The Scorpio Races

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“The riders’ parade will be at eleven,” Brian Carroll says. “I suppose you know that already.”

I didn’t, but now I do. Eleven seems like a long way away, hours filled with the noise of the festival. “I need to find my brother,” I tell Brian. “My other brother.”

In reality, what I need to find is my footing. I’m standing in this festival of Mum’s, but I don’t have Mum. Finn and Jonathan Carroll have vanished off into the crowds, leaving me with Brian, whose lungs I know better than the rest of him, and a pit of snaky nerves in my stomach.

I thought my statement was a good-bye, but Brian says, “All right. Where do you think he’ll be?”

If I knew the answer to that, I would’ve spoken to him three days ago. The truth is I don’t know anything about my older brother these days. Brian cranes his neck to look over the crowd, scanning faces for Gabe. We’re standing at the head of the main street of Skarmouth, and I can see clear down to the pier. There’s people filling every inch. The only bare bit is where the Scorpio drummers make their way through, far down near the water. Something smells delicious, and my stomach growls.

I say, “Someplace I won’t think to look, probably. Do you have any other brothers?”

“Sisters,” Brian says. “Three of them.”

“Where are they tonight?”

“The mainland.”

He says it without force, and I wonder if it’s stopped stinging or if it never stung at all. “Okay, if they were here tonight, where would they be?”

“Well,” Brian says, thoughtful and slow, hard to hear above the shouted conversation around us, “the quay or the pub. Shall we look?”

Suddenly, I feel strange having this conversation with Brian Carroll. He’s standing close enough to be heard, looking at me, and he seems enormous and square and grown-up with his curls and his fisherman’s muscles, and the steady way he looks at me is not like I’m used to. Part of me thinks he’s just humoring me, me a kid, him most of the way to man, but then part of me sees my hands in front of me. They’re Mum’s hands, not a little girl’s hands, and I know I’m wearing Mum’s face, too. I wonder how long it will take for me to feel as adult inside as I look outside.

“Okay,” I agree.

We strike off down the street. Brian’s broad shoulders plow a way through the people. Tourists, a lot of them, wearing unfamiliar faces. There is something subtly different about them, like they’re a different species. Their noses are a little straighter, their eyes a little closer together, their mouths narrower. They’re related to us like Dove is related to the water horses.

There’s no sign of Gabe. But how would we find him among all these people anyway? Brian keeps pressing on, though, downward in the direction of the pier.

There’s noise, noise, noise. Drums and shouts, laughing and singing, motorbikes and fiddles.

We push our way down to the quay, which is a little quieter, flanked by ocean on one side instead of people. The water moves restlessly against the wall, closer than usual, reaching up toward us. It’s quiet enough that I hear commotion from the cliffs above the town.

“What’s going on up there?” I ask. “The bonfire?”

Brian squints up as if he can see anything but the buildings glued to the side of the incline. “That, and the sea wishes.”

The only thing I know of the sea wishes is that Father Mooneyham told us not to do them. I’d been unable to get more information out of Mum. “Have you made a sea wish before?”

Brian looks stricken. “No, indeed.”

“What are they?”

“It’s a bit of paper you write on with charcoal from the bonfire. You write something on it and toss it over the cliffs.”

“That doesn’t sound bad.”

“A curse, Kate. They’re curses. You write them backward and throw them to the sea.”

I’m thrilled and horrified. Immediately I try to imagine if there is any curse that I can see myself throwing over the cliff. I pose a striking figure in my mind, silhouetted by the bonfire, hurling something foul into the ocean.

“You’re wild, Kate Connolly,” Brian says. “I can see it in your face.”

I’m not sure about that, but when I look up at him, he’s studying me intently. Suddenly and terrifyingly, I get the idea that he’s going to kiss me, and I shy backward several feet before I realize that he hasn’t moved an inch. He laughs at me, a kind, safe laugh. Maybe I am wild after all.

“Come on,” Brian says. “Let’s see if he’s here.”

We continue down the quay. Here there are food vendors beneath canvas, and this is clearly where Brian thought that Gabe might be. The vendors are doing brisk trade, and we have to thread through the lines. Brian is craning his neck again to look for my brother, and again, I feel strange, performing this personal quest with someone outside my family. What business of it is his, spending his festival finding Gabe instead of having a good time?

“You shouldn’t be spending your evening doing this,” I say. “You should be having fun. I’ll keep looking.”

Brian looks down at me. I think he’s been getting taller throughout the evening. By the time we find Gabe, he’ll be as tall as St. Columba’s on the hill and I’ll have to have a step-ladder to hold a conversation with him. “I am having fun. Do you want me to go?”

I don’t believe him. I’ve seen fun, and it involves hooting and tearing in circles and possibly getting a skinned knee. This is interesting, not fun. “I just feel guilty for keeping you.”

Brian swallows and looks off over the crowd as if he’s still searching for Gabriel. “The last of my sisters went to the mainland last year. Normally I would have been here with her.”

“Gabe says he’s going.”

