Sean
Bay is fragile in my arms as I try not to stumble. Rain pelts my face and the sand shifts underfoot. Race officials rush me with worried expressions, their words lost in the wind. They point at Bay, brows furrowed, heads tilted. I shake my head at their questions, answering automatically, as much to convince myself as them.
"She's fine."
"No, she's not dead."
"She'll be ok."
"I've got her, thanks," to the man who offers to help carry her. I think it's Jonathan Carrol and I'm not about to hand Bay over to that drooling fool. Her hands are wrapped around my neck and she is warm against me, but she shivers, her lips pale and riddled with bite marks. She has blood on her coat. I wonder if it is hers.
I feel guilty it's not mine. It should be my blood down there. If I wasn't —
I shake my head and stop that train of thought before it carries me away.
I glance back and find Puck behind me, leading Tempest up the rocks. Tempest follows like a ghost. He has eyes only for his rider tucked in my arms. Puck looks timid beneath the big horse, but there's determination in her eyes. I almost smile at my brave Puck Connolly.
After what seems like an eternity, we make it to the top of the cliffs. The rain feels less angry up here, the world slightly more colorful, the people more alive. Chatter bounces back and forth around me, tourists and locals haggling over knick-knacks and keepsakes no one will remember buying six months from now.
We're slaves to this ritual of relying on the races for our livelihood. Of relying on death.
What a strange people we are.
Bay shifts in my arms and I look down at her. Her eyes are open now.
"I can walk." The words brush my neck.
"You sure?" I murmur.
She looks down, but she nods against my shoulder.
Tourists look at us with odd expressions, but the locals watch us with the sort of sharp-eyed curiosity that lets me know they'll gossip about this later.
I could care less what they say about me, but suddenly I wonder what they'll say about Puck and Bay. I stop once we're out of the crush of people and set Bay on her feet.
She stands steady enough, though she shivers and hugs her arms to herself. "Th-thank you," she manages between chattering teeth.
I nod, although I really don't know what she's thanking me for.
Puck stops beside us, Tempest in hand.
Bay's eyes go wide when she sees her capall uisce and she runs to him, stroking his nose with her hands, her fingers tangling in his mane and tying knots like she'll never let go. She murmurs something into the water horse's ear, but I can't hear it. I don't try to. It's not for me.
She turns to Puck with a new light in her eyes. "Thank you."
Puck looks uncertain as Bay takes Tempest's reins.
"Thank you for bringing him off the beach. I don't think — " she stops and wipes a hand across her nose, wincing as she brushes her cheek. She puts a hand to her face and pulls it away, bloody. "Oh…" she looks surprised at the blood washing off her fingers in the rain. Then she gingerly explores her face with her hand again. She grimaces.
"Somebody got you good, Bay." The words come out darker and more threatening than I intend.
She looks at me, eyes widening fractionally. I try to rearrange my features into something softer, but I don't know how.
"It was a capall , Sean," she says. "I got thrown and it busted my face open when I tried to stand up."
I feel my mouth open, words failing me. She was thrown ? And she's not dead?
"So there's no one to fight on my account, ok?" Bay reaches out and puts a hand on my arm.
I shake my head and look at her like the suggestion is crazy. I've never fought anyone on her account before. I've never fought anyone on anyone's account but mine. But there's this feeling in my chest. Rage. The same sort of rage I felt the other night when I found Mutt in the stalls cutting Edana. The urge to destroy something, anything, whatever's at fault.
Bay is right.
I can't fight the capaill uisce.
I stuff my fists into my coat pockets and don't look at Puck or Bay. I don't think I can hide what I'm thinking right now.
Bay sighs and sags and suddenly looks exhausted.
Puck reaches out a steadying hand, looping her arm through Bay's free one for support. Bay's other hand is wrapped in Tempest's reins, just below his harness. By the way he holds his head, she's putting a fair amount of her weight on him.
I realize I've been a horrible friend.
I reach out and grab Tempest's reins. "I've got him," I say gruffly. "C'mon. Let's get you warm and dry."
Bay nods.
Puck tilts her head, mouthing where?
"The Yard." I don't have anywhere else to bring her and for the first time in my life, that feels insufficient.
But neither Puck nor Bay complain and the three of us trudge toward town with heavy steps, the beach and its terrible burden fading behind us in the fog.
Bay
Sean's apartment feels somehow smaller than usual today. Or maybe I feel smaller than usual, trapped in a space that's so familiar and yet suddenly foreign.
