by Jd Field
Chapter 5: Sea Raven
The chestnut horse’s eyes rolled and its enormous hooves rang on the country road. It passed between the dogs and turned next to me as I sprawled against the hedge.
Eddy bent from the saddle. “Come closer!” he commanded.
I did as he said. He leaned nearer, grabbed me under my arms and with incredible strength lifted me into the saddle in front of him.
I slumped backwards against his chest, wide and solid. “Oh thank you. Eddy.” He smelled of cut grass. My head spun as if I was about to faint.
“Sit up straight!” He pushed the reins into my hands and scissoring his legs behind him, Eddy jumped down from the horse. He stood in the road, wearing faded jeans, battered riding boots and an old white shirt, worn to threads and pills at the collar. Sleeves rolled up to the elbow, the shirt exposed the golden skin of his thick wrists and forearms.
Growling, the dogs circled him. The big black one sprang forward and Eddy twisted sideways. Faster than I could see, he caught its collar as it leaped past him. The dog hung in the air for a moment before dropping to the ground. It growled, teetering on its hind legs and suspended from its collar, held in Eddy’s huge right hand. Muscles stood out from his tanned forearm. With his left hand he unbuckled his belt and pulled it free, then looped it through the dog’s collar and back into the buckle.
The horse stamped and sidled. Eddy looked up. “Steady Boxer!” His eyes met mine. “Pull back hard on the reins. He’s so strong that otherwise he won’t know you’re there.”
I hauled on the reins and the horse stilled. Its neck, thick as a tree trunk, arched as it eyed the two, loose dogs.
“Come here!” Eddy commanded them. They growled. He advanced on the pair of dogs, hauling the black one after him. They snapped at him. Again he moved fast as light. Darting forward he grabbed the second dog by the scruff of the neck and lifted it off the ground. He laced the belt through a second collar and dropped the dog to the road. The two dogs were squashed together at the neck and whimpered.
“Shut up!” Eddy snapped. “I’m taking you home.” He turned to me. “Do you want to wait here, while I take the dogs? I know old Naylor, the farmer. I’ll tell him his gate needs fixing.”
I blinked, trying to reconcile this commanding, capable figure with my quiet, aloof classmate. “Um, what about the horse?”
“He knows the gate’s broken too, but he’s not so good at expressing himself.”
“Eddy!”
“He might decide he wants to come with me, of course. But I don’t think he likes the dogs.” He raised his voice. “Boxer! Go and stand on the verge.”
I swayed from side to side as Boxer did as he was told. Sitting in his saddle was like lurching around on the seat of a rowboat in the middle of a storm at sea. He stepped onto the grass, and lowered his head to snack on it. Eddy jogged down the road with two of the dogs stumbling beside him and the third trailing behind. With his free hand he hauled up his sagging jeans, missing a belt. I put my hand to my throat. I had always thought London included in its sprawling, sparkling metropolis everything a girl could need. I had been wrong.
He laced his belt into his jeans as he came back. I looked down at him. “Eddy, I don’t know what to say. I should do something to repay you.”
“No need.” His voice had lost the snap of command, but it still carried deep and clear. “Just looking out for a damsel in distress.” He held up his hands and I placed mine into them. It felt like leaning my palms onto the branch of a tree, hard and strong. I pulled one leg over Boxer’s rump, then Eddy swung me down.
I gazed into his beautiful, leonine features. “But seriously...” For a moment I was even prepared to risk the secrets of Chalice Drive. “Do you want a cup of tea, or something? Um, my Mum’s got cakes.”
He smiled and looked at his watch. “No, I can’t. I’ve got stuff to do. Boxer should be home for his supper in, like, five minutes ago.”
My Mum’s got cakes? Was I eight years old? “Okay.” I stroked Boxer on his silky nose. “This is an astonishing horse.” The lowest point in his curving back was higher than the top of my head. “How tall is he?”
“Nineteen hands, six feet at the shoulder.”
