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I feel shamed for no reason I can name, and then I feel bad that I’ve let myself be shamed "I don’t h "’Course you don’t You just don’t have a ht That horse of yours is just a horse, is the problem If the Scorpio Races are just horse races, then all this" -- Norman Falk jerks his chin toward the fla else"

Teeks ago, I would’ve thought he was crazy, that of course it was just about the race, theon the beach, I probably would’ve still said that But now that I’ve spent time with Sean Kendrick, now that I’ve been on the back of Corr, I feel so I’ for But I can see the allure of having one foot on the land and one foot in the sea I’ve never known Thisby so well as I have these last feeeks

The boy says so her do Look there now"

We both turn our heads and there is Sean, halfway down one of the little paths to the beach He holds Toile in his hands Sean wears nothing ritual or unusual, just his same blue-black jacket with his collar turned up I feel a strange, fierce squeeze inabout Sean that I can take credit for He leads the blackonly when she half rears and squeals, soft as a bird cry

The funeral party gathers by the pyre to watch as he walks her to the water’s edge It’s only then that I notice that Sean’s feet are bare The surf rushes around his ankles, soaking the bottoh as the water courses in around her pasterns and then she cries out to the sea There is so not quite horselike about her eyes already When she snaps at Sean, he siers in her forelock, pulling her head down I see his , but it’s impossible to hear what he tells her

Beside me, Tommy’s father says, "From the sea, to the sea," and I realize that the words match the movement of Sean’s mouth

I wonder then at howthe words, but with anyone It’s like the moment at the bloody stone when I declared Dove as s to Thisby, the invisible presences of a thousand rituals weights around roup and calls, "The ashes"

Another boy -- another sibling, maybe, this one looks a little like Toht is failing quickly, so I can’t see what he’s carrying the ashes in -- they must have just been taken fro the temperature, and then he cautiously reaches in The ain, and Sean hurls the handful of ashes into the air above her Sean’s voice is a wind-torn, weightless thing across the sand, but Nor with him: "May the ocean keep our brave"

With his back to us, Sean tugs the halter from the mare’s head She kicks out, but he steps out of the way as if it were nothing at all With a shake of her htily into the water For aJust a wild black horse in a deep blue sea full of the ashes of other dead boys

Then, so sudden and swift that I one, and there’s only the swaying of the ocean surface

Sean stands at the edge of the surf, looking out at the sea, and there is so in his expression, like he, too, wishes to leap into the ocean and be gone I think, just then, that this is why Norman Falk asked for Sean to be there Not because he was the only one who could perfor like that, is the races, even if no race was ever run A ree bete are and that thing about Thisby that we all want but can’t seem to touch When Sean stands there, his face turned out to the sea, he is no more civilized than any of the capaill uisce, and it unsettles s and endings Toer and hope and fear, and on the other side of it is Gabe getting into a boat and leaving us I feel like Sean looking out over the ocean I’ that I can’t bear it

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

SEAN

After I release Toht of the fire, everyone’s face is a secret until you are right upon them I search one and then the other; I see Gabriel Connolly and Finn Connolly but not Puck

I ask Finn with his scarecrow posture if Puck had come with theroup, touching elbows and asking after her, thinking all the while that to do so is to shout s about her No one has seen her

The race is too back to the yard but I feel hollow, knowing that Puck’s here somewhere and I haven’t found her I need to find her, and the needing disquietswhere she would be, and then I cliround is dark but here, closer to the sky, the evening air is still dark and red Elsewhere on Thisby it ht, but here, we still have a whisper of the evening sun, far away across the western sea I find her there at the top of the cliff, facing the horizon Her knees are pulled up to her chin and her arrown froh she hearsthe sea

I drawno effort to disguise my attention, here, where there is only Puck to seesun loves her throat and her cheekbones Her hair the color of cliff grass rises and falls over her face in the breeze Her expression is less ferocious than usual, less guarded

I say, "Are you afraid?"

Her eyes are far away on the horizon line, out to the here the sun has gone but the glow ree Holly’s Aallon of water that every ship rides on

Puck doesn’t look away frolow at the end of the world "Tell me what it’s like The race"

What it’s like is a battle A est of what is left from teeks of preparation on the sand It’s the surf in your face, the deadly ic of November on your skin, the Scorpio drums in the place of your heartbeat It’s speed, if you’re lucky It’s life and it’s death or it’s both and there’s nothing like it Once upon a ti the day before the race -- was the best ame to come But that hen all I had to lose was my life

"There’s no one braver than you on that beach"