The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley Page A

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.
    “There is no one here.” I paused, smelling recently turned earth, rotting wood, and mildew. “You disturbed the baby’s grave!”
    A taste like spoiled apples rose in my throat, and the details of that scene froze themselves in memory. Me, looking down, seeing an ivy-covered mound, my worn boots, Sir Edward’s black rosettes. It was a quarter past one.
    “No one but you will notice,” he said. “No one comes here much, and I’ve covered the raw earth with leaves and ivy.”
    Something was