It’s out before I even think of it, and immediately, I can’t imagine why I said it. Why did I mention this to Brian Carroll when I haven’t even really discussed it with Finn? The most detailed conversation I’ve had with Brian Carroll in my life involved spitting on his yet-to-be-dug grave and now I’m turning my pockets inside out on family secrets.

“So he says,” Brian replies.

I want to shout, He didn’t tell us until he had to, but that really would be a family secret, so I just seal my mouth shut. I wish I hadn’t come. I wish I were at home. I wish Brian Carroll weren’t looking at me from his ever-increasing height. I cross my arms and stuff them into my armpits. When I find Gabe, I’m going to punch him right in his eye.

Brian Carroll seems oblivious to my distress. He adds, “I think he said he was going over with Tommy Falk and Beech Gratton.”

I let a small noise of rage escape from me. “Of course! Everyone knows! Everyone’s going. Are you going to the mainland, too?”

“No,” Brian says seriously. “My great-great-grandfather helped build this pier, and I’m not leaving it.”

He sounds like he’s married to it, and that suddenly makes me feel tired and cross.

“Hey now,” Brian says, as if he has now finally discovered my annoyance. “Let’s go look in the pub. That’s where I was headed. He might be there – that’s where the locals hide, sometimes. If nothing else, we can get out of the cold for a moment.”

We make our way back through the people to the Black-Eyed Girl, a green-fronted building with the doors propped open. It always struck me as too distinguished to be a pub, all polished wood and dimpled leather and brass fittings. It’s impeccably clean and, for most of the day, incredibly empty. Then, at night, when the sailors get tired of being sober, the pub fills up and becomes the sort of noisy that spills out into the street and vomits into the quay.

I’ve never been inside that second version of the pub until tonight. It’s a completely different kind of full from the street. A dense, smoky, too-hot claustrophobia, full of shouting and laughter and, disconcertingly, my name in conversations.

“Hey now, is that our Kate Connolly?” says a man standing by the door. The mention of my name turns a few other heads our way. It feels like they all have more than one set of eyes each.

“Kate Connolly!” shouts another man, gladly, by the bar. He pushes off a barstool to come closer. Barrel-chested and ginger-haired, he smells like garlic and beer. “The hen among the cocks!”

Brian takes my arm, not gently, and gestures with his other hand to the back of the pub. Then he turns to the man and says, “It sure is. So, now, John. What do you think of this tide coming in? Due for a storm?”

I know a rescue effort when I see one, so I push farther into the pub away from them. I search the back of the pub and there, in the corner booth, is Gabe. He’s leaned forward, a pint in front of him, long fingers spread like a spider on the table as he makes some point. When he laughs, even without hearing him, his expression looks looser and coarser than I remember. Anger snakes through me.

Brian’s still covering for me, so I surge through the smoke and stand beside Gabe’s chair at his shoulder. I wait for him to notice me; Tommy Falk – damnable co-conspirator – across the table has already seen me and smiled prettily. But Gabe keeps gesturing.

“Gabe,” I say. I feel, annoyingly, like a child standing at the arm of Dad’s chair, interrupting him from reading the paper.

He turns. I can’t tell if his expression is guilty. Now that I look, I don’t think it is at all. He says, just this, “Oh, Puck.”

“Yes, oh, Puck.”

“I can’t believe you’re riding in the races,” Tommy breaks in. He has two empty glasses in front of him and so all of the words become one effortless word, no real pauses, just s sounds between them. “Saw you there that first day. First girl ever. Here’s to us.”

“Don’t encourage her,” Gabe says, but he’s jovial. His breath smells like alcohol.

“You’re drunk,” I say.

Gabe glances at Tommy, then back to me. “Don’t be stupid, Kate. It’s one drink.”

“Dad didn’t want you to drink. You told him you wouldn’t!”

“You’re being hysterical.”

But I don’t feel hysterical. “I need to talk to you.”

“Okay.” Gabe doesn’t move. The way he’s sitting, I can tell that he’s very aware of Tommy watching, and he’s working the conversation to make himself look clever.

I lean over to say, “Privately.”

The thing that is hurting me the most is the look on his face. One eyebrow raised, as if he still thinks that I am overreacting.

He lifts one palm toward the ceiling. “There isn’t really a place to be private here. Can’t it hold?”

I put my hand on his arm and grip his shirt. “No. Not anymore. I need to talk now.”

“I guess I’m going, Tommy. I’ll be back.”

“You show him, Puck!” Tommy says, with a fist punch into the air. Right at that moment, I despise Tommy and every bit of prettiness about him. I don’t even look at him. Instead, I lead Gabe toward the door at the very back of the pub. It’s a tiny toilet that smells a little like recent vomit. I shove the door shut behind him. I wish I had a moment to collect my thoughts, to remember exactly how I wanted to confront him, but I seem to have shut everything I wanted to say outside of the room.

“This is cozy,” Gabe says. A mirror the size of a book is hung above the sink, and I’m glad I can’t see myself in it.

