The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater [72]
As I’m about to head out, I hear a voice. “So you’re not a churchgoer, then.”
“Good morning, Mr. Holly,” I reply.
He’s in what I think they must consider Sunday finery in America: a white V-necked sweater and light jacket over creased khaki pants. He looks like he might be ready to pose for one of the mainland paper’s society pages.
“Good morning,” Holly returns. He peers inside my buckets and rears back with a wince. They’re full of Corr’s rank manure and even I have a hard time getting used to the odor. “Sweet Mary and Coca-Cola, that’s hard to bear.” Seeing that I’m struggling to open the gate without setting down my buckets, he opens it for me and closes it behind me, following amiably. “So you’re not a believer?”
“I believe in the same thing they believe in,” I say, with a jerk of my chin toward town and St. Columba’s. “I just don’t believe you can find it in a building.”
The ground is soft and scented lightly with horse manure as I start down the roads toward the shoreline that borders most of Malvern’s pastures. It’s on the opposite side of the island from the racing beach, and while there are still cliffs, they’re lower and more uneven, with uncertain beaches and more places for the ocean and the creatures who live in it to crawl onto shore.
Holly trots to catch up with me and slides one of the bucket handles out of my hand and into his. He grunts at the weight but says nothing else.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Looking for God,” Holly says, matching my stride. “If you say he’s out here, I’ll take a gander.”
I’m not certain he’ll find his sort of God sharing this work with me, but I don’t protest. It’s a bit of a walk to the cliffs and having company might not be terrible. As we get farther away from the protection of the stable yard buildings, the wind becomes more insistent, gusting across the fields unchecked. The only signs of civilization are the stone walls that mark Malvern’s pastures. They long predate Malvern’s herds; this is a Thisby many have forgotten.
Holly, to his credit, walks in silence for several long minutes before he asks, “What is it we’re doing, exactly?”
“Storm’s coming,” I answer. “Already it’ll be worse out at sea, and that will drive the horses in.”
“By horses, you mean” — again he pauses carefully before attempting a pronunciation — “the capaill uisce.”
I nod.
“And drives them in where, exactly? Whoa and hey!”
This last exclamation is because we’ve just gotten to a high point where we can see the ocean and the area around us. The land is all perilous, low cliffs, cracked and cut deeply into the green: pasture and then suddenly empty air and then pasture again. Below us and beyond us, the sea is whitecaps and foam and black rocks like teeth. A busy sea. Tomorrow will be hell, I think. I give Holly a long moment to drink in the sight before I answer his question.
“Drives them inland. If they’re in the shallow water around the island, they’d sooner be on land than facing those rocks and current. And capaill uisce newly on land isn’t something you’d like to see.”
“Because they’re hungry?”
I tip my bucket to allow a bit of the foul cargo to spill out onto the path, then continue picking my way along. “Because they’re hungry, yes. But they’re also uncertain, and that makes them worse.”
“So you’re dumping crap —”
“To mark territory. If they come onshore here, I want them to think they’ll meet Corr.”
“And not Benjamin Malvern’s broodmares?” finishes Holly. We work in silence then, marking the places of easy access along the high ground first, and then working our way down. Finally, there’s only the rocky beach to attend to.
“Perhaps you’d like to stay up for this,” I suggest. I can’t guarantee his safety next to the water. The sea is already tumultuous and dangerous, and there’s nothing to say that there won’t already be capaill uisce down there.