“Thanks Boxer.”
Eddy sprang back into the saddle. “You’ll be okay on your bike?”
“Um.” I struggled to adjust, as the scene faded to normality. “I’ll be fine. See you tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yep.”
“Maybe we could...”
The clatter of Boxers hooves drowned me out, then he and Eddy were gone. I stared down the road. “And why don’t you talk to me in school? What’s going on with you?”
I pedalled the rest of the way home trying to make sense of Eddy Moon. I had never seen or heard him and Boxer on that road or in the adjoining fields. What was he doing there?
The next day I waited for him outside the history classroom. He never appeared. I spent the lesson and the evening at home remembering how he looked facing the dogs in the road. How it felt when he lifted me onto the horse. My hands in his when he swung me down. I stared out the window and the weird bird in the tree squawked at me, but all I saw was the confidence and courage in Eddy Moon’s beautiful face.
The day after I looked for him everywhere. Where did he hide? I roamed the corridors, peering through the doors of empty classrooms. A couple of times I asked people. “Have you seen Eddy Moon? A new boy.”
Nobody knew who he was.
I lurked in the car park and looked through gym windows. Apart from history, I didn’t know what courses he had chosen, and as I stomped along a path between two rugby pitches I wondered if history could be his only class.
“Maddie!”
I turned at the call. Pippa hurried along the path toward me, her riding helmet in one hand. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing. Just, getting some fresh air.”
She hooked her arm into mine. “Really? Are you okay?”
“I”m fine. Where are you off to?”
She waved her helmet towards the barn ahead of us. “Stables. I’ve got a quick training session. More so the horse doesn’t forget who I am than for anything else.”
“Can I watch?”
She screwed up her face. “Do you really want to?”
“Nothing else to do.”
“Ok.”
We walked into the barn side by side, until I stopped dead.
Pippa looked back at me. “What?”
At the far end of the barn Eddy Moon swept the floor. He wore overalls but his school collar and tie showed at his throat. I should have known. Horses.
“What’s he doing here?”
“Oh him. He’s here quite a lot, break time and lunch and stuff. Bit weird, if you ask me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Really?” Why hadn’t she told me? “Where are you going to be doing your riding?”
“The south ring. Just through there.” She pointed at a side door.
“Ok. I’ll be there in a minute.”
She shrugged. “All right.”
I couldn’t help calling out as I hurried between the stalls. “Eddy!”
He looked up, then his eyes flickered around the building. I could have sworn he was looking for a way out.
“Eddy, I haven’t seen you since, since, you know. Is everything okay?”
He looked down at his heavy knuckles around the broom handle. His tawny hair slid forward and hid his face. “Course. Everything’s normal. Sorry Madeleine I gotta...” He half turned.
“You didn’t go to history.”
“Yeah. Um...” His cheeks flushed pink. “Did I miss anything?”
I had spent the whole lesson thinking about the broad golden space at his collarbone where his white shirt opened a button lower than was seemly. “Can’t remember. What are you doing?”
“Helping out and now...” He stepped away.
I followed him. “Why?”
Finally I got my reward. He pu
shed his hair out of his face and his luminous beauty shone down on me. “I like it here. You know. I don’t know many kids at the school, but I like horses, so...”
“How’s Boxer?” I screwed my eyes shut for a moment, unable to believe I had asked such a stupid question.
Eddy grinned. His shoulders - which I realised he had been hunching slightly - relaxed. “He’s fine. Supper was a bit late, which annoyed him, but he took it out on his mates, not me. So that’s alright.”
“Cool.” This was how to talk to Eddy Moon. “I love Boxer.”
His smile widened, giving his face a new, younger look. “Did you tell your parents about what happened?”
I shook my head.
He moved the broom slightly, shifting wisps of straw. “Why?”
“There’s only my Mum and me.” My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe what I had just said. Exposing the smallness and narrowness of my tiny family always terrified me. I didn’t know why. “I don’t want to worry her.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. Are you a swimmer?”
