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Peg sighs and gives a nod, but it’s not for h the e of the car door to keep fro so much filth inside the beautiful red car I rub Dove’s nose and feel bad about disappointing fierce Peg Gratton

After a mowould have convinced Father that me on the beach is a spiritual er-sideis a dutiful rather than happy one

"Kate Connolly," Father Mooneyha man all over, with knobs for a chin bone and his cheekbones and the end of his nose Each knob is slightly reddened There is a knob for his Adam’s apple, too, which I saw once when he had been knocked off his bicycle and his collar had gone askew It was not reddened

"Father," I say

He looks at me and puts his thumb in a little cross on my forehead like he used to when I was small and still spit when I was in church "Co and I both wait for hi else But he just rolls hisback up andto reverse out of the yard As they do, I see Finn’s face slimpse of the splendid car as it pulls away

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SEAN

I stand in a round pen in the Malvern Yard with an A Corr trot around us It’s a pale blueto spend it on the beach before everyone else got there, but Malvern caught et clear I didn’t think taking a stranger to the beach was a good idea, so I headed to the round pen to school untilthe capaill to train on the shore only counts if they’re under saddle, soe of There’s not much that can be done in a round pen that will prepare you for life on the beaches

Already Corr has been going in circles at the end of the lunge line for twenty minutes The American is enthusiastic but reverent, more awed by me, I think, than by Corr Our accents make us cautious with each other

"Quite a remarkable structure This was built just for the capaill uisce?" he asks He’s very careful with the last words, but his pronunciation is good Coppie ooshka

I nod On the other side of the stables is the round pen that I exercise the sport horses in, sixteen yards across with high fence-like walls built of light , and even if he did, everyone is too afraid to put a capall uisce in so that looks like it would bloay So instead we’re in this fearfully wondrous pen that Malvern devised soht feet into the side of a hill so that the earth h-dirt-walled path ending at an oak door that serves as part of the pen’s wall I like it well enough, except for when it floods

"Capaill uisce? Capall uisce?" The Ae

"Capaill is plural Capall is singular"

"Roger It’s never sure if it’s raining or not here, is it?" asks the A a navy flat cap, a white V-neck sweater, and slacks that won’t stay that pressed for long in this humidity The sky spits at us, but it’s not really rain It’ll be gone before I head down to the beach with the others "How long will you trot hiait My father once said that no water horse was aits -- walk, trot, canter, gallop -- and there’s no reason for one to be preferable over another But Corr would sooner gallop until he’s lathered like the surf than trot for half the time My mother once said that I hadn’t been built to trot, either, and that’s true, too It’s too slow to be exciting, too jolting to be comfortable I’ht noithoutwatched by a stranger, however, so he picks his feet up and tosses his mane just a little more than usual I allow him his show There are worse flaws than vanity in a horse

The A the edge off The beach will be crowded again today, and I don’t want to bring three fresh horses down there"

"Well, he’s a beauty," the American says It’s meant to flatter me, and it does He adds, "I see by your s, but I did already know

"I’e Holly, by the way," the American says "I’d shake your hand if it wasn’t occupied"

"Sean Kendrick"

"I know You’re why I came They said it wasn’t a race unless you were in it"

My s"