The Folk Keeper

by Franny Billingsley

  “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.”

  Bolts of lightning might have struck my temples. I was dizzy, my thoughts buzzing uselessly, beads on a vibrating string. “I’m no Sealmaiden!” The mere sound of it is soft and tender. Not like me.

  “It’s the old story,” said Sir Edward. “Your father out for a moonlight sail. Your mother dancing on the Seal Rock. He fell in love with her, stole her Sealskin, insisted she marry him, live on land. What could she do? Without her Sealskin she couldn’t return to the sea. Perhaps you can guess at the rest. Misery, jealousy, madness, and death.”

  “What makes you think I’m her daughter?”

  “You gave yourself away by calling up that storm.”

  “Calling up the storm?” But already I realized what I had done. The sea cared nothing for my pact. It cared only for my blood. Three drops of Sealfolk blood to call up a storm.

  To think that I had almost killed Finian! Really, I might have, with my casual vengeance. Finian. I wanted to say his name again and again, place him firmly on the earth, where he was usually solid enough. Finian! said my mind, but I forced myself to attend to Sir Edward.

  “I’m a careful man,” he said. “I knew you must be of the Sealfolk, but I couldn’t be sure you were Rona’s daughter until I opened the grave. There are no little bones in that coffin. The story of your death was just that, a story Hartley gave out.”

  “I refuse to be his daughter!” Not that hateful man with the dead metal eyes.

  “You refuse him just as he refused you. He was entranced by your mother, but you were not an attractive baby, and he must have come a little to his senses. A Merton can’t have one of the Sealfolk as his heir. It would be so like him to give out that you’d died, but instead have you sent away where he could keep track of you from afar.”

  “Knowing about me, his baby, all those years?” I hated Lord Merton more than ever. “Having the Matrons inform him when I was moved from Home to Home?” I’d fooled him once, though. He hadn’t known I’d become Corin. He’d known Corinna was sent to the Rhysbridge Home, but no one had known to tell him she’d turned into a boy.

  “How he loved to control people,” said Sir Edward. “I could never escape it. Now he’d dangle the Manor in front of my nose. You shall inherit it, he’d say. Now he’d say he rather thought he’d get married again. My bride shall take the estate, and her son after her. Perhaps he fetched you back to Cliffsend because he could not bear to lose control of you, even when he was dead.”

  “But he couldn’t bear to let me inherit, either?”

  Sir Edward shook his head. “Although as between you and Finian, there’s little to choose.”

  Oh, I understood him then. The estate was Sir Edward’s blood, his life, but as Lord Merton’s daughter, I stood in his way. So did Lady Alicia and Finian.

  “I mean to marry Alicia,” said Sir Edward. “She will have me, I am almost sure, if that son of hers doesn’t stick his nose where it’s not wanted. And then I shall be master of Marblehaugh Park by marriage, not by blood. Wouldn’t Hartley be surprised!”

  He seized the front of my shirt and pulled me to my feet. What a long walk that was, Sir Edward’s fingers wrapped round the back of my neck, steering me past the vacant eyes of the chapel Saints to the wall circling the shaft into the Caverns.

  “You mean to put me in there!”

  “We shall get through the Feast of the Keeper very well,” said Sir Edward. “I have every expectation of a good harvest with the Folk quiet and content from their sacrifice.”

  “Me, as sacrifice!” But I couldn’t be afraid of that, when first I had to be afraid of dying as I fell into the Caverns. “You won’t have a live sacrifice.”

  “Listen: There’s a stream beneath.” Sir Edward held up his finger. From deep underground came the sound of running water magnified by a cavernous space. “Others have survived the fall through the Graveyard Shaft, so will you.” He turned me by the shoulders so my back was pressed into the stone, my face full in the moonlight.

  “But the Folk won’t touch me. I have the power of The Last Word.”

  Sir Edward shook his head. “It all comes together for me, now that I know you’re no boy. How did you manage so well all these months as Folk Keeper without that power?”

  He shook his head. “You are so very like your mother. Those broad cheekbones, those eyes, set slightly at a slant. I can’t imagine how I didn’t see it. But Rona’s baby was a girl, and it never occurred to me you could be a boy. Your disguise as Folk Keeper was a good one.”

  “Did I have a Sealskin?” I bit down on my lip, but too late, the question was out. Corinna, never never again let your enemy know what might be precious to you!

  “Now there’s a question,” said Sir Edward. “If you had, Hartley might have destroyed it. He burned your mother’s; that’s when she went mad, refused ever again to look at the sea.”

  I knew then the taste of true fear. It tastes of dark places deep in your stomach and holds you by the neck, tighter than Sir Edward ever could. I must have tried to leap away, for my next memory is of Sir Edward holding me by the wrist, my Folk Bag lying at my feet.

