A/N: I decided I just wasn't satisfied with my other epilogue. It was rushed and kind of a disaster, so I decided to rewrite it, and hopefully stay truer to the characters this time. I own nothing, because we don't always get what we want. Even one-word reviews make me happy, so let me know what you think. Happy reading!

"I'll come back next year and you'll have a nest of horses outside your window and Puck Connolly in your bed and I'll buy from you instead of Malvern. That's your future for you." –George Holly, The Scorpio Races

SEAN

It's been near to a year since I both lost and gained everything I ever wanted—Corr—and George Holly is not quite a fortuneteller.

It's October again, and Jonathon Carroll, despite his lack of brains, saw the first of the capaill uisce slide out of the water down on the southeastern beach just last night. It seems his eyesight is keener than his intelligence, and—though I would normally dismiss him—I believe him this time because Brian Carroll was there as well, and Brian is as solid and candid as the island, and I trust him more than most.

It's October, and Thisby is in a frenzy because I am not on that beach.

Corr stands beside me on the northwestern cliffs of the island, outside my father's house that I have made my own. It is small, made on sturdy, not elegant, lines out of old stone, and low to the ground as a defense against the unstoppable wind that carries in off the sea. The barn that stands next to the house fairly dwarfs it. It is not large either, but respectable, and two-toned where the weathered, older rock meets my recent additions. There's a small paddock growing out of the Thisby grass just to the side. It is big enough to hold twenty horses.

At present it houses four.

Corr, of course, as well as Holly's baby-maker, Finndebar—due to foal soon into the new year. There's a battered old gelding in the last stall on the left, sweet and docile and in love with Puck.

And Dove.

She prances in the corral, antsy and impatient for Puck. Dove's brush with the capaill last November has left its scars. There is a clear half circle of teeth marks on her left shoulder, and the hair of her poll grows crooked over a similar mark, but it is not fear in her eyes when she looks at Corr. And it's not hunger in his when he looks back.

Corr watches the island pony's antics with all the finesse of Finn Connolly staring after the cinnamon twists at Palsson's—an act that annoys Puck to no end. Dove arches and preens under his attention, and Corr stands taller, though his bad leg remains slack. I roll my eyes at both of them.

I've toyed with the idea of mating them, but I'd wait for spring, when November, and the madness it brings, is far away.

George Holly arrives on the ferry from the mainland today, and I'm to meet him in Skarmouth at midday. But it's early yet, and I have always liked the look of the strange time between dark and dawn on the water. It's passed now, and the fierce orange-red of the sunrise touches the ocean all over, turning the normally brown-black water the color of old blood.

Corr, too, is a more violent shade than usual, but there's no bloodlust in him, at least not yet. I won't let him become a monster while he's under my hands.

The sea crashes against the rocks hundreds of feet below us, and I whisper to Corr in an echo of the sound. His head swings sinuously around to peer at me with his sound left eye, although one ear is still pricked towards Dove. My hand traces counterclockwise circles over the veins of his shoulder and I murmur nonsense and dreams into his neck. Puck tells me that for all I am a practical sort of person I am half mad when it comes to Corr. I don't tell her she's right. I don't have to.

A gull cries overhead, and I stand there with Corr until the sun is well over the eastern horizon, painting our shadows on the ground, and my hands are numb with cold. I hear my stomach growl, and Corr nips at the tough grass and then my collar in warning.

I lead him into his stall, pausing to collect Dove as well, and give them both their feed. The scuff of my boots on the stone floor and the muted smack and grind of horses chewing are comforting accompaniments to my departure.

The house is a bare thirty yards from the barn, and constant treks back and forth have worn a path in the grass. The stone walls are mottled gray, and ivy creeps up the eastern side, touched gold and red by the sun. That, and the tufts of island grass that somehow don't clash with the gray, make the house seem as if it's grown right out of the rocky cliff. The door, oblivious to the muted colors around it, is painted a bright red.

And I remember a long, long time ago—under the faded paint—my father using a coarse brush to swipe blood around the outer edges of that door. For protection, he said, and every October he performed the ritual.

I draw a quick half circle in the soil with the toe of my boot and spit into the furrow. Corr keens contentedly in his stall.

I have never needed my father's brand of superstition.

