The Scorpio Races

by Maggie Stiefvater

Gabe looks tall and grown-up with his brown jacket stretched across his broad shoulders. His gingerblond hair creeps down the back of his neck, a little long, but he is still handsome. I feel a sudden surge of fierce pride that he is my brother. He stops what he’s doing to lean on the end of the broom and watch me canter by on Dove. “Don’t be mad!” I shout at him.

He looks like an orphan, and that makes me cross, too.

Gabe holds his tea but doesn’t drink it. Finn is still washing. I sit down at my place. Gabe waits a few more beats and then says, “Finn, enough, okay?” Finn still takes another minute to rinse, but then he shuts off the tap and comes and sits across from me. “Do we still say grace if it’s only apple cake?”

Mostly I’m trying not to think grandiose things like: You will remember this day for the rest of your life.

“Salt,” Finn says, “makes cocoa sweeter.”

Mum liked to say that some things happen for a reason, that sometimes obstacles were there to stop you from doing something stupid. She said this to me a lot. But when she said it to Gabe, Dad told him that sometimes it just means you need to try harder.

His fingers are pinching his upper arms over and over again as he looks up at me, but he doesn’t seem to notice them.

That’s really when life begins.

I trust Corr more than any of them. I should not trust him at all.

Sometimes, I hate all men.

It pains me to say, “He can’t stand the sight of blood.” Thomas Gratton laughs. “He’s picked the wrong island.”

Sean “Keep Your Pony Off This Beach” Kendrick

You’ve got your hands full with Puck right here.” I vow to poison Thomas Gratton slowly, later.

All Mutt knows is how to beat the hell out of his mount as he’s losing.

“I can feel God out here.” I brush my hands off on my pants. “Tell me that again,” I say, “two weeks from now when you’ve seen the dead bodies on the beach.”

And that’s when Sean says, “I want to know who’s afraid of the water. I want to know who can track straight. I want to know who will tear Corr apart as soon as overtake him. I want to know who can’t hold their horses. I want to know how they like to run. I want to know who’s lame in the left rear. I want to know how the beach has worn this year. I want to know what the race will look like before it’s run.”

The question infuriates me. I demand, “Why is it that going away is the standard? Does anyone ask you why you stay, Sean Kendrick?” “They do.” “And why do you?” “The sky and the sand and the sea and Corr.”

“Other people have never been important to me, Kate Connolly. Puck Connolly.” I tip my face up to look at him, finally. The blanket falls off my shoulders, and my hat, too, loosened by the wind. I can’t read his expression — his narrow eyes make it difficult. I say, “And now?” Kendrick reaches to turn up the collar on his jacket. He doesn’t smile, but he’s not as close to frowning as usual. “Thanks for the cake.”

“And I told you before, I’ll sell you any of the thoroughbreds.” “I didn’t make any of those thoroughbreds. I didn’t make them what they are.” Malvern says, “You made all of them what they are.” I don’t look at him. “None of them made me who I am.”

I might never ride Corr again. I don’t know who I am without him.

Looking in the side of the lean-to is a long black face. It is the devil.

The capall uisce looks at her and opens its jaw, and then it makes a sound that turns my blood into ice. It’s a hissed exhalation with low clucks behind it, clicking from somewhere deep in its throat: kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw.

“Where’s Finn?” I break in. “Washing his hands, of course,” Gabe says. “It may be decades.”

He studies his hands. They’re a little chapped on the knuckles from all the washing he’s been up to. “Yes, I thought so, too.”

But Corr is not any other water horse, and my tricks will only make him more anxious.

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.

“You just watch yourself. Don’t let anyone tighten your girth for you. Don’t let anyone else feed your mare.”

“You sure don’t like to do anything the easy way, do you?” “I didn’t know,” I start truthfully, “that it was the hard way when I started on it.”

Peg continues, “When you’re too much like them, the mystery’s gone. No point seeking the grail if it looks like your teacup.” “I’m not trying to be sought.”

But when I get home, Finn’s face is shining and joyful. Behind him in the kitchen is Puffin the barn cat. Her tail is bitten off and ugly, and she’s very indignant and sorry for herself, but she’s also very alive.

I whisper to the sea three times. Once I ask that Corr will be meek and good, so they’ll have no reason to use the bells and magic that he so despises. But twice I whisper for him to be despicable, so that they’ll beg for me to come back.

Not all of racing is riding, you know.”

I imagine Dove taken from me in this way, and anger churns in my stomach.

I know that Sean must be here, somewhere. It takes me a moment to spot him, but by now I know how: look for the place with no movement, for the person who’s just a little part away from the rest. Sure enough, there he is, standing with his back to the cliff, an arm across his stomach, his other elbow resting on it. His knuckles push tightly against his lips, but his face is expressionless. There’s something terrible about the way he stands there, watching. He’s not so much still as frozen.

After a moment, Sean says in a low voice, still looking at the ground, “Where is your horse?”

“I reckon,” Sean says, in that same low voice, “that it’s wise of you to ride your own horse, Puck, even if she’s just an island pony. Better that your heart’s your own.”

He looks away with a rueful snort. “It was a gamble. Like you and your pony.” “Horse.” “Right.” Sean looks back to Corr. “Why did you say you were racing again?”

I exhale. “So was yours.” “Do you think so?” “He’s yours no matter what the law says. I think Benjamin Malvern’s jealous of it. And,” I add, “I think he likes to play games with people.”

“I know it!” I shout then, and my voice is so loud that it surprises me. Mutt’s gaze finds me next to Sean. I call, “But what’s yours, again?”

“She’s blind. She was aiming for my ear.”

It’s Annie, Dory Maud’s youngest sister. Her lipstick is a little smeared, but it seems cruel to tell a blind woman that, so I don’t say anything. I

“That wasn’t Corr,” Sean says. “You have to know them. You only use what you need. You can’t just hang every bell in Thisby on every horse in the sea. They react differently. They aren’t machines.”

So I snap, “Do you think I just turn my secrets out for everyone?”

“My mother always said that I was born out of a bottle of vinegar instead of born from a womb and that she and my father bathed me in sugar for three days to wash it off. I try to behave, but I always go back to the vinegar.”

She stands beside Corr, looking up at him. I want her to love him.

“Could others hold him?” His face remains the same. “There are no others. You’re the only one.” I swallow. “I can hold him.”

I say, “I will not be your weakness, Sean Kendrick.” Now he looks at me. He says, very softly, “It’s late for that, Puck.”

And all the while I try very hard to keep my eyes from darting to Sean because I’m quite certain that no one at the table will be able to miss how I look at him and how I find him looking back.

I think, suddenly, of how Gabe said that he could not bear it and I didn’t believe him, because of course you could bear anything if you decided to.

My mother always told me that you should wear your best clothing when you are angry, because it would scare people.