is an ocean of trouble as the man in front of me places a bet. And then it is me.

Peg smiles at me, like she smiles at everyone. She doesn’t look scary at all. She looks plain and friendly. “Hi, love, what do you need? You’ve picked quite a night to come out.”

I realize that she thinks I’m here for meat. I feel my cheeks warm and try to sound firm. “I’m here to sign up, actually.”

Peg’s smile remains in place, but it’s like a picture of a smile someone has hung on her face instead. It is utterly motionless and her eyes don’t match it. “Your brother told me not to let you sign up. He wanted me to find a rule against it.”

She means Gabe, of course. My stomach surges in a whole new way. I try not to sound frantic as I lean across the bloodstained counter. And right after that I realize that she knew all along what I was here for and still asked me the first question. Which I think means I need to change how I’m thinking of her, but I can’t, because she still looks just plain and friendly. “There’s no rule, is there? There isn’t any reason I can’t.”

“There’s no rule, and I told him that for sure. But -” Her smile is gone and suddenly I can imagine her cutting out my heart, in a hard, blank way that means she wouldn’t even notice the blood. “What would your parents think? Have you thought this through? People die, love. I’m all for women, but this isn’t a woman’s game.”

For some reason, this irritates me more than anything else I’ve heard all day. It’s not even relevant. I give her the fierce look I practiced in the mirror. “I’ve thought it through. I want to add my name. Please.”

She looks at me a beat longer, and I don’t let my face change. Then she sighs, picks up the chalk, and turns to the board. She starts to write a P and then rubs it out with the pad of her hand. She glances back at me. “I can’t remember your real first name, love.”

“Kate,” I say, and I feel like everyone in Skarmouth is suddenly staring at my back. “Kate Connolly.”

There are moments that you’ll remember for the rest of your life and there are moments that you think you’ll remember for the rest of your life, and it’s not often they turn out to be the same moments. But when Peg Gratton turns around and chalks my name on the list, white on black, I know, without a doubt, that it’s an image I’ll never forget.

When she turns back around, one of her eyebrows is raised. “And your horse’s name?”

“Dove,” I say. The word comes out too quiet. I have to repeat it.

She writes it down, no questions asked, but of course – why would she doubt that Dove is a capall uisce?

I chew my lip. Peg is waiting.

“It’s fifty, Puck,” she says. “To enter.”

I feel a little ill as I dig the coins out of my pocket. For a sickening moment I don’t think I have enough, but then I find the money I’d been carrying to buy flour. I hold it out, not releasing it into her waiting hand.

“Wait,” I say. I lean across the counter, voice low. “Are there, um, any rules about the horses?” If I get disqualified and lose the fifty, I really will be sick. “About them…uh…?”

Peg says, “You want a rule sheet?”

She has to look for it. I feel like everyone is staring at my name on the board while she does. When she offers it to me, a rumpled piece of paper, I scan the front and back. There are only two lines about the horses: Jockeys must declare their mount by the end of the first week at the Scorpio Festival riders’ parade. Swapping of mounts after that date is not permitted.

I scan for anything at all, but there’s nothing. Nothing to say that I can’t enter Dove.

I finally let Peg have the coins. “Thank you,” I say.

“Do you want to keep that?” Peg asks, gesturing to the rule sheet. I don’t really care, but I nod. “Okay,” she says. “You’re official.”

I’m official.

As I push outside into the dark, I take big breaths of the cold air. The briny smell of earlier has been mostly replaced by the faint scent of exhaust lingering in the air, but in comparison to the sweat and raw meat smell of the butcher, it’s heavenly. My head feels all spinny and elated and terrified, and I feel like I can see every single little bump on the street in front of me, every bit of rust on the rail before the quay, every ripple in the water. Everything is black – the depthless sky and the inky water – and butter yellow – the streetlamps and light pouring out from the shop windows.

I realize that there is a discussion going on, a few yards away, and I recognize Sean Kendrick’s jacket. Mutt Malvern faces him, looking massive and sweaty in comparison to Sean. It’s clear from the way that a few people have paused nearby that what’s being said is not pleasant.

It’s like birds worrying a crow. I’ve seen them in the fields, when the crow has gotten too close to their nest or otherwise insulted them. The other birds dive-bomb and scream and the crow merely stands there, looking dark and still and unimpressed.

