He stopped too, and there we were, the three of us on the stairs: Taffy below, stiff and arthritic; Old Francis above, stiff and paralyzed; and me in the middle, stiff and silent. There was only the sound of Taffy wheezing.
“I heard the dogs howling,” said Old Francis presently.
“Dogs will howl at anything.” But it was too late for bluffing.
“I know how it is,” he said. “They howl when the Folk scream. You tried the pins, I see. Try scissors, opened to a cross. It worked for me many times.”
He bowed, then passed without another look. I will accept any advice he chooses to offer, but if he knows I need advice, he also knows I haven’t the power of The Last Word. He’d best not tell anyone. My revenge would be swift and terrible.
I made sure I was the first one at breakfast. But instead of filling my Folk Bag, I found myself staring at the platters of bacon and poppy cakes, the bowls of sardines in oil, the tankards of honey ale. I peered into a chaffing dish. Steam rose from a mound of eggs in cream, misting the silver lid. It all of a sudden seemed terribly futile. I had lost control of the Folk. What was the point in saving anything for them?
I reached for the sardines. The smell raised a hungry sea beneath my tongue. I dropped them into my mouth, one by one, dunking bread in the oil to soften it, then catching up the last drops with my fingers. My hands still smell of fish.
And I am still famished.
6
The Folk have been quiet. Today they ate:
Two small lambs
One tub of butter
One vat of kidney stew.
I’ve taken to stringing an open scissors about my neck, as Old Francis suggested, where it hangs in a crude sign of the cross. I will save the churchyard mold for the next major feast day. The dark energy seeps out the Folk Door in the same way, and the Folk batter the lamb bones in the same way, but they’ve not yet again battered Corinna.
The old dog, Taffy, has joined me in the Cellar. Oh, the smell of him — a combination of unwashed fur and advanced age, rather like sharp cheese. He scratched so at the Cellar door I could not endure it. Neither could Cook who opened the door and sent him down.
You have been forced upon me, Taffy, make no mistake about it. What gives you the confidence to rest your chin on my boot? Go away! Why do you wag your tail when I look at you? I cannot promise you will not be hurt. But the Folk are quiet, for now.
I am learning the ways of the Northern Isles. The Folk here grow very fierce during the Storms of the Equinox, which occur once in the autumn and once in the spring. The spring Storms are fewer than three weeks away. I must be prudent. These Folk have injured me more on one minor feast day and two very ordinary days than the Folk in Rhysbridge ever did in four entire years.
I must find out who’s buried beneath that little headstone.
Finian made me promise to go sailing; perhaps then I could learn the secret. In Rhysbridge, after all, I used to haunt the market, picking up scraps of charms and spells. No, one cannot spend all one’s time in the Cellar. One must be prudent.
I sit on the cliff top, looking at a jar of amber beads. Finian gave them to me this morning. The clean Cliffsend sun slices through, irradiating them with light. There must be dozens, each a key to an exquisite freedom, and Finian says I may have as many as I like!
I stepped outside this morning into shredded streamers of mist. Saturated air hung from my eyebrows, from the fine hairs on the back of my neck. I tumbled down the cliff path into the smell of tar. “What, no Folk Bag!” said Finian.
I tapped my forehead. “Everything I need is right here.”
I did not like to think of losing the Bag overboard in a careless moment, and so I left it in the Cellar, where the Lady Rona will watch over it with her pleas for pity. It will be safe there.
“Perhaps,” said Finian, “you can untangle this line with those little fingers of yours.”
I have vowed never again to be anybody’s drudge. But while we waited for the mist to burn off, it seemed foolish not to help Finian with his repairs on the
I could not, however, untangle the line. The mist lifted itself gradually from my hair, and by the time we set sail in
Finian handed me a jar of amber beads. I tossed one in the sea. “For smooth sailing,” I said as Finian cast off.
He smiled at me. “May the Sealfolk swim unharmed!”
My voice came as an echo. “May the Sealfolk swim unharmed!”
Finian peeled off his spectacles. “I don’t need these out here. I’m good at distance. It’s being closed up in that damnable Manor I hate, where I’m trapped, expected to learn the ways of a lord. Out here is the only place you can be free.”
“For you, perhaps,” I said. “For me, it’s the Cellar.”
“That’s what the Lady Rona thought, too. But she was mad. Perhaps you’ve forgotten about this.” Finian handed me the tiller and the sheet that walks the sail through the wind.
“I never forget.” Then I, Corinna Stonewall, showed him how I could coax the wind to lean its powerful shoulder against our boat, and the sea needed no coaxing to lift us from below. Off skimmed
“And on your second time out!” said Finian.
“I told you, I don’t forget.”
We drew quickly away from the cliffs. Finian pointed out a thumbprint of civilization on the Cliffsend coast, not more than an hour’s walk from the Manor. A tumble of slate-roofed cottages and a crazy-quilt cathedral, all red and yellow stone. “Firth Landing,” he said. “You’ll go there in August for the Harvest Fair.”
“I can’t leave my Cellar,” I said.
“Everyone goes,” said Finian.
But I am not everyone.
“You are stubborn, Corin.” Finian shook his head. “So attached to that Cellar of yours you miss what’s right before your nose. What would be so bad if you gave it up, became a gentleman?”
“Then,” I said, “I’d be in the position of one Finian Hawthorne.
“Didn’t I say I’d box your ears if you call me
“But I can’t take it back,” I said. “That