The Folk Keeper Read online

  “Your lips aren’t even blue,” said Sir Edward. “Here, wrap this around you, anyway.”

  I draped the jacket over my head like a hood, and around my shoulders and chest. Wet hair, plastered to my scalp, might look very unlike a wig. And the growing Corinna, in a wet tunic, even less like a Folk Keeper. It was Sir Andrew’s jacket; Sir Edward had not wanted to give up his own.

  “Lady Alicia won’t like it that you let Finian fall off the cliff,” I said.

  “She won’t,” said Sir Edward. “I shall have to admit to her that we quarreled, and that when he shoved me I was childish enough to shove him back, and so it went.”

  “You quarreled about his costume?”

  He shrugged. “It all seems so unimportant now.”

  “What if he dies?”

  “You’re a cool little thing, aren’t you. What if he dies, you ask, calm as can be.” He pointed down the beach to a broad backside bent over a long body. “The problem was not that Finian can’t swim, but that he hit his head. Mrs. Bains is doing what she can.”

  I did not feel like a cool little thing. There was a terrible emptiness in my stomach, and I kept thinking of all the things I’d never said to Finian. Did he know I treasured the amber beads? Did he know I even laughed at his jokes, deep inside? I could not imagine how it must be for Lady Alicia, who leaned against the cliff. A scrap of gold satin lay on the crumbled rock, a piece of morning sky come to earth. She is very brave. I will never know what a mother feels when she waits to learn if her son lives or dies.

  I was suddenly seized in a plush embrace. “Bless the boy!” cried Mrs. Bains. She was still wearing her house-keeper slippers. “He asked for you, Master Finian did. Asked for you then laughed a bit — you know the way he has — and said, ‘Tell Samson not to cut his hair!’”

  Finian would live! Oh, the relief of it — my stomach filled up and my mind emptied out. I could wonder for the first time how Mrs. Bains had managed the cliff path; I could almost laugh at the thought that she’d need a winch to help her up again.

  The Valet and his scornful cousins appeared, rather out of breath, with eiderdown quilts and a bottle of amber liquid. I glanced Finian’s way, then wished I hadn’t. His wet hair was dark and dead-looking on the rock. I’d rather remember him from last night, when the firelight shone through his hair, shooting it with red lights.

  The footmen exchanged looks of dismay when Mrs. Bains said it was time to carry Finian up the cliff.

  “Up with you, too, Master Corin!” Mrs. Bains’s heavy hand was on my shoulder. “Come get warm, Saints love you.”

  My feet were sure and light up the cliff path. It was as though I had just then memorized the cliff, learned by heart its craggy tapestry. Where did clumsy Corinna go?

  I look into the bedchamber mirror, which now reflects the twilight sky. Is this the old clumsy me, or the new surefooted one?

  I must tend the Folk. I missed my chance to gather Saint-John’s-Wort at Midsummer dawn. How shall I control the Folk during the Feast of the Keeper?

  My Folk Bag leans against the dressing table, looking rather full. Of course, it is the peat. I told Sir Andrew I will never marry, and that is the truth. But I may as well break it open, just to amuse myself.

  I am back, staring into the twilight mirror. It is all silliness, and wouldn’t Finian laugh if he knew that the strands that bind my peat are dark red.

  10

  Including Balymas Day (the Feast of the Keeper Is Tomorrow!)

  June 23

  Clumsy Corinna is back. How can it be that my body did what I asked of it for only one night? I miss the skipping freedom of that Midsummer girl. Who can explain it: How did she come? Where did she go? I’ve been looking for her.

  I dropped off the edge of the beach today, into water to my waist. After a few rocky steps, I slipped and came up spluttering. Where was that new dimension, the sudden electrical opening of the world?

  Finian has been weak and ill. Mrs. Bains delights in trapping him under trays of broths and gruels and iced jellies. She wanted me to take to bed, too. “All that time in the nasty sea, and you such a little thing!”

  “I am never chilled,” I tell her, and close my ears against her entreaties. Closing my ears — I revel in it. It is a new power.

