I find him by one of the bonfires.
The flames strive high into the black sky, tangled with the night. I can taste the smoke on my tongue.
“Matthew Malvern,” I say, and it comes out a snarl, a call to battle, no more friendly than one of Corr’s screams across the sand. Mutt is a giant, a mythical creature outlined in black before the bonfire, charcoal in one hand and a scrap of paper in the other: a sea wish. If he has a face, I cannot see it. I shout, “Is it a death wish you have written on that?”
Mutt twists the paper just long enough for me to see my name on it, written backward. Then he lets it fly over the edge of the cliff. It disappears into the black.
“That horse will kill you.”
Mutt swaggers up to me. His breath is dark, the underside of the sea. “And when, Sean Kendrick, have you ever cared for my safety?”
He stands closer, and closer, until our shadow is the same. I don’t flinch. If he means to fight tonight, I mean to fight him back. The storm’s inside me already and I can see Fundamental go under again, fresh as the minute it happened.
“It might not be you she kills,” I say. “And no one deserves to die because of you.”
The fire is hot on my skin.
“I know why you don’t want me on her.” Mutt laughs. “You know she’s faster than him.”
For so many years I have taken every precaution to keep Mutt alive for his father: put him on the safest horse I can manage, trained the hell out of that horse to make it impervious to the ocean, watched him in training to make sure that no one else interfered with him. I have two healed ribs that should be his.
Now he’s put himself so far outside my ability to protect him that it’s almost relieving. On the piebald, I can do nothing for him.
I put my hands up. “Do what you want. I’m done.”
I see figures at the corner of my eye; they’re here to bring us over for the riders’ parade. The night’s nearly over, and then the training really begins. It’s hard to imagine, right now, a day after this night, which seems like it could go on forever.
“Yes,” Mutt says, “you are.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The riders’ parade is not really a parade at all.
There’s a man calling over the crowd, “Riders? Riders! To the rock!” He clearly means for us to follow him. I keep waiting for it to sort itself out into something more organized, but it never does. The only time it looks anything like a parade, kind of, is when I spy a few of the riders all heading in the same direction, up to the cliff top. The crowd parts for them, and I hurry after them, Finn trailing as best he can. No one moves for me, however, so I get a mouthful of wayward shoulders and a rib cage full of elbows.
By now it’s blacker than black, and the only light comes from two bonfires, one burning high and furious, and the other smaller and spitting. I’m not certain where I should be.
“Kate Connolly,” someone says, not in a nice way. When I turn my head, I see nothing but eyes glancing away and eyebrows pulled together. It’s a strange thing, to be talked about instead of talked to.
A hand grabs my arm, and I turn, hissing and spitting, until I see that it’s Elizabeth, Dory Maud’s sister. Her hair is fair, even in this dim light, and she’s wearing a red frock the color of Father Mooneyham’s car. She makes a sour face. Her lips match Father Mooneyham’s car, too. I’m sort of surprised to see her here; I’ve never seen her outside of the booth or Fathom & Sons, and I thought, possibly, that she would melt or disintegrate if she crossed into the real world. Each of the sisters has her realm: Dory Maud’s is the widest, including the whole island, and then Elizabeth’s is the building and booth, and then Annie’s is the smallest of all, only the second floor of Fathom & Sons.
“You
“Lost means I know where I’m going,” I snap. “I’ve never been to the parade before.”
“Don’t bite me,” Elizabeth says. “It’s this way. Finn, boy, are you catching midges? Close your mouth and come on.”
Her fingers are claws in my upper arm as she guides me up, up, up to the cliff above the racing beach. Finn trots after us, as twitchy as a puppy.
“Where is Dory?” I shout.
“Gambling,” snarls Elizabeth. “Of course. While I do the work.”
I’m not certain how guiding me to the top of the cliff counts as work, but I’m grateful for it. I’m also not certain I can imagine Dory Maud betting on the horses. Certainly not in any way that justified Elizabeth’s snarled
Elizabeth snaps at me to wake up and propels me with great confidence through the crowd at the cliff top. Only after several long minutes does she stop to catch her bearings. But I can see now that we’re in the right place. Because I spot a point of stillness in the seething crowd: Sean Kendrick. His clothing is dark, his expression darker, and he looks off into the black night in the direction of the sea. He is unmistakably waiting.
“There,” I say.
“No,” says Elizabeth, following my gaze. “That is
Sean turns his head just as Elizabeth jerks me in the opposite direction, and our eyes meet. There’s something sharp and unprotected in his expression, and then I have to look down to keep Elizabeth from hauling me off my feet.
Finn scoots up beside me, hands shoved in his pockets against the cold. He casts a doleful look toward Elizabeth.
I turn my head and whisper to him, “You’d think
Finn doesn’t smile, but his eyes do. Then Elizabeth comes to a halt. “Here,” she says.
We’ve come around to a third bonfire, and before it is a great, flat rock, splattered and streaked with brown. It takes me a moment to understand what I’m seeing. It’s old, old blood, stained all over the rock. Finn’s face is pinched. There’s a huge crowd of people circling the rock, waiting as Sean was waiting, and already I recognize a few of the riders a short distance away: Dr. Halsal, Tommy Falk, Mutt Malvern. Ian Privett. Some of them are talking and laughing with each other – they’ve done this before, and there’s a sense of familiarity. I feel suddenly ill.
“What’s the blood from?” I whisper to Elizabeth.
“Puppies,” Elizabeth says. She’s caught Ian Privett looking at her and she bares her teeth at him in something that I don’t think is supposed to be a smile. Taking me by both my upper arms, she holds me in front of her like a shield. “It’s the riders’. You’ll go up and put a drop of your blood on there to show you’re riding.”
I stare at the rock. That’s a lot of blood for just a drop from each rider over the years.
Now a man’s climbed onto the rock. I recognize him as Frank Eaton, a farmer my father knew. He’s wearing one of the weird traditional scarf-things that the tourists like to buy – it wraps over his shoulder and pins at his hip and looks utterly ridiculous with his corduroy trousers. I have a very strong association of sweat-smell with the traditional costume and he doesn’t look like he will change that impression. Holding a small bowl in his hands, Eaton
