The Girl Who Never Was (10 page)

Apparently my mother is a homicidal maniac. Great genes. The shiver I've been suppressing fully rises. I lick my lips. 'You shouldn't be here.'

Ben looks at me in surprise. 'Where else would I be?'

'I don't know. Somewhere else. If my mother catches me, she can't do anything to me, right? Because of your enchantment? But if she catches you''

Ben shakes his head. 'I won't leave you. Not now. Now, when your faerie blood's no longer hidden, when the Seelies can find you? No.'

'But the Seelies can't get into Boston.'

'The Seelies haven't been overly motivated before. They're very lazy. Now there's you. Who knows what will happen now? Armies could be mobilizing as we speak. And I can only protect you so far. The Seelies have a way of making you want the things they want.'

'But''

'But I was supposed to kill you. Years ago, centuries ago, or minutes ago, depending on which time you're keeping. I didn't. I'll be named just for that. It doesn't matter whether they find me with or without you.'

'What if you'put up a new enchantment? Hide me again?'

'I can do that,'Ben agrees. 'But the prophecy is in motion. The enchantment would only be temporary.'

'But it would buy us time,'I say desperately. I want to forget about stupid faerie time; I've only just turned seventeen. I don't want to launch a coup d''tat. I don't want to be stalked by homicidal faeries. I want to go back to my regular life'my aunts who love me, my father who I adore, Ben who I flirt with on the Common'and forget I ever wondered anything at all about my mother. I was going to try to get Ben to take me to the prom. That's how normal my life had been, and now it's this.

'You would have to forget all of this,'Ben says. 'And another enchantment'is that really what you want?'

He's right, and I know he's right'I don't want to be enchanted; I want to know the truth. I've always wanted to know the truth. I feel like I've been looking for it my entire life. I just wanted the truth to be something happier. I shake my head, unsure what else to say, not really trusting myself to speak, honestly.

Ben stares at me, his eyes now a washed-out periwinkle. 'Selkie,'he says. 'I''

I never hear what Ben is about to say, because at that moment, the air around us fills with the chiming of a million tiny bells.

I't doesn't seem like that should be a threatening sound, but I have time'barely'to register Ben's eyes going wide with obvious panic. And then he reaches for me, a hand on my arm, and then we are gone. We are in a world with suffocating heat, then a world so cold my lungs feel like they're freezing. We move through worlds so swiftly I can barely register them'worlds of day and worlds of night, worlds with winds that could knock me off my feet, worlds with snow drifting up to our waists. The weather does not have time to even affect me. We even skip through a world with driving rain, but I am touched by no more than a drop or two before we are at the next world. And then finally Ben stops. We hit a world of still darkness, and we stay long enough that I suck in oxygen, long enough that, now that the world has stopped whirling, I lose my balance and collapse against Ben's chest. He is still dressed in the multilayers he wears against the Boston rain, and they make a comfortable pillow, but he is breathing very quickly, even as he holds me up, and he says in my ear, 'Can you stand? I need you to stand. We can't stay here. We have to jump again. I just have to warn him.'

I make an effort to stand, managing to gasp, 'What'?'but Ben dashes off before I can gather myself enough to form the question. I can hear him shouting, and it takes my ears a second to stop ringing and realize that he's shouting for his father. He comes back, and I say, 'Did you find him?'

He is no longer breathing heavily. His voice is calm and even and harder than I have ever heard out of him before, so much so that I could almost think it isn't Ben at all in front of me. 'No. They've already been here. Don't you see? This isn't night. They have torn the very sun from the sky.'

I don't even have time to register this before Ben reaches out and pulls me roughly against him and says, 'Close your eyes. You'll be less dizzy,'and I am less dizzy when we finally stop, who knows how many worlds later.

Only slightly less though. When Ben lets go of me, I stagger a bit and finally decide it's easier to just sit on the ground. It's another meadow'this one of wildflowers'and it looks like a bright, cheerful world, only I am terrified.

'What happened? What was that?'I ask.

Ben is pacing, his hands in his dark hair, and he is muttering to himself.

'Ben,'I say. 'What happened to my aunts?'

