The Folk Keeper (8 page)

I was full of a strange energy when I left the Cellar, even growing two shadows as I passed between the double rows of candles that lined the corridors. All the sconces were lit on this stormy night. The shadows shrank again into my heels when I stepped into the Trophy Room. There was just enough light to see a dozen wet noses and twice as many glistening eyes turned my way.

The hounds yawned and stretched to show their contempt. Liquorice and Honeycomb paced beside me as I fetched a step stool. “Puppies!” I said scornfully, just to remind them of how they’d hidden so shamefully from the thunder.

The jungle beast’s skin was heavier than I’d expected. It toppled me off the stool and onto the bony part of my hip. “At it, lads!” I heaved it as best I could.

Taffy did not stir, but the others leapt upon the skin. I’d been afraid they might begin that inhuman baying of theirs, but they were silent. Terribly silent. I waited until the skin was savaged beyond recognition.

Will you be proud, Sir Edward, proud of your prize trophy now? It is a measure of your power, just as my position of Folk Keeper is a measure of mine. Never threaten my power, for then I will threaten yours.

By twenty-six minutes past three in the morning, my vengeance was complete.

By ten minutes to seven, all the dogs were in disgrace. They slunk about, red ears pinned to their heads, yellow eyes downcast. Sir Edward spoke of it calmly enough at breakfast. Who could understand it? he asked. He seemed calm, I say, but there was a little scar I’d not noticed before, almost hidden by his eyebrow, which turned livid when he spoke.

“If anything,” said Sir Edward, “I wish they’d destroyed the silvery skin instead. It looks to be ruined in any event, as it is somehow stretching.”

Then again and again, “Why did the hounds do it? Why?”

Lady Alicia said that the Storms must have driven them wild, and so did Mrs. Bains and even the Valet. But Finian did not speak. He removed his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose as he does when he’s tired, then looked so purposefully away from me that my heart jumped. He knew!

I’m back in the Cellar now, inside my triple-layered protection, but not protected from a nasty certainty. He knows. Finian knows.

And what if he does? He hasn’t given me away; he won’t do so, I think. What more do I care about? I think only of Cook’s promise to save me a platter of sardines, dried and salted. They are so fragile even I can eat them, bones and all. Why have I grown ravenous at Marblehaugh Park? I cannot wait to feel the crunch of bones between my teeth.

Mrs. Bains says the Folk are very well, and quiet. They have consumed:

Six brace of quail

A shoulder of pork

Five chickens.

The Storms are over, but the memory of them remains. The wind’s voice is rough, tired from screaming.

I never screamed. What a pity that my writing hand is free from hurt, so I must record what happened the second night of the Storms.

The Folk didn’t touch me with a touch that is physical, but I have the bruises still. They sank beneath my skin, ripping through tissue and fiber into the heart of my bones. It hurt red-hot for what seemed a long time, then faded into a slow numbness, which faded into a merciful feeling of no feeling at all.

It seemed merciful, but it was not. It was the ruinous paralysis from which some never recover. I realized it only when Finian gathered me from the Cellar floor. He was the only one brave enough to charge down the stairs when all at once the dogs set to howling. There was the warmth of my right side against him, the beating of his heart against my ear, and on the other side — nothing. No press of circling arms, no warmth.

Sir Edward has explained to everybody’s satisfaction how I could have the power of The Last Word and still be injured. (Certainly to Lady Alicia’s satisfaction, who thinks him the Saint of All Knowledge.) It is convenient to be able to say that without a sacrifice, the Folk grow so wild during the Storms they all but overwhelm The Last Word.

It is less convenient that I cannot believe it. Why didn’t the Folk hurt me as badly as Old Francis? Kill me, even? I shall recover as Old Francis never did.

Saints be praised that the Folk do not again grow so fierce until the Feast of the Keeper, in July. Between now and then I must find new protection.

I should report on the Folk on this feast day, but I’d rather report on myself.

Oh, very well: The Folk have been quiet. They have consumed:

Three dozen buckets of first milk

Two hundred and seven eggs, leaving no shells

A side of beef.

