~ANDREW~
I wasn't born on Thisby, but I have lived here for as long as I can remember. My earliest concrete memory is of a stormy day, surrounded by strangers- now my family and friends- on a beach, with the wind whipping sand and salt water across my face and into my eyes as I cried and cried. I remember being very afraid, and very sad. Although I don't associate this fact with that memory, I know that this is the day my mother and father died. I've heard the story many times from my foster parents, Brian and Emily Carroll.
When I was three I'd become obsessed with horses. In the city where we lived, there was no room for me to have a pony of my own, but being an only child, my parents indulged my whims and that year we took our summer holiday in a place near the sea that catered to tourists and featured pony rides. I was at the yard's gate every morning waiting for that ride. My parents were so pleased with how I'd enjoyed myself that we returned the following year. This time we stayed longer, and were able to witness the event that changed my life forever. Changed all our lives, really.
It was late September, the last summer before I was due to enter primary school. We had gone late to our holiday spot because the rates were better and we could stay longer. One morning I was waiting at the yard's gate as usual, anticipating riding the little cream-colored pony round and round in his pen. My parents stood behind me, sipping tea from paper cups and commenting about the turning of the weather. My eyes were on the yard beyond the closed gate, but theirs were on the sea. All at once I heard my mother gasp and my father shout in surprise. I wheeled to see what the commotion was about, and followed their awestruck gaze to the sea beyond the low cliff to the west.
Four heads had emerged from the waves, and though their ears and jaws were elongated and predatory, they were unmistakably equine. They swam about fifty yards out, parallel the deserted shore, for about two minutes before disappearing into the dark waters again.
"Mum! Da! What kind of horses are they? Why are they in the water?" I'd shouted, experiencing the thrill of discovering something for the first time that only children know. And as we waited for the gate to open for my pony ride, my parents told me of the cappail uisce and all the mystery and magic they embodied. They also told me of the one place in the world that the water horses actually come ashore: a tiny island about 80 miles out to sea called Thisby where brave men captured, trained, and raced them every autumn.
Upon the little cream-colored pony that day, I imagined that I was a man grown, the bravest in the world, and the pony was my powerful, dangerous water horse that I'd captured on the sands of Thisby in a storm. And we were racing, racing, flying across the beach with speed none had ever seen before, the definitive champion of the Scorpio Races.
When my ride was over, I'd made up my mind: I marched up to my father and said, "Da, I want to go to Thisby. I want to see the water horses race!"
And, being an only child whose every whim was indulged, we'd done just that.
The first of November that year had dawned steel grey with roiling black clouds on the horizon. My parents had bundled themselves and me against the cold, with layers of wool and an outer shell of raincoats and wellies to fend off the elements. My mother had told me that we would be watching from the cliffs above the sand, but I'd hollered and thrashed until I got my way: I wanted to be at beach level to watch those horses run.
The clouds had moved in with the wind just before the start of the final race. It was raining so hard that all the horses looked the same as they lined up along the far end of the beach. As they launched into their run, the wind whipped up and blew the sea into a froth of grey and white foam. The salt water in the air sent many of the cappail uisce to frenzy, and three of them broke from the racing. One black stallion dragged his rider into the sea and drowned him. The other two charged uncontrollably up the beach toward the cliffs and the crowd. Eight people were injured, and two were killed. I had somehow escaped injury, but was very suddenly an orphan. The two casualties in the crowd were my mother and father.
My mother, like me, had been an only child, and my brother's sister was of poor mental health and in no state to care for a child. Both of their parents had passed before I was born, so there was no family to care for me back on the mainland. While the legalities of what was to be done with me were sorted out, I ended up staying on Thisby in the care of Brian and Emily Carroll, who had been married for years but had no children of their own. They had a small house on the edge of town, an ideal place raise a young boy. They had not expected me to be the spoiled, unreasonable brat I'd been at the age of four, but they were level and patient people who had quickly reformed me. After six months, they were appointed my legal guardians until blood kin could come forward and claim me. Of course, that never happened, so two years later they were allowed to adopt me.
As a "welcome to our family" gift, they bought me one of the island ponies. Not a cappal uisce, which I complexly loved and feared, but a beautiful red bay gelding named Dax who ended up being my companion for ten tears. On Dax I had learned to ride properly, as many men of Thisby do. And ride I did: across the open fields and moors in the middle of the island, along the beaches in summer while the threat of emerging water horses was minimal, and along the cliffs above the sand while the cappail trained for the Scorpio Races in the fall.
