“I said three things and that’s what I gave you.”
“Indeed it is. Well, then, leave me to my tea. Come back on Monday and we can talk about your wheelbarrow.”
I stand up, leaving the notes sitting untouched on the table, and head out into the yard. The breeze runs long and low across the ground, sweeping up the sea and the island grass and the hay and the horses. I think it’s the best smell in the world.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
The November sea is a jewel in the evening, dark and glittering beyond the ruddy stones. Corr and I leave the white cliffs behind us as I lead him toward the water. As when I first pulled him from the sea, he wears just a rope halter. I have long since pulled the wrap from his hind leg; it won’t heal him. Holly tells me that they have ways in California of setting the bone, but that he’d still never race again. He tells me that there’s nothing more foolish than for me to buy Corr only to turn him back into the ocean.
But Corr could no sooner go to California than he could fly, and in any case, I’m uncertain what a life like that would hold for a capall uisce. He loves the sea and to run, and while I could give him one of those things, we were happy.
And so now I walk him slowly down to the surf. In the sea, his clumsiness will disappear, his weight cradled by the salt water, and he won’t notice so much that his hind leg is not what it was.
I don’t want to say good-bye.
Back by the cliffs, Puck Connolly and George Holly wait for me, both of them with their arms crossed over their chests, their postures identical. They give me this moment alone, and I’m grateful for it.
Despite his painful progress, Corr’s ears prick to the sea. This November ocean sings sweetly to him, luring him and caressing him, quickening his blood. Together we step into the frigid water. In this light, he’s red like the sun before night, a giant, a god. His ear flicks back as the ocean plays over his injured leg and then back out to the horizon. The sea out there is black and depthless, hiding more wonders, perhaps, than even the waters of Thisby.
It wasn’t that long ago that Corr and I splashed in this surf, here at the base of these cliffs. Now he couldn’t even take a step without thought.
I run my hands down his neck, over his withers, down his shoulder. It’s something I’d taken for granted, just the presence of him. I rest my cheek against his shoulder, my eyes closed for just a second, and then I whisper to him. Find happiness.
Then I can’t stand because my legs won’t hold me here a moment longer. I blink to clear my vision and reach up. I pull off his halter.
I back out of the surf, watching him. His ears are still pricked on the horizon, not toward me. The ocean is his love and now, finally, he’ll have it.
I flip up my collar and turn my back to him as I pick my way back up toward the cliff base. I don’t think I can watch him disappear into the water. It will break my heart.
Puck’s scrubbing her eyes busily as if she has something in them. George Holly bites his lip. The cliffs tower above me and I try to console myself, I will find another capall uisce, I will ride again, I will move to my father’s home and be free. But there’s no comfort in my thoughts.
Behind me, the ocean says shhhhhhhh, shhhhhhhhh.
There’s a thin, long wail. I keep walking, my bare feet slow on the uneven stones.
The wail comes again, low and keening. Puck and Holly are looking past me, so I turn around. Still at the shoreline, Corr has noticed my going, and he stands where I left him, looking back at me. He lifts his head again and keens to me.
The irresistible ocean sucks around his hooves. But still he looks over his withers at me and he wails, again and again. The hair on my arms stands with his call. I know he wants me to go to him, but I can’t go with him where he needs to go.
Corr falls silent when I do not come to him. He looks back out to the endless horizon. I see him lift a hoof and put it back down. He tests his weight again.
Then Corr turns, stepping out of the ocean. His head jerks up when his injured leg touches the ground, but he takes another labored step before keening to me again. Corr takes another step away from the November sea. And another.
He is slow, and the sea sings to us both, but he returns to me.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
As a teen, I was always intrigued when I read articles about authors mulling over story ideas for months or years before they knew how to write them. As a teen writer who scribbled down novel ideas as soon as they came to her, this seemed quaint and foreign. How could you not know how to write your own story? I thought, as I dashed out another terrible novel in a month.
Well, here I am, being one of those authors. I have wanted to write about water horses for a very long time. I’ve actually attempted it several times. First while in college, then again right after. I’d almost given up, but a few years ago – after I’d published three novels and really should’ve known what I was doing – I threw myself at the legend one more time. And failed again.
The only difference to this failure was that it was not a bang, as before, but a whimper.
The problem was that the myth was both complicated and plotless, with no inherent narrative to guide a daunted author. There were rather a lot of variations: a Manx version called glashtin; Irish versions called capall uisge, cabyll ushtey, and aughisky; Scottish versions called each uisge and kelpies. Apart from being nearly universally impossible to pronounce (the name I went with, capall uisce, is pronounced CAPple ISHka), the main feature of each was a dangerous fairy horse from the water.
There were many magical elements that appealed to me: The horses were associated with November; they ate flesh; if you lured them away from the ocean, they made the finest mounts imaginable… unless they touched salt water again.
But then there was also an eerie shape-shifting element to the myth. Some versions involved a water horse turning into a handsome young man with chestnut hair. The newly minted young man would wander by the waterside, luring maidens closer – because of course there is nothing more irresistible than a strange redheaded boy who smells vaguely of fish – and then drag the victims down into the water to devour them. Lungs and liver would wash up later.
It was this second half that slayed me. Every time I tried to work in the creature both man and horse, I realized I was telling a story I didn’t want to tell. It wasn’t until I wrote the Shiver trilogy with its rather corrupted version of the werewolf legend that I realized I didn’t have to take the water horses at face value. I could be as choosy as I liked with my mythology.
I threw out absolutely everything that I didn’t need about the water horses, and ended up with The Scorpio Races, a story that isn’t really about water horses or fairies at all, now that I think about it.
Now, if you’d like to find out more about the creepy redheaded water boys with kelp in their hair, I urge you to hunt down a copy of Katharine Briggs’s An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures, which is an excellent starting point for all things fairy.
I suppose it’s still possible I might one day write the other half of the legend.
No, actually. No, it’s not.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I could probably keep these acknowledgments pretty short by saying merely: I would like to thank everyone who enabled me to visit cliffs in the last year and a half.