Inside, the absence of the biting wind is welcome. The wooden floor creaks slightly under my boots as I shift and blow on my hands to warm them. The house is set so that walking through the front door puts you directly in the kitchen, and I move the few steps to put on the coffee. The door to the largest bedroom is cracked and I slip through, tugging off my jacket, which always seems to be dirty.

The room is cool, and I drape the offending article of clothing on a chair and turn.

George Holly is no oracle. There is no herd of horses outside my window for him to buy, but Puck Connolly Kendrick lies sleeping in my bed.

She is curled in a tight ball, and yet somehow spread across both sides of the mattress. Her head rests in the dip usually reserved for my shoulder, oblivious of pillows. Her hair is a tangled mass of reddish curls, lit with gold by the sunlight streaming through the window and draped over my side, and I know when I crawl in bed tonight my sheets will smell of her. Of sun and sea and something flowery and feminine.

I don't mind.

Puck's hand is the only part of her that lies out of the covers, and I sit gingerly on the bed so that it just brushes my hip. Her face is turned into the mattress, and her profile is soft and rosy against the white sheet—her high forehead, the slope and point of her nose, the stubborn tilt to her chin even in sleep. The sooty dark of her eyelashes sweep her cheeks, but the many freckles save her beauty from being unbelievable.

Something in me stretches and aches, and I cannot bear to touch her.

But her eyelids flutter and her hand curls and uncurls against my hip. When her eyes blink open there is no confusion, no need to orient herself.

We are both home.

The deep blue of her eyes disappears again as she squints at the sunlight.

"Morning," she croaks.

I hand her the glass of water from the nightstand. She props herself on one elbow and drinks gratefully.

"Dove wanted you this morning." It is not an accusation, only a statement.

She makes a dissatisfied noise in the back of her throat, but I know it's not me she's unhappy with.

"Couldn't seem to wake up. What time is it?" She gropes blindly for my watch but can't locate it.

"Sun's up," I answer.

She snorts. "I can see that. And what time is the ferry in? I told Dory Maud I'd mind the counter for an hour at lunch." She doesn't sound pleased about it.

I shrug and drape our one flannel robe over her still prone body. "Time enough for breakfast."

"Ah, hell," she groans, "I'm not cooking. I'm lazy and incompetent today, and if you say anything I'll bash you over the head with the skillet I'm not cooking with. What are we having?"

"Coffee." I push off the bed and slip out of the room while Puck's sense of responsibility does battle with her desire to stay where it's warm.

Responsibility wins by a sliver, and she emerges a few minutes later, red-nosed and tired-eyed, but dressed and alert.

I set a cup of coffee and a plate of cold leftover ham in front of her. Dory Maud wasn't wrong when she said neither of us is a housewife.

Puck doesn't complain, but she only picks at the meat and wrinkles her nose at the coffee.

"Any tea?"

I shake my head, and she sighs.

"I guess I'll get some in town today." I nod agreeably.

For the first time, I don't have to measure every precious penny before I spend it. We are not destitute. Puck works at Malvern's, but that is very different from working for Malvern, as, in her first month of employment, she managed to haggle a significant raise out of him. I think that he does not quite know what to do with her, and I think that Puck likes that he does not quite know what to do with her. I haven't any idea what to do with either of them so I steer well clear of the whole business.

In the last eleven months, I have trained other men's horses to take the bit and saddle. All the rich mainlanders and foreigners want their spoiled, showy mounts touched by Sean Kendrick, four-time winner and as close to the races they will ever get. I have the privilege of accepting only the horses I want to train, and that is something to be thankful for.

We have money enough for what we need. What we don't need we sometimes get anyway, as Finn apprentices at Palsson's and he keeps us in baked goods when he's feeling generous. By Thisby standards, we are practically wealthy, and I find myself both loving and hating the fact.

Puck slides what's left of her ham onto my plate, and I frown at her while she ignores me.

"We should get going. Dove is probably anxious to get out."

I say nothing, but move to place the dirty dishes in the sink, following her to the coat rack to shove into warmer clothing.

She pulls on a green scarf, one of my coats, and the lumpy brown and white hat she knitted herself. She looks ridiculous and beautiful at once, and I love her more than I should.

I reach out and tuck the scarf higher around her neck. She sends me a distant, distracted smile and sails out the door, and I'm left standing still in her wake with the stinging wind slapping me across the face.

PUCK

Skarmouth is abuzz with gossip and the strange accents of tourists. The town isn't crowded yet, but the streets are fuller than they should be, and loud enough that we tie Dove and the gelding I call Dobby behind Fathom & Sons instead of out front.

