The night sea is cold and dark and restless, pulling at my legs, urging me deeper while the shifting sand slowly swallows my feet. I shiver involuntarily against the merciless wind but I don’t move. I am listening. Listening for what, I’m not entirely sure. This is the third night I have come out here, searching for answers that I’m not certain exist.
Connan, the old Thisby priest, told me not to come back to Tolla until I’d heard what the sea was asking of me. He claims that I need direction, which I think really means that he’s just annoyed that I keep losing track of all our sheep. But really, how was I supposed to know that becoming an initiate with the Thisby priests meant that I would be minding sheep all day? I haven’t the patience for it. My mother always said I had a gull’s heart, never content to stay in one place for too long. My mind is always wandering and the next thing I know, half the sheep have disappeared or mingled with Hammond’s flock or been snatched by one of the capaill uisce.
The thought of the water horses draws my attention back to the sea. The water is restless and one of the horses could be just below the surface, waiting to pull me under. There’s no way to tell for sure though, so I just listen. Shhhhhhh. Shhhhhhh. Nothing. So I decide to risk it. I close my eyes and listen to the sea. If one of capaill does decide to take me, at least I won’t have to watch any more mindless sheep.
The current pulls and pushes against me but I don’t let myself move. My feet are numb and that numbness is crawling up my calves, so I imagine that I am one of the black rocks that jut from the ocean like teeth. Solid. Immovable. The waves pound against the shore in a rhythm that almost sounds familiar. I imagine that I am melting, no longer a rock but part of the current drifting further and further from this island until I surround it. Changeable. Eternal. The pounding of the waves grows louder, a ceaseless rhythm that reverberates through my head.
Hoof beats.
I open my eyes and am momentarily disoriented to find that I am neither the sea nor the rocks, but a boy. I turn to the shore, expecting to see one of the hungry capaill uisce, but it is empty. My eyes scan the darkness, searching for movement in the diluted light of the moon off the wet sand.
Nothing.
Shhhhhhh. Shhhhhhh.
My legs are numb past my knees and I have stood here too long already but I wait another moment and then another, straining to grasp some meaning from the ocean’s endless lullaby. But if she is asking anything of me, I don’t have the ears to hear it. Slowly, I drag myself from the water and stumble up the beach, picking my way over spiny urchins and blood red jellies that glisten in the meager light.
Still the waves pound in a mimicry of hoof beats, setting my pulse racing. I am nearly to the cliffs when I see it. A gray stallion emerging from one of the sea caves carved into the gray rock. I freeze but it must smell me on the wind because he turns and looks right at me. His nostrils flare and I can see the red of them, even from here. He is terrible and beautiful and I feel myself drawn to him even as I hate him. Every story I have ever heard about the capaill uisce is galloping through my mind. How they were born of Epona, crafted of sea foam and whale’s bone, and how Lir pulled them into the sea out of jealousy. I remember all the legends my mother told me, our fire casting macabre shadows over her face and my father scolding her, saying she was filling my head with nonsense. He must have believed at least a little though, because he hung iron bells on red string above the doorway of our small stone hut and always insisted I carry a handful of holly berries in my pocket.
They say if you can catch one of the capaill uisce and bring it inland, feed it flesh and make it forget the siren song of the sea, that they will carry you faster than the wind has ever dreamed of racing. Hardly anyone on the island has actually ridden one though. The capaill are sacred, wicked and clever, they are not an ordinary mount. They choose the rider as much as any rider could choose the horse.
Mostly though, I remember the image of my mother laughing wildly on the back of a storm gray stallion as he carried her into the sea.
The waves canter against the shore and I take a single step forward though I am uncertain of its purpose. The gray stallion charges forward and suddenly my pulse and the waves and his hoof beats are all one and then he is charging past me and leaping back into the sea. I stand there for a long time, waiting for my pulse to slow but it doesn’t.
