The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater [69]
Again and again, riders step up onto the rock, holding out their hands, giving their names and their horse’s names, and again and again, Peg Gratton thanks them before they go. So many of them! There must be forty. I’ve seen the race reports in the paper before, and there’s never been anywhere near forty in the final race. What happens to all of them?
I imagine I can smell the blood on the rock from here.
And still the riders come up to the top of the rock, to have their fingers sliced and to announce their intention to ride.
As it gets closer to when I must go up, I’m shivering and nervous as can be, but I’m also aware that I’m waiting for Sean Kendrick to step onto the rock. I don’t know if it’s because he raced me or because I watched him lose that mare or because he told me to stay off the beach when no one else would speak to me at all, or merely because his red stallion is the most beautiful horse I’ve ever seen, but I’m curious about him in a way that puzzles even me.
Most of the group has come and gone by the time Sean comes up onto the rock. I barely recognize him. He has blood smeared across both of his sharp cheekbones, and the way he looks is at once striking and disturbing, harsh and godless, wary and predatory. Like someone who would climb this rock back when it was a real man whose blood they spilled on it, not just a bowl of sheep’s blood.
I wonder suddenly what Father Mooneyham is doing on this night — if he’s sequestered in St. Columba’s, praying that the members of his congregation keep their wits about them until tomorrow and that they won’t forget themselves to pagan mare goddesses. But I wonder what sort of goddess our island goddess could possibly be, anyway, even if she had existed, that she is satisfied by a bowl of animal blood in place of a man. I’ve seen sheep’s blood and I’ve seen a dead person, and I know the difference.
Sean Kendrick holds out his hand. “I will ride,” he says, and when he says it, I feel heavy, like my feet are being pulled into the rock below me.
Peg Gratton slashes his finger. She really doesn’t look like Peg Gratton at all, not when she’s up there in the light of the bonfire, the shadow of the beak hiding her face.
His voice is barely audible. “Sean Kendrick. Corr. By my blood.”
There’s a great roar from the crowd, including from Elizabeth, who I thought was too dignified for such things, but Sean doesn’t look up or acknowledge their cheers. I think I see his lips move again, but it’s such a slight movement that I’m not sure. Then he’s off the rock.
“This is you,” Elizabeth says. “Up with you. Don’t forget your name.”
As cold as I was a moment before, I’m now blazing hot. I throw my chin up and walk around the rock to where I can step up onto it like the others. It seems wide as the ocean as I walk across it to Peg Gratton. Though the rock must be quite solid, the surface seems to tip and roll as I make my way across it. I can see three different colors of blood under my feet. I keep thinking in my head, I will ride. By my blood. I don’t want to forget them in my nerves.
Now I see Peg Gratton’s eyes, bright and piercing beneath the beaked headdress. She looks fierce and powerful.
I feel the attention of everybody in Skarmouth, everyone on Thisby, and all the tourists that the mainland’s released. I stand as straight as I can. I will be as fierce as Peg Gratton, even if I don’t have her great bird headdress to hide under. I have my name, and that’s always been good enough.
I stretch out my hand. I wonder how much her little knife will hurt. My voice sounds louder than I expected. “I will ride.”
Peg lifts her blade. I brace myself. No one has flinched and I refuse to be the first.
“Wait!” says a voice. Not Peg Gratton’s.
We both turn our heads. There’s Eaton in his sweaty traditional garb, standing at the base