I winced at the apparent randomness of the question. Those damn shoulders of mine giving me away again. “Yep. You?”
“Can’t swim for toffee.”
“What about you? Did you tell your parents about the dogs?” I wondered if he was going to join me in the honesty game.
“I’ve only got a foster father. I call him my uncle. I told him Naylor’s dogs got out.”
“But not about me?” I widened my eyes at him.
Eddy began sweeping more seriously, and his hair hid his face again. Damn it. Talking to him was like trying to coax a baby animal to eat from your hand.
“Yeah, that makes sense.” I tried to wipe all flirtation from my face and voice. “It wasn’t a big thing anyway.”
He nodded. A gust of wind rattled the barn’s tin roof, like applause.
“Oh God.” I searched for a change of subject. “The weather’s getting worse.” I moved towards the big doorway and looked out across the fields. “Did you know that when I was a kid I thought Somerset was called Somerset because we used to come here in the summer holidays?”
Eddy laughed and took a couple of strides after me. I sighed with relief.
“You were almost right,” he said. “The name came thousands of years ago, before Somerset was drained. Through the winter high tides and rain flooded all the land below sea level, so the county became just a scattering of islands. In the summer, though, the water retreated and it became a land of orchards and fish-filled lakes. People poured in, taking advantage of its riches and beauty until autumn forced them back in the face of the sea.”
“Wow.” I stared at him. “I know you kicked ass at that Napoleon essay, but I didn’t realise you were such a history expert.”
He waved a hand towards the green-spread landscape. “I love it here. I think it’s the most beautiful place in the world.”
I considered smart retorts. How would he know? Where had he been? I bit them back. “Hey, look at that bird!” A black creature, like the demon-winged crow that haunted Chalice Close, perched in a tree above a hockey pitch. “What is it?”
Eddy frowned. “It’s a, a what do you call it? A sea raven.” He looked at his watch. “I have to get changed.”
“You have a lesson now?”
He nodded. “Politics.”
“Politics? What? Why...”
He bit his lip. “I’m sorry. I really have to go.”
“Ok. Um, see you later.”
Outside rain fell, and I hurried through it, skipping every third stride. I was in such a good mood that I didn’t even seem to get wet. In physics I tried to look apologetic while I grovelled to Pippa for not watching her, but struggled to keep a huge grin off my face.
The next day I went back to the barn at morning break. No sign of Eddy. I thought again of the shy baby animal, so went back to the Logres common room to gossip with Sarah about the Camelot party. Though sometimes when I talked to her it was like watching myself from outside my body, like a robot on autopilot, still I kind of liked it. Talking to Sarah resembled listening to cheesy pop music.
I left Eddy until the afternoon break of the next day, then went to find him in the barn. He sat in a small side room, rubbing oil into a saddle.
“Hi,” I said. “Have you seen Pippa?” I doubted he would have, as she was in her study doing English homework.
He shook his head. “No, sorry.”
“Did you say hi to Boxer for me?”
He smiled. “Actually, yes I did.”
I blushed. Oh my God. He talked to his horse about me. I wasn’t sure what that meant. I would have to analyse it, but I was fairly certain it was good news. I moved onto my next trick, which I was particularly proud of. “Um, I was going to ask Pippa to look at my history. The reasons for the English Civil War. I don’t suppose, as she’s not here, that you would?”
Eddy put down his oily rag and used another one to wipe his big hands. “Sure.”
“How come you’re so good at history?” I fumbled in my bag for my essay. “You read about it outside of class? Or talk about it?”
“I’m interested, I suppose. And yeah, my foster father always talks about it. At dinner and stuff. He drums it into us.”
I handed him my essay. “You and Kieran?”
His head dropped and the beautiful face disappeared. I bit my lip, then gabbled as he read. “My Mum’s not so big on history. She’s into psychology and stuff. I guess. I mean, maybe my father was a history nut. I don’t know.” My face burned. I couldn’t believe the information that poured out of my mouth when I was alone with Eddy Moon.
