The Scorpio Races by Stiefvater Maggie

Author:Stiefvater, Maggie [Stiefvater, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780545388276
Publisher: Scholastic Books
Published: 2011-10-17T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

PUCK

I don’t bother tacking up Dove on Sunday after church. Everyone and their grandpa will be tacking up their capaill uisce after they get out of Mass, and I think it might be a good opportunity to learn something about my competition. I’ll bring Dove up to the cliffs this evening, maybe, after she’s had the day to eat expensive hay and get used to the idea of being fast.

I leave Finn and Gabe alone back at the house — Gabe came to service with us, though he looked at his watch and left halfway through, which made Father Mooneyham stare first at him and then at us. Father Mooneyham’s homilies are not generally painful, but you’re meant to suffer through them nonetheless. If your leg falls asleep, you don’t move. If the tea you drank before Mass has you dreaming of toilets on the way to Damascus instead of epiphanies, you pinch and burn and bear it. If you are Brian Carroll and you have been night fishing, you tip your head back so that holding your eyes open is not such an impossible task.

You don’t get up and leave. But Gabe did. And then Beech Gratton did as well. If Tommy Falk hadn’t been too pretty to come to church in the first place, I’m sure he would’ve left, too.

And now I definitely need to go to confession because I’ve not only thought dark things about my brother, I’ve thought them while in Mass. It is slightly uncomfortable to know that if I die in the next few hours, I’ll go to hell, but I have to get outside before the tide comes in and all the riders disappear.

Anyway, all of that seems far away when I’m out on the cliffs above the racing beach. Because though I don’t want to ride on the windy cliffs, I don’t mind sitting on them. I trudge out with a pack on my back made of a wool blanket gathered into a pouch, and when I get there I release its contents on the ground and find myself a secure perch close to the edge where I can see the training down below. I wrap the blanket around my shoulders, take a sip of tea from my thermos, and start on one of the November cakes. I heated three of them in the oven this morning along with some stones, and now the stones have kept them nice and hot. I’m feeling quite virtuous and useful as I take out my paper and pencil and the stopwatch that Finn found for me. If I sit here long enough, surely the horses will give up their secrets. I want to know how fast they cover the ground, and then I plan to take Dove over the same stretch and time her as well. If I know what my handicap is, maybe I can prepare better.

I’ve been sitting for about ten minutes when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.