The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater [75]
Anyway, all of that seems far away when I’m out on the cliffs above the racing beach. Because though I don’t want to ride on the windy cliffs, I don’t mind sitting on them. I trudge out with a pack on my back made of a wool blanket gathered into a pouch, and when I get there I release its contents on the ground and find myself a secure perch close to the edge where I can see the training down below. I wrap the blanket around my shoulders, take a sip of tea from my thermos, and start on one of the November cakes. I heated three of them in the oven this morning along with some stones, and now the stones have kept them nice and hot. I’m feeling quite virtuous and useful as I take out my paper and pencil and the stopwatch that Finn found for me. If I sit here long enough, surely the horses will give up their secrets. I want to know how fast they cover the ground, and then I plan to take Dove over the same stretch and time her as well. If I know what my handicap is, maybe I can prepare better.
I’ve been sitting for about ten minutes when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone sits down a few steps away from me, one knee drawn up, an arm resting on top of it.
“So you’ve discovered the secret to winning, have you, Kate Connolly?”
I recognize the voice without turning my head and my pulse goes bump bump bu — and thinks about starting again, but doesn’t quite manage it. “I said you could call me Puck.”
Sean Kendrick doesn’t say anything else, but he doesn’t get up, either. I wonder what he’s thinking as we sit here, watching the horses down below. They look so different from above: The training looks orderly, quiet, on purpose, not like the chaos it felt like when I was down there. Even when I see two horses rear up to fight, their handlers working to tear them apart, the sound is muffled by distance and wind and this somehow lessens it. Toy soldiers.
I watch Ian Privett on his gray — Penda — as they gallop parallel to the water. I click my stopwatch and make a note.
“He’ll go faster than that,” Sean Kendrick says. “Later. He’s not pressing him now.”
I’m not sure if he’s being condescending that I’m bothering to write down this meaningless time, or if he’s awarding me with knowledge I wouldn’t otherwise have had. So I just trace my pencil over the numbers again, imprinting them into the paper. I want to ask him why he spoke up for me last night, but Mum told me that it was rude to dig for compliments, and this feels like it would be digging for compliments. So I don’t ask, though I want to, badly.
Which means we sit in silence some more, the storm wind cutting through my blanket and my hat and ruffling the pages of my notes. I reach into my pack and take one of the precious November cakes — still warm — and offer it to Sean.
He takes the cake without saying thank you. But the thank-you is somehow implied. I’m not sure how he does it, because I wasn’t looking at him to see his face when he took it.
After a moment, he says, “Do you see the black mare? Falk’s? She’s excited to chase. If she were mine, I’d keep her just behind the lead so she’d stay motivated. Make my move late.”
I frown down at the beach, trying to see what he sees. The beach is a mess of fake races and aborted gallops. I find Tommy and his black mare and watch them for a moment. She’s a fine-legged thing for a capall uisce, and when she steps, her head bobs just a bit when her left rear hoof touches the ground. “Also,” I say, because I have to say something, “she is a bit lame in the left rear.”
“The right, I think,” Sean Kendrick says, but then he corrects himself. “No, left, you’re right.”
And I feel pleased, although he is only agreeing with what I already knew.
Now I feel brave enough to ask him, “Why aren’t you riding?” I look at him, too, when I ask, studying