The Boy with the Hidden Name (2 page)

on my whole life. They barely look up at me as I pass through

the room into the kitchen, looking for something that could

serve as breakfast.

“Are you off to school?” Aunt True calls.

“Have a nice day!” Aunt Virtue adds.

I open the refrigerator door and stare at the contents, trying

not to think about how my aunts are actually ogres who have

raised me since birth because my homicidal faerie mother

abandoned me on my father’s doorstep. Oh, and then, for

good measure, drove my father insane. We’re ignoring all of

that now. Because back before I knew any of that, my life was

so simple and straightforward, and that’s what I want back.

Unfortunately, as soon as I straighten and close the refrig-

erator, giving up on the idea of food, the sun goes out.

That is what it feels like at least. The room plunges into a

darkness as severe as night. My aunts look up, confused. I tip

my head and walk over to the window and look out. Where

the sun had just been shining on us, there are now dense,

black clouds roiling overhead.

I stare at them, because those clouds are not of this world.

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I look at my aunts, hesitate, and then say, “What— ”

My aunts have gone back to knitting, even more furiously

than before.

“You’re going to be late for school,” Aunt True says, and

that is the end of that attempt at conversation.

My aunts hate it when I ask questions. It tends to destroy

the world.

x

Kelsey is waiting for me when I open the front door. Going

to school together is part of our routine. What is not part of

our routine is the redheaded faerie standing next to her.

“Safford,” I say in surprise, because I haven’t seen him since

Ben disappeared last week and Will disbanded our little band

of revolutionaries, saying there was no point anymore.

“That’s not good,” Safford says, not taking his eyes off the

clouds overhead. All of the regular humans going about their

days on Beacon Street seem to think this is just a sudden

weather phenomenon, but Safford is from the Otherworld

and knows better.

“Where did you come from?” I ask.

Kelsey looks at me and blushes a little bit. “He just showed

up.” Kelsey and Safford have some sort of thing going on. If

you can call it a “thing” when one half is a faerie. I know from personal experience that trying to have a relationship with a

faerie is tricky at the best of times.

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“I think you’re going to need help,” Safford says into the

dark sky. “Lots and lots of help.”

Annoyed, I look up and down Beacon Street for a break in

the traffic so we can cross. “I’m not doing the prophecy any-

more. I can’t do the prophecy. We don’t have the other three

fays and we don’t have Ben and you heard what Will said.”

Finally we cross the street together.

Safford says, “I think Will’s wrong. I think this is out of

your control.”

“Safford,” I say in exasperation as we walk down Boston

Common toward Park Street, “I hate to break it to you, but

this was never
in
my control.”

“Of course it was.
Is
,” Safford replies. “You’re the fay of the autumnal equinox. It’s
your
prophecy.”

“It doesn’t feel like my prophecy,” I say. “It feels like all that happens is that I get violently pushed around by everyone

and everything when I just want to live my li— ”

The bell from the Park Street church tower suddenly flies

out of its confines, wood splintering all around it, and lands

with a heavy, dull impact only a few feet away, with one last

clang of protest that rings deep vibrations through my bones.

After a moment of stunned silence, panicked commuters

start behaving as if bells are suddenly going to fall from the

sky all over the place.

“Exhibit A,” Safford says. “They’re getting rid of the church

bells before they attack.”

“Who?” I say, even though I already know.

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“The Seelies. They can’t get into Boston. It’s protected. By

an enchantment created by a faerie who’s left,” Safford points

out frankly.

Ben. I glare at Safford, who is Ben’s cousin and therefore

probably on his side, but still. “Thanks for that reminder.”

“I’m just saying I think we need to do something.”

Commuters spill around us, desperate to get away from the

bell sinking incrementally into the Common’s concrete path-

way. On our left, Park Street Church sits silent, its ruined bell tower splintering still. Off in front of us, the church bell at

the Cathedral Church of St. Paul smashes its way through the

rooftop, provoking more panic as it arcs over the Common

and lands in the middle of a group of fleeing commuters.

None of them seem hurt, but that’s just a bit of luck. These

bells could easily have killed people. And there are churches

positioned like that all over Boston, clustered close together,

all within throwing distance of each other. Church bells are

going to be flying into crowds on every block of this city.

And I can’t deny it anymore. Apparently trying to be

normal means turning Boston into some kind of dangerous

war zone. “We need to find Will,” I say.

x

The T station is chaos. The subways are clogged in all direc-

tions, and compounding the problem, it seems like everyone

on Boston Common has decided to take shelter in the station.

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We give up before we even reach the turnstiles, turning back

and struggling against the crowd, up onto the Common.

“What now?” asks Kelsey. “The ferry?”

“We don’t have a choice,” I agree.

“Why can’t he have a cell phone?” Kelsey complains.

“Supernatural creatures could really be a lot easier to get

along with.”

I start to respond but then hear someone calling my name,

not really with intent but firmly enough that it slices through

the chaos all around us. We all stop walking and look around,

and it’s Will, an absent- minded professor type with graying

brown hair parting the crowd around us.

When he gets closer, I realize that he looks furious. “What

are you doing out in this?” he snaps.

