I had to turn around then, and wag my own tail, and maybe even smile, which I did not feel like at all.
“Don’t get up,” said Lady Alicia, sinking down beside me. “You have the best seat in all of Marblehaugh Park.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek.
“It’s all very well for two ladies to embrace,” said Finian. “But what’s a poor gentlemen to do?”
“You could shake her hand,” said Lady Alicia.
“I’d rather take it.” This he did, very gently, studying my palm, the blistered redness now puckering to scars. “And you’ve transformed again! Don’t make me work so hard to recognize you.”
“I hardly recognize myself.” I thought of the stranger in my mirror tonight, brocade skirts shot with pewter threads, stiff silver pleats at the bodice, which suddenly seemed cut too low. “You have new spectacles.”
“Yes, someone broke mine.”
“You look like the mistress of Marblehaugh Park.” Lady Alicia was both more beautiful than I remembered, and more worn. I could almost believe now she was the mother of a grown son.
“You shall be mistress here, not me,” I said.
“Help me, Mother,” said Finian. “Tell her she can’t go.”
“I will do no such thing,” said Lady Alicia.
“Then tell her we have a proposal. We do have a proposal for her, don’t we, Mother?”
“That’s one way of putting it.” Lady Alicia set a black velvet box on my lap. “But Finian must do the proposing.”
“Open it!” said Finian. “Maybe it will propose by itself.”
It opened with a little snap. Inside lay a band of opals and emeralds, the colors of the sea. I tipped it into the smooth palm of my right hand.
Waves slapped at the cliffs below, somewhere a curlew cried.
“This is where I leave.” Lady Alicia rose. “Finian, you shall have to fend for yourself.”
“Deserted by my own mother?” Finian laid his hand over mine, trapping the ring between our two palms. “This will come out all wrong, as I can never manage to be quite serious, but here it is: I want to marry you!”
He shook his head and laughed. “No, this is where I should start: I love you. I love you with your stubbornness and conviction and eye for small beauties; and now that you have the power of The Last Word . . . Well, I’m glad I’m not one of the hounds!”
How could I answer that! Finian sighed. “Not very romantic, I suppose.”
“I like your sort of romance,” I said slowly. “I couldn’t do with the on-your-knees-in-the-moonlight kind. But it’s difficult to speak of love. I haven’t the habit; I’ve gone my whole life without.”
“Three words,” he said. “Try it. The pain will only last a moment.”
That Finian! He could always make me smile. This time, I even let it show on my face.
“I love you.”
Finian took a deep breath. “So you will stay?”
How could I explain? “Remember how it was when you were forbidden to be building ships or thinking of a life with the sea? I have a life with the sea, too, but you’d have me confined to land by a promise of love, or marriage?”
“Why does it have to be one over the other?” said Finian. “Live in the sea if you like, only come back again. I’d wait for you, every evening.”
I shook my head. “A Sealmaiden lives in the sea; that is her proper life.”
“You don’t know that, Corinna. Once you were convinced that being a Folk Keeper was your proper life. You’re so one-sided, not even considering the idea.”
“You said you like me stubborn.”
“So I did.” Then, very irritated, “You won’t miss me?”
“I will. But if I stayed, I’d miss myself more.”
Finian’s hand still lay across mine. I drew mine away. Our hands were pressed so tight together, the ring left twin half-moon smiles on my palm.
He closed his fingers around it. “When do you leave?”
“After the Storms. I’ll see the Folk make no mischief.”
“At least a week, then,” said Finian.
“The Storms are coming early, tomorrow perhaps.”
Finian shook his head, but I know what I know, for my eyes are fierce and bright and my hair can see the shadow of the wind.
I’ve sprung another leak. My paper is wet and the lead is smudging. But a few more drops of salt won’t make a bit of difference to the sea. The cry of a tin whistle drifts through the night. Play all the sad songs you like, Finian. I’ll never change my mind.
These may be the last words I ever write. I am on the cliffs, halfway to the sea. Liquorice senses something is not as usual. He lies sphinx-like, four legs tucked beneath, ready to spring. I’m sorry, Liquorice. You can’t come where I’m going.
I will leave my Journal beneath a heavy stone by the cliff path. It’s been months since it was a proper Folk Record. There will be a new Folk Keeper at the Manor, and he shall have to keep his own Record and learn his own ways of tending the Folk.
I have said my good-byes, almost wordless, all of them. Lady Alicia’s face was crumpled, as though she’d not rested well. The late light shone off Finian’s spectacles, turning him into a cipher.
I embraced Lady Alicia. We are new at this, and it is awkward. But how much more awkward to shake hands with Finian, my hand in his, his swallowing mine. I leave behind this ridiculous custom of hands pumping up and down. All meaningless. Up and down, up and down.
I’ve written almost to the end of this Folk Record, begun so long ago, at Candlemas. I have reached the end of my human words and have nothing more to say.
16
A New First Page
The Sealfolk are calling me; I will join them soon. This is the first page of my new book, my new life. I love the heady feeling of putting words on paper, ink now, my own wet, black letters. A world of ink, and air to dry it, too. I shall never finish my story.
I can only try to keep up with myself, starting with last evening, when I stood on the beach, my Sealskin bundled in my arms. The wind was strong, trailing behind it a pale ribbon of geese. The sea skittered into whitecaps, my hair whipped round me as I dropped my cloak to the ground.
I peeled off Lady Corinna Merton in layers. Now overskirt and petticoat. Now under-petticoat and bodice. It never ends, this business of being a lady. I raised my shift over my head, feeling the salt air touch me, feeling newly alive, as though I’d been swaddled in cotton wool all my life and was just now beginning to breathe.
I stood there a long moment, wrapped in the salty twilight, then draped the Sealskin round my shoulders. It looked weary, ravaged, but still it fell exactly from shoulder to heel. I held it closed at the neck.
I was ready, toes pale as shells curling over the edge of the beach, the waves at high tide slapping me with wet. The sea frothed out before me; bits of sky shone through a tattered moon.
I closed my ears, shut myself into my own head. I could hear myself swallow then, hear the thud of my heels when I stepped back, then bounced forward to jump. I collapsed my lungs, leaving all air behind.
The seal-change did not overtake me at once. The weight of the Sealskin eased from my shoulders, but that was only the ordinary magic of the buoyant sea. When I looked back at myself, I was still all Corinna. I still had arms and legs, which I still had to kick to move through the water. I still had to hold the Sealskin at the neck; it drifted behind me like a cape.
The direction of the Seal Rock was built into my bones, unalterable, as perfect pitch might be built into
