It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.
Even under the brightest sun, the frigid autumn sea is all the colors of the night: dark blue and black and brown. I watch the ever-changing patterns in the sand as it’s pummeled by countless hooves.
They run the horses on the beach, a pale road between the black water and the chalk cliffs. It is never safe, but it’s never so dangerous as today, race day.
This time of year, I live and breathe the beach. My cheeks feel raw with the wind throwing sand against them. My thighs sting from the friction of the saddle. My arms ache from holding up two thousand pounds of horse. I have forgotten what it is like to be warm and what a full night’s sleep feels like and what my name sounds like spoken instead of shouted across yards of sand.
I am so, so alive.
As I head down to the cliffs with my father, one of the race officials stops me. He says, “Sean Kendrick, you are ten years old. You haven’t discovered it yet, but there are more interesting ways to die on this beach.”
My father doubles back and takes the official’s upper arm as if the man were a restless horse. They share a brief exchange about age restrictions during the race. My father wins.
“If your son is killed,” the official says, “the only fault is yours.”
My father doesn’t even answer him, just leads his uisce stallion away.
On the way down to the water, we’re jostled and pushed by men and by horses. I slide beneath one horse as it rears up, it’s rider jerked at the end of the lead. Unharmed, I find myself facing the sea, surrounded on all sides by the capaill uisce - the water horses. They are every color of the pebbles on the beach: black, red, golden, white, ivory, gray, blue. Men hang the bridles with red tassels and daisies to lessen the danger of the dark November sea, but I wouldn’t trust a handful of petals to save my life. Last year a water horse trailing flowers and bells tore a man’s arm half from his body.
These are not ordinary horses. Drape them with charms, hide them from the sea, but today, on the beach: Do not turn your back.
Some of the horses have lathered. Froth drips down their lips and cheeks, looking like sea foam, hiding the teeth that will tear into men later.
They are beautiful and deadly, loving us and hating us.