  If anything, I am rather too warm. I am always flushed these days of summer, my skin surging to rose in the midday sun. No, it is heat, not cold, that affects me most. The Folk are unnaturally quiet, resting up, perhaps, for the Feast of the Keeper, now fewer than two weeks away. I have no charms now; I missed my chance to gather Saint-John’s-Wort.

  The easy days are gone.

  July 4 — Balymas Day

  I almost welcome Taffy’s companionship. He’s curled beside me on the cliff top, but I do not go so far as to pat him when he asks. His fur is sticky and old, worn down to the skin. He does not insist, however, and I tell him that at least his manners are good. His tail thuds on the rock.

  The Folk continue quiet. They have consumed:

  One barrel of herring

  One dozen lobsters, with most of the

  shell.

  Mrs. Bains was not pleased. She was hoping to have one of those lobsters for herself. Today Finian has consumed:

  A dram of ginger wine

  Bread with milk and honey

  A bowl of egg pudding.

  He is pale and spends much of the day in his room, but I’ve coaxed him to come sailing with me tomorrow.

  The Feast of the Keeper is the day after that, and then I shall be obliged to return to the old way of spending hour upon hour in the Cellar.

  I will not allow Taffy to join me. He is old and fragile, and any sputter of anger from the Folk might kill him. I shall be alone again, just me and the Folk.

  And another worry, too. I am growing. What will Mrs. Bains think when I tell her I need new and different clothes, tight waistcoats and loose frock coats? Sometimes I grow weary of it all, the pretense, the worry about the Folk. Finian once asked what would be so bad about becoming a gentleman. What if I revealed everything and became — what? A lady, I suppose. Do ladies sail? Would they take away my amber beads?

  No, if I cannot be a Sir Edward, running the estate and doing as I like, I’d best remain a Folk Keeper.

  July 5

  Only one day later, and the world is running in reverse, right to left, against the tide of expectation. I am in the Cellar where I belong, in the cold and the damp and the dark.

  How different from the clear Cliffsend light earlier today. Even the rocks were shining when I scrambled down the cliff, too intent on reaching the pier to see what I should have seen from above. The Lady Rona was gone, already out to sea, heading for the Seal Rock. Periwinkle water stretched between boat and shore; the Windcuffer and I were left behind.

  The round, whole world as I’d known it cracked in my hands and leaked through my fingers. “Come back!” But it was too late. Finian was soon nothing more than a sail against the round bowl of the horizon.

  I wanted to pluck the plug from that basin and watch him drain into the center of the world. And with that fancy came a mounting pressure inside, like an egg left cooking too long. Off I’d go, Pop! Bits of shell striking everyone.

  I seized a stone and ran to the end of the pier. Smash! In it would go, into the Windcuffer, through those mahogany floorboards Finian loved so well.

  I raised it over my head. The stone trembled in my grasp, but my fingers wouldn’t release it. I had grown soft all these weeks away from my Cellar.

  Very gently, I laid it on the pier, sat down beside it. I spoke aloud to the sea, my words skipping like smooth stones over an underwater storm. “I propose a pact. Grow angry, as I am. Toss Finian around a bit. I haven’t the strength to frighten him, but you have.”

  It was a childish game, urging the sea to take my revenge for me. “In return, I vow to worship you all the days of my life.”

  Someone was coming up behind; I pressed my lips together. “Why didn
’t Finian take the Windcuffer?” It was Sir Edward. “He always sails the Windcuffer.”

  “Not always, it would seem.” I had also wondered why, but what was it to him? “Might I borrow a knife?” I said. Then, at his look of surprise, “Or your brooch? Yes, the cameo. I’ll only be a moment.”

  It was just like Sir Edward to have a good, sharp clasp to his brooch. I jabbed the pin into my fingertip, where it leaked blood, but nothing of my rage. One, two, three, I shook the red drops into the sea and whispered, “To our pact, strong as blood!”

  “Whatever are you doing?” said Sir Edward. But before I could tell him it was none of his affair, his voice changed and he pointed to the sea. “Look!” His hand still bore the livid crescent of my teeth from Midsummer.

  Quick as mercury, the sea’s periwinkle face turned dark and rough. The waves arched with anger, like a cat, running with the wind at their backs. Against the darkening horizon, the air grew yellow; the solitary boat rocked in long combers.

