Franny Billingsley - The Folk Keeper

Atheneum Books for Young Readers

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

Text copyright 1999 by Franny Billingsley

First Atheneum Books for Young Readers
eBook edition September 2001

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form.

Also available in an Atheneum Books for Young Readers hardcover edition and an Aladdin Paperbacks paperback edition.

Cover Design by Daniel Roode

ISBN 0-689-84810-2

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To my daughter Miranda, who found me the book that got me into the caves, and to my editor Jean Karl, who showed me the way back out.

Many thanks to all my readers, whose generous criticism helped me make this the best book I possibly could.

To the members of my wonderful writing group, who read an excruciating number of drafts: Esther Hershenhorn, Phyllis Mandler, Harriette Gillem Robinet, Myra Sanderman, and Linda Schwab.

Also to Julie Billingsley, Pat Billingsley, Ruth Billingsley, Toni Buzzeo, Julia Halpern, Suzanne Lewis, Dian Curtis Regan, and Natalie S. Wainwright. Belated thanks to Natalie for the gift of the title Well Wished.

It is a day of yellow fog, and the Folk are hungry. They ate the lamb I brought them, picking the bones clean and leaving them outside the Folk Door.

The lamb was meant for Matrons Sunday supper. Shell know I took it, but she will not dare say anything. She can keep her tapestries and silks and Sunday dinners. Here in the Cellar, I control the Folk. Here, Im queen of the world.

I wont go, not upstairs, not yet.

A Great Lady has sent for me, says Matron, but what do I care for that? No one will fetch me from the Cellar. Theyre all too afraid of the Folk.

So I delight in slowly turning the crisp pages of my new Folk Record. I delight in very slowly recording the activities of the Folk. I will keep the Great Lady waiting as long as I please. The Folk have consumed:

One bucket of milk, with plenty of cream

One barrel of salt pork.

Theyve worked no mischief for months. The hens go on peacefully laying, the tomatoes happily growing. I wager Im the only Folk Keeper in the city of Rhysbridge in all of the Mainland, for that matter who sits with the Folk for hour upon hour in the dark, drawing off their anger as a lightning rod draws off lightning. I am like the lightning, too; I am never injured. I know how to protect myself.

With every word, I keep the Great Lady waiting. Now shell never want to take me from my Cellar. This is where I belong, me, Corinna Stonewall, on the chilly floor, keeping my Record by flickering candlelight. This is my only home these stone walls, the Folk Door, the Folk in the Caverns beyond.

The Great Lady is now pacing the floor perhaps, asking Matron, Where is Corin, Corin Stonewall?

Corin, indeed! They dont know my secrets.

Its not a feast day, and the Folk have made no mischief, but yet I write. My astonishment spills into this Record as I wait for the Great Lady to call me. It will soon be time to go.

I shall miss this Cellar, my very own Cellar. I press my hand to the stone, loving the way moisture oozes to the surface. The Folk devoured the eggs and dried fish I left for them last night, and my last act for the Folk of the Rhysbridge Foundling Home will be to steal Matrons breakfast sausage.

It feels odd to write of myself, not of the Folk. Odd to take the pages of this Record above ground, to yesterday, when I slipped out the Cellar door and Matron grasped my collar. Youve kept us waiting! She would have shaken me, but she was too afraid. I make sure of that.

The landing was dark; Matrons black silks seem always to absorb the light. She pointed to my Folk Bag, but did not quite touch it. You dont need that!

I stared at her. A Folk Keeper may carry his Bag wherever he pleases. She dropped her eyes at last. Come along!

There is power in silence, I have always known that.

I stumbled up the curling stone steps, into the smell of Matrons cheap tallow candles. Does she never notice her drawing room smells faintly of sheep?

Make your bow to the Lady Alicia. Matron tapped the small of my back.

At first all I saw was smoky yellow light and blue velvet and topaz; then the Lady herself came clear. I dont care for beauty, not in the ordinary way, but she was something quite out of the ordinary. Rich chestnut hair, snapping black eyes, a creamy neck rising from a circlet of golden jewels. I was tempted to reach out to see if they would burn, but that would have been childish. I am never childish.

Your bow! cried Matron.

We wont insist on the bow. Lady Alicia gazed at me as though I might be just as interesting to her. They say youre fifteen, but you cant be more than eleven, can you, child?

I am small for my age, I said. And weak. Moreover, I am clumsy and have a bad disposition.

Quiet! said Matron in a dreadful voice. I cant help it, My Lady, if he doesnt eat. Ill have you know our foundlings take three good meals.

Matron neglected to mention that not all the meals are taken on the same day, but I didnt care about that. I dont need to eat.

An economical addition to our household, said a third voice, and a man stepped from the curtained recess of the window. He was perhaps as old as forty, with an ivory angel face and glossy black curls. The rest of him was black and white, too, all satin and lace. Rather a dandy, which I despise, but at least Matron must know how tawdry she looked beside him.

Even supposing hes the right age, said the man, theres another, bigger problem. We came expecting to find a girl.

My husband instructed Sir Edward and me to fetch a Corinna Stonewall, said Lady Alicia. Corin and Corinna sound alike but turn out to be quite different things.

What a dreadful sinking feeling came over me then. After four years of passing as Corin, I thought Id never be caught. No one ever suspects a Folk Keeper could be a girl.

We have only a Corin, said Matron. You wouldnt want him, lazy good-for-nothing. He lets the Folk spoil the milk and rot the cabbage.

I do not! I snapped my lips shut. Matron didnt want me to leave; I was the best Folk Keeper shed ever had. But I didnt want to leave, either. I remembered too well the endless carrying of water buckets and scrubbing of floors and humiliations of Corinna before I burned my skirts and turned into a boy, and a Folk Keeper.

Lady Alicia put out her hand. Wont you come see my husband? Only he can say if youre the child hes seeking. Weve come all the way from Cliffsend, and hes very ill.

What is that to me? But I couldnt help thinking of the stories of Cliffsend, the largest of the Northern Isles, running with miles of underground caverns. The Folk there are said to be fierce and wild, drawing great strength from the stone all around. The Isles have more than their share of the Otherfolk Boglemen and Sealfolk and Hill Hounds as well as the Folk themselves, which are to be found everywhere.

Youll get nothing but trouble from the lad, said Matron.