Franny Billingsley - The Folk Keeper

“You’re alive!” I did not shout as he had, but he heard me nonetheless.

“Imagine that!” he said. “Unlike you, I came back the moment the storm began. And now the Windcuffer’s gone.”

“The Sealfolk brought me back.” I could not stop thinking of it.

“I must have called them,” said Finian. “ Seven tears to call the Sealfolk. I wept enough tears to call dozens.”

“You can’t call the Sealfolk at low tide.”

Then Sir Edward stood beside us, and I had to gulp back the words that were clamoring to leap from my mouth. Why did you leave me behind?

“You must hurry, Corin,” said Sir Edward. “One of the calves has taken ill, and some of the cheeses have melted into pools of whey. The Folk are angry, and I fear for my crops.”

“Give Corin a chance to draw his breath!” said Finian.

But for once, I agreed with Sir Edward. The Folk Keeper must hurry when the Folk grow wild. So I said only to Finian, “I’m sorry about the Windcuffer. ”

I don’t remember scaling the cliff. Sir Edward might have helped me, clumsy again as I am. I do remember the endless pounding of my feet across the grass, thinking strange disjointed thoughts. How could the Folk have grown wild when the Feast of the Keeper wasn’t until tomorrow? How could the grass be dry when everything else had been so wet? Then I was pounding up marble steps and down marble corridors to seize my Folk Bag. I had no time to examine it, but I am careful and I knew it held everything it should: my necklet of nails and my writing lead, and then — all wrapped in oilcloth against the Cellar’s damp — this Folk Record and my tinderbox and candles. I had no time to gather bread or salt or churchyard mold. But I could not go without an offering of food. Quick: to the Kitchens.

The Cellar was very quiet. I laid down my offering and edged open the Folk Door. It felt quiet enough, but perhaps the Folk had spent all their wild energy on the calf and the cheeses.

For perhaps the first time, I do not want to be here. I find myself trapped; I see no way out. I’m afraid I may fail with the Folk. I’m afraid the Folk may injure me. But I am also afraid to reveal my secret, ask to become a lady, as Lord Merton had originally intended. Even if Sir Edward didn’t turn me away, I might spend my life waiting on one pier or another. I refuse to wait, and worry, and indulge myself in all the peculiar feelings most people are so fond of. I refuse!

Why did Finian leave me waiting?

Two hours have passed while I’ve been writing. There is still no sign of the Folk. Could Sir Edward be wrong?

But while a calf might sicken of itself, it can be no natural thing that the cheeses melted into whey.

For now, however, the Folk are quiet, and I am back in the dark where I belong.

July 6 — Feast of the Keeper

I said I belong in the dark and the deep, and now my words are coming back, mocking me. But how could I have known? My own deep darkness — it has nothing to do with the Cellar. Yet look where I am, on this, the Feast of the Keeper!

Ah, Corinna, stop. Just be thankful you have your Folk Bag, and that your Folk Record is still dry because it was properly wrapped in oilcloth, and that you have enough light to write in it, too. At least you can talk to yourself.

It was an entire lifetime ago when I sat in the Cellar yesterday, a whole world ago when the Cellar door opened and there came soft footsteps, and a light. I did not even look up when the footsteps stood before me; I could see well enough who it was by the white silk stockings and black rosettes on his shoes.

“Finian has taken ill again,” said Sir Edward. “Very ill. We’re all gathered in the churchyard to pray.”

I rose without a word.

“Quietly now through the Manor,” said Sir Edward. “We must do nothing to disturb Finian.”

The night was warmer than I’d expected, the graveyard dark and still. “The others are all so quiet,” I whispered.

“They are praying.”

I paused at the gate. “They are not even breathing.”

“Trust you to notice, you with that hearing of yours.”

I should have heeded the little prickle that came to the back of my neck, but would it have done any good? Sir Edward was walking me to the tiny grave under the chapel eaves, and his grip was very tight at my elbow.

“There is no one here.” I paused, smelling recently turned earth, rotting wood, and mildew. “You disturbed the baby’s grave!”

A taste like spoiled apples rose in my throat, and the details of that scene froze themselves in memory. Me, looking down, seeing an ivy-covered mound, my worn boots, Sir Edward’s black rosettes. It was a quarter past one.

“No one but you will notice,” he said. “No one comes here much, and I’ve covered the raw earth with leaves and ivy.”

Something was terribly wrong, but perhaps something was also terribly right. “Finian is not really ill, is he?”

“He’s well enough to be looking for you in Firth Landing, making sure you haven’t stolen aboard the Mainland ferry. I told him you’d crept away from the Cellar. He didn’t even stop to look for you there, just went searching. And as you were to be found nowhere on the estate, what would he conclude but that you’d run away?”

“I didn’t run away!”

Sir Edward shrugged. “Finian seemed to think he might even be responsible. Half the serving staff is scattered about Cliffsend, looking for you. The Manor won’t be this empty again until the Harvest Fair, when everyone down to the scullery maid takes a three-day holiday.”

“Liar! I never left the Cellar.”

“I must make you understand.” He pressed at my shoulder, I sank to my knees. His candle shone on the tiny gravestone.

Unnamed from the darkness came.

Unnamed to the darkness returned.

Born and died: Midsummer Eve.

I saw what I’d not before realized. “My birthday!”

A terrible darkness poured itself into my mind; my muscles gathered of themselves to leap away, but Sir Edward snatched me from the air as though I were a sparrow and tossed me onto the grave.

“Damn!” He pressed his finger to my collar-bone, pinning me in place. “My candle has gone out. No screaming, or I shall have to stop you, like this.”

He squeezed my throat, trapping the old air inside. I struggled beneath his hand. Everyone thinks breathing in is so important; no one thinks about breathing out.

Sir Edward relaxed his grip. “You’ll not try again, will you?”

I shook my head, whispered, “What do you want?”

“I want to know what Finian knows. He sees too much, that boy; he’s made more trouble for me than I care to admit.”

“What Finian knows?” I repeated stupidly.

“Does he know who your mother is?”

“My mother?”

“Ah!” said Sir Edward, and laughed. He turned my head on its pillow of dirt. Directly ahead lay the Lady Rona’s weathered headstone.

Another frozen moment: a dimpled moon, an ivory cheek, the smell of fresh-turned rot. Twenty-seven minutes past one.

My mother. I might have denied it, but etched into my memory was the inscription on the gravestone. Midsummer Eve. A holiday never celebrated on the Mainland, one I’d never connected with my birthday.

“But the baby died at birth,” I whispered at last.

“So you didn’t know!” said Sir Edward, and his fingers relaxed on my throat. “Then perhaps Finian hasn’t worked out the real story for himself. I only have just today. Hartley tricked me into believing the baby died, just as he always tricked me. Tell me this: Did Finian know about the Lady Rona, know she was a Sealmaiden? Which means, of course, that you are, too.”