Before I can stop them, my fingers dart self-consciously up to the edge of my hat to feel if any of my hair curls out. Gabe once joked, years ago, that Finn and I looked alike if you looked at just our faces. I’m a bit ashamed at how much the idea that I might be mistaken for a boy distresses me.
“That’s hilarious,” I say. “I’m riding in the race, so I must be a boy.” As Ake and Finney come closer, I let Dove trot around in a small circle to hide the fact that I can’t hold her in a full stop.
Ake shrugs, like he could’ve thought of better. Behind him, Finney’s bay crow-hops, crashing into the chestnut, who nearly stumbles into Dove. Dove’s fear shivers through the reins.
Ake laughs as Finney hurriedly gathers up his bay.
“Pisser,” Finney says, pulling his bowler hat down to restore his ego. He jerks his chin in my direction. “Come on, Kevin, let’s see what you got.”
“Don’t call me that,” I reply. He and Ake circle me; their horses dwarf Dove. They must know that it’s driving her to a frenzy. “And I was just finishing up.”
Finney says, “Come now, be a sport. They said you were a whip.”
“I’m not racing you right now,” I say. I grid my teeth into a smile. “But I’ll watch you boys.”
Ake laughs. It’s not a mean laugh, but it’s not a thoughtful one, either. He says, “Tommy says you’d race us.”
I find Tommy beyond them. He shakes his head.
“Then Tommy doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” I reply.
Finney asks, “Where are your balls?”
I need to get away. In the back of my head, I’m thinking that this is going to be a problem, that Dove’s going to have to deal with a lot more than this on the day of the race. But that’s a faraway concern. The more immediate one is that Dove is shaking and ready to break.
“You’re the one who said I have them, not me.” I glance behind me, looking to see if there’s room to back Dove away from them. A few drops of rain spatter across my face. The worst of it is that there’s nothing mean about Finney and Ake; they’re being just like Joseph Beringer. Only Joseph Beringer never teases me from the back of a massive capall uisce.
“The bookies are here,” Finney says, elbowing back toward the onlookers. “Don’t you want to show them something better than your forty-five to one?”
Finney lets his bay jostle into Ake’s mare again, and the chestnut shoves against Dove, hard. I hear teeth snapping and Dove squeals, the wind ripping through her mane. I cling to her as she rears. Behind her left ear, I see a shallow scrape where the capall’s teeth grazed her. The blood wells up in a dozen small drops.
“Give me some room!” I shout.
I’m simultaneously terrified and humiliated as I hear myself. It’s the voice of a scared little girl.
Ake and Finney hear it, too, because their faces change. Ake hauls on his chestnut’s reins so hard that she nearly rears. Finney kicks his bay away from Dove.
They’re both looking at me, Ake especially, with apologies in their expressions.
Dove lifts her head to the wind and whinnies, shrill and terrified. Ake keeps backing his horse away. I’m relieved to have distance between her and the capaill uisce, but at the same time, I’m ashamed down to my bones by this space suddenly surrounding me.
From their vantage point nearby, the bookies wipe moisture from their hats and murmur to each other before they walk away without a glance back for me. Ian Privett, still watching from Penda, nods to Ake before he turns as well.
“Later, Kate,” Ake says, not quite meeting my eyes, suddenly demure. He lays his reins against his chestnut mare’s neck and she pivots back toward Skarmouth. Finney touches his hat and is gone as well.
The cliff top seems quiet now, just the wind and the sound of intermittent drops sinking into the grass around me. I cannot stop hearing the sound of my own voice, and every time I do, I feel a little smaller.
Tommy’s face is pensive. For a moment it looks like he’s starting toward me, but at the movement of his uisce mare, Dove squeals and lays her ears back again. So he merely waves at me with just one hand close to his reins, and follows the others.
I’m left alone, the gusts beating the breath out of me. I’m furious with Dove for being so fearful, but I’m more furious with myself. Because it doesn’t matter how brave I’ve been or how brave I will be. It only took a casual handful of minutes to convince everyone here that I don’t belong on the beach.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
PUCK
That night Finn and I make a picnic in Dove’s one-sided lean-to. Dove is still strung out and fretful, and I don’t think she’ll touch her hay unless I’m out there with her. And Finn says that the storm’s going to keep us inside for a few days anyway, so we might as well be outside while we can. Also, Mum used to tell us to picnic outside when we were being horrid and loud in the house, so it has a sort of comfortable nostalgia to it.
Of course, it’s getting dark, and it’s drizzling fitfully, but still, under the lean-to it’s dry, and an electric lantern provides enough light to see our soup by. I break open one of the cheap bales of hay to use as a blanket over our legs and we lean back against the wall of the lean-to. Finn, sensing my black mood, clinks the edge of his bowl against mine as a cheers. Dove stands half in and half out of the lean-to and picks at her hay. I have a clear view of the scratch on her neck from here, and again, I hear the sound of my cry on the cliff top. I can’t stop wondering what would’ve happened if I’d just galloped with them when they’d first asked. I can’t stop seeing their faces as they pulled their horses back from Dove.
For a few minutes, we’re all silent, slurping potatoes and broth, listening to Dove’s teeth grinding up the expensive hay and the sound of the light rain whispering across the metal roof of the lean-to. Finn piles more hay across his legs for insulation. Outside, the sky is going blue-brown and black at the edges.
“She looks faster already,” Finn says. He slurps the bottom of his soup to annoy me, and then smacks his lips to make sure he’s succeeded.
I set my own empty bowl on the hay bale behind me and take a piece of bread. My stomach still feels empty. “Can you come at me again with that sound? I don’t think I heard you.”
“You’re in a black mood,” Finn says.
I think of three things I could reply to that and in the end just shake my head. If I say it out loud, it will only make it harder to forget.
Finn is enough of a private creature that he doesn’t try to make me speak. He spreads the hay thin and then thick again over his legs, trying to make it even. After a long pause, he says, “What do you think will happen?”
“Happen when?”
“With the race. And with Gabe. What do you think will happen to us?”
Crossly, I throw a stick of hay toward Dove. “Dove will eat her expensive food and the capaill uisce will eat beef liver and the bets will all be against us, but on the day of the race it’ll be warm and windy and Dove will go straight while the others go right, and we’ll be the richest people on the island. You’ll drive three cars at the same time and Gabe will decide to stay and we’ll never have to eat beans again.”