The Folk Keeper

by Franny Billingsley

  A footman handed me a glass. Tiny lines of bubbles streamed through pale liquid. The fiddle cried out in a language that everyone but I understood. Like pieces of a kaleidoscope, the ladies and gentlemen fell into patterns of color on the Ballroom floor.

  I slipped out the French doors; dancing is not for me. The indoors and out-of-doors were all mixed together. Armfuls of ivory roses bloomed everywhere inside the Manor; outside, an immense Oriental carpet suffocated the lawn — or so I heard the gardeners complain. On it stood a long buffet table, at which Mrs. Bains was counting bottles of champagne in a hollow ice-swan.

  I stood on the lawn, between two worlds, watching the dance. Behind me, a couple of gardener lads argued about how to lay the Midsummer bonfire. Before me, the squares in the Ballroom fragmented, the ladies and gentlemen flowing into separate lines, then swirling themselves together with hooked elbows and clasped hands. It is traditional for the host and hostess to dress only as themselves: Sir Edward, never deviating from his black and white, Lady Alicia in rubies and gold satin.

  Behind me, the gardener lads stood on step stools, lighting lanterns in globes of silver paper. Before me appeared Finian, a neat and careful dancer, his red cap bobbing above the others.

  Now Finian, that wasn’t a very good idea, was it? To dress as a Cliffsend fisherman! It will cast your mother into melancholy; it will irritate Sir Edward, who like his cousin, Lord Merton, wants to mold you into a copy of himself.

  Behind me, the voices of the gardener lads faded away. Before me, the fisherman danced with a young lady dressed as the Tragic Queen, the one who wanted always to be eating cake. What can she be thinking? Even if I were still Corinna, and even if I had golden hair and liked to dress in spangled gauze, I’d never masquerade as someone who let them chop off her head.

  Before me, the dancers relaxed into a crowd again. Finian handed a glass to his spangled partner.

  I took a sip from my own. It was cold, and not very sweet.

  Then Finian raised his glass.

  Why can I not forget the picture he made, a mountain of white canvas, pale liquid glowing against bronzed skin?

  I left the lawn then for the cliffs, and here I am, all my earlier fizz evaporated. I just had another sip. The champagne is warm and flat. My first champagne, and on my sixteenth birthday, too. It is not as I imagined.

  Taffy lies beside me, keeping me company. He is arthritic and I am stiff, and neither of us is much for dancing and crowds.

  There is a lump of desolation beneath the bony dip at my throat. It is no bigger than a coin, this spot, a peculiarly small place to hold so large a feeling. I try to shove it to some deeper region, but there it sticks, a fragile skin-thickness from the outside world.

  Taffy rests his nose on my foot and sighs.

  It’s almost midnight. The dancers have spilled onto the lawn. I must join them now; it’s time to light the bonfire. And then I’ll go back to being the Folk Keeper of Marblehaugh Park. That is what I am, and I can’t pretend to be Samson or anyone else.

  9

  Midsummer Midnight Through Midsummer Dawn

  June 22

  It is the gloves I remember best, elegant gloves of all colors, scattered on the ground. What a strange tumbled garden of lilac, primrose, and jonquil. And I remember, too, the naked, glittering fingers wrapped around unlit torches.

  “Folk for the darkness!” cried Sir Edward, approaching the unlit bonfire with a burning taper. “Humans for the light!”

  “Folk for the darkness!” echoed the crowd. “Humans for the light!” The skeleton pile of sticks burst into flame. “Ah!” The crowd fluttered around like moths.

  Sir Edward again. “The first light goes to Lady Alicia!”

  Again, the echo. “The first light . . . Lady Alicia!”

  Someone pressed a torch into my hand, but I am no moth and stood back. Lady Alicia touched her torch to the bonfire. She seemed more fire than flesh as she broke off from the crowd, a torch-star floating round the Manor. One by one, the jesters, queens, and wizards dipped their torches in the flames and fell into a blazing orbit behind her.

  I hung back until only Sir Edward and I stood before the fire. “Off you go, little Samson, and don’t you fall.”

  That was just like Sir Edward, attending always to the business of the estate, organizing a mass of fire into a tight ring around the Manor in order to trap the mischief of the Folk in the Caverns.

  I dipped my torch into the flames. “Do not fall!” I told myself, for any break diminishes the circle’s power, and I joined the fiery constellation.

  I usually despise crowds, all that senseless jostle and laughter, but now there was only the rustle of silk, the whisper of velvet. How could it be that I didn’t even stumble? I flowed into that silent, blazing stream, running faster, now faster still — me, the slow after-thought of a star!

  The crowd was dissolving into shrieks and laughter when I rounded the last wing of the Manor. Sir Edward and I stood a little apart from the others, watching them toss their torches into the flames; and when the clamor had organized itself into a chant, he tapped my shoulder and said, “They’re calling for you.”

  “For me?” The words came clear, but not their meaning. Jump! A great shout. The Folk Keeper shall jump!

  “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. Jump, Corin! Jump!

  “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.

  Jump! Corin! Jump! The Folk Keeper shall jump!

  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.”

  The Folk Keeper shall jump!

  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 cl
ear 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 shall jump! Jump, Finian! Jump!

  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.

  Andrew shall jump! Jump, Andrew! Jump!

  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!”

