Franny Billingsley - The Folk Keeper

Bread with milk and honey

A bowl of egg pudding.

He is pale and spends much of the day in his room, but I’ve coaxed him to come sailing with me tomorrow.

The Feast of the Keeper is the day after that, and then I shall be obliged to return to the old way of spending hour upon hour in the Cellar.

I will not allow Taffy to join me. He is old and fragile, and any sputter of anger from the Folk might kill him. I shall be alone again, just me and the Folk.

And another worry, too. I am growing. What will Mrs. Bains think when I tell her I need new and different clothes, tight waistcoats and loose frock coats? Sometimes I grow weary of it all, the pretense, the worry about the Folk. Finian once asked what would be so bad about becoming a gentleman. What if I revealed everything and became — what? A lady, I suppose. Do ladies sail? Would they take away my amber beads?

No, if I cannot be a Sir Edward, running the estate and doing as I like, I’d best remain a Folk Keeper.

July 5

Only one day later, and the world is running in reverse, right to left, against the tide of expectation. I am in the Cellar where I belong, in the cold and the damp and the dark.

How different from the clear Cliffsend light earlier today. Even the rocks were shining when I scrambled down the cliff, too intent on reaching the pier to see what I should have seen from above. The Lady Rona was gone, already out to sea, heading for the Seal Rock. Periwinkle water stretched between boat and shore; the Windcuffer and I were left behind.

The round, whole world as I’d known it cracked in my hands and leaked through my fingers. “Come back!” But it was too late. Finian was soon nothing more than a sail against the round bowl of the horizon.

I wanted to pluck the plug from that basin and watch him drain into the center of the world. And with that fancy came a mounting pressure inside, like an egg left cooking too long. Off I’d go, Pop! Bits of shell striking everyone.

I seized a stone and ran to the end of the pier. Smash! In it would go, into the Windcuffer, through those mahogany floorboards Finian loved so well.

I raised it over my head. The stone trembled in my grasp, but my fingers wouldn’t release it. I had grown soft all these weeks away from my Cellar.

Very gently, I laid it on the pier, sat down beside it. I spoke aloud to the sea, my words skipping like smooth stones over an underwater storm. “I propose a pact. Grow angry, as I am. Toss Finian around a bit. I haven’t the strength to frighten him, but you have.”

It was a childish game, urging the sea to take my revenge for me. “In return, I vow to worship you all the days of my life.”

Someone was coming up behind; I pressed my lips together. “Why didn’t Finian take the Windcuffer? ” It was Sir Edward. “He always sails the Windcuffer. ”

“Not always, it would seem.” I had also wondered why, but what was it to him? “Might I borrow a knife?” I said. Then, at his look of surprise, “Or your brooch? Yes, the cameo. I’ll only be a moment.”

It was just like Sir Edward to have a good, sharp clasp to his brooch. I jabbed the pin into my fingertip, where it leaked blood, but nothing of my rage. One, two, three, I shook the red drops into the sea and whispered, “To our pact, strong as blood!”

“Whatever are you doing?” said Sir Edward. But before I could tell him it was none of his affair, his voice changed and he pointed to the sea. “Look!” His hand still bore the livid crescent of my teeth from Midsummer.

Quick as mercury, the sea’s periwinkle face turned dark and rough. The waves arched with anger, like a cat, running with the wind at their backs. Against the darkening horizon, the air grew yellow; the solitary boat rocked in long combers.

The pier was not large enough for my feelings. It was a child’s game, my pact with the sea. Surely it hadn’t raised a storm? I brushed past Sir Edward. “Did he have an amber bead?” I said aloud. I had not one, but two. I paced the beach, watching the waves swell, the foam gather along their backs and streak in the direction of the wind.

I had to walk, I had to move, but Sir Edward stood curiously still, just watching. Monarch butterflies lay motionless at my feet. Against the shore, waves threw chunks of rock from their yawning bellies.

The coming storm was a tangle of sounds: Taffy whining from the cliffs, the wind keening across the waves, the sudden silence of birds. The air turned to pea soup; I could no longer see the white speck of Finian’s boat.

“It was just a game,” I cried to the sea. “I take it back!” But the rain came anyway, great hard drops that stung my face and pounded fragile butterfly wings.

Throughout it all, Sir Edward stood motionless on the pier, just watching, black satin drenched by cold rain. He said not a word of warning or encouragement as I pushed past him for the second time and almost fell into the Windcuffer, cursing the random, erratic winds. The Windcuffer shot away from the pier, rearing back to leap the waves, pitching so hard into troughs it seemed she must tear a hole in the fabric of the sea.

The waves snatched the amber bead from my palm. “For smooth sailing!” I screamed, but the sea had forgotten the rules, or else it was too late. My fingertip wept blood. Salt wind stung my eyes, a lone gull flew past.

I made for the Seal Rock in the mysterious way a pigeon heads for home. But I wasn’t even halfway there before the giant palm of one of those waves slapped at the Windcuffer. I slammed into the mast, and precious seconds passed before I could breathe again, before I realized that the water lapping about my ankles hadn’t come from the sea and crashing waves.

I pressed my hand to the floor. My finger fit comfortably into a crack between the boards. How did the flooring come to be damaged? The sea below was filling up the Windcuffer faster than the sky from above.

The flooring gave way. The waves were on it in a second, biting and tearing at it, pulling it apart with frothy fingers.

I watched the sea gradually merging with the Windcuffer, and the Windcuffer gradually merging with the sea. The boat I’d helped bring to life fell to bits about me, and then I hardly cared that I also merged with the water, now pounded beneath as a wave crested, now tossed to the surface by some boiling power beneath.

Pictures flitted through my head like dreams. White water swallowing a bit of planking, dense silver needles of rain. A hand lying against silvered fur. My hand, and my arms, too, wrapped about a round neck, my chest pressed close to a sleek back. These were no common seals ringed round me, with their great silver heads and deep human eyes.

I closed my own eyes. “May our boat be blessed.” Smashing water is nothing to the Sealfolk. We ran effortlessly with the waves, riding them easily as foam. Boom and Hiss, went the waves. Boom and Hiss. I was all but one with the sea. And Finian, how he would love this. Where was he?

Boom and Hiss.

Was he alive?

As we entered the cove, the song of the waves turned into a steady crashing, and there were human voices, too, calling my name. The storm had lost heart, content just to spit the waves about. I could stand alone; the water came to my chest.

Behind me, the Sealfolk were already racing out to sea. “Come back!” But it was too late.

“Corin!”

My head snapped forward. It was Finian — Finian! — hurrying over the scatter of low-tide rocks, now plunging through the water toward me.

“You idiot!” he cried. “Taking the Windcuffer into that storm!”