Mrs. Bains insists I am too ill to leave the Manor. But I am quite recovered. Best not tell her I slipped out this morning, hid myself among the drifting fog-wraiths all the way to the cliffs.

The beach was littered with debris: dead fish and birds, feathers, driftwood (driftwood, on this treeless island!). The sun shone behind the mist like a full moon. Seagulls stood in tidy rows, still exchanging stories about the storm.

It was low tide and at the edge of the beach was a five-foot drop to a scatter of rocks. The tide pools were overflowing with water, bursting with life. Beneath the tenacious algae, dozens of happy creatures were doubtless going about their daily business.

Life, life. I smelled it all around. The green sea, bursting with life, from the sea urchins amongst the rocks below to the barnacles and seaweed creeping up the pilings of the pier. The poets always sing of bright blue water, but I don’t care for it. Blue is nothing; blue has only itself to reflect.

All the others in the Manor will be stuffing themselves with eggs on this Sunday. But not I.

I leaned off the pier, casting glances over my shoulder even as my hand darted into the water. Mrs. Bains wants to feed me, but she cannot know what I really want. Flesh, sweet and salty, bursting with life. I threw the entrails to the birds, the skeletons to the sea.

The Folk have eaten:

Two roast ribs

Five rounds of cheese

A barrel of smoked haddock.

I do not regret destroying Sir Edward’s prize trophy. I do regret that Finian suspects me. I should have known never to reveal any of my true Convictions. And for what? The Secrets were no good. The churchyard mold failed to work against the Folk. What shall I do come July, during the Feast of the Keeper, when the Folk next grow wild?

Old Francis has disappeared.

He vanished during the Storms of the Equinox, but I learned of it only this morning, when the chapel bells shook us all out of bed and into the meadow behind the Manor. It was lovely in the early light, gathering violets and marsh marigolds for the May Day garlands. Clouds of sheep floated in distant fields, and dandelions lay scattered like spots of sunshine.

Lady Alicia made five garlands, and Finian made three. His big fingers are remarkably nimble. Sir Edward gave a little boy a copper to gather flowers for him, but then even he spread his elegant coattails in the grass and constructed his garlands with the deliberate care he devotes to all affairs of the Manor.

I managed one garland, which might, with luck, fit a head shaped like a triangle.

“Of all the feast days,” said Lady Alicia, plucking at the grass, “Old Francis loved May Day best.” She brought her palm level with her face, then blew the grass into the wind. “These are easy days, he always said. Easy for a Folk Keeper.”

Old Francis? I looked about. He was nowhere among the knots of Manor servants laughing and gathering flowers.

Finian set a garland on my head. “You’ll not see him here. No one’s seen him since the Storms.”

I hadn’t thought of him for weeks.

Easy days for a Folk Keeper. Yes, the Folk are quiet now a long while, today eating only a hogshead of boiled pig knuckles. The May Day garlands are scattered in a circle round the Manor, restricting the power of the Folk to the Caverns. Likewise, during the Masquerade Ball on Midsummer Eve, the Manor will be circled with a ring of burning torches. We do not celebrate Midsummer Eve on the Mainland, but Mrs. Bains assures me this fiery ring will keep the Folk subdued.

These have indeed been easy days. I’ve been busy with Finian, putting the final touches on the
Windcuffer.
We’ve been breaking in her new set of sails, puttying her cracks and seams with lead-and-linseed oil, and painting her properly, with many thin coats. She dried slowly, gleaming in the spring sun.

The
Windcuffer
has come alive, just as everything in Cliffsend has sprung suddenly to life. Banks of buttercups shine everywhere, and the hyacinths are making a great show of themselves, each of their leaves carefully combed and curled.

Everything’s come to life, and all this while I never noticed Old Francis was gone. I wish I’d noticed earlier. Then I’d never have worried he’d tell my secret, reveal I don’t have the power of The Last Word. He can’t tell anyone, now.

