I am holding Corr, but I am holding nothing. Somewhere, there is a high, clear scream, and then I’m falling.
In the moment between Corr’s back and the surf, I think first of the dozens of horses behind us and then of my father’s death.
My only chance is if I can get clear. To hope that when I hit that ground, I hit it so that I can roll free of most of the hooves to come. If I stay conscious, I might survive.
For one moment, I see everything with perfect clarity: Corr, his face a mask of red, one of his nostrils torn; the horizon stretching away, far out of reach; the blue, blue November sky above us.
The piebald’s knee lurches up to strike my head.
When I hit the sand, my vision breaks like a wave. I have the surf in my mouth and the sand beneath me rumbles with hoofbeats, and there is red, red, red above me.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
The moment we pass Ian Privett and Penda, Ian meets my eyes, and I see that he doesn’t believe it.
But then the race is over.
Even when I see that we have crossed the line first, even when it’s another half second before Margot flashes by, and another second before Ake Palsson and Dr. Halsal crash by nose to nose, I can’t believe it.
I slow Dove, patting her neck, laughing and rubbing away tears with the back of my bloody hand. All of my pain’s melted away; all that remains are ceaseless shivers. I stand shakily in my stirrups, steering her away from the other capaill uisce as they cross the finish. Grays and blacks and chestnuts and bays.
I don’t see Sean.
My ears won’t stop hissing. It takes me a long moment to realize that it’s the audience roaring from up above.
They’re shouting my name and Dove’s. I think I hear Finn among them, but maybe I imagine it. And still there are the water horses at the end of the race, milling and rearing and twisting.
But I don’t see Sean.
A race official comes toward me, his arm out toward Dove’s bridle. My hands won’t stop shaking; I have a terrible feeling inside me.
“Congratulations!” the official says.
I look at him, waiting for what he just said to make sense, and then I ask, “Where’s Sean Kendrick?” When he doesn’t answer me, I turn Dove back the way we came. The beach at this end is a mess of sweaty capaill uisce and tired riders. The beach looks nothing like what it looked like to me galloping the other direction. It is nothing but a stretch of sand when I’m trotting. The ocean is only wave after wave, not a hungry, dark thing. I direct Dove back the way we came, scanning the wet sand. There are smears of blood where fights went down and a dead chestnut capall lying very close to the water. They’re putting a sheet over someone farther inland, which makes my stomach squeeze, but it’s too big to be Sean.
And then I see Corr, standing at the edge of the surf, reflected red in the wet sand beneath him. One of his hind legs is crooked under him, resting on the toe of the hoof. His head is curled low and as I get closer, I see that he’s trembling. His saddle has been pulled around so that it hangs nearly upside down.
There’s a dark, slender form beneath him, the reins all tangled around it. Even filthy, I recognize the blue-black jacket. And the red I mistook for reflection is merely blood, slowly being washed away with each wave.
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.
But just then I understand him perfectly because I cannot bear it if Sean Kendrick is dead. Not after all this. Not after everyone else. It is bad enough to see Corr standing there with a leg I think is broken. But Sean cannot be dead.
I slide off Dove. There’s another race official, and I press my reins into his hands. I scramble across the sand toward Corr. I slow for a moment as a gull swoops close to my face. They’re already gathering around the carnage on the beach – why doesn’t someone chase them away?
“Sean.”
As I get close, I startle backward at a sudden movement. It’s Sean – he reaches up an arm, fumbling. Finding the stirrup, he uses it to heave himself up. He’s unsteady as a new colt.
I throw my arms around him. I can’t tell which of us is shaking.
Sean’s voice is hoarse. “Did you do it?”
I don’t want to tell him, because it was only half of what was supposed to happen.
He pulls back and looks at my face. I’m not sure what he sees there, but he says, “Yes.”
“Penda was second. Where were you? What happened?”
“Mutt,” Sean says. He looks out to the ocean, his eyes narrowed. “Did you see him? No, I didn’t think so. She took him. The piebald took him.”
My wounds are starting to hurt, and my stomach feels tight. “He never meant to win. He just wanted you -”
“Corr stood here,” Sean says wonderingly. “I would’ve died. He didn’t have to stay.” For a moment, I see that it doesn’t matter that he didn’t win. The fact of Corr’s loyalty is a bigger thing than the ownership of him.
Then, I watch his eyes sweep over Corr, taking in his lowered head, the blood on his nostrils, the twist of the hind leg. From here, it looks terrible enough that my guts lurch. Sean steps forward and carefully touches Corr’s hind leg, running his hand along it. I see the precise moment when Sean’s hand stops and his shoulders slope and I know it is broken.
I remember what Sean wished for: to get what he needed.
And at that moment, I don’t see how I can believe in any god or goddess or island at all, and if I do, how I could believe them to be anything but cruel.
Sean moves away and jerks up the girth so that the twisted saddle falls to the ground, leaving Corr bare and dark red, his hair curly and damp where the saddle had been. Sean runs his hand over the sweat-curled hair.
Then he twists a handful of Corr’s mane into his hand and presses his forehead against Corr’s shoulder. I don’t need him to tell me that Corr will never run again.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
The rest of the day passes in a rush. There are prize ceremonies and money, journalists and tourists. There are congratulations and handshaking and so many voices that I can’t hear any of them. There’s tending for my cut – My, that’s nasty, Puck Connolly, and how did a horse give you that? You’re lucky it’s not deep – and pampering of Dove. It goes on for hours and hours and I can’t get away from any of it to anything important.
After the sun has disappeared, I learn that Corr has been given a makeshift shelter in one of the coves on the beach because he cannot walk back to the Malvern Yard. I manage to escape from the mob and make it partway down the cliff path. There in the twilight I see Sean Kendrick sitting against the cliff, eyes closed, and I would have gone to him, but fair-haired George Holly is already shaking him awake and coaxing him away. Even from here, I see that Sean’s expression is wrecked by everything that he’s lost. Holly gives me a far-off nod to send me on, but it’s not until Sean meets my eyes that I lead Dove back toward home.
Finn catches up to me on the way home, skipping a little until he falls into step with me. His hands are stuffed into the pockets of his jacket. For a few moments we walk in silence, the only sounds the pad of our feet on the dirt, and Dove’s hooves occasionally chipping pebbles as she walks. Dusk makes everything seem smaller around us.
“You’re frowning,” he says finally.
I know he’s right; I can feel the furrow between my eyebrows. “I’m counting, that’s why.” There’s not much joy in it, though. The numbers always come up the same: enough for us to save the house, not enough for Sean to buy Corr, even if Malvern would let him.