The Scorpio sea has thrown capaill uisce onto our shore since long before my father or my father’s father was born.
“Were they always revered? Never eaten?”
My expression is withering. “Would you eat a shark?”
“In California we do.”
“Well, that’s why California doesn’t have capaill uisce” I pause for him to finish laughing and add, “You have lipstick on your collar.”
“It’s from the horses,” Holly says, but he tries to catch a glimpse. He finds the edge of it and rubs his fingers over the mark. “She’s blind. She was aiming for my ear.”
It explains his rumpled look, in any case. I lean again to look into the lobby. There are more men than before, piling in as the afternoon gets elderly and the shadows get cold outside. Benjamin Malvern isn’t yet among them.
Holly asks, “Do you know what he’ll say? You’re so calm.”
I say, “I’m sick over it.”
“You don’t look it.”
Corr can hold a thousand things in his heart and reveal only one of them on his face, like he did earlier today. He is so very like me.
I let myself, for one brief moment, consider what Malvern may want to meet about. The thought stings inside me, a cold needle.
“Now you do,” says Holly.
Frowning, I look again, and this time I see Benjamin Malvern stepping into the lobby, closing the door behind him. He has his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat, and he strides into the lobby as if he owns it. Perhaps he does. He looks like a prizefighter, the slope of his shoulders in the coat, the forward jut of his neck. I hadn’t seen any of Benjamin Malvern in Mutt before, but I finally see the resemblance.
Holly follows my gaze. “I’d better go. He won’t be happy to see me.”
I can’t imagine Benjamin Malvern being displeased to see one of his buyers. Or at least, I cannot imagine him revealing that he was displeased to see one of them.
“We quarreled,” Holly says. “It’s a smaller island than I imagined. But don’t worry, my dollar bills mean that our friendship will endure.”
We part ways, Holly creeping toward the sound of the piano and me stepping into the lobby. I know the exact moment I am recognized, as everyone looks away so discreetly that it’s obvious they were just looking the second before.
It takes me a moment to spot Malvern in the crowd, but then I see him speaking to Colin Calvert, one of the race officials. Calvert’s kinder than Eaton, the anachronistic bully who Puck had to knock heads with, but he wouldn’t have been at the festival. His wife’s the brand of Christian that forbids a gathering that involves young women dancing in the streets but not races where men die. Calvert sees me and nods, and I return it, though my mind is already on the conversation ahead. Malvern approaches me slowly, like I’m not the destination.
“Well, Sean Kendrick,” Malvern says.
I want Corr.
I can’t say anything.
Malvern thumbs one of his ears and looks at a painting of two tidy thoroughbred racers over the great fireplace. “You’re a poor conversationalist and I’m a poor loser, so let’s put it at this. If you win, I’ll sell him to you. If you don’t win, I never want to hear about this again.”
And the sun’s come out over the ocean.
I realize now that I didn’t think that it would.
Four times I’ve won. I can do it again. We can do it again. I see the beach before me, the horses around me, the surf under Corr’s hooves, and at the end of it, there’s freedom.
“How much?” I ask.
“Three hundred.” His face is sly. My salary is one hundred and fifty in a year, and he’s the one paying it, so he knows it to the penny. Winning years, I get eight percent of the purse. I’ve saved what I can.
“Mr. Malvern,” I say, “do you want me back or do we still play a game?”
“Want and need are two different things,” Malvern says. “Two hundred ninety.”
“Mr. Holly has offered me a job.”
Malvern looks pained, though I’m not certain if it’s at the idea of losing me or at the mention of Holly’s name. “Two hundred fifty.”
I cross my arms. Two hundred fifty is unattainable. “Who else will touch him after today?”
“They’ve all killed someone.”
“Not all of them have killed someone with your son on their back.”
His expression is cut glass. “Tell me a price.”
“Two hundred.” This is dear, but doable. Only just. Only if I can count this year’s unwon purse as part of my savings.
“This is where I walk away, Mr. Kendrick.” But he doesn’t. I stand and I wait. I realize that the hotel lobby has gone quiet. I realize that this is the reason why we aren’t meeting in the tea shop or the stables or his office. Here, it’s the best advertising Malvern can get. His name will be on everyone’s lips.
Malvern exhales. “Two hundred. Enjoy your races, gentlemen.”
He puts his hands in his pockets and walks away. Calvert opens the door for him, letting in a shaft of brilliantly red afternoon light.
I have to win.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
PUCK
“Kate, you do realize that you aren’t at fault.”
Father Mooneyham sounds a little tired, but he always seems to sound that way to me when I go to confession. I smooth my hands over my smock. I felt badly coming to church in my trousers, but I wasn’t about to ride Dove in a dress, so I put a smock on over my pants. I feel it’s a fair compromise.
“But I feel guilty. I was the last one to hold his hand. And when I let go, he was dead.”
“But surely he would have died anyway.”
“Maybe not, though. What if I’d stayed and held his hand? I won’t ever know now. I’ll always wonder.”
I stare at the brilliant stained-glass window over the altar. The peculiarity of the confession booth allows me to see the rest of the building from my vantage point. Because St. Columba’s apparently predates confession or priests or sin, the booth was added much later. The confessional is open to the rest of the church, and the curtain is only between the confessor and the priest. And the curtain is ridiculous not only because Father Mooneyham can just watch the penitent walk through the pews toward him, but also Father knows everyone’s voices on the island, so even blind, he’d know whose sin was whose. The only real benefit of the curtain is to allow you to pick your nose without a holy audience, something I’d seen Joseph Beringer take advantage of before.
Now Father sounds a little cross. “This sounds more like egotism to me, Kate. You are ascribing much power to what was, after all, only your hand.”
“You’re the one who says that God works through us. Maybe he wanted me to stay there and keep holding it.”
There’s silence for a moment on the other side of the curtain. Finally, he says, “Not everyone’s hands can always be the site of miracles. We would be afraid to touch anything. Did you feel called to stay by his side? No? Then put down your guilt.”
He makes it sound like something I can wrap in wax paper and leave by the door for Puffin. I slouch back in the chair and look at the ceiling of the church.