It has taken the Folk all day to eat a mere dozen cheeses, but I rose for breakfast at dawn. There was just a tiny brightening to the east, like the pinkish-gray luster in the lining of a shell. The fish were easy marks, hovering at the surface during their great nightly grazing. I struck again and again.

By the time Finian arrived, I was bursting with Convictions.

I told him the sun shines on the seafloor in a grillwork of fractured light.

I told him the sky is delicately cobwebbed with clouds, that gulls fly over the water like scattered confetti.

“I like these new Convictions,” he said. “How wonderfully you Folk Keepers are schooled. You find the right words to describe the Folk, and everything else, too.”

But no one schooled me. I had to school myself.

I told Finian he owes me two Secrets.

When I read this over, I realize how different I sound from the old Corinna. I’m not turning into a sentimental girl, am I? Swooning over the sunset and dabbing lavender water on my wrists? I must be alert to signs of encroaching softness. I need a new morning routine: clean teeth, wash face, check heart for signs of dry rot. Replace it with good mahogany planking, as we did the
Windcuffer.
It’ll last a long time.

It is half past ten, and there’s still an underglow to the sky. The Cliffsenders boast that on Midsummer midnight you can read without a candle, or play a game of ball, if the ball is white.

I sit on the cliffs, but even here I am not far enough removed from the Midsummer festivities. Why do people do it, having guests to stay for a whole week? First you have to endure the washing of draperies and airing of beds and beating of carpets (all of which had seemed more than clean enough to me). Then you have to endure the hideous chatter of the ladies and gentlemen and their maids and valets; and even beg Cook for a barrel of dried beef for the Folk on this feast day.

You can never get far enough away. Sounds from the Masquerade Ball drift across the lawn. Arching streamers of violin music, the rumble of distant talking and laughter, a happy scream. Someone won at cards, or had her dress trod on, or was kissed!

I stood out from the others earlier tonight when I entered the Ballroom in my Samson costume. Yes, I dressed as Samson, he of the long hair. We are a little alike, he and I, for our hair sets us apart. His gave him strength, and mine — well, it is inconvenient that it grows two inches each night, but it is one of my secret powers. Not for anything would I give it up.

My white tunic was very plain among the jesters and their bells, the wizards and their staffs, the fairies and their jewels, fragile shoulders rising from beds of ribbon and gauze. But my costume hid more secrets than theirs. So did my hair, which I’ve grown to my chin and colored with a walnut stain. I seem to be wearing a wig. No one would guess it’s mine. I like to be fooling them all.

Midsummer Eve is my birthday, and there is one disappointment that has come with turning sixteen. I seem to be starting to grow. I can wear the tunic and still be thought a boy, but not for long, perhaps. Not for long.

I slipped round the edges of the crowd, avoiding the crystal chandeliers, whose hundreds of candles were already dripping hot wax. Poor Mrs. Bains. I knew her armies had spent hours polishing the Ballroom floor with beeswax and cleaning the chandeliers until each crystal was beautifully radiant.

A footman handed me a glass. Tiny lines of bubbles streamed through pale liquid. The fiddle cried out in a language that everyone but I understood. Like pieces of a kaleidoscope, the ladies and gentlemen fell into patterns of color on the Ballroom floor.

I slipped out the French doors; dancing is not for me. The indoors and out-of-doors were all mixed together. Armfuls of ivory roses bloomed everywhere inside the Manor; outside, an immense Oriental carpet suffocated the lawn — or so I heard the gardeners complain. On it stood a long buffet table, at which Mrs. Bains was counting bottles of champagne in a hollow ice-swan.

I stood on the lawn, between two worlds, watching the dance. Behind me, a couple of gardener lads argued about how to lay the Midsummer bonfire. Before me, the squares in the Ballroom fragmented, the ladies and gentlemen flowing into separate lines, then swirling themselves together with hooked elbows and clasped hands. It is traditional for the host and hostess to dress only as themselves: Sir Edward, never deviating from his black and white, Lady Alicia in rubies and gold satin.