Franny Billingsley - The Folk Keeper

“Sea smoke,” said Finian.

“The water seemed suddenly marvelous, now it can be smoke, now ice, now liquid. Nothing lost, only rearranged.” I’d thought of how — all unknowing — I’d imitated it, turning Corinna into Corin, nothing lost, just a little surface rearrangement.

“I plucked my Conviction for you from the sea. Do as the water does. Hide what you’re doing. Hide even what you are. Then no one can stop you.”

“Are you speaking of your own secrets?” said Finian.

“I don’t have any secrets!”

“Of course not,” said Finian. I hate it when he speaks so gently. A person might turn to mush inside and pour away. But not I, not Corinna Stonewall.

“My Conviction, is it acceptable?”

“It is a good Conviction,” said Finian. “The Secret is yours.”

“Who is buried under the headstone under the chapel eaves?”

“Still looking for friends in the churchyard?” said Finian. “That was the Lady Rona’s child.”

“A child! What happened?”

Finian shrugged. “Babies die, mothers die, and often in childbed, which was the case here.”

“But there’s no name.”

“It died unbaptized,” said Finian, “which is why the baby’s buried apart from the mother, by the chapel. The vicar hoped the rain falling from the eaves onto the grave might turn holy enough to baptize the baby instead.”

And so now I have a jar of amber beads, and my Secret, too. The baby was also a descendant of the owners of Marblehaugh Park, and I will take earth from its grave and try it against the Folk. But what if it fails to protect me? Or what if I fail to protect the estate? For the first time, I am afraid.

March 15 — Tirls of March

I have been pinched, nothing worse.

The Folk have eaten:

Five dozen salted kippers

Two crates of dried beef.

And what has Corinna eaten?

I woke last night, famished. I had been dreaming of water shot with silver bodies. I pulled on my clothes as though in a dream, tiptoed down the marble stairs, and across the sodden grass.

It was high tide, and waves lapped at the edge of the beach. I plunged my hand into the beating water, snatched at a bright streak. The fish thrashed between my fingers. I did not hesitate. I broke its neck, and before its jellied eye grew dim, I bit into the sweet and living flesh.

March 21 — The Spring Equinox

I felt the Storms coming this morning, a gathering of tension, the air winding itself up for a secret celebration. The petrels skimmed the water in black clouds, harbingers of those to come.

It hit us tonight at supper. A wave of water rattled the glass as lightning staggered from the skies. It seemed alive, the storm, speaking with a voice of its own. I could love this fearsome weather if the Folk did not also grow fierce.

“It’s started again,” said Lady Alicia.

“My tender nerves!” cried Finian, clasping his hands to his breast. “Already I can’t stand it.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Sir Edward.

“There’s nothing silly about the Storms,” said Finian, but he was speaking to me rather than to Sir Edward. “Don’t go out, Corin. The cottagers tether their hens against the wind. You’re such a little thing; we should tether you as well.”

“Isn’t he a bit bigger?” said Lady Alicia. “I’d swear he’s grown since he first came.”

“Boys will grow,” said Sir Edward, shrugging. “What’s your sacrifice to be, Corin?”

“Sacrifice?”

“Sacrifice,” he said, drumming his fingers on the table. “Only a live sacrifice will do for the Folk during the Storms.”

“The Folk don’t eat living creatures!”

“And you call yourself a Folk Keeper!” Sir Edward slapped his palm on the table. “Maybe those pallid creatures you call the Folk in Rhysbridge are contented with a few crumbs. But not the Folk of Marblehaugh Park!”

“I know the Folk.” But did I know them well enough? Bribing a lad or two for information, listening in on conversations of charms and spells. What had I missed, picking up scraps of knowledge about the Folk as I had?

Sir Edward echoed my thoughts. “You know everything about the Folk, do you? After caring for a mere hundred households in Rhysbridge!” He peeled his hand from the table. The moist outline of his palm melted from the polished wood.

“One hundred twenty-eight households,” I said.

“An estate is a far greater thing than a handful of city tradesmen and their scrawny chickens. Think what damage the Folk could do to us — blight our spring crop; raise blisters on the pigs; sour the wine we’ve bottled for the Harvest Fair.”

Sir Edward knew nothing of the Folk. “They can’t sour the wine,” I said. “It’s neither meat nor egg nor . . .”

“Before that happens,” said Sir Edward, “I’ll find myself another Folk Keeper.” Lightning flashed through the window and wrapped itself around his head.

Old Francis stood behind me. “I’ve had enough,” I said. “You may take my plate.”

That is all I said. It is best not to let your enemy know your anger. Vengeance, my mind was full of it. Sir Edward loved the estate best of all, but I could not destroy that. My place depended on it.

I trailed after the others to the Music Room, stretching my lips agreeably as they laughed at the hounds, at fierce Liquorice, so terrified of the Storms he tried to squeeze beneath a sofa. He fit only up to his red ears, and there he lay, sides heaving, pretending all of him was hidden.

Taffy was undisturbed by the thunder. I felt rather smug (he belongs to me more than anyone, following me everywhere as he does) until I realized he is so deaf he doesn’t hear it much.

The Storms brought out the worst in everyone, and a good thing too, for it was Finian, gibing slyly at Sir Edward, who found my revenge for me.

“Just the right night for a moonlight sail, eh, Corin?” he said, leaning over the dessert tray and arranging twenty or thirty cakes on his hand.

“Won’t you ever stop this useless playing around with boats!” said Sir Edward.

“That’s all it is,” said Finian gently, but he was watching Sir Edward closely. “Just playing.”

“Why couldn’t you play about with something more fitting?” Lightning struck, illuminating the world fiercely and briefly, catching every leaf and blade of grass in its white eye. “Your stepfather would have been proud to see you add a trophy to our collection. Both he and I have our prizes. Mine, that great pelt from the black jungle beast. Hartley, that silvery one.”

Sir Edward was speaking almost calmly now, his irritation draining away into small talk. “Hartley took a number of silvery ones over the years, mostly smaller, as I recall. I wonder what became of them?”

Finian threw a coal on the fire. “How thoughtless of His Lordship to marry my mother.”

He spoke lightly, but a thread of malice ran beneath his voice, puckering it slightly in hidden places. “Neither she nor I knows how to run the estate, which it seems you must do by tacking dead things to the walls. A pity we ousted you from your inheritance, Edward. I know you were counting on it.”

Sir Edward sprang to his feet, lithe and muscular as a cat — finicky as one, too, in his black and white satin. Finian shook the cakes from his hand and very calmly took off his spectacles.

The bear against the cat. I knew which of them would win.

“For shame, gentlemen!” cried Lady Alicia, spoiling all the fun. Finian bowed coldly to Sir Edward, and I left without a word. I had waited too long to tend the Folk. My revenge would have to wait.