When we get back to the barn, we dry Tempest and put him in a stall, or rather, Sean does. It feels wrong putting him in a Malvern stall, but we can't just tether him somewhere. Not in this weather. Not with what just happened on the beach.
Puck leads me up to Sean's flat and the two of us stand there, dripping water all over his floor, unsure of what to do without him.
"Do you...uh...want...the bathroom first?" I finally ask, awkwardly.
Puck starts to answer, then frowns and shakes her head. "I don't have anything to change into."
I look down at myself, as if realizing for the first time how thoroughly soaked I am. We're both so wet we might as well have stayed in the rain. It feels ridiculous, but tears prick my eyes. I half-laugh, half-sob. "Neither do I."
Puck breaks into her own nervous laugh, even as she reaches a hand toward the good side of my face to wipe away the tear that escaped. Or maybe it's just rainwater. It's hard to tell.
"Don't cry," she says between laughs.
I sniff. "I'm not," I stoutly deny, though we both know it's not true.
My whole body shakes and I don't know if it's cold or nerves. I still can't reconcile what happened on the beach. It's all a bloody blur. I'm no stranger to death. After all, one of my earliest memories is my own mother's funeral. I've seen many more throughout the years, and every November there's a certain grim pall in the air. I've seen men torn by the capaill uisce before. But never this close.
Never when I was supposed to stand between them and death.
How does Sean do it?
Does he even want that role?
Or was he thrust into it just as unwillingly as I was?
What do you do when you're asked to stop death?
I got the capall back to the sea. Barely. And really, I don't know if it was me, or the fact that they were simply done with their carnage. The scenes from the beach are disjointed in my mind, as if they refuse to solidify. Images, flashes of terrified faces and deadly eyes, of teeth and hooves, of blood. Holly berries and screams. Pain. Tommy's wide eyes the moment before...before…
I squeeze my eyes shut and wrap my arms around myself, bowing my head. Sea-damp strands of hair fall around my face where my braid is thoroughly undone.
After a few seconds, I feel a hand on my shoulder.
"Hey," Puck says, very softly. "Are you ok?"
I shake my head. I'm not ok. I don't know if I'll ever be ok again. How can I be? Suddenly it all seems like too much. Too much blood. Too much sacrifice. Too much riding on the races. For the first time since declaring my intentions, I regret it.
This isn't just doubt or uncertainty or a vague notion that I'm in over my head.
This is full-blown regret.
But I can't back down. I've sworn my intention to ride. I bled on that rock. Thisby is judge. She will hold me to my promise. None of us can back down now.
Puck rubs my shoulder, uncertain. She's shaking almost as much as I am.
At that moment, Sean comes back upstairs. I hear the floor creak and manage to lift my head and open my eyes before he opens the door. He pauses on the threshold, looking like he isn't sure if he should enter his own home.
Puck gives him a small smile and the moment is broken and he walks inside.
"You're still wet," he says. I don't know if the statement is directed at me or Puck, but it doesn't matter. It's true of both of us.
Puck and I glance at each other, then back at Sean.
Something in Sean's expression shifts, realization dawning on him, and I swear that for a split second, Sean Kendrick is embarrassed. He shoves his hands in his pockets and clears his throat. "I can round up some spare clothes." He moves to his trunk and starts going through it.
Something about seeing Sean off-balance grounds me a little. Like maybe Death isn't breathing down my neck. Like maybe life will still go on and little things like embarrassing Sean Kendrick can still brighten my day.
Sean comes back holding a couple of t-shirts and pairs of pants that look suspiciously like pajamas. Sean is a bit taller than me or Puck and there's the matter of hips and curves where Sean is straight as a fence post. He holds the clothes towards us without speaking.
I take a set without comment.
Puck takes the other with a wicked spark in her eye and an unseen retort dancing on her lips. She manages to hold back whatever it is, but Sean doesn't miss her expression. He raises an eyebrow, daring her to say it, but she merely shakes her head. He frowns and spins toward the kitchen. "I'll make tea," he says.
Puck turns to me and gives me a triumphant grin. She just beat Sean at his own game.
I manage something that I think is a smile, but by the way her expression falls, I gather it's not.
She leans closer. "Will you be alright?"
I consider the question. Will I be alright? I suppose I will eventually. One day the memories will fade and I won't feel guilt weighing me down like a ball and chain. Like all the death that happens on Thisby, these new deaths will join the long procession and the pain of their passing will quietly ease into the backdrop of our lives.
Maybe then, I'll be better at stopping capaill uisce.
No. I won't ever be on the beach on a day like this again. I won't be the one called in to save the day. That's not...my place.
Puck stares at me earnestly, waiting on my answer.
