The Folk Keeper Read online

  I spent my last moments in Rhysbridge watching to see what might result of my revenge. I glanced back at the Home as I followed the velvet cloaks of Lady Alicia and Sir Edward through the yellow fog. Sir Edward’s Valet kept urging me on. He was scornful and splendid in striped crimson livery and powdered curls, but not even he could avoid the soot falling from the chimney pots, the mud, ankle deep. The crimson coach gleamed above the muddy world, and there was a black coach to go with it, with matching black horses. Lord Merton’s body would follow us to Cliffsend.

  I slipped on the high carriage step; the Valet grasped the scruff of my jacket and tossed me in. His fingers were puffy, like dough.

  “Clumsy!” He clicked his tongue.

  It is true that I can trip over anything and nothing — a speck of dust, a patch of sunlight, an idea. I move through life like a person with one eye, through a landscape that looks flat, but is really tricked out with hidden depths and shallows. It didn’t used to be so, but no matter. I navigate the world well enough in my own way.

  As we sat in the carriage, waiting to depart, Sir Edward and Lady Alicia wanted only to be talking of Lord Merton’s decision, to take me in not only as a family member, but also to appoint me as Folk Keeper. They were uneasy, and why not? Matron told them I don’t properly tend the Folk.

  I let them assume I’d had a proper apprenticeship in the Foundling Home. They’ll never know I’d bribed one of the lads to teach me reading and writing. I did his chores for a year. Another lad I bribed to teach me all he knew about spells of protection. I was two years doing his chores. The rest I picked up by keeping my ears open and hanging about the wise women and the fortune-tellers at the Rhysbridge market.

  Still, Lady Alicia and Sir Edward asked me questions about keeping the Folk that any child could answer. I replied as I gazed back toward the Home, waiting to see my revenge begin.

  Yes, I know to feed the Folk once a day.

  Yes, I know they eat only of and from animals: meat, eggs, milk. After all, those are the only things of the human world they have the magical power to harm without stirring from their dark Caverns. They can harm those, and any planted crops, rooted in the soil under which they live.

  Yes, I know a Folk Keeper must pass as much time as possible in the Cellar, so when the Folk grow wild, they spend their anger on him rather than on the crops and livestock.

  Yes, I know they grow more wild and dangerous on holy days, which is when it is most important to keep the Record. The Folk are ever fighting the power of our Saints.

  It was Sir Edward, still all in black and white, who said, “But will you be prepared for their unpredictability, that they can make mischief even on ordinary days?”

  I pointed to the circlet of nails I wear about my neck. Cold iron, an antidote to stone, an antidote to the strength the Folk draw from the rock all around them.

  “I do not go unprotected.” I looked at my Folk Bag. Let them think it was brimful of charms instead of the rather ordinary items a Folk Keeper carries always: this Folk Record, and a bit of lead to write with; candles and a tinderbox, all wrapped in oilcloth against the Cellar’s damp. A separate muslin sack held a dozen bits of old bread and biscuit, and I go nowhere without my shears. Perhaps no other Folk Keeper has hair that grows two inches a night.

  “But he should know of the very particular danger,” said Lady Alicia. Her maid was counting an extraordinary number of parcels and bandboxes, and I was glad of it, for it delayed our departure; I could still watch the Home.

  “I already know the Folk of the rocky lands are especially strong and fierce,” I said.

  “Do you know,” said Sir Edward, “that our last Folk Keeper, Old Francis, all but died of the Folk? It was before we left on this extraordinary journey.” He said extraordinary as though it were a curse. “I have been sick with worry about leaving the estate with no skilled Folk Keeper in charge.”

  I shrugged. What of it? I was not afraid.

  “Listen to Sir Edward,” said Lady Alicia. “He knows the ways of the estate better than anyone.”

  “What shape are the Folk?” said Sir Edward.

  I turned away from the window. “Everybody knows that not even a Folk Keeper can see them, as the Folk cannot bear the light!”

  “Ah, but you can feel them. Old Francis felt them. It was weeks before we knew he’d live through the paralysis. They are mostly mouth, he said. Wet mouth and teeth.“”

  “You only feel them,” I said, “if you’re weak enough to let them hurt you. Besides, I have words — words that rhyme and scan. They spring into my mind of themselves.”

  Their astonishment was all I could have wanted. “The power of The Last Word!” said Lady Alicia, and Sir Edward said, “This is why Hartley thought the boy would do as Folk Keeper.”

  “All original rhymes,” I added, to make sure they understood. “Never the same one twice.”

  Lady Alicia’s maid had finished fussing, and the carriage began to rattle forward. I pressed my face to the window. Yes, there, my revenge was unfolding itself, starting at sixteen minutes past noon, with the butcher banging at Matron’s door.

