The Scorpio Races

by Maggie Stiefvater

It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.

Our dead drink the sea.

our mother performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes every evening, though I didn’t realize what a miracle it was until she wasn’t around.

She is my mare and my best friend, and I keep waiting for something bad to happen to her, because I love her too much.

Thisby is an island well populated by sons disappointing their fathers.

I think, just for that moment, that I hate brothers, because they never realize when something is important to you and they only care about their own things.

“Do we still say grace if it’s only apple cake?” “And a chain saw,” I say. “God, thank you for this cake and Finn’s chain saw,” Gabe says. “Are you happy?” “God, or me?” I ask. “God’s always happy,” Finn says. “You’re the one who needs pleasing.”

It’s a mess, and we’re a mess, and no wonder Gabe wants to leave.

Have you thought this through? People die, love. I’m all for women, but this isn’t a woman’s game.”

“It’s for personal reasons,” I say stiffly. Which is what my mother had always told me to say about things that had to do with fighting with your brothers, getting any sort of illness that had intestinal ramifications, starting your period, and money.

Finn says, “No, ma’am,” as he enters the shop, where he gets poked directly in the chest by the fertility goddess. I move a step backward so he can get away because the last thing I need is for Finn to suddenly decide to become fertile.

Dory Maud turns to her and thunders pleasantly, “Shut up, you cow.”

When you traffic in monsters, that’s the risk you run, that you’ll find one too monstrous to stomach.

I look at his silly teacup with his silly tea in it. Wasn’t regular tea interesting enough? Who drank their tea with butter and salt? Nobody but bored old men who ran their islands like a chess game.

“Boys,” she says, “just aren’t very good at being afraid.”

“I didn’t know,” I start truthfully, “that it was the hard way when I started on it.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “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.”

“You do fancy him, don’t you? What a strange, wonderful, repressed place this is.”

I think about George Holly’s comment about food tasting better in memories. It strikes me as a strange, luxurious statement. It assumes you’ll have not only that moment when you take the first bite but then enough moments in front of it for that mouthful to become a memory.

My future’s not that certain that I can afford to wonder what will become of the taste later. And in any case, the November cake tastes plenty sweet to me now.

“If we all die of plague or whatever is on this floor, I want you to know it’s not my fault,”

I’m quite happy for the smile, because Dad told me once you should be grateful for the gifts that are the rarest.

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 hear laughter and someone asks if I need help, not in a nice way. I snarl, “What I need is for your mother to have thought a little harder nine months before your birthday.”

“Now you wear Thisby’s colors,”

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

if he wasn’t expecting me before, he’ll be expecting me when I walk in.