  “I’ve hunted long enough that I can tell when an animal’s about to bolt. Don’t try again or I shall become annoyed.”

  I was choking with fear and the unspent energy of that leap. I bared my teeth and lunged. I missed his neck, found his shoulder.

  “Vixen!” Hard knuckles struck my head, which affected me somehow in my middle, for the next thing I remember is being very sick all over a pair of s
atin rosettes.

  Very carefully, I settled the Folk Bag over my shoulder. “Are you annoyed now?” And I bit him in the arm.

  The rest is just a confused struggle, me trying to bite him, him bolting my arms tightly to my sides — which at least kept me attached to my Bag — scraping my back up the Shaft. My last frozen memory is looking into his forget-me-not eyes, seeing the livid scar behind his eyebrow, then falling, falling, clinging to my Bag, breaking through water, sinking deep, hitting rock, shooting up again.

  It was fresh water.

  “Corin! Corinna!” Sir Edward’s voice sounded faintly through the Graveyard Shaft. “Corinna, answer me!”

  I swam about blindly. I could not tell where the stream ended, or if the stream ended. There was only the echo of Sir Edward’s voice to tell me which way was up. It seems odd now as I write this, but there, flailing about in the water, I was mostly full of a joyful rage. I wouldn’t give. Sir Edward the satisfaction of my being eaten by the Folk. My Folk Bag was properly packed, candles and tinderbox wrapped in oilcloth. The Folk would not come near a lighted candle.

  I splashed about, slapping water, slapping more water, finally slapping stone. I eased myself onto the bank.

  “Corinna! Corin!”

  I shook myself at the edge of the stream. “Corin! Corinna!” I said nothing, and shedding water makes no sound.

  “Corin! Corinna!” Let him think I’d perished!

  He called until dawn bloomed in the patch of sky through the Shaft. His final shout of “Corin!” turned into a cry of horror as a stream of smoke poured itself downward, past his head.

  The bats had returned home on this, the morning of the Feast of the Keeper. The Folk won’t eat me, Sir Edward, and I know why. May your crops fail, Sir Edward; may your milk spoil.

  And when you ask for her hand in marriage, may Lady Alicia slap your face.

  July 11

  My hair reaches past my shoulders. Two inches a day it grows. Even if I didn’t have my internal clock, I’d know I’ve been here six days. I’ve tried spreading my clothes on the floor, but they are always a bit damp, dreadful to put on. This morning I turned out my pockets and found a single amber bead. I hurled it from me. It bounced off the floor and rolled into a corner.

  I need no protection against the sea. And I need little against the Folk. They can’t attack me here, as long as a glimmer of starlight seeps through the Graveyard Shaft. I need no salt or churchyard mold. I need only light. I must save my candles for the first overcast night. Sir Edward may know about hunting, but he knows nothing about the Folk. I do. I am partly of the Otherfolk and have always had an instinct for the world of spells and magic.

  I am not quite alone.

  A cave rat lives in a pile of shredded bark, and of course, there are the bats. To say that the Cavern is filled with bats is like saying the ocean is filled with drops. The Cavern is bats. They fill the walls like water lilies, fantastic flower-heads between folded leaf-wings. Once I tried to count a small patch of them. It was impossible.

  And so this is my Cavern; it is really very beautiful. The roof is like water turned to stone, tumbled falls, shining always faintly from the wet. Mushrooms sprout from invisible crevices. But they do not even tempt me, because of course, there are the fish.

  The fish, so innocent, so trusting. They are not accustomed to the creature with the five white fingers that dangle languorously into the water. They swim into my grasp; I eat and eat and eat. There is a kind of savage joy in not thinking of feeding the Folk. I never set food aside for them now. Let the stupid, sulky things take care of themselves!

  I am lucky, though, that I can catch my own supper. If I were an ordinary human, hunger might drive me to light one of my precious candles and wander through that dark archway at the far end of this chamber, looking for the path to the outside, and to food. But I am the lucky one. I have the luxury of eating and even of tossing aside what I do not care to eat. When it thinks I am not looking, the rat carries away the entrails and skeletons.

  I don’t waste much breath calling up the Shaft. Even if there were anyone near, I doubt my voice would carry above the ground.

  To pass the time, I have been reading through this Folk Record. How crisp and fresh it seemed in February, when I’d just started a new one. But it is no longer a Folk Record: I relinquish my duties! Call it instead Corinna’s Journal.

  Again and again I have said I belong to the cold and the dark and the wet. I was right and I was wrong. I belong to the dark and the wet of the sea. I was once a girl who became a boy who became a Folk Keeper. Now I am a girl again, looking for a way to become a Sealmaiden.