  I had told the merchants of our borough that I was leaving as Folk Keeper. That, at least, was true. But I also told them Matron had no mind to retain a new Folk Keeper, which was not true. The hens would fail to lay, I said, the butter fail to churn.

  An eye for an eye, or so the saying goes.

  A lie for a lie, or so my saying goes.

  Vengeance. It is not always as delicious as you anticipate, but you must not flinch from it. Otherwise the Matrons of the world would rule us all.

  Good-bye Cellar; good-bye Folk. Will the new Folk Keeper come sit with you and keep you content, as I did? Or will he leave your food just outside the Folk Door and slip away? How Matron will curse when the milk spoils.

  Everyone else is afraid. Only I am powerful.

  February 8 — Bledstone Day

  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.

  What was I doing! I flung it back.

  Why did I almost devour it? I, who rarely need to eat, hungry for this thing of living flesh and blood? I refuse to be like ordinary people, living their ordinary, powerless lives, who need to eat and eat and eat.

  I must be truthful to this Record. Even now, long after I tossed away the fish, I am still hungry for it. Perhaps I’m emptying out, my secret powers slowly ebbing. But when I look at myself now, by the clear light of real wax candles, all is just as usual, my skin almost transparent from the light shining through.

  3

  Cupid’s Crossing

  February 12 — Cupid’s Crossing

  I scarcely recognize myself.

  Whoever saw Corinna lying under a gilded ceiling, between blue velvet hangings? Lying in sheets that have been starched, and even pressed? The smell of leftover heat from the mangle lingers in them still.

  As even my memory can fail — yes, even mine! — I’ve made it a rule to record events as they occur, not letting days go by. But I couldn’t help breaking it; I am only now coming back to myself.

  It seems much longer than three days ago when I waited in the early-morning dark to board the Cliffsend ferry. The cold moon was embedded in a hard sky, picking out the red caps and white canvas jackets of the fishermen, the pale fur trimming of Lady Alicia’s streaming cloak. I didn’t know ladies could run.

  “Finian!” She flung her arms around a man you might at first take for a small bear, tall and broad and light on his feet.

  “I wondered when you’d see me,” he said.

  I tried to puzzle out who he might be. His educated voice and elegant greatcoat went together, but not with his canvas fisherman’s shoes.

  “What are you doing here!” Lady Alicia kissed his cheek, then boxed his ears lightly.

  Who can explain it? Humans are so odd.

  “I missed you, of course.” The young man paused.

  “And you wanted an excuse for a long sail. You must have been up all night!”

  “I don’t need sleep,” said Finian. “I have to be up and doing!” There came a little silence. “I am sorry for His Lordship’s death. As usual, I say the right thing too late.”

  “Let’s not quarrel today,” said Lady Alicia finally. If she grieved for Lord Merton’s death, she kept it close to herself. I like that in her. “Take The Lady Rona, and may you have fair winds and good speed.”

  The Lady Rona! The passwo
rd Lord Merton had given me to assure my place as Folk Keeper. Strange to think The Lady Rona was merely a boat. But when I peered over the high stone jetty, I understood why you might remember her in landlocked Rhysbridge. She was such a pretty, graceful thing, particularly beside that lump of a ferry, which would doubtless bump over the sea much as the carriage had bumped over the rutted roads.

  Then I, Corinna Stonewall, who never asks for anything, astonished myself by tugging at this stranger’s coat. “I want to sail The Lady Rona, too!”

  Bears are said to be fast. Before I could regret my words, Finian had whirled around. He knelt and held out his hand, which, like the rest of him, was enormous.

  “A fellow sailor!” He had a curving beak of a nose, striking winged eyebrows, and dark-red hair.

  “Not a sailor,” said Lady Alicia. “Corin’s our new Folk Keeper.”

  “A Folk Keeper?” said Finian. “But I thought . . .” His voice trailed off and he pulled a pair of spectacles from his pocket and shoved them on his nose.

  “He has the power of The Last Word,” said Lady Alicia.

  I’m sure I stared at Finian as hard as he stared at me. I’d never seen such a young man wearing spectacles.

  “I beg your pardon, Sir Folk Keeper,” said Finian at last. “My eyes are playing me some tricks.”

  “Furthermore,” said Lady Alicia, “he’s the child Hartley was looking for.”

  “Then I’ll be sure not to let him drown, Mother,” said Finian meekly.

  Mother! I stared at Lady Alicia, trying for the first time to guess her age.

  “Everyone wonders the same thing,” said Finian. “Here’s a little hint. Her eldest son, and only son — that’s me! — is twenty-one.” He stretched out his hand and I stared at it.

  “Shake it,” he said. “Shake it and say ‘Pleased to meet you!’ and let’s be off.”