“Where have you been?”

Gabe eyes me as if the question is a ridiculous one. “Working.”

“Working? All the time? All night?”

Gabriel shifts his weight, stares at the ceiling. “I haven’t been gone all night. Is that all this is about?”

It wasn’t all it was about, but I can’t remember what exactly it was that I was going to shout at him. My thoughts are scattered and gritty underneath my feet. I can only remember clearly my desire to hit him in the eye, and then all of a sudden, the most important thing comes back to me. “Benjamin Malvern came to the house this week.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm! He said he’s going to take the house!” “Ah.”

“Ah! Why didn’t you tell us?” I ask. I hate that I am still clutching his arm. But how do I know that he won’t leave without my fingers on him?

“How could I?” Gabe replies. He’s dismissive. “Finn would go crazy and fret himself to death and you would become hysterical.”

“I would not,” I snap. I’m not sure if I’m hysterical right now. Everything I’ve said seems logical to me, but my voice feels a little out of control.

“Clearly.”

“We deserved to be told, Gabriel!”

“What good would it do? You two weren’t going to make any more money. What do you think I’ve been doing all these nights? I’m doing my best.”

“And then you’re leaving.”

My brother looks at me and his smile has vanished. What replaces it isn’t unhappiness. Just no expression at all, eyes narrowed against a wind I don’t feel. I can’t appeal to the feelings of this Gabe, because I can’t tell if he has any. “A person can only try so hard. I did my best.”

“That’s not good enough,” I say.

He removes his sleeve from my fingers and opens the door. The sound and smell of the pub swell into the airless room.

“That’s too bad. It’s all I’ve got.” Gabe shuts the door behind himself. I swallow my sadness as hard as I can. It only makes it halfway down my throat.

It’s all up to me. That’s what it comes down to.

I spend a long few minutes in the bathroom after he’s gone, my forehead resting against the door frame. I can’t go out right away, because then Tommy Falk will grin at me and make some stupid joke and I’ll burst into tears in public and I’m just not going to do that. I know that Brian Carroll is probably still waiting at the front of the pub for me, and I’m sorry about that, but not sorry enough to come out.

After a bit, I take a deep breath. I guess I thought, before, that somehow I could convince Gabe to stay. That somehow, through all this, he would change his mind. But it feels undeniable now. It feels like he’s already stepped onto the boat.

I slip out of the bathroom and find there’s a back door a few feet away from it. Two great decisions battle inside me for a moment – go up front, past Gabe and Tommy Falk and the staring men to where Brian Carroll maybe still waits. Or slide out the back door into the alley to lick my wounds and bide my time until the riders’ parade. Really, I just want to go home and crawl into my bed and put my pillow over my head until December or March.

I could eat my shame for dinner, it’s so thick, but I take the back door and leave Brian Carroll behind.

The wind tears down the narrow, stone-walled alley behind the pub, and as I head back to the street, I think crossly of hot chocolate and home that doesn’t feel like home anymore. I can see that there’s an even denser sea of people on the street now, and I’m feeling not at all motivated to swim in it at the moment.

Then I hear “Puck! “ and it’s Finn’s voice.

He grabs my elbow, unsteady, and for a brief, uncertain moment, I think Finn is drunk because I can believe anything of my brothers now, but then I see that he was just shoved from behind by the seething crowd. Finn finds my left hand, opens my fingers, and puts a November cake in my palm. It oozes honey and butter, rivulets of the creamy frosting joining the honey in the pit of my hand. It begs to be licked. Someone nearby screams like a water horse. My heart goes like a rabbit’s.

I let the cake drip and meet Finn’s eyes. He’s a stranger, a black demon with a ghastly white grin. It takes me a moment to properly recognize him beneath the charcoal and chalk striped across his cheeks. Only his lips are pink, where the frosting from his own November cake has rubbed him clean. He wears one of the false spears made of driftwood on his back, secured with a leather thong.

“How did you get that?” I have to shout to be heard over the mob.

Finn grabs my other hand and stuffs something into it. When I go to open my fist to see what it is, he pushes my arm closer to my body, shielding it from general view. My eyes blink at the wad of money in my palm.

Finn leans toward me. His breath is sweet as nectar; he’s had more than one cake. “I sold the Morris.”

I hurriedly shove the money out of sight. “Who gave you that much for it?”

“A silly tourist woman who thought it was cute.”

He smiles at me, teeth crooked and bright in his coal-black face, his hair crazy, and I feel my face soften into a grin. “Thought you were cute, probably.”

Finn’s smile disappears. One of the lines in Finn’s code is that you’re not to say anything about Finn being attractive to the opposite sex. I’m not sure which exact statute governs this, but it’s closely related to the one that won’t let you thank him. Something about compliments and Finn don’t work.

“Never mind,” I say. “Good job.”

“Only thing,” Finn says, licking his hand, “is I’m not sure how we’re getting home now.”

“If I make it through the riders’ parade,” I reply, “I’ll fly us home.”