Franny Billingsley - The Folk Keeper

The Folk indeed had been at work, but not so very long ago. Scraps of fabric lay scattered about. The Folk had had to undress their meal, and they’d not been tidy about it. I knew those crimson stripes, the livery of Marblehaugh Park. I knew with dreadful certainty that the livery belonged to Old Francis. So did the bones.

Others have survived the fall, Sir Edward had said. I was not his first live sacrifice for the Folk, human sacrifice. He’d used the Shaft rather than the Folk Door, which is never locked. This is why I survived the Storms of the Equinox. The Folk were already brimful of holiday cheer — and Old Francis.

I waited until my hands were steady before resuming my trip round the chamber. I could not leave this casual graveyard; I did not have that luxury. What if a passage to the Folk Door led from here?

There were none, however; the chamber was self–enclosed. I hardly cared. It was such a relief to come full circle to the chamber entrance, down the tunnel to the C I’d scratched in stone, sweet evidence Corinna really existed. From there, it was just moments to the friendly twilight of my own chamber, hung with bats, forested with mushrooms, flowing with fish too guileless to evade the snatching skeleton of my own hand.

July 14

Five minutes to ten o’clock, morning. I stumbled over another skeleton, literally. It was only a goat, I think, but still I apologized.

July 15

Half past midnight. Why did Finian leave me on the pier?

July 16

Thirty-one minutes past two o’clock, afternoon. I snatched a ghost-fish from an underground stream. Its skin was absolutely transparent, all its inner workings on display. For eyes, just sightless pearls, sealed by filmy skin. No need for sight where the sun never shines.

All the tunnels end in disappointment.

I have used two candles.

July 19

Forty-six minutes past nine o’clock, evening. I wonder if the Folk made great mischief on the Feast of the Keeper? I scratch the letter C into every turn to mark my trail, but all tunnels end in disappointment. I think of my mother, scratching her name into the Cellar walls. When her Sealskin was destroyed, she turned away from the sea. It must have been too painful to set eyes on it again. But neither could she quite let go of her need for a deep, dark place. The Cellar was perhaps the closest she could come.

I have used four candles.

July 20

Six o’clock, morning. Why did Finian leave me on the pier? He said that he wept. Was it for the Windcuffer?

July 22

Noon, exactly. I wonder why my father had me brought to Cliffsend? Sir Edward thought he could not bear to lose control of me, but perhaps it’s not that simple. Perhaps he regretted what he’d done. Could he not have been speaking of himself when he said: He told me of your existence, of his shame that he placed you in a foundling home? I will never know.

All tunnels end in disappointment.

I have used seven candles.

July 27

Half past five o’clock, morning. I have one candle left.

Feast of Dolores, the Skeptic — I will not mark the date

I cannot break the habit of writing. I do not want to write, I am too low in spirit, but my hand moves on. I do not care to count the days, but there are other ways of marking time. My hair has grown past my waist. My braid, I should say, its weave relaxing more each day. Last night was perfectly dark, no moonlight, or starlight even, penetrated the Graveyard Shaft. I do not count the days, yet my hand knows this is the Feast of Dolores, the Skeptic. It leaps to the paper to write of the Folk.

I went to sleep, sick with worry that I had only one candle. But on this moonless, starless night, I should have gone to sleep worried about the unalloyed dark. I found myself sitting up, awakened by a change in the pressure of the air about me. They were upon me, they were all over me — oh, they must be ravenous.

I shook my puny necklet at them, but it hadn’t stopped them before and it didn’t now. They boiled in on me. Theirs is a touch almost without weight, and yet worse, for it sinks beneath the skin, running needles of fire through sinew and bone. My arm was already turning numb when a fresh, hot pain skewered my hip.

Oh, for the power of The Last Word. What would rhyme? What would scan? But even asking the question defeats the meaning, for The Last Word must be a rhyme so original, springing so spontaneously to the mind, there’s no room for thought.

Now their touch had weight. Something hard sank into my arm, something wet lapped my hand.

“Saints save me!”

The Folk moaned back at the invocation of the Saints. I leapt for the tinderbox. Just one spark, and there came a terrible shrieking that would have shattered my bones — if I’d had any left to shatter.

It took three tries for my accursed clumsy fingers to light the candle, but at each new spark, the shrieking sounded farther, and by the time the candle finally caught, I was alone.

I was alone, my flame quivering from the quivering in my hand, my arm a mass of blood.

I sat all night holding the candle, never heeding the hot wax falling on my skin. My face was warm, I held it so close. It was not yet dawn when the wick staggered into a pool of wax and was drowned.

July 31 — Anniversary of the Liberation of Rhysbridge

The Folk have consumed:

Not quite a bite of Corinna.

The candlewick is little more than dusty air. I squeeze it between my thumb and forefinger and stare at the ashes marking my fingertips. I blow it into my Twilight Cavern.

August 1

Curses on the Folk, curses on Sir Edward. I will circle them with a noose of curses and pull it tight.

Curses on the Folk!

Curses on Sir Edward!

I refuse to be trapped inside my fear of the next moonless, starless night.

I refuse to be trapped inside myself! Why am I still pretending to be a boy, hanging onto the habit of wearing these damp clothes, of binding back my hair? If I die under a siege of strong, square teeth, I refuse to die as Corin the Folk Keeper. I will die as Corinna the Sealmaiden.

August 2

The world is an explosion of beauty. My senses have opened like flowers; everything is an exquisite pleasure. I taste . . .

What I taste just kneeling beside the stream! I taste the spicy smell of leaves that wash in from the outside. It resonates in a sensitive spot beneath my tongue. The rat brings damp wood into the cave. It tastes light and dark together, deep in the corner of my jaw.

I feel.

Each fingertip is a separate small heartbeat that acknowledges the other small lives all around. The smooth, damp pull of the skin of a mushroom. It is full of life. I scoop a spider from the floor. Its weightless legs leave tiny vibrations on my palm. I bring my finger to my cheek. They greet each other. Two consciousnesses, brought together.

I see.

Human eyes, or even the eyes of a Sealmaiden, are little good deep below the earth, but my . . .

Oh, I will not give it away at once. I will delight in the telling of it, in every detail of how it unfolded.

This morning I turned myself inside out, turned Corin into Corinna. Off came Corin’s jacket, his loose linen shirt, his breeches. Why did I wear them so long? Here they can stay. What the cave rat doesn’t steal for its nest can molder with damp.

How light and free I felt. Had I ever had so much air on my body? I never knew I had so much skin, the bluishpale skin of the Sealfolk, all underlaced with blue veins.