With a fleeting touch at my elbow, Sean is gone, down to the docks to stand in comfortable silence while the Carroll brothers talk at him as he waits for George Holly. I enter through the back of the store, listening to the argumentative rise and fall of the sisters' voices as I maneuver through the dusty boxes.

Dory Maud rails at her sister while Elizabeth attempts to escape up the stairs, shooting barbed comments over her shoulder all the while. Finn perches, wide-eyed, on a stool, munching silently on a cinnamon twist and probably thinking that if he stays still enough they won't notice him. He still wears his apron from the bakery, and the air around him smells of flour and heaven.

"Puck," Dory Maud says, as I emerge from the storage room, "Finally."

I scowl at her. I am thirteen minutes early, and I tell her so.

She waves a dismissive hand. "Watch the counter, will you, while I go sort out this business with Elizabeth and the printer." It is not a request.

Elizabeth slams a door upstairs, and Dory Maud frowns fiercely and mutters under her breath as she starts up the steps.

I look to Finn, who is wearing his frog face and pretending he doesn't know what's going on.

When both sisters are out of sight he shrugs. "Elizabeth jilted Mr. Davidge and he's refusing to run the catalogues," he explains.

I grunt noncommittally and take my place behind the counter with poor temper. Finn offers me a bite of his twist, but this close, the sweet and spice smell of the bread turns my stomach, and I shake my head.

He shrugs again, pleased that he has more for himself.

"How was the bakery?" I ask, since he's been kind today, and I don't wish to listen to the muffled argument going on upstairs.

His expression hardly changes, because Finn is not one to show too much happiness, but one side of his mouth quirks just the slightest bit and his eyes light.

"Tolerable," he says casually, licking frosting off his thumb. "Mr. Palsson let me do the cakes today. They're not bad."

I am impressed. Palsson's cakes are works of art, tiers and layers of intricate icing and sugary masterpieces, and if Finn did them they are doubly good. I make a note to take a look at them later.

"You're not wearing your riding breeches," he comments, meaning why weren't you at work today.

"Had the day off," I reply. "Mr. Holly is coming in around noon, and Malvern is distracted with the first of the mainland buyers." I don't add that I didn't wake until well past sun up.

Finn grunts. "Went to the post office this morning. Got a note from Gabe."

"What?" I squawk. "Why didn't you let me see it earlier?" I am patting his pockets in search of the coveted letter, and he swats at me irritably before plucking it out and handing it to me.

"You didn't ask," he answers, but I am not listening.

The letter—postcard, really—is predictably short, bearing the expected news that Gabe is fine and having as grand a time as can be had while simultaneously working two jobs. Normally my oldest brother's brevity irks me, but today I don't care because the last line takes my breath away.

"He's coming home?" I glance up at Finn, unbelieving.

Finn nods, the corners of his mouth dipping up and down as he tries not to grin. "For a visit," he reminds me.

I don't care. I don't care if Gabe stays for an hour or twenty years.

"At the end of the month," I sigh happily.

"In time for the races," Finn extrapolates, and there is a crease between his eyebrows. He hunches his shoulders, attempting to withdraw into his clothing in that strange way that he shares with turtles, and I notice that his too-big sweater is not quite so large on him as it was last year. It makes me sad in an odd, achy sort of way.

I am leaning on the wooden counter, perpendicular to Finn's perch on the stool, and I reach over and take his right hand. Gabe's letter crinkles between our palms and Finn's fingers are sticky with sugar, but the contact makes me feel not quite so guilty.

"I'm not competing," I remind him quietly.

He says nothing, but his grip on my hand tightens impossibly and the paper crackles loudly.

We are interrupted by the noisy reappearance of both Elizabeth and Dory Maud, still quarrelling.

"—just until he prints the catalogue," Dory Maud is saying exasperatedly and she and her sister stomp back down the stairs. "We need you to persuade him."

Elizabeth looses a surprisingly unladylike bark of laughter. "He's a toad. And it's not as if you aren't perfectly capable of persuading him yourself, sister."

I cringe at the unwelcome image Elizabeth's suggestive tone draws in my head and consider covering Finn's innocent ears.

"If you've quite finished," I interject, "I've got better things to do than gather dust back here."

The sisters turn their gazes on me, and I momentarily regret my decision. They are dragons, both of them.

