Puck
In the end, we go to the beach anyway, even though Sean is trying his damndest not to even look at it. He tells me as much as we wander the market stalls on the cliff tops, the words coming stilted through nearly closed lips, as if escaping against his will. I've come to cherish those words most. Because it means Sean is sharing something with me that he normally wouldn't.
The shouting changes his mind. Someone sees us in the makeshift market stalls and starts yelling his name excitedly. "They were looking for you down there, Sean! There's a massacre, have you seen?"
Someone else chimes in. "They say Falk got the brunt of it! Blood everywhere!"
Falk?
Tommy Falk?
Sean stiffens and my stomach turns itself into knots. A massacre? How many people have to die to make it a massacre? Is Tommy Falk one of them? Images of still bodies and glassy eyes leap unbidden to my mind. Of people I know, have lived my whole life with.
Sean catches my shiver and puts a brief hand on my shoulder. "You don't have to come."
That's when I know he's going down to the beach, regardless of what I'm doing. I also know I am not making Sean Kendrick clean up a massacre alone. So I follow him as we slip and stumble down the crowded path. Sean shouts against the crush of people running and milling about, yelling for them to get out of the way and asking about Tommy as the rain pelts us like tiny bullets.
"The handsome one?" someone shouts.
Sean stalls, stymied. "I don't know, maybe? Tall." He holds a hand above his own head. "Black mare."
We're jostled farther down the path and there are more men shouting and there's more rain coming down and I taste salt on my lips.
"Kendrick!" Someone shout. Sean's head jerks toward the sound. "They were looking for you!"
"The horses are fighting!" Another man shouts. "It's bad, I wouldn't get close!"
Over heads and hats, I see something that makes my heart stop. I don't listen to the warning or wait on Sean. I run onto the beach, following close to the cliff wall. There's a dead capall uisce in the surf and she looks black. I think it might be Tommy's mare and if that's Tommy's mare then —
I stop and hold back a scream. I nearly tripped over something stretched across the sand. Four somethings. Four men, bruised, battered, wet. Dead. I'm afraid to look but I force myself to. The last one in the line is a tall boy with pretty lips. Blood-stained Tommy Falk.
I walk numbly over to him and kneel beside him, reaching a hand out, as if he's only sleeping and I might shake him awake. I stop myself just short of touching him. It feels so wrong to touch a man who was just alive in my kitchen last night. Living, breathing, laughing with my brother. I gasp, but I don't cry. It's like something in me is all dried up. I can't cry.
There are footsteps beside me and Sean walks up. He puts his hands in his pockets and looks at the line of dead men with a pained expression. When he gets to Tommy Falk, his mouth tightens and he stares at Tommy like he's looking at a stranger. I don't know what he's thinking, but he looks pale and hard in the gray light. Then he looks up, to where two capaill uisce are tethered by the cliff behind us. One of them is Tommy's black mare. She's not dead after all. The other is Bay Fisher's sleek gray. Dread drops into my stomach like dead weight.
"Sean, that's —"
"Bay!" he shouts her name. The wind rips his voice out of him and his shout is lost in the rain and the rumbling sea. "Bay!" he shouts again. His eyes rake the beach frantically. He scans the bodies again, just in case. I've never seen Sean look more afraid. I feel a pang of jealousy. Then I shake my head and shove the feeling away. I'd never wish anyone dead on this beach, least of all Bay Fisher, who I've never had cause to hate anyway.
That's when I hear the cry. A thin sound, almost lost in the wind and the waves. The sound a lost kitten makes — afraid, alone. Sean and I look up at the same time to see Bay sitting on the rocks above the two horses. She's soaking wet and shivering, folded up with her face in her hands. It's obvious she's crying. Sean takes off running, his longer legs carrying him easily over the rocks. I jump up and follow, feeling a swell of relief in my chest.
"Bay." Sean kneels in front of her. "Bay. I'm here." He puts his hands on her shoulders and then gently runs them down her arms. I realize he's checking her for injuries, like he'd do with Corr.
Bay looks up at him with red-rimmed eyes, tears streaking her face. A nasty bruise forms around the split skin of her right cheek, as if someone punched her.
"I t-tried!" she cries, her words broken by her chattering teeth. "I tried, S-sean!"
He wipes some of the blood from her face. She winces. He shakes red drops from his hand.
"I tried." She sniffs again.
"I know you did," he murmurs gently. I don't think he knows what Bay means anymore than I do, but he's talking to calm her, like you do with a wild horse.
"I c-couldn't stop them. I couldn't s-save them!" she wails, burying her face in her hands again.
"Couldn't save who?" Sean asks.
"T-tommy and th-the others," Bay moans.
Sean looks back at me and our eyes meet. Then his gaze slides past me to the bodies on the beach and realization dawns on him. Bay was down there. She was in the middle of whatever happened to the four men. I sit down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. She leans against me and shivers. We've never been close, but right now that doesn't matter. Bay needs people. I can be people.