  I must find a way out.

  July 12

  Another day gone, another two inches to my hair. I wear it now in a braid. I have read more of my Journal and I realize something that makes my heart squeeze in on itself — a good reason not to have a heart! I have been reading backward through the pages, thus:

  July 6, from Corinna:

  Did I have a Sealskin?

  June 22, from Finian:

  You’ve grown a bit since, but no matter. I can surely help you over the flames.

  March 22, from Sir Edward:

  I wish they’d destroyed the silvery skin instead. It looks to be ruined in any event, as it is somehow stretching.

  March 21, from Sir Edward:

  Hartley took a number of silvery ones over the years, mostly smaller, as I recall.

  March 21, from Lady Alicia:

  Isn’t he a bit bigger? I’d swear he’s grown since he first came.

  My senses are peeling away from me. My fingertips are far away in the Trophy Room, running themselves over a silver skin, but they are also here, writing.

  His Lordship’s prize trophy: It is my Sealskin! There were not a number of silvery ones as Sir Edward thought. There was only one, but it has been growing as I have been growing.

  Everything shivers into place. This explains my strange yearnings, my thirst for something unknowable, my unusual abilities and limitations.

  The important thing is this: I am missing a piece. A piece as real as an arm or an eye. I always knew something was missing, that I was a shadow at noon, melting away beneath my own two feet. Once I feel my Sealskin round me, once I press it to my skin, I shall be whole.

  His Lordship’s prize trophy — it is me, and I have been growing as my Sealskin has been growing.

  I am filled with a boundless rage when I think of Lord Merton watching me from the Trophy Room, watching his prize trophy grow. I spit on his memory, set the hounds on his soul. He destroyed my mother, but he shan’t destroy me.

  No, it is not hunger — stomach hunger — that will drive me through the dark opening at the far end of this chamber. I may be a long time finding my way, but they are all connected, these Caverns, and one path or another will lead me to the Folk Door.

  I am no Folk Keeper. I am a Sealmaiden, and I know where I belong.

  Tomorrow then, when my braid has grown another two inches, I will light the first of my candles and walk into that dark tunnel, remembering always that on the other end waits my Sealskin.

  12

  Including the Feast of Dolores, the Skeptic (and Other Feast Days I Do Not Care to Name)

  July 13

  The Folk were everywhere present, there in the twisted passageways and echoing Caverns where the sun never shines. Their boiling energy retreated from my candle as I entered the first tunnel. Have they lingered there and sniffed at me, licking their lips?

  The walls were heavy draperies, stone folded upon stone, lustrous with damp. I counted my steps for comfort, walking slowly. Horrible thought, to fall and lose my candle. The passage forked at three hundred paces. I shone my candle down each branch. The left-hand branch narrowed and dipped sharply. But the branch to my right was easy and spacious, and as far as my light would reach, rose steadily toward the surface.

  I wore my necklet of nails, from habit only. It had never shielded me from these Fol
k. But I had another use for it now. I scratched a C into the soft walls, marking my turn to the right.

  The passage did not live up to its early promise. It rose only a bit, then leveled off, and more and more the walls ran with wet. For almost five hundred paces, the tunnel walls pressed close around me, and when they fell away at last, invisible antennae on my backbone rose to meet a vast space.

  The walls here were a marvel, delicate filaments of stone swirling over and in on themselves. I held up the candle; it strained into an enormous darkness. A forest of stone icicles winked down at me, my flame caught at thousands of sharp, wet points. A cold drop landed on my cheek, then on my forehead as I leaned back. A stone straw, dripping water from above. I opened my mouth and snatched a drop from the air.

  I explored this new chamber cautiously, hugging the walls, wondering if they circled in on themselves or opened into other tunnels. I wore no shoes, and before I saw what lay ahead, my feet splashed into shallow water. A cave pool, edged with rocky lace. A clutch of stone pearls shone from the bottom, flat stone pancakes floated on the top. Then, in this place where even the water was gray, something beyond the pool gleamed yellow-white.

  Bones. Fine hand bones, human icicles. I was not afraid; I was barely surprised, in the vast, calm silence of the Caverns. My eyes traveled along more icicle-bones to the head, which smiled mournfully at me.

  I cannot say what possessed me to draw near. Perhaps I knew I’d see the square marks of those teeth that had also marked my offerings of meat in the Cellar.

  The Folk had been at work here, long ago perhaps. I leaned over the skeleton and held my candle into the darkness beyond. My candle shook — no, it was I who shook. I held it with two hands, and then it shook all the more!

  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.