"I'll be fine," I manage.
Puck's gaze is sympathetic, but she doesn't pry. Reluctantly, I respect that.
"You want to go first? Clean up?" She gestures toward the bathroom.
I almost ask "you sure," but then I realize that I very desperately want to clean up. I need to get this blood off my hands. Off my clothes. Out of my hair. "Yes."
Puck gently pushes me toward the bathroom and I let her. Inside the tiny space with the door closed, I feel very alone. So I turn on the warm water in the shower and undress quickly, not giving myself time to think. I don't even check myself out in the mirror. When I step under the water, I gasp. All my cuts and scrapes light up at once, tiny, painful reminders. My split cheek stings the most, but I grit my teeth and go through the motions of taking a shower.
Sean
Bay emerges from the bathroom looking more like herself. My clothes are a bit big on her and she rolled the edges of the pants up to keep from stepping on them. Her hair hangs loose, unbraided, untied, which is unusual for her. She holds the sodden mass of her wet and bloodied clothes away from herself as if they might be a snake that's going to bite her.
I nod my head toward an empty corner near the door. She dumps them in the corner without even bothering to spread them out to dry. All except the leather jacket. That she hangs carefully over one of my two kitchen chairs, then proceeds to towel it dry as best she can.
Puck, seated in my other kitchen chair, sips the rest of her tea, hands wrapped around the steaming cup, and announces she'll shower.
Neither Bay nor I answer, so she gets up from where she was making puddles on my kitchen floor and heads to the bathroom. As soon as the door closes behind her, the atmosphere in the room shifts. Something bright and warm left with Puck. I turn toward Bay. She stands by the table, one hand gripping her other arm by the elbow, mouth a thin line. She shivers.
I walk over to the bed and grab a blanket. I come back and drape it over her shoulders. She looks better now, if a bit pale. At least most of the blood is gone. There's still a trickle on her face from her cheek.
"I need to look at that." I gesture to her face. She nods. I retrieve the first aid kit (which was left in the kitchen) and we take a seat on the loveseat.
"This is getting too familiar," I say as we sit down. My tone falls flat.
Bay grimaces and glances down at her right arm, where the angry red lines of Corr's work from last night stand out stark against her skin. I'm relieved to see that they aren't bleeding again, but they'll need rebandaging.
I go to work in silence. Bay winces a few times, but she doesn't talk.
When I'm finished, we sit side by side for a while. The water runs in the bathroom as Puck showers.
"I told you not to go down there," I finally say. It's not exactly what I mean to say, but at least my tone doesn't come out gruff.
"I know," she whispers. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. The capaill , the riders — it's not your fault."
She's quiet for a very long time then. She looks as if she's working herself up to speaking. "Sean?"
"Hmm?"
"Did you know my father raced once?"
Her question hits me from left field. I look over at Bay with raised eyebrows, surprise clear on my face. She almost smiles.
"What? Where? Here? You mean the Scorpio Races? " Words spill out of my mouth unbidden. I quickly shut it. I don't usually spout useless stuff like this. But Callum Fisher ? Riding a capall uisce ?
"Yes."
"How do you — did he tell you?"
"Not exactly. I found my mom's old journal. She wrote about it."
I blink. I don't know what to say. Bay stares at the floor.
"Dad used to work for Malvern, too," she continues.
I still don't answer because what the hell? Where did this family history come from all of a sudden? How long has she known these things?
"He lived here," Bay says. She looks me in the eye. "Right here. In this flat."
"Your father?"
She nods.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"It's what I came here last night for. You know, when I interrupted —" she breaks off.
Something tight and unpleasant coils in my stomach. I grimace.
She shivers.
"I'm sorry," I say.
She looks up, confused.
"For last night. For today."
"Oh, Sean. Don't be. None of this is your fault, either."
I watch her for a while, because I can't help but feel that it is. If I hadn't lost control last night, if I just went to the beach this morning. Would things be different? Would we be sitting here now? Would I be on the sand, cold and lifeless and lying next to Tommy Falk? Would Bay's shoulders be weighted by death?
Bay stands up. "I should get going."
"You can stay," I say, though I've never needed to say it before.
She looks around. "I know, but I need…" She stops. Swallows. Starts again. "I just need to be home."
I don't understand, but I nod. Bay pulls her sodden boots on and slips back into her mother's jacket.
"Tell Puck I said goodbye." She smiles, but there's something sad, something final in it. "I'll see you later, Sean."
"See you later, Bay." The words slip out as she walks downstairs, echoing in my suddenly empty apartment.