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He controls the horse like a fishing boat controls the sea I see now that the other line is held by Padgett, an older man who should know better than to trust Mutt with his life Next to lance over and there is another of Mutt’s friends sitting against the rock here the cliffs meet the beach He is curled around his own arerly It looks broken The sound I heard was his whimper

"Get out of this, Kendrick!" Mutt calls

I cross ling for the ht chalk of the cliffs, I can see the tre to the capall uisce The horse is tiring, but so are the others Mutt’sof the lines The otherthe horse will step into one It would be easy, for someone who didn’t know the water horses, to think that the capall uisce, standing there with its sides heaving, is defeated But I see its head drawn back, predatory, raptor-like rather than equine, and know that things are about to get ugly

"Mutt," I say He doesn’t even turn his head, but at least I said it

The line holding the horse’s pastern suddenly stretches taut as the gray capall lunges toward Mutt I a into the beach Shouts punch the air Padgett reels and tugs on his line, working to offcenter the horse Mutt is too busy with his oelfare to return the favor The line around its neck suddenly slack, the horse backs toward Padgett Its hooves drag circles in the sand And then the horse is on Padgett, teeth sunk into his shoulder, front legs reared up and eett will not fall to the ground under the weight, but the horse’s grip on his shoulder holds hiht for a brief ett tucked beneath its chest

Now Mutt is hauling the line around the horse’s neck, but it is too little, too late, and what is he against one of the capaill uisce?

Padgett is beginning to look i to look less like a man and more like meat I hear, plaintively, froet to the horse, I spit on the fingers of ht behind its ears Pulling a red ribbon froht hand, I press it over the bones of the horse’s nose It jerks, but my hand on its skull and neck is fir a hoof into Padgett’s body as it struggles to find its footing again Padgett is not my concern My concern is that I have two thousand pounds of wild ani and it has et it away frorip

"Don’t you dare let that horse go," Mutt tellsit back to the stable Don’t let this be a waste"

I want to tell hi it inland, away from the nearly Nove at the ive the horse any ht next to it

"Do what you need to do, Kendrick!" yells Brian, who has finally o," Mutt shouts back

Just to get theet the horse down to the shore and release it far enough into the ocean that we could get away safe would be iet them away safe, and they all know it, Mutt Malvern most of all

But I whisper like the sea in the horse’s ear and take a step back frohts One step away from all of them, one step toward the ocean My sock wicks the tide intounder o

CHAPTER FIVE

PUCK

I don’t think that I sleep, but I do, because in themy eyes are sticky and h theht, and I decide that noshivering intop -- the one with the straps of lace that are just a little itchy, but that I wear anyway because Mu to decide what to wear to the beach I don’t know if it will be cold after I’ve been riding for a while and I don’t know if I want to go down there dressed like a girl when Joseph Beringer is probably going to be there looking at randiose things like: You will remember this day for the rest of your life

In the end, I just hat I alear -- reen sweater that Mu it; it gives the sweater history I look into my spotted mirror and ht across over my blue eyes I look messy and cross I pull so to look like so Soh at when they see me arrive on the beach It doesn’t work I have too ain

In the kitchen, Finn is already up, and he is standing at the sink He is wearing the same sweater as yesterday, and he looks like apooled around hiood, like steak or toast, until I realize that it’s actually a bad smell, like burned paper and hair

"Gabe awake?" I ask I peer uncertainly into the cupboard, to avoid having to look at Finn I’ in the cupboard, I’one to the hotel," Finn says "I … here" And with this, he sets a ot stains of whatever’s in it on the sides in such a way that I just know it’s going to leave a ring on the table, but it’s stea and I suspect that it’s hot chocolate

"You ht it to ive it to you right then" He turns back around