"Bay." Sean moves his hands from her arms to her face, tilting her head to look up at him. "Hey, it's not your fault." Sean looks at her with the softest expression I've ever seen him make and that spike of jealousy returns. Because I want Sean to look at me the way he's looking at Bay right now. I shake my head to get rid of the thought. I can't control Sean Kendrick. He's turned those storm-dark eyes on me with everything from disgust to longing to desperation and affection. Why should I be jealous that he's worried about his best friend?
"I should have been able t-to save them," she says.
"In a perfect world, you would have," Sean murmurs. "But Thisby's not perfect. Men die on Thisby, Bay, it's not your fault."
"B-but they asked me t-to stop it."
Sean stiffens, expression becoming closed and tight again.
"That's not fair," I say, realizing now why Bay is so upset. I look back down at the four dead men lying on the sand and the capall uisce floating in the water beyond. How could one girl stop all that death? What would I do if I'd been asked to stop four men from dying? What would I do if I'd been asked to stop four men from dying and I didn't? I think I'd throw myself in the sea.
"Bay, I'm sorry," Sean says. He looks guilty. Because if Sean had been on the beach, instead of up on the cliffs, they would have asked him to stop the fight instead of Bay. Then maybe he'd be sitting down here on the rocks looking at four dead men. Or maybe he'd be one of the four dead men. I shiver. Sean catches the motion out of the corner of his eye.
"We need to get you out of here and into some dry clothes," he tells Bay. "And someone needs to look at your face."
She nods numbly, but she doesn't move. She stares at the dead bodies with empty eyes, leaning on my shoulder.
"Bay," Sean says gently.
She whimpers.
I sit her up, but she still doesn't stand.
"C'mon, Bay," I say. "We need to go."
"I know," she whispers. "But I can't." And she buries her face in her hands and cries.
Sean looks helplessly at me. I shrug. I'm not sure what's going on. I don't know her well enough for that. She seems unwilling to move, as if Thisby rooted her to the rocks. Sean watches her cry for a moment, then nods, as if he's resolved a silent debate.
He stands and, very gently, picks Bay up, cradling her in his arms like a child.
Bay only puts up a token protest and buries her face in Sean's collar.
"Puck, get Tempest, will you?" Sean says and he's in control again and he has that tone he uses at the Yards when he wants something done and he wants it now. "There's an iron bar in my right coat pocket and some ribbon. Take it."
"Um…" I take a deep breath. I don't think I'm qualified to go get Bay's capall on my own.
"You'll do fine," Sean says and I look up at him and suddenly want to melt because he's smiling at me, but I manage to keep my feet and nod.
"Right." I reach into his jacket pocket. I press my hand perhaps farther than necessary against his side as I pull out the ribbon and the bar. He doesn't seem to mind.
"Trace circles on his forehead or his shoulder — counterclockwise — if he's skittish," Sean says. "Put the ribbon between his eyes if he won't do what you want. Talk to him, Puck. He'll listen."
I walk down the beach to the grey capall and stand beside him, making sure he can see me.
"Hey, Tempest." I unwind the rope tethering him to one of the rocks and take a firm grip on his bridle. He looks at me curiously, as if he knows I'm not the right person. Tommy's black mare watches us with her head down, her breath frosting in front of her with the cold.
"Sean?" I call out.
He looks over his shoulder at me.
"What about the black?" I point, in case he can't hear me.
His words are lost in the wind, but his scowl and shaking head tell me that he wants me to leave her.
"Sorry, girl." I look at those deep, sea-black eyes. She looks almost...sad. Does she know that her rider is dead? Do the capaill uisce even care if we die? I feel the tears I couldn't summon earlier well up behind my eyes and I blink furiously to keep them back.
"C'mon, Tempest, let's go. Let's follow Sean, ok?" I tug on his bridle. He throws his head up. I check the ground around him for a circle, a line of salt or iron or anything that would keep him from moving. I don't see anything but sand and water. I look up again and tug on his bridle, a little harder this time. "C'mon Tempest."
I hear a thrum in his chest and I feel my heart beat harder against my ribcage. But he doesn't try to bite. He just digs his feet harder into the sand. I swallow and press the red ribbon to his forehead. "Hey, now, don't you want to follow Bay?"
His ears prick at the mention of Bay's name. "Let's go, Tempest. Let's go home."
This time when I tug, he follows. I feel a surge of pride. I'm walking a capall uisce by myself! Then reality hits me and I realize I'm walking a capall uisce by myself. My knees feel a little weak. Tempest shies when I stumble on the rocks and I whisper to calm him, rubbing the ribbon against his nose again. He settles and walks forward.
After that, I keep one eye on the rocks and one on Tempest as I follow Sean up the beach.