The Folk Keeper

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 you 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.