As I'm re-reading the book and piecing together the end of my fanfiction, I'm beginning to put together a history for Bay and her father that didn't exist in my original story...and I think that's a big reason of why the original stalled. Because I got stuck figuring out how Bay and her father got to the point they're at in the story and how they eventually make amends (because I did always have plans for that). I think the answer is starting to come to me.
Chapter Seventeen
Bay
I clear papers and a few beer cans out of the passenger seat of Dad's truck before I sit down. I realize the papers are bills and bank statements. I decide not to look at them. "So, where are we going?" I ask, looking over at Dad as he starts the truck.
"Somewhere I should have taken you a long time ago," Dad says.
"Oh," I say, because I don't really know what else to say to that. We drive across Thisby mostly silent, bumping along the crumbling pavement that serves as a road around here. We pass by sheep fields and farmers with the occasional horse pasture in between. The only other car we meet on the road is Gratton's truck, but that's not unusual. Thisby doesn't have many cars. At the crossroads to Skarmouth, we turn left, heading down the road that will eventually take us home.
"If you're showing me the house, I've already seen it," I joke.
Dad doesn't answer immediately. He's staring out the windshield with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. "Not this house," he says eventually. He goes silent again.
I look out the window, not sure what Dad means by that. We keep following the road towards our house. About halfway down the road, Dad stops at a rusted gate in the middle of a low stone fence surrounding an overgrown piece of land. I've never paid much attention to the empty pasture before. Despite all the livestock on Thisby, there are a few fields that go unused, forgotten after somebody died and forgot to will it to somebody else. Sometimes the fields get swallowed up by history and everybody forgets who they belong to until somebody needs a new place to graze their sheep. Then the property goes up for auction and the man with the most sheep buys it. No one's ever tried to put the field by our house up for auction, and now I wonder why.
Dad hops out of the truck and walks up to the gate. He pulls out a key and unlocks the padlock hanging on the latch. He swings the gate open and gets back in the truck. We drive through onto a dirt road nearly overgrown by weeds. It's barely a depression in the field now, two dusty tracks winding their way through the heather. Here and there I spot what looks to be a holly bush and some wild blueberries.
"Who's field is this, Dad?" I ask, wondering why he's got a key to it. Even though it looks abandoned, I get the strange feeling we're trespassing.
"Just wait, you'll see," Dad says.
We fall silent again. After driving through the field for a few minutes, we reach a house set back among a shower of birch trees. The house is obviously empty, a two-story farmhouse with a wrap-around porch. It needs a new coat of paint and some minor repairs, but otherwise it looks to be in good condition. There are still rocking chairs on the porch and a porch swing on one corner. A truck even older than Dad's sits rusting beside the house. Dad stops the truck and turns it off. The ticking engine is the only thing that fills the silence.
"What is this place?" I finally ask.
"This is...your grandparents' house, Bay," Dad says.
"My grandparents?" I don't really remember my grandparents. On either side. I have very hazy memories of some people I think are Mom's parents, and no memory at all of anyone on Dad's side of the family.
"Yes. You probably don't remember them," Dad says. "You were very little when they left the island." Dad swallows hard. "After your mom died, they couldn't stand to stay here anymore. They moved to the mainland after her funeral."
"Are they still alive?"
Dad looks at me for a long moment. "I don't know," he finally says. "I haven't spoken to them in years."
"Oh. What about your parents?" I ask, realizing that he's never mentioned his parents before either.
"We don't talk," he says in that tone he uses when he intends for the conversation to end before it even begins.
I take the hint and switch topics. "So, who owns the house now?"
"We do," Dad says.
I look over at him in surprise. "Then why is it empty?" Why don't we live here? Is what I'm really asking.
Dad sighs. "I couldn't," he says. "I couldn't live here. Not with your mom's handprints on everything in that house - every piece of furniture, every room. It wasn't...right."
I stare at the house for a long while.
"C'mon," Dad says. "Let's take a look around."
"You mean inside?" I ask as we get out of the truck.
He looks up at the house and I swear there are tears in his eyes. Then he blinks and he's back to his usual gruff self. "If you want," he says. "But there's something else I want to show you first."
"Ok," I say. I put my hands in my pockets and follow Dad around the back of the house. We walk down another nearly overgrown dirt trail towards the sea and the cliffs. You can't see the cliffs from where Dad and I live and I never realized that we were this close to them. As we round the corner of the house, I catch sight of a long stone building across another field behind the house. It looks strangely familiar, like the stable at the Malvern Yards.
As we get closer, I realize that it is a stable, exactly like the one at the Malvern Yards, but smaller. Dad takes me up to the old stone building.
"It's a stable," I say. "For the capaill uisce."
Dad nods.
"Can we go inside?" I ask. There's no door on the stable, just a gaping mouth under the triangular roof.