“We were going to look for
you
,” I snap back. I gesture to the nearest church bell on the Common. “Look— ”

“Yes, yes,” he cuts me off, “and the sun has gone out. Both

not- good things, but we can’t stand out here talking about

them, since who knows what’s coming next. We’re going to

get inside, and you’re going to get your sweatshirt.”

I hate being ordered around like this. “No, I’m not. What

does my sweatshirt have to do with any of this?”

“You and I are going to get this prophecy back on track,”

Will announces grimly.

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M y aunts are annoyed to see Will. When we get there,

they have every light in the house blazing in an

attempt to fend off the unnatural darkness of the day.

“Oh, no,” Aunt Virtue complains. “What now?”

“We need to get the prophecy back on track,” Will says.

This is an abrupt turnaround from the despairing and

depressed Will who said that Ben had destroyed the proph-

ecy when he left.

“I thought you said we couldn’t after Ben left,” I point out.

Honestly, I just thought Ben was fulfilling a different proph-

ecy, one my mother had taunted me with.
Benedict
Le
Fay
will
betray
you. And then he will die.
But Will keeps insist-ing it’s not actually part of the prophecy. I don’t know what

to believe anymore. Prophecies are so tricky, so hard to pin

down, that as far as I’m concerned, we might as well not

have them.

“I’m still not entirely sure we can,” Will admits. “But

take a look outside, would you? The
sun
has gone out. And the church bells are falling out of the towers, as far away as

Lexington and Concord. We have to do
something
.”

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“I don’t get it,” I say. “The Seelies love light. Why would

they put out the sun?”

“The Seelies love
their
light,” notes Will grimly. “Can’t have the Thisworld sun competing with their Otherworld light.

Got to get rid of the Thisworld sun first.”

“The Seelies can’t get into Boston though,” Aunt True says,

wringing her hands. “Aren’t you protecting Boston? Don’t

you have it locked from them?”

“The Seelies have been picking at the lock for a while now,”

Will says. “They’re going to get in, sooner or later. Especially without a Le Fay enchantment to add to the protections. Our

only chance is to get out now, while we can, and find the

other three fays.”

He says it like it’s so easy. “How are we supposed to do that?

I wouldn’t know where to even
start
looking,” I point out.

Will goes to answer, but Aunt Virtue cuts him off. “You

mean to tell us that, after all this time, that foolish boy

Benedict suddenly leaves and all of Boston is going to fall?”

“Boston was always living on borrowed time,” Will says

harshly. “We built it to be ready for battle, because we knew

that sooner or later, the battle would come. You’ve just for-

gotten that. Well, the battle is here.” Will gestures toward

me. “She triggered it. It’s coming. There’s nothing we can

do to stop it now. We have to take a stand, and we have

to fight.”

There’s a beat. Kelsey says, “Let’s get out of Boston then.”

“No, you don’t understand because you’re
human
,” Will

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informs her scathingly. “Boston is the
safest
place we can be.

Good luck with the rest of it.”

“Kelsey’s human,” I say. “Won’t she be fine? The Seelies,

they want me, they want us, they want— ”

“They want everything. You’ve met them. You’ve spent time

with them. The Seelies have always been in the Otherworld

because we kept them there. If you start to blur the lines

between the worlds, they’ll be everywhere. Fresh blood for

them to feed off. They need fresh blood, you know. It used to

be you could throw them a few changelings here and there.

Younger blood, faerie or human, it didn’t matter. But they

need the youth, the vibrancy. They feed off of it. And the

most alive creatures in either world are humans— they live

everything so
intensely
. So no. The humans won’t be safe. Not if we don’t hold the line in Boston.”

“And we can’t hold the line in Boston without Ben,”

I conclude.

“Or the other three fays,” says Will. “Look, I can’t read the

prophecy anymore. It’s a mess; it’s too in flux. You can’t pre-

dict the events that you’re already
living
. All I can do is guess.

We needed the other three fays. Benedict was supposed to

help us find them. This is why you can never trust a faerie.”

“We don’t have Ben anymore,” I say practically. “So what

can we do without him? What does the book say?”

“Nothing useful,” grumbles Will.

“Well, the Witch and Ward Society have been stalking me

to get it back, so it must say
something
.”

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“Yes. It says that the key to all of this is Benedict’s mother.

So now we know.”

“Then give the book back,” Kelsey tells him. “It’s getting

kind of annoying having little men popping up everywhere.”

“I’m not giving the book back,” says Will. “It was mine to

begin with. Lord Dexter left it to me. I was only letting them

borrow
it.”

“I don’t want to get into whatever happened centuries ago

with this book,” I cut in. “I want to know how we get the sun

to come back out. And how we can find the other three fays

without Ben.”

“We can’t,” Aunt Virtue says. “We should just forget about

the prophecy and— ”

“We can’t forget about the prophecy. There is no status quo

anymore, Virtue. Don’t you see? We can’t just wait for the

next opportunity to come around to save the Otherworld.

We need to do it
now
,” says Will.

There’s a moment of silence. I don’t say anything because

part of me feels guilty that I was willing to ever drop the

ball on the prophecy. It was like I’d forgotten how terrible

the Seelies are, forgotten my responsibility to a world I just

learned existed but is depending on me to save it. I have no

idea how to do it, and I doubt that I’ll be successful, but I

surely have to
try
.

“If Ben’s mother is the key to finding the fays,” Kelsey says