The Scorpio Races

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

In the early, black morning, the storm wakes me.

The wind roars overhead, an engine, the surf, the howl of a sea creature. My eyes adjust to the darkness and I see lights moving outside. Rain bursts across the glass in waves, furious and then more furious.

Now I hear the horses. They whinny and call and thump the walls. The storm has whipped them to a frenzy, and outside, something is screaming. It’s this scream that’s woken me, not the wind.

I sit up to act without considering, and after I do, I hesitate. Those are my horses down there in this beleaguered stable, out there in that fearful night. But at the same time, they are not mine, too, and I’ve quit, making them even less mine than they were before. I should stay here, doing nothing, letting the night do what it will. Let Malvern survey the havoc in the morning light and decide that I’m invaluable.

I close my eyes, my forehead on my fist, and listen to the wail outside. Even closer, downstairs, I hear a terrified horse kicking its stall wall, smashing either the wall or itself to destruction.

You overestimate your importance to this yard, Mr. Kendrick.

But I haven’t.

I can’t let a single horse die because I am playing games with Malvern.

I shove on my boots and snatch my jacket, and as I reach for the knob of my door, there’s a knock on the wood.

It’s Daly. His hair is plastered wet over his face and there’s blood on his shirtsleeves. He shivers helplessly. “Malvern says to do it without you, but we can’t. He doesn’t have to know. Please.”

I lift my jacket to show him I was already coming, and together we jog down the narrow dark stairs to the stable. Everything smells of rain and the ocean and yet again more rain.

Daly hurries alongside me. “They won’t calm down. There’s a capall uisce somewhere outside and we don’t know if he’s among the horses or – we don’t know who’s hurt, because that sound – you can hear it. They’re all kicking themselves lame. You get one calm and the others drive it crazy again.”

“They won’t be calm with that scream going on,” I say. Every groom and stable boy and rider that Malvern has is in evidence, trying to calm the most precious of the horses. The bulbs overhead sway in wind that’s found its way inside, and the swinging light stripes over me and away, like I am losing consciousness. I pass Mettle in her stall. She keeps rearing and clawing her front hooves against the wall as she comes back down. If she’s not unsound now, she’ll be soon. I hear Corr clucking and singing, driving the horses near him to madness. Somewhere behind me, another horse is slamming a hoof against a wall, rhythmic and senseless. Outside, the screaming continues.

Daly trails me as I go to Corr’s stall. In my pocket, my hand closes around a stone with a hole through it. If Corr were any other water horse, I’d string it onto his halter tonight, to make more noise in his head than the approaching November sea does. But Corr is not any other water horse, and my tricks will only make him more anxious.

I open my hand and leave the stone in my pocket.

“Keep everyone clear,” I snap. “Keep them out of my way.”

I push open Corr’s door and he charges toward the aisle. I press my hand into his chest and then slap it, shoving him back. One of the thoroughbreds whinnies piercingly.

“Keep them clear,” I remind Daly.

He bolts ahead of me to pass this along, and then I let Corr plunge out of his stall and tug me down the aisle toward the door to the yard. It’s closed against the rain and worse.

“Not out there -” Daly protests from behind me. “Malvern’s out there.”

That’s too bad. So Malvern will know that I’m still among his horses. But I can’t stop any of what is going on in here without fixing the problem out there first.

I push through the door, Corr strong and difficult on the other end of my lead line. I’m instantly wet to the skin. There’s water in my ears, my eyes. I’m drinking the sky. I have to swipe the water from my forehead and blink to clear my vision. Shingles from the stable are scattered all across the yard. Every light in the yard is on, and there are waterlogged halos around each of them. Three mares stand at the gate, pressing, desperate to get in – they’re broodmares from some of Malvern’s far-flung pastures on the way to Hastoway. The fact that they’re free means that something bad has happened to their fencing and they came seeking the familiar. One of them limps so badly that my heart sinks. The largest of the mares must recognize something in my walk, because she stops struggling and whinnies to me, long and entreating. Trusting me to rescue her from whatever made her come here.

And there’s Malvern and David Prince, the head groom. Malvern holds a shotgun; it’s an optimistic thought on his part.

Out here, the scream sounds like it’s coming from all around us. It vibrates in every raindrop, throbs in the clouds overhead. It’s a howl like venom, a paralyzing promise. This storm has driven the island mad.

Corr jerks and hauls at my arm. I see his hooves leave the cobbles and return, but I can’t hear the sound of them. I can only hear the throbbing scream, loud as if it’s in my head. It’s meant to travel miles underwater.

I yank Corr’s halter to catch his attention, and then I haul his head down next to mine. His lips are pulled back in a ghastly grin; it’s not a Corr I like seeing. My pulse races despite every year we’ve spent together. He’s a monster. With one hand, I press those teeth away from me, and with the other, I turn his ear toward me.

Pursing my lips, I keen into his ear. It’s lower than the scream that we hear now. The scream that’s getting closer.

Corr is distracted. His lips are pulled far, far back from his teeth; he is no horse. I twist his ear hard enough to hurt, and again, I hum into his ear, a low hum that dips to a groan at the end.

Malvern lifts his shotgun, looking at something I can’t see in the dark and the mist.

“Corr!” I shout. Rain creeps into my mouth when I do. And I keen again to him.

Malvern fires, but the scream from the approaching capall uisce is unbroken. It cannot get any louder.

And then, finally, Corr begins to keen as I prompt him. Low, groaning, so that I feel it in the lead rope I hold. So I feel it in the soles of my shoes. So it bubbles beneath the scream. Corr’s keen grows and widens to a groan, a growl, a roar like the wind against the buildings. The sound fills the yard and rolls out through the rain. It’s a territorial battle cry, a threat, a statement: This land is already mine. This is my herd.

The other scream diminishes in the wake of Corr’s howl, which ascends to fill the space that’s left behind. The mares at the gate go wild with fear and I know the horses in the stable are worse for it. Corr’s pure, high scream is no different from the scream it replaced – except this one I can stop.

I listen and listen to be sure that Corr’s cry is the only one. One of my eardrums, the one closest to Corr, merely hisses. But my left ear hears no other contender.

Now I hold Corr’s halter in a tight fist and press my fingers against his veins, tracing counterclockwise. Corr’s scream falters. I press my lips to his shoulder and whisper to his rain-soaked skin.

The night falls silent. My right ear still hums, a radio tuned to an empty frequency. Malvern and Prince look at me. The broodmares at the gate shiver and huddle together. Inside the stable, the kicking has died down.

The rain streams down; there’s not a single dry thing left in the world. Across the yard, Malvern gestures shortly to me.

I lead Corr into the hazy light that Malvern stands in.

Malvern’s eyes flick from me to Corr, who’s black in the wet and the night.

“Have you changed your mind yet?” Malvern asks me. “No.”

Malvern’s tone is dismissive. “I haven’t, either. This changes nothing.”

I’m not sure I believe him.