In answer, Dad pulls a flashlight out of his pocket and walks in. I follow him. When I get inside, I gasp. The stable has about twenty stalls in it, ten running down each wall, with the back three on each side set up for capaill uisce. Just like in the Malvern stables, there are columns running down the center of the stable and there are paintings on the walls of horses and men and long forgotten sea-gods. But this stable is brighter than the Malvern stable, with stained-glass windows up in the gables. The late morning light slants to the ground in hues of green and blue, just like the sea.
"It's beautiful," I say. "And this is ours?"
"Yes," Dad nods. "It's been empty for as long as I've been on the island, and your grandparents said it was empty as long as they remembered. Your mother wanted to turn it into a proper Yard."
I stand in the center of the stable and take a deep breath. I can smell the sea. I close my eyes and imagine I hear the shift and whinny of horses, the thrum of contented capaill. "Dad…"
"Hmm?"
"Why don't we turn it into a Yard again?"
"Where are we going to get the money, Bay?" he asks. But he doesn't say no.
I open my eyes and look back at him. "If I win the races, we'll have a lot of money," I say.
Dad stiffens. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned the races. He takes a deep breath and opens and closes his mouth like he's trying to say something. Or stop himself from saying something. When he does speak, I'm not expecting what he says.
"I used to work for Malvern, once," he says.
"You worked for Malvern? I thought you hated him."
"That's why," Dad sighs. "I was his foreman. Just like Sean Kendrick is now. I even stayed in the same little apartment over the stables." Dad pauses.
I stand with my mouth open like a fish out of water. I can't imagine Dad working with Malvern, much less with the capaill uisce.
"He only had one capall back then and didn't own as much of the island as he does now," Dad says. "And I was just a wide-eyed boy off the mainland who loved horses. I caught Malvern's eye and he offered me a job. I stayed with him less than two years."
"What happened?" I ask. I've never heard this story from Dad before and I'm not sure why he's telling me now, but I don't want him to stop.
"We didn't see eye to eye on how the horses or the men should be treated. In the end, we had an argument over a dam who gave birth to a stillborn foal. Malvern wanted me to try to save the foal because he wanted a racer. I saved the mare because I knew the foal was past saving. Malvern didn't like that I kept him a dam that could sire countless other racers. He only cared that he'd lost a potential asset. I quit shortly after that."
"And then what happened?" I asked.
"I found myself out of work at nineteen," Dad said. "I was dating your mother at the time and her parents offered to let me live in the old foreman's cottage on their property. I moved in and went to work at the docks to try and make ends meet."
"So the house we live in now is part of all this?" I ask.
Dad nods.
"And then...you got married," I say, hoping Dad will continue the story.
"Yes, about a year and a half later. And then...you came along two years after that and I couldn't have been happier. Belle was working on turning this place into a Yard, I was working at the docks to provide for my family and you were a healthy and happy little girl."
"But it didn't last," I say.
Dad looks down. "No, it didn't. Your mom and I...we took a boat ride one night. It was calm, there was no reason the capaill should have been more active that night. But they were. I was in the boat when they took her. I dove in after her, but I couldn't...save her." Dad looks down at his hands, his expression tight.
"And that's why you hate the water horses," I say.
"I lost my wife to those devil horses. And then I watched you grow more and more like Belle every passing day and I feared that you might grow into her fascination with the sea. And I couldn't bear it. And now I'm in danger of losing you to the same creatures who took your mother. Why do you want to ride, Bay?" he says. And suddenly he looks older, tired. I can see the hunch in his shoulders and I know it has nothing to do with the cold.
I stand in the middle of the stable for a long moment, staring at the blood-red eye of a capaill uisce painted on the column in front of me. I sigh. "Have you ever looked at it from my perspective, Dad?" I say.
"What do you mean?" he asks carefully.
"I mean all those nights I cried myself to sleep because I didn't know where you were. All those times I snuck over to Sean's apartment because I needed someone to listen and you wouldn't. All those times I brought you something I thought you'd be proud of and you turned me down. I…" I look down at the floor and make a concentrated effort not to cry. "I started thinking maybe the only way to get your attention was to do something you wouldn't like. So I spent more time with Sean than at home, but that didn't make you call me back. I took a job to cover your expenses, but that didn't make you notice me. So I decided to ride," I said, realizing for the first time the real reason I joined the Scorpio Races. "Sure, the money will help a lot," I say. "And so will the fame...or the infamy," I say. "But the only person I really ever wanted to look my way is finally watching me. Even if he's angry."
Dad stands still. I can't meet his eye. I stare at the dust in the floor by my feet.
"Bay…" Dad says. Then I hear his footsteps cross the floor and I feel his arms warp around me and pull me close in a hug. I feel the rough scratch of his beard against the top of my head. I bury my face against his shirt and pretend like I'm not crying.
"I'm sorry," he says.
"So am I." I say and I let the tears fall for real.