Elizabeth huffs and Dory Maud claps her hands once loudly, startling all of us.

"There's work to be done, and the catalogues can wait," Dory Maud says without heat. "Finn Connolly, go wash your hands. I'll not have cinnamon fingerprints all over my shelves. Puck, come with me."

Finn and I separate. Dory Maud is excellent for dispersing sentimentality.

SEAN

George Holly, fresh off the ferry, is as impeccably dressed as ever. He wears a dark sweater, a flat cap, and impractically expensive shoes. I see that he already has mud—or manure, I correct when the wind shifts—tracked across the new leather and up the pressed lines of his slacks. I see also that he does not seem overly put out by this.

He moves with a jaunty, un-Thisby-like spring to his step—all islanders are firmly planted in the tough soil—and is already grinning at the way I stand, ignoring Jonathan Carroll, who chatters like a magpie in my ear about the capall he saw yesterday. I detach Jonathan with the ease of Corr flicking off a fly and move forward to take Holly's outstretched hand.

"Sean Kendrick." he says, as if my name is a sentence in and of itself. "How the devil are you?"

"Fair." I allow the left corner of my mouth to tic upwards.

His grin stretches. "So all's going swimmingly, then. And how's my lady Finndebar?"

"Also fair. She'll drop the foal come New Year's, give or take a week." Horses I am sure of.

"Excellent," he replies. "Where's the lovely Miss Connolly? I seem to remember you two were quite attached around this time last year."

I keep my face expressionless. "She's over at the store. It's Kendrick now."

"Oho!" he exclaims. "Gone and jumped ship, have you. Good man. When did this charming miracle of domesticity occur?" His tone is teasing and exuberant, but there's something in him that's honestly pleased for us, and I like him for it.

"First of August." We were married in the church in August, but I said my own vows to Puck long before, the day Corr followed her—and the apple in her pocket—along the cliffs, limping but without pain for the first time.

Holly fidgets, fingers twitching where they hang at his side. He at once reminds of a child—the big eyes and wondering smile staring after the quaint oddities of Skarmouth—and something much older. There's a certain age and hardness behind the marvel that makes him just as much a part of the island as I am.

My inspection of him registers the way his normally neat fair hair is mussed, the slight sheen of sweat that doesn't belong on this cool day. The restless movement of his fingers has transferred to his feet.

I frown at him.

"I—er," he coughs, a nervous sound. "I've brought you a…situation. Think of it as a wedding present of sorts."

The manure on his fancy shoes and the tension lines around his eyes make sudden sense.

"You've brought me a horse," I counter.

"Well, yes." He snorts. "I suppose if you can call Satan a horse—" But he is cut short by the splintering sound of wood shattering, trailed by shouts.

In front of us stands a demon.

The filly is seventeen hands if she's an inch, and blacker than sin. A groom holds her tenuously by her halter, but it is more that she allows him to clutch the lead as a mother allows a child to clutch her hand in a crowd. She hops once, forelegs lifting in warning, and the man jerks like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

There's a glint in her sloe-black eyes that is familiar and terrifying at once.

"She has uisce blood." It's not a question, but Holly answers anyway.

"A bit, yes. I bought her off a man who illegally exported and bred a capall stallion. The sire's dead, but the offspring…" he trails off.

I nod. Yes, I see it now. Her ears are unusually long and thin, and her mouth seems to grin at us. The sinuous way she moves is not all horse.

"She has more than most," I observe. I'd wager she's at least a quarter water horse.

Holly's mouth can't decide between a grin and a grimace.

"You're not wrong." He rubs his upper arm ruefully. "She took a bite out of me once, and she doesn't mind the taste of blood."

The filly has dragged the groom closer. Her legs are a dream, and I know she'll be fast, fast, fast.

"You don't want me to breed her." Not with I a speed that I know will at least come within spitting distance of rivaling Corr's, before his fall.

"Not this one. She likes the track, but she won't take the rider." He's moved to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me, so that we are both watching the she-devil.

"She won't run for me," he says quietly. "I think she will for you."

"What makes you so sure?"

He gives me a sidelong look that says I am a halfwit for asking.

"Because, Sean Kendrick, out of all the horse lovers I've met you're the first I've known to love the monsters more than the sweethearts."

I grunt noncommittally—though he's right—and study the filly. She's no beauty, but her lines are sound and picture perfect. Her face is nothing to look at, a sliver of off-center white giving her a garish, scarred look. Her nostrils are flared, but her eyes don't roll. She knows exactly the effect she's having on all of us.