'They're fine,'he answers, distracted. 'I'm sure they're fine. They were in the house'ogre magic in the walls of the house, tough to cross immediately. Stupid, stupid, for us to be outside, and no time to think; your enchantment couldn't protect you. You didn't have time to think''

'What was that?'I ask again.

'Seelies,'he says. 'Lots of Seelies.'

'Seelies'chime like that?'

Ben doesn't answer. I think of how close I might have been to my mother. Was she really trying to kill me? I think of what Ben had said, tearing the sun from the sky. What sort of beings would do something like that? I do not want to ask what had happened to his father.

'Can we go back to Boston now?'I just want to get back home, back to my aunts. This unfamiliar world is terrifying in its otherness.

'Shh,'Ben snaps at me. 'I have to think, let me think''He cuts himself off, listening to something I can't hear, and something passes through his eyes, something I can't quite read but it is something knowing and something decisive, and he turns to me and pulls me up and closes his hands around my shoulders. 'Listen to me.'

'Ben''I begin. I sense, instantly, that whatever he is doing now, I do not agree with it.

'Listen to me,'he repeats more sharply. 'Listen to me as you have never listened to anything in your life. This sweatshirt is your protection, do you hear me? As long as no one but you sees this sweatshirt, you are safe. Remember this about the sweatshirt. Remember how important this sweatshirt is.'

'How would I forget?'I ask, bewildered. 'You've already told me.'

'Selkie Stewart, I am sorry for this.'

I stare at him, wide-eyed. 'Sorry for what?'

He leans forward and kisses me, very quickly and very chastely, and into the silence of my shock in the wake of this, he says, 'Good-bye.'

x I fumble for the blaring alarm clock by my bed. Aunt Virtue is in my room, on her hands and knees, poking a broomstick under my dresser, no doubt looking for gnomes.

'Good morning, dear,'she says without looking at me.

'Good morning,'I respond and yawn.

'Did you sleep well?'

'Yeah.'I swing myself out of bed and pause, looking at myself in the mirror over the dresser, in the old Yankees Suck T-shirt I have worn to bed every night for a while now. I have this tendency to wear the same T-shirt to bed until it is threadbare. 'I had the strangest dream.'

'About what?'asks Aunt Virtue absently, not sounding very interested.

'I'm not sure,'I say. 'Can't quite remember. But it was very complicated.'I open my closet door and stand regarding my clothes for a second. 'I think there was a rat involved,'I decide finally and select a tweed skirt for the day.

Mike is surprised when I kiss him impulsively, outside Cabot's Ice Cream where all the kids from school go. 'I didn't think you liked me,'he says, regarding me quizzically, like I'm some sort of exotic species.

'You didn't?'I respond, just as quizzical, because I think I've been obvious about liking Mike. I have liked him forever. I cannot remember a time when I didn't like him.

Mike shakes his head, an indulgent gesture, and says,

'You're something, Selkie Stewart. Just what, I don't know.''A faerie princess, maybe,'I say and giggle at my own joke. Mike laughs at me and kisses me again, and it is only after

ward, as he is drawing back, that I find myself confused. 'Your eyes are brown,'I say. 'Yeah,'he answers slowly, looking amused. I am staring at his eyes, but I am not seeing them. I am

seeing other eyes'pale eyes, eyes a color I can't place'I am frowning with the effort of this'it feels like it is just on the edge of my memory, odd, pale eyes, and a quick grin to go with them, a nose that crinkles, and''I thought your eyes were''I trail off, confused.

'They've always been brown,'says Mike.

'Of course,'I say. 'Of course. I knew that.'I smile, like I was joking.

But that night, after Mike drops me off and we name a time and place for our next date, I walk across Beacon Street to the Common and sit on a bench. There is someone who should be there who is not. I cannot shake this ridiculous feeling.

I decide maybe I am just missing my mother'it happens sometimes; I should really make an effort to look for her, something I want to do but have been procrastinating forever'and I go inside.

x 'Everything in your house is so old,'says Kelsey. She is lying on my bed, and I am very painstakingly redoing my makeup for the umpteenth time, because I fail at mascara and because it has suddenly become very important to me that I not fail at mascara.

Sometimes, I don't know who I am now that I have started dating Mike.

'I mean,'continues Kelsey, not minding that I'm barely paying attention, 'normal people don't have houses like this.'

