The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley Page B

terribly wrong, but perhaps something was also terribly right. “Finian is not really ill, is he?”
    “He’s well enough to be looking for you in Firth Landing, making sure you haven’t stolen aboard the Mainland ferry. I told him you’d crept away from the Cellar. He didn’t even stop to look for you there, just went searching. And as you were to be found nowhere on the estate, what would he conclude but that you’d run away?”
    “I didn’t run away!”
    Sir Edward shrugged. “Finian seemed to think he might even be responsible. Half the serving staff is scattered about Cliffsend, looking for you. The Manor won’t be this empty again until the Harvest Fair, when everyone down to the scullery maid takes a three-day holiday.”
    “Liar! I never left the Cellar.”
    “I must make you understand.” He pressed at my shoulder, I sank to my knees. His candle shone on the tiny gravestone.
    Unnamed from the darkness came.
    Unnamed to the darkness returned.
    Born and died: Midsummer Eve.
    I saw what I’d not before realized. “My birthday!”
    A terrible darkness poured itself into my mind; my muscles gathered of themselves to leap away, but Sir Edward snatched me from the air as though I were a sparrow and tossed me onto the grave.
    “Damn!” He pressed his finger to my collar-bone, pinning me in place. “My candle has gone out. No screaming, or I shall have to stop you, like this.”
    He squeezed my throat, trapping the old air inside. I struggled beneath his hand. Everyone thinks breathing in is so important; no one thinks about breathing out.
    Sir Edward relaxed his grip. “You’ll not try again, will you?”
    I shook my head, whispered, “What do you want?”
    “I want to know what Finian knows. He sees too much, that boy; he’s made more trouble for me than I care to admit.”
    “What Finian knows?” I repeated stupidly.
    “Does he know who your mother is?”
    “My mother?”
    “Ah!” said Sir Edward, and laughed. He turned my head on its pillow of dirt. Directly ahead lay the Lady Rona’s weathered headstone.
    Another frozen moment: a dimpled moon, an ivory cheek, the smell of fresh-turned rot. Twenty-seven minutes past one.
    My mother. I might have denied it, but etched into my memory was the inscription on the gravestone.
Midsummer Eve.
A holiday never celebrated on the Mainland, one I’d never connected with my birthday.
    “But the baby died at birth,” I whispered at last.
    “So you didn’t know!” said Sir Edward, and his fingers relaxed on my throat. “Then perhaps Finian hasn’t worked out the real story for himself. I only have just today. Hartley tricked me into believing the baby died, just as he always tricked me. Tell me this: Did Finian know about the Lady Rona, know she was a Sealmaiden? Which means, of course, that you are, too.”
    Bolts of lightning might have struck my temples. I was dizzy, my thoughts buzzing uselessly, beads on a vibrating string. “I’m no Sealmaiden!” The mere sound of it is soft and tender. Not like me.
    “It’s the old story,” said Sir Edward. “Your father out for a moonlight sail. Your mother dancing on the Seal Rock. He fell in love with her, stole her Sealskin, insisted she marry him, live on land. What could she do? Without her Sealskin she couldn’t return to the sea. Perhaps you can guess at the rest. Misery, jealousy, madness, and death.”
    “What makes you think I’m her daughter?”
    “You gave yourself away by calling up that storm.”
    “Calling up the storm?” But already I realized what I had done. The sea cared nothing for my pact. It cared only for my blood.
Three drops of Sealfolk blood to call up a storm.
    To think that I had almost killed Finian! Really, I might have, with my casual vengeance.
Finian.
I wanted to say his name again and again, place him firmly on the earth, where he was usually solid enough.
Finian!
said my mind, but I forced myself to attend to Sir Edward.
    “I’m a careful man,” he said. “I