  The pier was not large enough for my feelings. It was a child’s game, my pact with the sea. Surely it hadn’t raised a storm? I brushed past Sir Edward. “Did he have an amber bead?” I said aloud. I had not one, but two. I paced the beach, watching the waves swell, the foam gather along their backs and streak in the direction of the wind.

  I had to walk, I had to move, but Sir Edward stood curiously still, just watching. Monarch butterflies lay motionless at my feet. Against the shore, waves threw chunks of rock from their yawning bellies.

  The coming storm was a tangle of sounds: Taffy whining from the cliffs, the wind keening across the waves, the sudden silence of birds. The air turned to pea soup; I could no longer see the white speck of Finian’s boat.

  “It was just a game,” I cried to the sea. “I take it back!” But the rain came anyway, great hard drops that stung my face and pounded fragile butterfly wings.

  Throughout it all, Sir Edward stood motionless on the pier, just watching, black satin drenched by cold rain. He said not a word of warning or encouragement as I pushed past him for the second time and almost fell into the Windcuffer, cursing the random, erratic winds. The Windcuffer shot away from the pier, rearing back to leap the waves, pitching so hard into troughs it seemed she must tear a hole in the fabric of the sea.

  The waves snatched the amber bead from my palm. “For smooth sailing!” I screamed, but the sea had forgotten the rules, or else it was too late. My fingertip wept blood. Salt wind stung my eyes, a lone gull flew past.

  I made for the Seal Rock in the mysterious way a pigeon heads for home. But I wasn’t even halfway there before the giant palm of one of those waves slapped at the Windcuffer. I slammed into the mast, and precious seconds passed before I could breathe again, before I realized that the water lapping about my ankles hadn’t come from the sea and crashing waves.

  I pressed my hand to the floor. My finger fit comfortably into a crack between the boards. How did the flooring come to be damaged? The sea below was filling up the Windcuffer faster than the sky from above.

  The flooring gave way. The waves were on it in a second, biting and tearing at it, pulling it apart with frothy fingers.

  I watched the sea gradually merging with the Windcuffer, and the Windcuffer gradually merging with the sea. The boat I’d helped bring to life fell to bits about me, and then I hardly cared that I also merged with the water, now pounded beneath as a wave crested, now tossed to the surface by some boiling power beneath.

  Pictures flitted through my head like dreams. White water swallowing a bit of planking, dense silver needles of rain. A hand lying against silvered fur. My hand, and my arms, too, wrapped about a round neck, my chest pressed close to a sleek back. These were no common seals ringed round me, with their great silver heads and deep human eyes.

  I closed my own eyes. “May our boat be blessed.” Smashing water is nothing to the Sealfolk. We ran effortlessly with the waves, riding them easily as foam. Boom and Hiss, went the waves. Boom and Hiss. I was all but one with the sea. And Finian, how he would love this. Where was he?

  Boom and Hiss.

  Was he alive?

  As we entered the cove, the song of the waves turned into a steady crashing, and there were human voices, too, calling my name. The storm had lost heart, content just to spit the waves about. I could stand alone; the water came to my chest.

  Behind me, the Sealfolk were already racing out to sea. “Come back!” But it was too late.

  “Corin!”

  My head snapped forward. It was Finian — Finian! — hurrying over the scatter of low-tide rocks, now plunging through the water toward me.

  “You idiot!” he cried. “Taking the Windcuffer into that storm!”

  “You’re alive!” I did not shout as he had, but he heard me nonetheless.

  “Imagine that!” he said. “Unlike you, I came back the moment the storm began. And now the Windcuffer’s gone.”

  “The Sealfolk brought me back.” I could not stop thinking of it.

  “I must have called them,” said Finian. “Seven tears to call the Sealfolk. I wept enough tears to call dozens.”

  “You can’t call the Sealfolk at low tide.”

  Then Sir Edward stood beside us, and I had to gulp back the words that were clamoring to leap from my mouth. Why did you leave me behind?

  “You must hurry, Corin,” said Sir Edward. “One of the calves has taken ill, and some of the cheeses have melted into pools of whey. The Folk are angry, and I fear for my crops.”

