Franny Billingsley - The Folk Keeper

I was not afraid. I am never afraid.

I have finished writing. I will soon snuff my candle and release the Folk from the Caverns. My thoughts float above ground, first to a room of shining eyes, then sail out to sea, to the boat ride with Finian. He said he would take me sailing again. I feel almost sorry I haven’t the time.

The darkness is stirring behind the Door. The Folk are straining at the boundaries of my candlelight. I shall put it out now and meet the Folk of Marblehaugh Park.

February 14 — Feast of Saint Valentine

The Folk consumed:

All the smoked meat

A smallish bit of Corinna Stonewall.

But I am one of the lucky ones. I am not paralyzed, I am not wasting away. No one need know, for my clothes hide the clusters of bruises, and I am armed with a new protection.

I have this newest charm from Cook. Pale, silent Cook — except when he curses — his eyes red-rimmed as though he’s forever peeling onions. He tried to pour my charm into a cone of paper. “Damn sea air!” he muttered when it stuck and he had to go at it with a spoon. The cone is small to hold so vast a substance. Salt, Salt of Eternity, workaday stuff to us, agony for one of the Folk.

I told Mrs. Bains I am not yet well enough to take supper with the others. I shall spend my evening in the Cellar instead.

February 15

My mouth turns bitter when I read yesterday’s words. I thought I had all I needed, and more. Delicacies from Cook that would have made the Rhysbridge Folk swoon dead away. Why would these Folk not be content with smoked pheasant and turkey eggs and a tub of milk? I even stirred the milk a long while, blending in the cream. That’s how they like it best.

But I opened the Folk Door to the same simmering energy, waiting only for darkness to allow it into the Cellar. I sat myself in double concentric rings of bread and salt. Damp seeped through my breeches. With my fingertips, I snuffed the candle.

Crash! The Door slammed against the wall. A tidal wave of power boiled across cold stone, then sucked itself back at the ring of salt.

The salt couldn’t hold them off, I knew that even then, knew it couldn’t contain that terrible force straining over the thin crystalline Ring of Eternity. I could perhaps have fled, many another Folk Keeper would. But in order to keep your place, you have to do your job well, drawing the anger of the Folk upon yourself, diverting it from the livestock and the crops.

There was a rush of power, crossing the salt with screams so shrill they bore into the webbed netting of my bones. Was this what Old Francis had felt, the cramping that doubled my toes to my heels, that pushed my shoulders to my lap? It mixed me all together with myself, my insides turning outward to meet my own translucent skin.

I did not cry out. I poured my screams into silent curses, blasting the Folk with my rage. Me, why me? I, who feed them and stir the milk and sit countless hours on the damp floor!

Foolish girl, Corinna. What are you thinking? The Folk have no hearts; they do not care for kindness.

February 16

I am finding the Lady Rona everywhere!

I found her again today at dusk when I visited the Marblehaugh Park churchyard. There was not much to visit, as it was no larger than a handkerchief, only a handful of gravestones and a little chapel, shoved against the seaward wall of the Manor.

I was looking for churchyard mold. I’d once heard it whispered that graveyard earth may ward off the anger of the Folk, provided it’s taken from a grave no more than twenty-one years old. Provided, too, that the occupant of the grave was descended from, or married into, the family that established the churchyard.

I came in at an iron gate. In the middle of the churchyard was a fresh slab heading a slash of raw earth, now very muddy, as it was still raining. That would be Lord Merton, just recently buried. According to the inscription, very clean and crisp, His Lordship had been sixty-four years old.

I walked round the graveyard. There were old headstones, all older than twenty-one years; too old to help. Then a grave lying at a little distance from Lord Merton’s. I pulled aside the ivy to read the stone, and there was the Lady Rona again.

THE LADY RONA. That was all it said, and as I let the ivy fall back into place, a dark cloud caught the corner of my eye. It came streaming from a circular shaft at the far end of the cemetery; and I thought at first it was smoke, very strange to see in the rainy air.

But no smoke ever made that faint fluttering. I spoke aloud. “Not smoke, bats!”

I’d heard of these shafts in the ground, opening directly into the Caverns and walled off for safety. The Folk were closer than I’d known, but if the bats could turn their backs on them, so could I. There was a last grave, tiny, tucked under the chapel eaves. The carved Saints set into the wall looked down on it with empty stone eyes. It, too, was covered with lichen and ivy, and here again there was no name, but an epitaph:

Unnamed from the darkness came.

Unnamed to the darkness returned.

Born and died: Midsummer Eve.

Who was buried in these last two graves? If only they were Marblehaugh Park descendants, and not more than twenty-one years buried, the mold from their graves might serve me against the Folk.

I would have to ask Finian, barter away another Conviction.

It was time to tell Mrs. Bains I was well enough to join the family for supper.

February 16 — supper

Mrs. Bains has made me a suit! It is very fine, of watered gray silk, with embroidered bands on the breeches. There are seventeen buttons to the waistcoat, and each of them a pearl. Not that I care; I am no dandy like Sir Edward.

Sir Edward and Lady Alicia were glad I was well enough to come to supper for the first time, but Finian teased me about how handsome I looked.

“Don’t mind him,” said Lady Alicia, very handsome herself in claret silk over an embroidered underskirt. “Finian’s still a little boy who likes to be out poking worms onto hooks and never washing his hands.”

Supper was a waste of time; there was no chance to speak to Finian alone. The dining room was scarlet and gold, with yard of table bursting with candelabra. Identical footmen in striped livery and powdered hair served us. They must all be brothers to the Valet, or cousins at least, their lips all pursed like respectable prunes.

Old Francis was the only one who didn’t match, now stumbling against a chair, now struggling with a platter of dumplings, now chilling me with his frozen eye.

I understood why Finian was so bored. It was all talk about the weather and the estate, and to an estate, weather is everything.

“Well, Corin,” said Lady Alicia. “How do you like this rain of ours?”

“I like it very well,” I said, which is perhaps the first true thing I’ve ever told her. I like rain and mist. I’ve never understood why people exclaim over bright skies and bushels of glaring sunshine.

“It will help our crops,” said Sir Edward.

Then it was all crops until the end of dinner. Lady Alicia asking questions of Sir Edward, trying very hard to learn about the estate, and Finian making faces at me, but I never laugh when I don’t choose.

We retired to the Music Room after supper. From weather to crops to music; and still no chance to speak to Finian. The Music Room was small by Manor standards (not big enough to hold more than fifty elephants), and all white and gold, with huge marble fireplaces that yawned into the room with tongues of flame.