scorpiobird | [Practice Thread]

[Practice Thread]

It costs a lot of money to maintain a horse in Darrow, more than I expected. I thought it was hard on Thisby but at least no one was charging us on her lean-to. The money that comes each month isn't enough to pay for my apartment and Dove's stall at Villa Cordova. That's without her food, the costs of her veterinary care, or the new shoes the farrier put on her. No one cares here that she's the first normal horse to win the Scorpio Races.

People talk of things arriving from home sometimes and in the back of my mind, I can think of any number of things that I'd like to see arrive but the Races' purse is most prominent in my thoughts.

Until then, I work. I've sold some painted plates and teapots at the cat cafe but not enough. Computers, mysterious as they are to me, seem a requirement to getting real paid work around here, so I'm bound for the library with mine in my bag. Hopefully someplace quiet will help.

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"And I was feeling bad for missing a few weeks' confession," I say. It feels like smalltalk. I hate smalltalk and Sean's words are so clipped and efficient that there isn't any room for it but I don't quite know how to talk to Sean Kendrick about things that aren't the Scorpio Races and strategy. I don't know what dreams to promise him in this city.

I don't know how to ask for more kisses.

"There, I think it's that building with the lion sculptures."

"I know it's important to people." That seems a disingenuous thing to say, in the face of knowing that Puck has gone to confession. A part of me wants to ask if Puck attends a mass here in Darrow, but none of them would be the solemnity of Saint Columba. None of them will ever be Saint Columba. I've walked past those houses of worship, and they're - sterile. Even to me, with none of that faith.

We walk along in silence, a comfort to me and my inability to formulate my thoughts around Puck. When we reach the library, all I can do is shake my head a little bit.

"Do you think there are lions that come out of the woods or something?" I ask. Besides the library, there are statues with the beasts at City Hall as well. The sort of motifs that would have been horses on Thisby.

"Finn and Gabe were very grave about it." Both of my brothers had entertained the idea of being priests with some degree of seriousness. Gabe in word and deed and Finn in his careful and constant terror for the state of his immortal soul.

"I think that's the sort of question that's asking for trouble in this city." Darrow, I've learned in a short time, provides no lack of the magical and terrible but with less of the predictability we had learned on Thisby. I hope, at least for now, that the statuary is really just statuary.

"But not you." It's a question without the intonation of it. She's said she's gone to confession--or missed it, purposefully or otherwise--which would imply a certain gravity, but the lack of her own mention in being grave about it says otherwise. A mystery on top of all the other Kate Connolly mysteries.

I have a feeling, ascending the steps toward the library, that George Holly might be having a laugh if he could see the two of us.

"Oh, doubtlessly," I agree. "But at least it would be something, wouldn't it? I suppose Darrow's strange enough, having brought us here."

"Of the three of us, I was the horrible one," I say. Sean looks at me then and I feel a bit like what Peg Gratton says I'm not. I don't want to be a line of poetry that Sean can't decipher, a mountain he can't climb, because it seems to me that once you've figured out a way to do those things, you've no reason to stay. "I'm still the horrible one, if half of Skarmouth is to be believed."

Pushing past the door, I'm hit by the rush of cool air from the library. It's not the same as the cool damp of Thisby, but I'll take it over the heat.

"I'm not sure that's the kind of adventure that would suit us."

"Is that what they're calling it these days?" I ask, because nothing about Puck seems horrible at all these days. There was a time, that first day on the beach when I dove into the surf to deal with the capall that was going for her and Dove, that I thought unkindly of her. But that was my own horridness, and not hers.

"It's a good thing I don't listen to half of Skarmouth for their opinions." If I did, I would probably care a lot more, or a lot less, about some people I cared a lot less, or a lot more, about. But I rather like how much I care about the few people I care about.

The library has an oppressive silence, but I'll take that, and the cool, to be with Puck. It is rather nice, after all.

I wish I had Sean's economy with words that I could get away on half a dozen words to answer a question. Sean Kendrick is not Father Mooneyham and I don't need to tell him all my sins, even if I think that he could absolve me in half an hour on horseback, charging together until all I know is sea and wind.

As I find a table, I realize I'm still holding Sean's hand and it's reluctantly that I let go so we can sit. There's an airlessness here that feels like Saint Columba's in its quiet, even without long, lean statues of goggle-eyed men and horses to inspect my soul.

"I'm going to learn how to use this wretched thing," I say. "Or...Or I'll eat nothing but beans for a month." It's an awful threat, made more awful by the fact that if I remain jobless, it will come true.

When we settle at the table, I make a point of sitting beside her - but not too close - instead of across from her. I wasn't planning for this visit, so I haven't really got anything. And, besides, it will be a good learning experience for both of us. Probably.

Assuming we don't make complete arses of ourselves.

"Maybe one of the librarians can help? They seem to know a lot about these sorts of things, anyway."

"Probably," I say. Many of the staff here are sitting behind the computers as we speak, typing away as if it's the simplest thing in the world. I could ask for help. I should ask for help but the apparent ease of use makes me stubborn.

Reaching into my bag, I withdraw the small, flat computer and prop it open. "I've gotten as far as turning it on and that's about all," I admit, pressing the button.

I smile, very small, at the way that Puck's eyebrows come together as she looks at the librarians. It seems just as much a challenge to approach them for guidance as it was for us to create our understanding on the cliff overlooking the beach. But, for her, it may be just as vital, unless she wants to eat beans for a month.

"That's about as far as I've gotten as well," I admit softly, and shake my head. Her computer takes a moment to come to life, and we're both left momentarily staring at it. I end up snorting a laugh at how helpless we both are about this.

Sean Kendrick laughs so rarely that it catches me off-guard to hear him do something so common as snort. I laugh too, suddenly reminded that he's an odd man and an old one in a young skin but he's still a man as much as I'm a woman. Or almost one. We're human, the both of us.

"I'm going to find a book. At least I know how to use a library." Maybe the only library I've used is the school library in Skarmouth but how different can the sorting be?

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