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I slide down the aisle as quickly as silence allows The crying has gone silent but I’m certain now that it’s Edana In the darkness, I can barely see inside the stall The night outside throws soainst the bars and look in

When she keens again, I start back She’s right by ainst the wall, nose pointed toward the ceiling, jaw cracked open

I whisper her name and she cries back towithers and the slanting line her hips round I’ve never seen a horse stand like this There’s a sick knot inside me as I pull open the door and step into the stall Now, her body silhouetted against the light of the , I see that she leans against the ith her head and neck, sunk down onto her haunches like a dog Her back legs splay out as if the ground is slippery

I touch her shoulder; it’s tre inside me I run the flat ofto keep searching, around the curve of her twitching haunches, and doard her ha Edana whimpers

My hand comes away soaked I lift it toward my eyes, but I don’t need it any closer to sht fros have been sliced

The top edge of the wound curves up like a ghastly so to her head and she struggles, trying to get her legs under her I stroke her forelock and whisper in her ear Be still Don’t be afraid I wait for her breathing to become easier, for her to believe me

She’ll never walk again

I can’t understand it I don’t understand ould mutilate Edana, a horse that wasn’t in the races, a horse that was no threat to anyone And like this, this savage cruelty -- I was meant to find her and be sickened I can think of only one person ould want to hurt me like that

I think I hear a rustle somewhere in the depths of the stable

I flick off the flashlight

In the dark, in his stall, Edana’s bay coat looks very much like Corr’s blood-red one It would be very easy toon getting into the stall without getting hurt

There’s ain, farther away in the stable

I scramble out of the stall and into the aisle I stand and wait, listening My heart has already raced ahead of me All I want is for the sound to be from anywhere but the back seven stalls All I want is for Mutt Malvern to have guessed wrong when he went looking for Corr There are five other stalls equipped for the capaill uisce He could have gone looking in any of the horse

I hear the coain

It’s frohts on as I round the corner by the door If he knows I am here, surely he will abandon this

"Mutt!" I shout Now, under the light, I see blood on the floor, the edge of a shoe printing scarlet every step I jog along, following, watchful "You’ve gone too far! Mutt!"

My voice echoes in the high arches of the stable; there’s no reply Perhaps he’s left

Corr screams

Now I run like I’ve never run I can see Edana inas she lies against the wall, ruined in her own skin and not yet knowing it

If he has touched Corr, I will kill him

I burst around the corner The door to Corr’s stall is open Mutt Malvern stands with a wicked blade in one hand and, in the other, a three-pronged leister spear of the sort used to poach fish or birds The iron heads of the spear press into Corr’s shoulder, forcing hiainst the wall His skin shivers and ripples under the ht to this plan of his

"Get away from him," I say "Every drop of his blood will be ten of yours"

"Sean Kendrick," Mutt replies "Pretty foul of you to swap stalls like that"

Corr makes a low roar in his throat, a sound that we feel in our feet instead of hear But he’s pinned by the leister spear, not only points of iron but three of the about the horses under this roof, you would’ve known the difference between theh to see that I’ve closed the distance between us He jerks his chin toward the spear "Stay out of this stall, knacker"

I sloipe my bloody hand across my jacket and draw ards it with conte you’ll stop ?"

The blade snaps out audibly Mutt would not be the largest thing to die on the slender point of it

"I don’t think I’ll stop you," I say "I think that you will cut my horse and then when you come out of that stall, I will use this to cut your heart out and hand it to you"

I aers I cannot look at Corr’s eye or I won’t be steady

Mutt says, "Do you really think I believe that you can do anything to me while I have these in my hands?" But he does believe I can see it in his eyes

I say, "What’s it you hope to prove in there? That you are the better horseman? That the horses love you better? Do you mean to carve your father’s approval in the side of every capall uisce on this island?"

"No," says Mutt "Just this one"