  Jump, Philip! Jump!

  Sir Edward jumped last, a shimmer of white silk and diamond buttons. He would never lose a shoe to the fire, or a cap.

  The first peat! cried a voice, and then a score of others. Finian shall throw the first peat!

  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?”

  Finian shall throw the first peat!

  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. Finian shall throw the first peat! Sir Andrew glanced at the Tragic Queen with the golden hair and nudged me with his elbow. “We shall have some fun now.” He raised his voice. “Will you find gold in there, Finian?”

  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.

  June 22

  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.

  An evening all of fire, then all of water.

  How lucky that the new, nimble Corinna stayed with me all that short Midsummer night. Lucky, too, I hadn’t yet left my cliff-top perch when the shouting began.

  Two figures, white canvas and black satin, stood not two hundred feet away. How close they were to the edge of the cliff! I leapt to my feet just as the big one, in white, staggered backward and disappeared.

  Time slowed down while I sped up. Now only five seconds had passed, now only twelve, but I seemed a long time running. Seventeen seconds, Sir Edward waving me back. “Run for help! I’ll go in after him.”

  But I was a small tidal wave, boiling along the cliffs, blasting Sir Edward aside and peering over. The sea had swallowed Finian whole; there was not a bulge or seam to show where it had taken him in. I thought more of the plunge into the sea, fifteen feet down, than of how little I swim. When do I jump? Now? Now?

  And oddly, it was the crowd’s voice inside my head that helped me most. The Folk Keeper shall jump!

  “I won’t,” I cried, and jumped.

  Fifteen feet. It is nothing. I did not shatter against the water; I did not drown.

  I was reborn.

  I was born in reverse, exploded from one medium into another, from air into liquid, from dawn into darkness; and all around there was the singing of the sea.

  I closed my ears — I can close my ears! — and against all proper instinct, squeezed my lungs empty of air. There came a slowing of the world — no, not of the world. A slowing of Corinna. A slowing into new life, not into drowning and death. I was suspended underwater yet needed no air, my heart beating to the slow, rhythmic pulse of underwater life.

  The scratch from Sir Edward’s button stung my cheek. There was a wild joy in that, and a joy, too, in releasing the burden of my own weight, exchanging thin air for this dense world.

  I glanced everywhere, looking for a length of white canvas. But eyes are made to work with light; they’re all but useless deep in the sea.

  All this, which takes so long to explain, happened only in mental time. But real-world seconds started to tick away when I turned my head with its useless eyes, looking, looking, my hair following the motion of my head through water, and then . . .

  You cannot be surprised underwater in the ways you are on land. You cannot gasp; you cannot stagger back. You observe calmly as your hair — well, I can only say that my hair opened a door into another dimension. It caught at the shape of a new world. Gone were all the hard edges, the corners, the troubling shifts of light and dark.

  I saw a fish flicker behind me. I didn’t see it with my eyes; rather, it sent a wave-image of itself, which I captured with my hair. I saw a ripple in the current, so tiny it might have been an echo of itself, shivering through liquid jade.

  I made my own ripples, which bounced off the landscape and traveled back to me, explorers returning with maps of new territories. There were maps of scuttling crabs, maps of boulders, half as high as me. But where was the map of white canvas, which unlike the rest of the landscape, needed to breathe? I cast myself here — nothing. There — nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  There! A wave-picture describing not only Finian’s shape, but also his composition. Mostly liquid, save for a pocket watch
in his waistcoat, and in his jacket pocket the lacy outline of a key.

  My hands were caught by old habits, still reaching ahead, grasping at handfuls of water, not believing my hair alone could guide me through the dark. They groped along invisible walls, utterly useless until they closed first on a rough sleeve, then on a head of hair. It took only one strong push off the seafloor.

  Thank the Saints for water, dense almost as a large and heavy man, helping Finian to the surface.

  I swear I’ve never breathed before. Air exploded into my lungs, into depths never before used. And as though I were hearing music, my hair rose, making an echo space above my scalp, filling with bubbles of air. I was marvelously buoyant. I was foam on the sea, wafting Finian to shore. I was a bubble, holding up the world.

  My heart jumped from its deep-sea calm. I was re-inhabiting my land-body, or maybe it was re-inhabiting me. My ears opened of themselves to an assault of voices, jarring after that great silence. The babble screeched to a crescendo, now sorting itself into words.

  ”Corin! Corin!” Everyone calling my name, and then Sir Edward’s voice above the rest. “Over here, lad!”

  We’d drifted north and surfaced at the beach. The tide was flowing, water lapped almost at the edge. Long arms reached down, a hand heavy with rings grasped Finian and reeled him up. Another hand reached for me, but I sank below the surface, not yet ready to return to the world of laughter and tears and smoldering peat. The rock face was alive with tiny delicate branches. I’d known the barnacles only as hard conical shells, but underwater they reached with feathery legs to sweep the sea.

  “Corin! Corin!” The voices came to me underwater. I closed my ears — extraordinary, I can truly close my ears. The voices vanished. But what if there were news of Finian? I rose to the surface.

  “Your hand, Corin!” My buoyant sea-body slipped away as Sir Edward helped me onto the beach. There I stood, water streaming off me in all directions. How light it was already, the sky the color of goldenrods, the sea all gilded swells and shadowed troughs.