'We are normal people,'I say, slightly irritated, studying my reflection. Kelsey has dried and straightened my hair, on her insistence, even though it's naturally straight, and it looks like spun gold shot through with silvery streaks where

it picks up the light. I am pleased with the outcome of my hair, less pleased with the outcome of my eye makeup; it looks harsh and abrupt in my pale face, seems to swallow my sky-blue eyes.

'What's up with that clock?'says Kelsey. 'I find it creepy. When I got here, it was chiming eleven o'clock, and now it's chiming seven. I've only been here twenty minutes!'

'It's just broken,'I say. 'It's not creepy.'

'It's just this house,'says Kelsey. 'It's like it's been here since, I don't know, since before Boston.'

'You mean, when Boston was called Parsymeon?'I tuck my hair behind my ears, switch its part, experimenting.

'What?'says Kelsey quizzically.

'When Boston was called Parsymeon,'I repeat. 'You know.'

'No, I don't know. Boston was called Parsymeon? When?'

'Before it was called Boston. How do you not know this? Didn't we learn that at school?'

'Uh, no,'says Kelsey, staring at me like I've lost my mind. She changes the subject, like she doesn't want to go any deeper down that rabbit hole. 'You should bring a sweatshirt. It'll be cold at the football game.'

'Good thinking.'I turn to my closet, which is a total mess because I am a complete and utter pack rat. I am always grabbing things and saving things for reasons that I can't explain. I stand on tiptoe to rummage through the shelf at the top on which my sweatshirts are stacked, trying to find one that I haven't worn a million times already this fall. I pause on a

maroon one emblazoned with Boston across the front, like tourists would buy outside Park Street station. Where did I get that from? I wonder and tug at the one underneath it, a gray one from a downtown store. Weird, I think as I straighten. I should give it away'

I stop, halfway out my bedroom door, and look back toward the closet.

'Selkie?'asks Kelsey curiously, turning back to me.

I glance at her. She is halfway down the hallway, lit by the streetlight through the lavender panes of glass in the Palladian window above our front door.

I look back toward the closet. I am deep in thought. I can see the sleeve of the Boston sweatshirt, dangling off the shelf. Remember how important this sweatshirt is, someone says to me, someone I can't place, at some time I can't remember'but someone said that to me. Who was it? Who could it possibly have been? Who would tell me that a simple Boston sweatshirt was important?

I shake it off and turn back to Kelsey. 'Nothing,'I say. 'Nothing.'I shut off my light, and I follow her down the front staircase. The grandfather clock chimes one as we pass it.

x The football game is a success. We win, and Mike throws a couple of touchdowns, and afterward we go out for ice

cream, and Mike is sweet and cute and holds my hand and makes me laugh, and I am the envy of every girl at school, and I should be flushed and happy.

But all I can think of is the Boston sweatshirt. It's been haunting me. I cannot place where I got it. I feel like someone gave it to me, but I can't remember who. And I feel like the most important thing I will ever know in my life is the knowledge of who gave me this sweatshirt. It's driving me crazy that I can't remember.

As soon as I get home, I pull the sweatshirt off the shelf, and I stare at it for a long time. It looks like a normal sweatshirt. Why would it be important in any way? The thought that it might be important, tugging at the edge of my consciousness, feels like something that came from a dream. I try to remember if I've had a dream about this sweatshirt, but nothing rings a bell. I can think of nothing but that this is important'so important.

I pull the sweatshirt over my head'

It all rushes back to me, like someone has ducked my head in cold water, and I am gasping as it crashes over me'everything, my murderous mother, my ogre aunts, Will Blaxton of the Salem Which Museum, the sound of the chiming bells of the Seelie Court, and Ben. How could I have forgotten?

I get to my feet. The sweatshirt is warm around me, like the first hug I have had in a very long time. I go downstairs, and my aunts are sitting in the conservatory. They are knitting. They have been knitting a pair of socks for as long as I have

been alive. They are each in charge of one sock, and by now the socks are so large they could fit the biggest giant to ever live. I wonder now how many centuries they have been knitting these socks. The yarn of them is a bright pink snowdrift around the twin dark spires of my aunts.

They are knitting automatically, their eyes darting about the room for the sight of the hated gnomes, and I march in and I say, 'I remember everything.'