Franny Billingsley: The Folk Keeper

The scornful Valet will be sorry, too.

I write this in the courtyard of a country tavern. There are fresh, wet smells all around, distracting me from thinking through ways to avenge myself on him. I don’t think I ever truly breathed in Rhysbridge. The early light spreads over the wet cobblestones, blurring their edges and buttering them with gold.

Two days have put Rhysbridge far behind. We rattled north on the King’s Highway; all the other carriages pulled aside to let the black hearse by. Not everyone would be happy, as I am, to travel north, where the Folk are especially fierce. But although there’s less stone in the south, and the Folk are correspondingly milder, the southlands have their share of dangerous Otherfolk. I, for one, would not like to stumble over an elvish ring, or meet the Headless Trunk.

The rolling hills and tidy farms have already given way to lonely tracts of juniper and rocky outcroppings. We go at a terrific rate even on these country roads, and the shepherds draw their flocks aside to let us pass. By evening, all this will give way to the sea.

The flow of air along my cheek has taken on a predictable sea pattern. The breezes flow inland during the day, then return to the sea at night. No one else seems to notice, and I do not mention it. Perhaps it is another secret power.

The others are all still in the gloomy tavern, with its heavy beams and smoke-stained walls, while I am out, breathing in the wet. They are still eating no doubt — eating, eating, always eating — today a great breakfast of smoked meat and pickled eggs and bread and butter. A cup of ale for Sir Edward. He bears no signs of travel, not that one, always immaculate in black and white. It is his Valet who keeps him so.

Yes, the Valet. I will have to work out my vengeance for what happened this morning, at breakfast, when I ate only a bit of meat, then wrapped the rest in a scrap of oiled paper. It would travel well and please the Folk of Marblehaugh Park.

“Whatever are you doing?” said Sir Edward.

“Gathering provisions for the Folk.”

Such protests then! Sir Edward and Lady Alicia crying out that I must eat the meat myself! That Cook at Marblehaugh Park would give me all I need for the Folk! That I weigh no more than the scrap a dog might leave behind!

I still don’t know whether to believe them. “You don’t mean to say you give me food for the Folk!”

Lady Alicia seemed equally amazed. “You’ve been saving your food for the Folk, all these years?”

“That is the way of the Rhysbridge Home.”

“We’ll give you the same again for the Folk, and more,” said Sir Edward. “We, too, want the Folk content and mild.”

I dropped a bit of bread into my Folk Bag. There was an edge to Sir Edward’s voice now. “Do you mean to disobey? Eat the bread or leave it be!”

I reached for another piece. The bread was protection from the Folk, who cannot abide the stuff. But before I could stow it in my Folk Bag, safe from the reach of human hands, doughy fingers snatched it from me.

“Clumsy!” said the Valet.

I buckled my Bag closed and left the tavern. No one — no one! — can say how I provision my Folk Bag.

The coachman’s bugle is about to blow. The crimson coach will set off again, followed by the black hearse carrying His Lordship — His Lordship and the gold coins, one on each dead eye. And this is what I swear: The Valet will feel my vengeance before we reach Cliffsend.

February 8 — ten minutes later

I have lost one of my secret powers. I discovered it just now when I climbed into the carriage.

“We’ve a quarter hour yet, Master Corin,” said the coachman.

“A quarter hour? That can’t be.”

But it can. The coachman showed me his watch, and to be sure, I consulted the clock in the tavern.

I used to be so sure of the hour. My heart pumped out the seconds, which went ticking through my body, meeting other seconds, clustering into minutes, crowding into hours, into days. But now . . . Will my skin grow chilled, just like ordinary people? Will my hair refuse to grow at its prodigious rate?

My secret powers make up for that missing piece of me. I don’t know what it is, but I ache for it each day. It’s as though I have eyes, but there are colors I cannot see. As though I have ears, but there’s a range of notes I cannot hear. But at least my powers set me apart from the rest. Once they are gone, will there be anything left?

February 8 — evening

How can I describe the sea? It is stronger than anything, announcing its presence miles away, steeping the carriage with salt-and-seaweed fumes that sparked invisible stirrings behind my cheekbones. And the slow, steady singing of it . . . Now, in my room at the inn, my hair rises and the sea-song shivers over my scalp.

It reminds me of my old childish fancies, when I was still Corinna of the long silver hair. I used to think my hair was magic. I used to think it crackled with the shape of life, that with it I could catch the currents of the earth.

But when I turned into Corin, I gave up all my foolish ideas. They will not help you survive.

Sir Edward was in a pickle of impatience. He leapt from the carriage before it had quite stopped, which seemed a waste of heroics, as we are not to sail for Cliffsend until tomorrow. Not even Sir Edward can hurry along the night.

I waited until the wheels no longer rattled over the stones. I am not made for leaping from anything that moves.

There was the sea at last, stretching into infinity. Seagulls floated on the water, feathered whitecaps dotting the waves. Everywhere there was spit and spray, and where the waves had nothing to dash against, they crashed into themselves and curled back into the sea.

Behind me rose the usual arriving-at-an-inn noises. There were instructions about supper, instructions about attending to the horses, instructions to the Valet from Sir Edward. “I shall want a clean neck cloth, and a fresh shirt as well.”

I knew then what my vengeance would be. The luggage had been set upon the ground, and it was easy, while the others were all so busy, to loose the fastenings of Sir Edward’s valise.

It did not take long. I stood with my back to the carriage, facing the sea, not watching, but listening.

There was a gasp from the Valet. I imagined those silks and satins, all in black and white, tumbling to the cobbles. Lady Alicia’s maid gave a tiny squeak.

“Clumsy!” said Sir Edward.

Then I walked to the beach.

It was a fine, wild February night, with a keen wind shrieking past my ears. The beach has a language of its own, with its undulating ribbons of silt, the imponderable hieroglyphs of bird tracks. The receding waves catch on innumerable holes in the sand. Bubbles form and fade. A new language, with a new alphabet, which I will learn to read.

The sea up close is enormous. I squeezed my eyes against it for a moment, which is ridiculous, like fighting a giant with a pin. It comes to you anyway, through your ears and nose and skin and tongue. It is a savage, muscular thing, a vast dim wetness battering at the land and the air and all your senses.

A little dock leaned over the water. I leaned over with it, careful not to fall, as I swim only a little, dangling my hand into the waves. Quicksilver shapes flashed beneath. Idly, idly, my fingers drifted. I was at least as surprised as the fish when my fingers snapped round its thrashing body.

I pulled it from the water, feeling it turn inside my grasp. I smelled it, which was innocent enough, wasn’t it, merely smelling a fish? But one thing leads to another, for I drew it near my nose, which is near my mouth, which then opened. I felt the fish struggling between my lips, my tongue curling eagerly to fold it in.