Holly watches me watch his horse. "She's A Sure Bet out of Leviathan. I fancy she likes to be called Betty."

I take a single step forward. A Sure Bet bounces again, and I have all but forgotten the groom clinging for dear life to the lead.

I take pity on the man and relieve him of over a thousand pounds of horse. The filly stills, arching her neck and regarding me warily. The slightest bit of white shows around her eyes now.

I hold the lead in my right hand, and with the first two fingers of my left hand trace circles at the center of her chest as I would for Corr. She shudders once, but the mean doesn't leave her eyes.

"Ah, you know what you're about," I murmur, only for her. "Don't you, Betty? Bad, bad Betty."

The groom seems to have vanished, so I tug her forward. George Holly is beside me, silent for once.

"I'll take her. It's an hour to our place, and I'd not leave her in town for the morning. Not with so many people about."

He nods. "I'm staying at the hotel, but I have time enough to see what you've built for yourself. And to get her settled."

Good. "I'll need to tell Puck. Will you hold her?" What I mean is can he.

The grin is back. "I think I'll retire come the day I can't."

Betty has snaked her head towards my shoulder as we've been talking, and I pop the lead smartly before she can snap at me. She snorts and the surprise on her face is almost human.

Holly laughs, and I hand him the rope. "You've met your match now, Betty, my dear. She's like to either hate or love you, Mr. Kendrick, and nothing in between."

That pleases me. "I don't do things by halves, Mr. Holly."

He laughs again, startled and delighted. "And that's what I pay you for."

So it is. Leaving Holly standing by the roadside, holding a dangerous thoroughbred and looking half demented with the grin on his face, I start up the road in search of my wife.

PUCK

By the time my hour in Fathom & Sons is almost up, I am tired, sweaty, dusty, and ready to murder both Dory Maud and Elizabeth, and maybe Finn as well.

Dory Maud because she has me lifting and scooting boxes until the end of time it seems, Elizabeth because Dory Maud is not the only one her barbed tongue catches, and Finn because of the annoying way he slurps his tea and watches without interfering on my behalf.

We are in the back room, and Finn brings us a tray of tea and biscuits before retreating prudently into the kitchen. I blow stray curls away from my face, only to have them fall back into place, and take a seat on a convenient crate.

The sisters pour tea, and offer me a cup. I accept the beverage but decline when the biscuit plate is extended. My stomach churns at the scent, though there's barely anything in it by now.

Dory Maud raises her eyebrows, as I've never been known to turn down anything sweet.

"Hasn't been sitting right lately," I say shortly. "I think I may be getting the flu."

The sisters' gazes clash in a sharp, knowing look that I don't like. The feeling that they are having a full conversation with only their eyes rankles me.

"Oh, yes," says Elizabeth, "I hear sickness is quite common in married women."

I frown, but before I can say anything the bell in the shop jingles. Knowing Finn won't emerge from his refuge in the kitchen, I put the sisters' strangeness out of my mind and wind through the shelves to the main store area.

I'm in no temper to deal with a customer, so I'm relieved when it's Sean I find, standing uncomfortably next to the wooden fertility goddess sitting by the front door. He eyes her outstretched arm with suspicion.

"Sean Kendrick," Dory Maud states, as she and Elizabeth enter behind me. There's something almost smug about her tone, which surprises me because, while she and Sean are cordial, they are not overly warm towards each other. "Come to steal my worker, have you?"

He nods politely. There's almost a smile on his mouth when he turns to me, and a half wild glint in his eyes that tells me George Holly is not the only thing to step off the ferry this morning.

Something in me flutters in response. I turn back to the sisters. "Do you need anything else moved?"

"Oh, no, dear," Elizabeth says gleefully, "we wouldn't want you to overexert. Do be careful on the ride home."

Neither of them has been concerned for my health a day in my life, and I don't think I like the way it sits on them. But Sean tugs at my hand, and I call a hasty goodbye to Finn—the coward—still in the kitchen before I am stuffed into my coat and we are out the door.

"Where's the fire?" I ask breathlessly as we retrieve Dove and Dobby and merge into the straggly stream of natives and tourists tramping through the dust.

He shoots me a quelling look over his shoulder, but doesn't loose his grip on my hand.

"There's a horse," he says. I roll my eyes, because of course there is a horse.