  “Give Corin a chance to draw his breath!” said Finian.

  But for once, I agreed with Sir Edward. The Folk Keeper must hurry when the Folk grow wild. So I said only to Finian, “I’m sorry about the Windcuffer.”

  I don’t remember scaling the cliff. Sir Edward might have helped me, clumsy again as I am. I do remember the endless pounding of my feet across the grass, thinking strange disjointed thoughts. How could the Folk have grown wild when the Feast of the Keeper wasn’t until tomorrow? How could the grass be dry when everything else had been so wet? Then I was pounding up marble steps and down marble corridors to seize my Folk Bag. I had no time to examine it, but I am careful and I knew it held everything it should: my necklet of nails and my writing lead, and then — all wrapped in oilcloth against the Cellar’s damp — this Folk Record and my tinderbox and candles. I had no time to gather bread or salt or churchyard mold. But I could not go without an offering of food. Quick: to the Kitchens.

  The Cellar was very quiet. I laid down my offering and edged open the Folk Door. It felt quiet enough, but perhaps the Folk had spent all their wild energy on the calf and the cheeses.

  For perhaps the first time, I do not want to be here. I find myself trapped; I see no way out. I’m afraid I may fail with the Folk. I’m afraid the Folk may injure me. But I am also afraid to reveal my secret, ask to become a lady, as Lord Merton had originally intended. Even if Sir Edward didn’t turn me away, I might spend my life waiting on one pier or another. I refuse to wait, and worry, and indulge myself in all the peculiar feelings most people are so fond of. I refuse!

  Why did Finian leave me waiting?

  Two hours have passed while I’ve been writing. There is still no sign of the Folk. Could Sir Edward be wrong?

  But while a calf might sicken of itself, it can be no natural thing that the cheeses melted into whey.

  For now, however, the Folk are quiet, and I am back in the dark where I belong.

  11

  The Feast of the Keeper , but What Is It to Me?

  July 6 — Feast of the Keeper

  I said I belong in the dark and the deep, and now my words are coming back, mocking me. But how could I have known? My own deep darkness — it has nothing to do with the Cellar. Yet look where I am, on this, the Feast of the Keeper!

  Ah, Corinna, stop. Just be thankful you have your Folk Bag, and that your Folk Record is still dry because it was properly wrapped in oilcloth, and that you have enough light to write in it, too. At least y
ou can talk to yourself.

  It was an entire lifetime ago when I sat in the Cellar yesterday, a whole world ago when the Cellar door opened and there came soft footsteps, and a light. I did not even look up when the footsteps stood before me; I could see well enough who it was by the white silk stockings and black rosettes on his shoes.

  “Finian has taken ill again,” said Sir Edward. “Very ill. We’re all gathered in the churchyard to pray.”

  I rose without a word.

  “Quietly now through the Manor,” said Sir Edward. “We must do nothing to disturb Finian.”

  The night was warmer than I’d expected, the graveyard dark and still. “The others are all so quiet,” I whispered.

  “They are praying.”

  I paused at the gate. “They are not even breathing.”

  “Trust you to notice, you with that hearing of yours.”

  I should have heeded the little prickle that came to the back of my neck, but would it have done any good? Sir Edward was walking me to the tiny grave under the chapel eaves, and his grip was very tight at my elbow.

  “There is no one here.” I paused, smelling recently turned earth, rotting wood, and mildew. “You disturbed the baby’s grave!”

  A taste like spoiled apples rose in my throat, and the details of that scene froze themselves in memory. Me, looking down, seeing an ivy-covered mound, my worn boots, Sir Edward’s black rosettes. It was a quarter past one.

  “No one but you will notice,” he said. “No one comes here much, and I’ve covered the raw earth with leaves and ivy.”

  Something was terribly wrong, but perhaps something was also terribly right. “Finian is not really ill, is he?”

  “He’s well enough to be looking for you in Firth Landing, making sure you haven’t stolen aboard the Mainland ferry. I told him you’d crept away from the Cellar. He didn’t even stop to look for you there, just went searching. And as you were to be found nowhere on the estate, what would he conclude but that you’d run away?”