“What does it mean?” I cried as the crowd split from itself, forming a long, snaking path to the fire. “What do they want!”
“You must leap the bonfire,” said Sir Edward. “The Folk Keeper always goes first.”
“Me?” They wanted me to run down the path they’d made and jump the flames? “I am too clumsy.”
“It makes the strongest charm against the Folk,” said Sir Edward. “The Folk Keeper must go first.”
The crowd had found out my name.
“I’ve heard of no such thing,” I said. But I didn’t add it was most likely because Midsummer is not celebrated on the Mainland.
“It is time,” said Sir Edward.
His hand was very tight on my elbow. Sir Edward, implacable about matters concerning the estate, steering me rather roughly to the head of the path.
The fire burned bright and hungry, licking its lips with a yellow tongue. “I shall fall into the flames,” I said. Why did they keep feeding it old torches and armfuls of heather? “Even if I do not die, I shall be useless as your Folk Keeper.”
“Then we shall find another.” Sir Edward smiled to take the edge off his words, but he meant it, I could tell. I did not like him any the worse. You have to be ruthless to care for what you love.
I wrested my elbow from Sir Edward’s grip, but he swung me back, lifting me half from my feet. A jeweled button raked my cheek. My breathing was trapped in a bubble of pressure. My arms were trapped, I had only my teeth. I snapped out, they sank into something soft. And then there was air and solid ground and the metallic taste of blood.
Most people would have cried out, but there was silence first, then Sir Edward saying, “That costume cannot disguise what you really are.”
I had not thought it possible to be so afraid. My hair — could he tell it wasn’t a wig? But a pair of canvas shoes moved into my ant’s-eye view through the grass. He meant Finian, the fisherman.
“You know I love to argue with you, Edward.” Finian lifted me from the ground and set me on my feet as though I were an egg. “But let’s leave my costume for another day. I don’t like these rough games with our little Folk Keeper.”
“A true Folk Keeper,” said Sir Edward, “would not hesitate to jump the flames.”
Finian held out his hand. “I carried you from the Cellar the night the Storms began. You’ve grown a bit since, but no matter. I can surely help you over the flames.”
“The Folk Keeper must go first,” said Sir Edward.
“I promise,” said Finian. “Our Folk Keeper shall be first over the flames. And Samson, I promise you’ll clear the flames, although you must land on your own feet. I’ll carry that damned inconvenient Folk Bag for you.”
I yielded it up; I had no choice it seemed. Then, as we started down the path, Finian squeezed my elbow. “Ready?”
“No!” I said, and broke grudgingly into a run.
What Midsummer magic made my feet so sure and fast tonight? I was an arrow, pulsing down the path, sprinting ahead of Finian, suddenly sure I did not need his help.
How did my feet know just when to gather speed, just when to spring? How did they clear the flames so neatly? I barely felt the heat before I stood on the other side.
Finian landed lightly beside me. “You didn’t need my help!”
I shrugged. Who could understand it. “You lost your cap.”
“Now will Edward like my costume?” said Finian.
Short plump legs churred down the lane. The crowd gasped when Sir Andrew landed on a burning log, then laughed.
“Is that how they do it on the Mainland, Andy!” someone shouted. And stout, good-natured Sir Andrew waved his smoldering shoe like a trophy. “I can’t jump as their Folk Keeper does!”
Sir Edward jumped last, a shimmer of white silk and diamond buttons. He would never lose a shoe to the fire, or a cap.
Sir Edward handed Finian a brick of peat, then after a moment’s hesitation, one to me. From the web of skin beside his thumb, shone the red moon of my teeth.
“You too, Corin,” he said. “Throw a peat on the fire and see who your future wife will be.”
“My wife?”
It was laughing Sir Andrew of the smoldering shoe who finally explained it to me. Each unmarried person holds a half-burned brick of peat against his heart for no fewer than seven minutes. “When you break it in two, Corin, the color of the strands that hold the peat together will match the hair of the lucky lady you are to marry.”
The crowd again.
There were shouts and cheers. The Tragic Queen blushed, and Finian said, “Do shut up!”
We all did shut up after we’d thrown our peat on the fire, watching it burn, taking care not to confuse our particular square with another’s. Behind me Sir Edward whispered, “What if the strands in yours are black?”
Someone laughed nervously, and I had to glance round to see it was Lady Alicia. It was most unlike her. She was blushing, too.
Amiable Sir Andrew retrieved my peat for me. “Here you are, Samson. I hope the girl’s a beauty, though you’ll have to wait a few years.”
It is lovely to hold a brick of warm peat to your breast. Who would have thought so? Your heart beats against it; you grow tranquil; your heart slows, thuds against warmth; the fibers of the peat glow against your skin, grow around your heart. The crowd grew calmer still, all of us just breathing and beating.
Sir Edward moved first, breaking his peat and peering into its heart. By the time Mrs. Bains began to set up for Midsummer breakfast on the lawn, the crowd had again grown shrill and giddy, teasing each other to say what color strands they’d found. The Tragic Queen shook her head and wouldn’t say.
Sir Edward smiled at Lady Alicia. “Chestnut.”
“Fair.” Lady Alicia shrugged, mostly with her eyebrows. “My late husband was fair. Perhaps that means I shan’t remarry.”
Everyone looked at Finian. “I will never tell.”
Sir Andrew asked me, but I’d put my peat in my Folk Bag without looking.
“Samson doesn’t care for marriage,” he said.
“No, I will never marry.”
I slipped away, back to the cliffs where I have spent so much of this Midsummer Eve. I do not belong in that crowd of people looking for love. The sky is beginning to glow with its own inner light, and soon I will set off to collect Saint-John’s-Wort. I cannot eavesdrop at the Rhysbridge market, but Mrs. Bains is almost as useful. She says that if you gather the herb exactly at Midsummer dawn, it may protect you against the Folk, who will soon again grow wild.
The evening sun hangs in my bedchamber mirror, setting the room on fire. Everything seems to have been on fire, from the torches tossing their reflection into dark windows, to the flames licking at Sir Andrew’s shoe, to the bricks of smoking peat.
