My head jerks as Joseph pulls my ponytail. I whirl around to face him, hands on my hips. He gives me his too-big smile. He is pimply under his blond hair. His mouth goes whoo like he’s impressed that I’m looking at him.
I try to think of something catchy to say, but there’s nothing but irritation that something that was funny to an eleven-year-old boy is still funny to a seventeen-year-old one. So I just say ferociously, “I don’t have time for you tonight, Joseph Beringer!”
This is true always, but truer tonight. I’m supposed to sign up as a race participant today, I think. Because of my hurry, Finn graciously offered to feed Dove for me. When I left, he was looking at a bucket as if it was the most complicated invention he had ever seen.
Beside me, Joseph is going on about my bedtime again — he likes to just take a topic and worry it to death, never a danger of missing anything subtle with him — and I simply ignore him as I hurry down the walk to Gratton’s, the butcher shop. As I look at all the people, some of them tourists already, I think about how Mum used to say that we needed the races, that this would be a dead island without them.
Well, the island’s alive tonight.
Gratton’s is a riot of sound, with people spilling out onto the walk. I have to push my way through the door. I wouldn’t say people in Skarmouth are rude as a rule, but beer makes people deaf. Inside, the place is abuzz with noise and a crooked line leads around the walls. The ceiling feels low and crowded with its exposed timbers close overhead. I’ve never seen so many people in here before. In a terrible way, though, it makes sense that the butcher’s should be the unofficial center for the races, on account of this is where all the riders get their meat from.
Except me.
I see Thomas Gratton straightaway, shouting directly into someone’s ear by the opposite wall. His wife, Peg, is behind the counter, smiling and chatting, a piece of chalk in her hand. Thomas may own the place, but Dad said that Peg ruled it. Every man in Skarmouth is in love with Peg. Dad said this was because they knew that Peg could cut their heart out neat and they loved her for it. Certainly isn’t for her looks. I heard Gabe say once that Mutt Malvern had bigger tits than Peg. Which I suppose is probably true but I remember being very shocked at my brother saying something so crass and unfair, because what say does a girl have in how big her chest gets?
I edge into the single line of people that leads to where Peg writes names up on the chalkboard. I am standing behind a man in a dull blue jacket and a hat, and his back is so high he blocks my view of everything. I feel like I’ve become a toddler in a room that dangles with meat hooks. Thomas Gratton roars to the crowd to stop smoking in the shop and men roar laughingly back at him about Thomas not being able to stand any heat near his meat.
I begin to feel uncertain, like I’m not sure I’m even supposed to be standing in the line. I think people are looking at me. I hear people at the counter placing bets. Maybe I’m wrong and this has nothing to do with signing up for the races. Maybe they won’t even let me sign up with Dove. The only positive thing is that I’ve lost Joseph Beringer in the process.
I step to the side of the giant in front of me to read the chalkboard again. At the top it says JOCKEYS and then, to its right, CAPAILL. Someone has written meat in small letters next to JOCKEYS. And then, beneath all of that, there is a gap, and then the names begin. There are more names under JOCKEYS than there are under CAPAILL. I feel like asking the mountain of a man in front of me why that is. I wonder if Joseph knows. I also wonder if Gabe has gotten home. And I wonder, too, if Finn has managed to work out how a bucket works yet. Mostly I can’t think about any one thing for too long.
And then I see him. A dark-haired boy who is made of all corners. He is standing next in line by the counter, silent and still in his blue-black jacket, his arms folded across his chest. He looks out of place and wild in here: expression sharp, collar turned up against the back of his neck, hair still windblown from the beach. He is not looking at anyone or away from anyone; he’s just standing there looking at the ground, his mind obviously far, far away from the butcher’s. Everyone else is being crowded and jostled, but no one crowds or jostles him, though they don’t seem to avoid him, either. It’s like he’s just not in the same place as the rest of us.
“Oh, Puck Connolly,” says a voice behind me. I turn and see an old man, not in line, just watching those of us who are. I think his name is Reilly, or Thurber, or something. I recognize him as an old friend of my father’s, one of those who’s old enough that he had a name but I never needed to know it. He’s a dry, crinkly thing, with wrinkles in his face deep enough for gulls to nest in. “What are you doing here on this night?”
“Meddling,” I answer, because it’s an answer that is difficult to argue with. I look back at the boy at the counter. He turns then, so he’s in profile, and suddenly, I think I know him from on the beach: the rider on the red stallion. Something about his expression and his wind-torn hair makes my heart go thump thump stop.
“Puck Connolly,” says the old man. “Don’t be looking at him like that.”
Such a statement is too tantalizing to ignore. “Who is he?”
“Lord, that’s Sean Kendrick,” the old man says, and I lift my eyebrows as I half remember hearing the name. Like a bit of history you’ve been told a few times in school but don’t quite need to recall. “No one better than him for knowing the horses. He rides every year and I reckon he’s the one to beat. Always is. But he’s got one foot on the land and one foot in the sea. You steer clear of him.”
“Of course I will,” I say, though I don’t know at the moment where I intend to steer. I look back to him, attaching the name. Sean Kendrick.
He steps up to the counter then, and Peg smiles at him very brightly — too brightly, I think, like she’s proving a point. I can’t hear what she says, but I can’t stop watching as he leans slightly toward her, uncrossing his arms to make some sort of small gesture with his fingers as he speaks. He has two fingers held up and he presses them against the surface of the counter, tapping them twice like he’s counting. I can tell that he, for one, is not in love with Peg Gratton. I wonder if it’s because he doesn’t know that she could cut his heart out neat or if he does know and is just unimpressed with the knowing.
Peg turns around with the chalk and stretches all the way up and I see now that the space just underneath JOCKEYS was left there intentionally, because she doesn’t hesitate as she writes Sean Kendrick at the very top of the list above everyone else. There are a few whoops from the crowd around me as she finishes writing his name. Sean Kendrick doesn’t smile, but I see him nod to her.