The Folk Keeper

unusual abilities and limitations.

The important thing is this: I am missing a piece. A piece as real as an arm or an eye. I always knew something was missing, that I was a shadow at noon, melting away beneath my own two feet. Once I feel my Sealskin round me, once I press it to my skin, I shall be whole.

His Lordship’s prize trophy — it is me, and I have been growing as my Sealskin has been growing.

I am filled with a boundless rage when I think of Lord Merton watching me from the Trophy Room, watching his prize trophy grow. I spit on his memory, set the hounds on his soul. He destroyed my mother, but he shan’t destroy me.

No, it is not hunger — stomach hunger — that will drive me through the dark opening at the far end of this chamber. I may be a long time finding my way, but they are all connected, these Caverns, and one path or another will lead me to the Folk Door.

I am no Folk Keeper. I am a Sealmaiden, and I know where I belong.

Tomorrow then, when my braid has grown another two inches, I will light the first of my candles and walk into that dark tunnel, remembering always that on the other end waits my Sealskin.

12 Including the Feast of Dolores, the Skeptic (and Other Feast Days I Do Not Care to Name)

July 13

The Folk were everywhere present, there in the twisted passageways and echoing Caverns where the sun never shines. Their boiling energy retreated from my candle as I entered the first tunnel. Have they lingered there and sniffed at me, licking their lips?

The walls were heavy draperies, stone folded upon stone, lustrous with damp. I counted my steps for comfort, walking slowly. Horrible thought, to fall and lose my candle. The passage forked at three hundred paces. I shone my candle down each branch. The left-hand branch narrowed and dipped sharply. But the branch to my right was easy and spacious, and as far as my light would reach, rose steadily toward the surface.

I wore my necklet of nails, from habit only. It had never shielded me from these Folk. But I had another use for it now. I scratched a C into the soft walls, marking my turn to the right.

The passage did not live up to its early promise. It rose only a bit, then leveled off, and more and more the walls ran with wet. For almost five hundred paces, the tunnel walls pressed close around me, and when they fell away at last, invisible antennae on my backbone rose to meet a vast space.

The walls here were a marvel, delicate filaments of stone swirling over and in on themselves. I held up the candle; it strained into an enormous darkness. A forest of stone icicles winked down at me, my flame caught at thousands of sharp, wet points. A cold drop landed on my cheek, then on my forehead as I leaned back. A stone straw, dripping water from above. I opened my mouth and snatched a drop from the air.

I explored this new chamber cautiously, hugging the walls, wondering if they circled in on themselves or opened into other tunnels. I wore no shoes, and before I saw what lay ahead, my feet splashed into shallow water. A cave pool, edged with rocky lace. A clutch of stone pearls shone from the bottom, flat stone pancakes floated on the top. Then, in this place where even the water was gray, something beyond the pool gleamed yellow-white.

Bones. Fine hand bones, human icicles. I was not afraid; I was barely surprised, in the vast, calm silence of the Caverns. My eyes traveled along more icicle-bones to the head, which smiled mournfully at me.

I cannot say what possessed me to draw near. Perhaps I knew I’d see the square marks of those teeth that had also marked my offerings of meat in the Cellar.

The Folk had been at work here, long ago perhaps. I leaned over the skeleton and held my candle into the darkness beyond. My candle shook — no, it was I who shook. I held it with two hands, and then it shook all the more!

The Folk indeed had been at work, but not so very long ago. Scraps of fabric lay scattered about. The Folk had had to undress their meal, and they’d not been tidy about it. I knew those crimson stripes, the livery of Marblehaugh Park. I knew with dreadful certainty that the livery belonged to Old Francis. So did the bones.

Others have survived the fall, Sir Edward had said. I was not his first live sacrifice for the Folk, human sacrifice. He’d used the Shaft rather than the Folk Door, which is never locked. This is why I survived the Storms of the Equinox. The Folk were already brimful of holiday cheer — and Old Francis.

I waited until my hands were steady before resuming my trip round the chamber. I could not leave this casual graveyard; I did not have that luxury. What if a passage to the Folk Door led from here?

There were none, however; the chamber was self–enclosed. I hardly cared. It was such a relief to come full circle to the chamber entrance, down the tunnel to the C I’d scratched in stone, sweet evidence Corinna really existed. From there, it was just moments to the friendly twilight of my own chamber, hung with bats, forested with mushrooms, flowing with fish too guileless to evade the snatching skeleton of my own hand.

July 14

Five minutes to ten o’clock, morning. I stumbled over another skeleton, literally. It was only a goat, I think, but still I apologized.

July 15

Half past midnight. Why did Finian leave me on the pier?

July 16

Thirty-one minutes past two o’clock, afternoon. I snatched a ghost-fish from an underground stream. Its skin was absolutely transparent, all its inner workings on display. For eyes, just sightless pearls, sealed by filmy skin. No need for sight where the sun never shines.

All the tunnels end in disappointment.

I have used two candles.

July 19

Forty-six minutes past nine o’clock, evening. I wonder if the Folk made great mischief on the Feast of the Keeper? I scratch the letter C into every turn to mark my trail, but all tunnels end in disappointment. I think of my mother, scratching her name into the Cellar walls. When her Sealskin was destroyed, she turned away from the sea. It must have been too painful to set eyes on it again. But neither could she quite let go of her need for a deep, dark place. The Cellar was perhaps the closest she could come.

I have used four candles.

July 20

Six o’clock, morning. Why did Finian leave me on the pier? He said that he wept. Was it for the Windcuffer?

July 22

Noon, exactly. I wonder why my father had me brought to Cliffsend? Sir Edward thought he could not bear to lose control of me, but perhaps it’s not that simple. Perhaps he regretted what he’d done. Could he not have been speaking of himself when he said: He told me of your existence, of his shame that he placed you in a foundling home? I will never know.

All tunnels end in disappointment.

I have used seven candles.

July 27

Half past five o’clock, morning. I have one candle left.