So it’s just this: Sean and Mutt, heir to the island’s fortune, and Mutt’s spit glistening on Sean’s boots.

“Nice boots,” Mutt says. He’s looking down at them, but Sean Kendrick isn’t. He watches Mutt’s face with the same looking-but-not-looking expression he had in the butcher’s. I’m kind of horrified and fascinated by what I see on Mutt’s face. It’s not anger, but something like it.

After a long moment, Sean turns as if to go.

“Hey,” Mutt says. He has a smile on his face, but it means the opposite of a smile. “Are you in such a hurry to get back to the stables? It’s only been a few hours since you’ve gotten your fix.” He pumps his hips enthusiastically.

I would have felt bad for Mutt’s goading if I hadn’t seen Sean’s smile then. It’s barely a wisp of a smile, only there for a second – not even really making his mouth move, just flattening his eyes a bit – and it’s canny and condescending and then it’s gone. And I realize that what’s on both their faces, in two entirely different shapes, is hatred.

“Say something, horse-stroker,” Mutt says. “Did you like my present to you?”

But his fists are clenched, and I don’t think it’s speaking he wants out of Sean Kendrick.

And still Sean says nothing. He looks weary, if anything, and as Mutt shifts his feet to circle him, Sean simply begins to walk away.

“Don’t walk away from me,” Mutt snarls. He catches up to Sean in three uneven strides, and when he catches Sean’s upper arm with his big hand, he spins Sean around as easily as a child. “You work for me. You don’t walk away from me.”

Sean puts his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Indeed, Mr. Malvern,” he says, and his tone is so deadly calm that Dr. Halsal, who’d been watching, frowns and ducks back inside the butcher shop. “And what can I do for you this evening?”

This momentarily stumps Mutt Malvern, and I think that he might just hit Sean Kendrick now and rustle up a good reply later. But then, it comes to him, and he says, “I’m having my father let you go. For theft. Don’t say it’s not so. I had that horse, Kendrick, and you let him go. I’ll have your job for that.”

Money’s not something many people have on this island. Talk of axing someone’s job is not a thing to toss around lightly. It’s not even my employment, and I already feel the pinch in my stomach, the same one I get when I open up the pantry door and see the shrinking contents.

“Will you now?” Sean says softly. There’s a long pause, full of the sound of muffled voices in the butcher’s. “I saw you signed up for the races. But there’s no horse there beside your name. Why is that, Mutt?”

Mutt’s face purples.

“I think,” Sean says, and as before, his voice is so quiet that all of us are holding our breath to hear him, “it’s because, like every year, your father is waiting for me to pick a horse for you.”

“That’s a lie,” Mutt says. “You’re no better than I am. My father lets you put me on the wasters. He lets you put me on the nags and the leftovers and you take the best for yourself. I have no say in the matter or I’d be on that red stallion. I’m not going to have you put me on a loser this year.”

The door opens and now Dr. Halsal has returned with Thomas Gratton. They stand in the doorway and Thomas Gratton wipes his hands on his butcher’s apron as he surveys the situation. Sean Kendrick’s low voice has somehow made the argument both quieter and more impressive – a silent night ocean full of restrained power. The space between Sean Kendrick and Mutt Malvern seems charged.

“Boys,” Thomas Gratton says, and though he sounds jovial, I can see that he’s cautious. “I think it’s time you push off.”

As if Thomas Gratton hasn’t spoken, Sean leans into Mutt, and he says, “Five years I’ve kept you alive on that beach. That’s what your father asks of me, and that’s what I’ll keep doing. You’ll ride what I tell him you’ll ride.”

He turns to Gratton and nods sharply, suddenly old, before striding inland. Mutt makes an obscene gesture to his back. When Mutt sees Gratton looking at him, he takes his time lowering his hand and putting it in his pocket.

“Matthew,” Gratton says. “It’s late.”

Dr. Halsal glances in my direction. His eyes narrow, as if he’s convincing himself of what he sees, and I hurry to retrieve Finn’s bike before he can say anything. I should be off anyway. Like Thomas Gratton said, it’s late. And I have to be up early tomorrow.

Sean Kendrick is no one to me that his worries should be mine. He’s just another rider on the beach.