He looked up. “You never met your father?”
“Nope. He was American. Him and Mum split up before she knew she was pregnant and he disappeared. She could never find him.” I held my breath. What would he say?
Eddy nodded and looked back at my essay.
I picked at a fingernail. The room smelled of leather and horses. Eddy seemed to be getting to the end of my work.
He handed it back to me. “It’s really good. I mean, I focused more on the individuals and less on social trends, but that’s just my way of doing it.”
I nodded. “Um, you don’t think it’s bad that...”
He looked at me expectantly.
“That I don’t know my father?”
He smiled. “I thought you were going to ask about your spelling or something. Of course not. Everybody’s life is different. Do you think it’s bad that you don’t know your father?”
“Well, I know he was from New York and his name was Jared Kennedy. Though actually Mum thinks either of those two facts may just have been part of the truth. Maybe he was Turkish, or Italian, Greek or Persian.”
“See, I think that’s actually cool.”
I nodded. “It might be. I went through phases of lying in bed and saying his name to myself. I decided tons of times to track him down when I was old enough. Most of the time, though, I thought it would be too much trouble. Mum’s enough for me.”
I couldn’t stop myself. I was telling him my secrets to try and enforce closeness. With each word I knew I made myself more vulnerable, but there was nothing I could do. I tried for balance. “What about you?”
“Well. It sounds like your Mum’s great, so yeah.” He picked up the oily rag and returned to the saddle.
“No...” There was no point. I held up the essay. “Thanks for looking at this.”
“No problem.”
I gave him another day’s peace. Our conversation had given me plenty to mull over, even though Eddy hadn’t really contributed to it. Still, he hadn’t run out for the barn, screaming, and that had to be a good thing.
On Friday, when I returned to the barn I couldn’t find him. Saturday morning school whizzed past with no opportunity for an Eddy hunt and I spent the afternoon alternating between trying to do homework and fretting about the party.
Mum dropped me off at Logres at ten past nine. I w
ore the one good dress in my closet. In a way I was disappointed I had to use up its gunpowder so quickly. Calvin Klein, black, with spaghetti straps, it minimised the resemblance between my shoulders and a man’s. Standing beside the car I draped a glossy, dark chocolate shawl around my arms and across my back. Once everybody at Levels had seen the dress I would have to get another. Not the worst kind of outcome.
In the darkness the roads and paths of Levels were punctuated by beautiful, wrought iron street lamps, and lights shone down the stone faces of boarding houses and school offices. The campus looked more like a genteel county town than a school.
Sarah was waiting for me in the common room. “Oh my God Maddie you look amazing!”
“Thank you.”
“When’s he coming? I can’t believe you’ve got a date with one of the Four Horsemen.”
I winced, wishing she wouldn’t keep using the name of their stupid little club, while I worked so hard to keep it out of my mind. “He should have been here ten minutes ago.”
Sarah put her head on one side. “He is Brazilian though.”
“Fair point.”
“And completely gorgeous.”
I summoned frivolous Madeleine, but the best she could manage was, “Well, I guess...”
“Oh what are you going to-”
The front doorbell rang and Sarah clapped her hand to her mouth. “Oh that’s him! Do you want me to answer it? I’ll answer it.”
“Um, okay.”
She bustled away, pausing by the mirror to check her hair. I heard the murmur of voices, then she was back, and flustered. “Maddie, oh, he’s wearing the most amazing suit he looks...”
I walked past her. A porch with a pointed, Gothic arch protected the front door of Logres, used by visitors. Stone benches lined the wall on each side. Tiago Toscano sat on the left-hand bench, his legs stretched out in front of him. Beyond him, through the archway the lawn and sky were velvety with evening. He held a bunch of red and white roses across his lap. “Madeleine, you look beautiful.” He rose to his feet. “I have for you some flowers. Come to the party with me.”