"And?"

"She's near to a quarter capaill, and mean with it," he elaborates. "He wants her to race."

Oh. My eyes widen, and I put my feet quicker after the path of Sean's.

George Holly waits with a giant of a filly.

She's not much to look at, but I can tell that she likes to run, and I want my hands on her and the wind behind us. The thought feels like a bit of a betrayal to Dove, and I remind myself that she is part water horse as I run my fingers through Dove's mane in apology.

George Holly's face lights at the sight of us.

"Puck Connolly—pardon me, Kendrick—queen of the Scorpio Races. May I congratulate you on your recent marriage?" He's boyish and teasing despite his age in a way that would normally annoy me, but somehow makes me smile instead.

"You may," I reply. "No American sweethearts with you? You know Annie is still single, and the sisters don't forget," I warn him.

He grins. "Ah, but I've brought this lovely lady with me this year." He removes his fingers from the horse's neck before she decides to take them off with her teeth. "And a fine companion she is. Puck Kendrick, meet my Betty. A Sure Bet, but she's not yet given me reason to think she deserves it."

The filly and I study each other. "You'll break hearts with this one, I think."

"I hope so." He smirks.

I harrumph. Sean remains silent, but I can feel his impatience, his eagerness to work and touch and understand her.

"Shall we go, then?" I propose. "It's cold about, and we're gathering eyes." It's true. Sean and I are not the most inconspicuous of characters, even with our races near to a year gone.

Sean offers me a leg up, and I mount Dove. He and George Holly opt to stay on foot. Sean takes Betty's lead like he just can't help himself.

We begin the long walk to the northwestern cliffs in comfortable silence.

George Holly, in my experience, has never been one to let the dust settle in peace, but he doesn't seem inclined to his regular cheerful narrative now. Instead, he is watching Sean watch the filly. I can't blame him.

My husband and walks ahead with Betty, boots placed with easy, efficient steps, not one to waste time or energy. No noise passes between them, Sean does not so much as touch the skittish animal, but there is a connection all the same. It's in the set of his head, that tilt that perfectly mirrors Corr's when he's near the sea. It's in the sedate roll of her eyes, curious but calm enough for now.

There's something intimate about the scene, and I am suddenly uncomfortable with looking and with having Holly look. Sean will never shut me out, but there are times, like when I come upon him with Corr, not even speaking, just being, that are too private and it is easier to slip quietly away before either of them take notice.

"Are you planning on staying into the New Year, Mr. Holly?" I ask.

Holly startles, as if awakened from a dream, but smiles at me. There is something left over in his eyes from watching Sean that I am not quite easy with. If I didn't know better I might say it was envy.

"No, my dear," he answers me. "While I enjoy your home and its, ah, charming inhabitants, I find California more to my speed. I'll come back in the spring, when my investments have reached fruition."

I hum in acknowledgement and Sean ignores us completely.

"And you, Mrs. Kendrick?" Holly inquires. "I hear that you rule Malvern stables with a sharp tongue and an iron fist."

"I see you've been talking to the rabble again," I reply haughtily. "Benjamin Malvern pays me a fair wage, and I give him more than reason to continue doing so." I pause. "I don't tolerate incompetence or laziness, a concept that seems beyond several of Malvern's former employees."

Holly's eyes shine with humor. "Good girl," he praises me. "At that rate you'll have run of the place within the year."

I scowl good-naturedly. "I don't mean to have run of it. If I'd wanted a business, I'd have started one myself. It's simply a pastime."

"I see," Holly muses. "You've got the Races in your blood, the both of you. I suppose civilian life is a tad unexciting when you've faced down the reaper and all that."

My stomach lurches in the way that—recently at least—precedes a rather unpleasant episode of retching. I ignore the way my heart flutters in response to Holly's accusation.

The Races were the worst time of my life, but there is something in me that aches for the feeling of flying down that stretch of sand, avoiding the snap of flat teeth and the promise of hungry eyes.

I breathe evenly through my nose, the chilly air settling my insides. "The Races were…a means to an end," I say carefully. "I won't put any of us through that again."

Holly studies me, nods. "I believe you. And I'm glad."

Sean does not turn around, but I know he has heard us. The line of his back is straight and hard, and Betty begins to fidget with the tension she feels through the rope.

"Our racing days are finished," I state, and I almost believe myself.

I wonder if Sean can hear the want in my almost-truth.