“Now, grab the reins tight. Slide your left foot into the stirrup. Good, just like that. Hand on the saddle. Then swing your right foot over.”
His instructions echo in my ears and suddenly I’m off the ground.
“Yeah, uh… what now?” I ask.
Graham smiles, grabbing the reins from me. “Now we get you comfortable. Hannah G, you need any help?”
“Nope,” Hannah G says with a pop on her p. She squeezes her thighs, and then Princess breaks into a clean trot around the arena. “I had ponies at my birthday parties every year until I was twelve.”
Graham begins to lead me around the arena, and I lurch as suddenly I’m in motion through no choice of my own.
I’m not riding so much as following Graham around the ring. Hannah G is going in the opposite direction. Despite her anecdote about her ponies, she keeps shifting uncomfortably, and Princess doesn’t seem particularly keen to obey her sharply squealed commands.
I refocus on Starlight, who has begun to wander like my attention.
“Easy,” I mumble, and Starlight eases. The ambling trot beneath me starts to feel almost normal after a go or two around the ring. I sit taller, and I even manage to find a tiny smile for Graham when he finally passes me the reins and I loop them around my wrists. He returns that smile, but more absently, distracted as he looks away to the other ring.
I follow his gaze and see Penthesilea galloping around the circle, standing in her stirrups, leaning forward, her thighs engaged in her tight riding pants. I can’t see her eyes beneath the brim of her riding helmet, but the power that she holds in her core is taut and I imagine they must be laser focused. She races forward ahead of the pack, and I think I hear her bark a command at the midnight black thoroughbred she’s on as she nears a massive hurdle.
And then she soars over it, like she and her horse are one—like they’re air.
“Graham… do I have to learn how to do that?” I whisper.
Graham doesn’t answer, but his expression—the way the corners of his mouth turn downward and his shoulders stiffen—is answer enough.
CHAPTER 12
“JESUS, I’M STARVING,” I PROCLAIM the moment I meet up with Saint at the barn entrance. My growling stomach has been waging war with my disgust and fear for hours, and finally, hunger is winning again.
“Same,” Saint admits. “How was your lesson? I saw it was with the other Remington boy. I always forget his name.”
“Graham,” I remind her.
“Yes. Well, he doesn’t make much of a lasting impression. At least, not compared to his brother,” Saint declares.
I don’t tell her that I’m starting to disagree.
“It was good. I’m trotting on my own. Galloped for a minute toward the end. It was really fast, and I was terrified, but Starlight’s a good horse,” I acknowledge. Saint nods, and she even looks at me with a bit of pride.
“That’s good. We jumped a few times. I rode when I was much younger, but I remembered the basics quite easily,” Saint says.
“Like a bike, yeah?”
Saint’s brow furrows. “Is that… an American saying?”
“Oh… yes, I guess. I wonder, do they have an equivalent in Switzerland?” I ask.
Saint shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t really like the Swiss.”
I snort into my hand and we begin the trek back to the main house.
“Hey, Adina! Saint! Wait up!”
We don’t exactly stop, but we slow down just enough that Hawthorne doesn’t need to sprint to catch up. She arrives, stray blond flyaways sticking to her sweaty forehead and sliding down the bridge of her nose. She smiles brightly, her cheeks flushed a healthy pink.
“I’ve heard that there’ll be a late lunch for us in the common room. Let’s go ahead before the other girls get first pickings,” Hawthorne says, walking briskly past us. She turns backward as she walks in, lively in a way that I’ve never seen her. “What are you two up to after lunch?”
“Lying on my stomach? My ass hurts. We just rode for, like, four hours,” I retort.
Hawthorne waves it away like it’s nothing. “You get used to it. Did you see us jumping? Those were hard. I’ve only ever ridden casually. Like trails in Vermont when we used to visit Esme’s country house. Remember that, Adina?”
I wince. “Yeah… I do.”
Hawthorne continues. “Maybe we’ll go up for winter as a girls’ trip. We’ll be in college, but it’s good to remember high school friends.”
It’s ridiculous on a number of levels. Esme’s family probably sold that country house already. I’m not even going to college. Plus, we might not be alive, as she well knows.
“I don’t really understand your attachment to this Esme,” Saint says. “Adina seems to have severed that tie.”
“Yeah, really quickly, I remember,” Hawthorne says, and there’s a bite in her voice that makes me actually turn to look her in the eye. But it’s gone just as soon as it appeared, disappearing with Hawthorne’s sigh. “We’ve been friends since we were kids. We were in the same playmate group and we just… she gets me more than anyone else.”
There’s something wild about her, outside Esme’s overbearing presence, a restlessness that unsettles. Her eyes move like she’s taking everything in so much faster than we are, and her smile is relaxed. Outside Esme’s shadow, Hawthorne actually looks like a person, not a pale imitation of herself.
“You’re all adults now. You can pick your own friends,” Saint says dismissively.
Hawthorne blinks owlishly, like the thought has never even occurred to her.
We trudge up the stairs, and some of the girls peel off for a quick shower. One of them is visibly trembling with exhaustion, and for a moment I feel something like camaraderie with her—which ends as she turns to glower at me. I roll my eyes, cracking my neck as I lean heavily into the banister, my breath whistling. We’re all competing and I don’t want to show weakness, but my muscles ache, and I know, in the morning, I’ll feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.
Despite how much I want to fall asleep, I know I can’t. This is valuable time spent with these girls. Watching them. Learning them. Graham and Leighton have tried to be reassuring, that there’s a difference between what might happen during the Finish separate from the accident that has definitely already occurred. But knowing that difference doesn’t make learning to ride a horse in three days any easier, or make me trust these other girls any more.
The door to the common room is already open, and I stop short. Saint nearly collides with my back and Hawthorne actually rams my shoulder with hers as she stutters to a stop.
“Hello, girls.”
Esme lounges across the chaise, an entire platter of finger sandwiches balanced on the table by her head. She plucks one up with her long acrylics and bites into it with far more relish than necessary. Her burgundy lips pull into a wide smile.
“Lunch is served,” she announces with a flourish. Her gaze flits over the group and she clears her throat. “Jackie, Hannah G, Hannah R, come sit by me. I never finished telling you my story about my fabulous trip through Europe last summer.”