The priestesses of Epona say that a capall caught at night is the fastest, but they also warn that a capall caught in the rain wants to stay wet. I have no desire to drink the sea, so I wait one day and then two until the storm passes. That night, beneath the sharp smile of a starving moon I go down to the beach and wait for one of the horses.
I had returned to Tolla three days before and told Connan about the storm gray capall and what the ocean was asking of me. He had shaken his head and said I was a fool but he also didn’t try to stop me. I am not the only one the ocean has lured with the capaill uisce. Ronan, an older initiate, and Tor, a village boy, claim the sea has asked it of them as well. By the end of the week, three more men from the village and an older Thisby priest have all been summoned by the sea. I’m not sure how much I believe them, but it is something of a comfort to know others are out here on the beach courting death as much as I am.
Perhaps we are all just fools.
But I can feel the ocean’s approval in the way the waves beat the sand, a cacophony of hoof beats ringing out against the shore. I wonder, as I shiver out on this cold rock, whether the gray stallion that was on the beach was the same one that coaxed my mother away from her family, her life, and carried her into the unforgiving sea. I wonder whether he will come for me as well.
I have three iron beads laced onto a piece of red string and a lump of dusty white chalk, a meager handful of weak magic to protect me against that of the capaill uisce. I slip my hand into my pocket and roll a holly berry between my fingers. I’ve never been able to shake the habit of carrying them, even after I left my father’s house.
An unsettled splash echoes in the darkness, jerking me back to the present. It is dangerous to have a wandering mind here, on the brief gasp of shore that is almost swallowed by the high tide. As I watch the tumble of waves, I catch sight of the arch of a dark neck cresting out of the water and in the same breath slipping back beneath the shifting darkness. I can almost convince myself that I imagined it, but my heart races in my chest and I know that I didn’t.
I hold my breath and listen but I can’t hear anything over the ceaseless murmur of the sea. Then I see the neck arch again and the water horse is heaving itself from the ocean, shaking sea foam from its dark mane. I tighten my grip on the length of rope I’d brought, thinking it’d be enough to restrain one of the capall. It seems an optimistic thought now with one of the horses before me. But there’s nothing else for it, so I creep towards one end of the rock I crouch behind and wait as the capall walks towards me.
The wind is in my favour and the water horse is two arms’ lengths away when I make my move. I throw a handful of chalk into the horse’s face so it is looking at the land and not the sea. Then it is biting sand, sharp teeth, a horse’s scream, my pulse rushing through my ears, and always the hoof beats of the waves upon the shore. I have never been this close to one of the capaill. I think I will be lucky if I come out of this alive.
I do not remember how we get to the top of the cliffs, only that the capall fights me the whole way and when we reach the top Connan is there waiting for me, a stern look and another length of rope in his hands. I am ashamed and relieved that he has come to help me. I do not know that I would have made it on my own.
Connan throws his own rope deftly around the capall’s head in a mockery of a halter. He is confident and sure as he leads the capall and I wonder for the first time whether the old Thisby priest has ever ridden one of the horses. Together we lead the capall to an old stone barn built to house sheep in the winter. After we shut the horse inside and bolt the door, Connan turns to me.
“Fool boy,” he snaps, “what were you thinking trying to catch one of the capaill alone? I’d half a mind to let her kill you and the sea swallow you both just to teach you a lesson.”
I bow my head, duly ashamed, but I think I catch a glint of respect in the older man’s eye.
The next morning, I bring a leg of mutton down to the barn for the capall. I ease the door open, a trident carved of ash wood in my free hand to push the horse back if need be. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness of the barn and my pulse gallops at my momentary blindness. The barn stinks like the ocean and things too long from the tide. When I can properly see again, my eyes are drawn to the capall staring at me warily from the back corner.
She is a beautiful blue roan mare.
She lets out a scream and charges at me, untamable and hungry as the ocean.
I throw the leg of mutton at her and slam the door closed again. I listen as she lets out a wuff of breath on the other side of the door. There’s a pause and then the unmistakable sounds of tearing flesh.