When I was fourteen, when Dax had become too old to ride, I had ventured to the beach one day in mid October to watch the bowler hats as they attempt to sell the horses they'd been pulling from the sea or capturing as they surged onto the beach. I stood as near to the cliffs as possible hoping not to get drawn into the commotion, but one old man with two horses spotted me.
"You there, Andrew Kelly! Take those hands out o' your pockets and put them to good use. Come hold this old girl for me. You can handle a cappal, can ye, lad? Step lively, now! Don't lose your fingers, Outlander!"
Outlander.
I've been called that since I started primary school on Thisby. I live here, yes, but I'm not from here. And the natives seem determined to remind me.
The man's name was Gorry, and he'd been a broker of water horses since long before I came here. And even though he'd called me Outlander, he had asked me to help him with one of his water horses. Even if it was just to hold her steady while potential buyers looked her over, even if it was just because I happened to be there rather than being sought out for my skill with horses, I wanted to be included in this thing that was so very Thisby.
I stepped forward and took the iron-studded leather lead from Gorry.
"Good lad. Now, keep yer eye on her. On all of her. Be ready to move before she does. She's the quieter of the two, but make no mistake, young mister Kelly. She'll take you down as soon as look at you. And don't let her near the sea."
As if I needed telling any of this.
But I nodded and did as Gorry told me, and an hour later the mare was sold to one of Mister Malvern's grooms. Gorry clapped me on the shoulder and told me I'd done well; not many cappail had been sold to Benjamin Malvern since Sean Kendrick left his employ some twenty years before. As a reward for my work, Gorry had given me a few folded bills and sent me on my way. I was halfway up the cliff, thinking about the bay mare I'd held for Gorry, and the way he'd called me Outlander like so many before him, when I decided I knew what I would do with the money.
The next morning, and for many mornings after that, I went down to the beach and sought bowler hats like Gorry who had acquired more cappail than they could handle at once. More times than not, my offers of help were accepted; and more times than not, I was rewarded with a few bills after the horses I'd handled were sold. I took every penny I earned home and hid it beneath the loose floorboard in my bedroom closet. I saved all my money that October, and repeated the process the next year and the year after that. I kept careful count of my earnings and after a little more than a week into the third year, I finally had enough for what I wanted.
I announced it to Brian and Emily the next morning at breakfast.
"I want to fix up another of the stalls in the old stable," I told them.
"What for, Andrew?" Brian asked.
"Well, I love old Dax of course, but he is too old to ride. And I miss riding. If you'll let me," yes, I had earned to politely ask permission rather than demanding to have what I wanted, "I'd like to fix up another stall and buy another horse. I've been saving the money I'm earning from the bowler hats, and I should have enough now to make the repairs and buy the horse. I promise to keep working to buy its feed, too."
"No, I understand wanting a younger horse,' Brian replied. "I meant why do you need to fix up a stall? The stable is a little run down but it's not falling apart, lad. Surely any of the stalls will be fine for your new horse."
"It's not just any horse I want," I told him. I was on thin ice now, I knew, and I'd best watch my step. "I'd like to buy a water horse."
They both froze, staring at me with wide eyes and wider mouths.
"I want to ride in the Scorpio Races."
Hesitation, then Emily took a step to my side. Placing a hand gently on my shoulder, she asked quietly, "Are you sure, lad?"
I knew we were all thinking about my parents. But I was also thinking of how many times I'd been called Outlander, and how many times I'd been made to feel like I was not really a part of Thisby.
And how much I wanted to be.
"I'm sure as I am of Thisby." It was hard to keep my voice steady and even, but I managed.
After many silent moments, Brian sighed and asked Emily what she thought.
"Well, if you really want to do it. If you've really thought about it, which it seems you have- and for some time, too, if you've saved enough for the horse and the stable upkeep," she sighed. "I don't see any reason to deny you. Just… be careful, lad."
And I knew what she meant. I was all they had, and they were the only ones who'd ever treated me like I really belonged there. When I'd come from my first day at primary school, pouting that I'd been called Outlander and left out of the schoolyard games, Emily was the first one to tell me that I did belong, and that to Brian and herself, I was as much a part of Thisby as the salt air and the sandy soil. And because I was theirs, I was of Thisby as much as anyone who'd been born here.
I didn't need to ride in the Scorpio Races to prove myself to them. But maybe I needed to prove it to everyone else.
Maybe I needed to prove it to myself.