The Girl Who Never Was (3 page)

'Sorry?'I say because I have no idea what I want to hear about. I thought I'd just be able to wander around the museum, looking at displays.

'Well, here at the Salem Which Museum? The guest decides. Which type of museum are you looking for? That is the type of museum we are.'

'Oh.'I realize slowly. 'The Salem Which Museum.'

'That's us,'he affirms, still beaming and now rocking back and forth, heel to toe.

The kind of museum I was looking for was a museum in which I could disappear. I wonder what Will would say to that. I look around the little room, trying to find the most

obvious thing to ask about. I could ask about the Salem Witch

Trials, of course, but I've heard that story a million times.

'Might I suggest,'says Will, 'family history?'

I blink, sure I must have misunderstood. I look down. I am wearing the Boston sweatshirt Ben gave me on my birthday. There is no sign around my neck proclaiming my motherlessness. What would make this man say that?

'The history of Boston,'Will continues, 'for all Bostonians are family. And you are a Bostonian, are you not?'

Yes, I am wearing the Boston sweatshirt, although how many Bostonians wear Boston sweatshirts? But I just nod.

'Oh, the words I could tell you about the history of Boston,'says Will. 'But better you read them for yourself. Written words'that's where the real power is. And, of course, the history of Boston depends on who has done the writing of it. Come along.'

He scurries out of the room, through the doorway he came in.

I hesitate, then follow.

The room connects to a kitchen that looks as if it was last redone in the 1950s, and there is a huge iguana on the counter. I stare at it. It stares at me, reptilian eyes blinking without interest. Will's head pops through another door at the other end of the room and he notices my showdown with the creature.

'Oh,'he says. 'That's just Iggy.'

'Iggy,'I repeat dubiously.

'Yes. He's an iguana,'Will points out, like I'm an idiot. 'Come here,'he says and disappears into the other room.

The other room turns out to be much bigger than the rooms I've been in so far, with a much higher ceiling. Maybe it was the carriage house or something. Whatever it used to be, it is now a storage space for books. They are piled sky high, toward the rafters above. I'm not sure how they're not toppling over. There are narrow windows way up there, and that's where all the light is, barely making it to the floor where I'm standing. Something about the room makes me shiver, makes me stand on its threshold, unwilling to step forward, unsure what might happen if I do. The air seems dusty and different somehow'difficult to breathe.

Will, in the meantime, is busy impossibly climbing an impossible pile of books. He plucks one off the top of an adjacent pile, shimmies back down, and tosses me the book. 'About Boston,'he says helpfully and then runs off to scale another pile of books.

'That doesn't look safe,'I say.

'What?'he shouts down to me and then throws me another book, which I catch instinctively. 'Also about Boston.'

'Oh,'I say, not sure what to make of this, but Will is already down that pile and up the next, and I'm holding two books so dusty that I can't even see their titles. I try to blow the dust off their covers, but the dust is so thick my breath doesn't even dislodge it.

'You should go read them,'instructs Will, handing me

another book. He has apparently reached the ground safely once again.

I figure I've got time to kill. I look at the dusty floor. 'Is there somewhere I can sit?'

'Oh!'exclaims Will, as if that never occurred to him. 'You want to sit! Oh! Yes! Of course! In the front room!'

I edge back past Iggy and into the front room. There's a couch in there that doesn't look like anyone's sat on it since 1672, but it doesn't collapse when I sit on it, so that's something, I suppose. The fragile fabric probably crushes into dust underneath me, but it's better than the floor in the other room. I keep one ear open for the sound of books tumbling onto Will (What will I do? I wonder. Call 911 and say a mountain of books toppled onto him?) and flip open my books. The first one is some kind of epic poem about the first winter of the Plymouth Plantation, the second is a more traditional history, and the third, practically crumbling in my grasp, seems like some odd combination of the two, serious stories and anecdotes about kraken all mixed up into one. This is the one I decide to look through, and there, in the middle of it, is a list of Boston's first settlers. I look for Blaxtons, but there are none there. And then I decide to look for Stewarts. After all, I think, smiling to myself, my aunts have lived in the townhouse on Beacon Street since the beginning of time.

And then their names are there.

True Stewart

Virtue Stewart

Etherington Stewart

My aunts. And my father. Their names. Right there.

I stare at them for a long time. Coincidence, I think. The Stewarts are an old family, one of Boston's oldest. And the names True, Virtue, Etherington'not exactly modern ones. Maybe old family ones. Maybe recurring, from generation to generation.

I pick up the history and let it fall open where it wants, to a well-worn page in the middle, and it is a portrait of old, dour-looking people. The date of the portrait is 1753. I study it, wondering how many of these people were still alive when the Revolution broke out twenty years later.

I turn the page, and there are my aunts'faces, staring out at me. I blink, startled, but there is no mistaking it. It is them'as much them as a portrait can be. Their wide, deep, dark eyes, sorrowful and ageless under perfectly sculpted dark eyebrows. Their dark hair pulled back from their high foreheads. Their pursed, unsmiling lips. Their sharp cheekbones under unlined, olive skin.

I look at the caption. True and Virtue Stewart, it reads. 1760. I look back at them, at their faces. Family resemblance, I try to think. The Stewarts are an old family, I remind myself. Their names and features might be recurring.

I flip through the rest of the portraits in the book. No Etherington Stewart turns up. Just True and Virtue, posed in stiff black dresses, looking exactly like the True and Virtue

Stewart in my house, the True and Virtue Stewart who have raised me.

I reach for the epic poem, let it fall open as well, and the first lines on the page are not even a surprise to me at this point. The house of the Misses Stewart / Theyre brother late returneth / Frome an excursion to a newe settlement / Fulle of truth and virtue / Befitting of theyre names.

I look from the poem to the portraits. I can hear Will humming to himself in his weird library place, and following one of my usual spur-of-the-moment impulses, I reach out and rip the portrait out of its book. I do the same for the lines of the epic poem. I pick up the history and thumb through it until I find the list of settlers again, and I rip that out as well. Then I fold the pages up and stick them in the kangaroo pocket of my Boston sweatshirt.

What have I done? I have ripped pages out of old, priceless books belonging to a museum. A really strange museum but still. And what am I going to do with these pages? What am I doing?

I'm finished here. I have to be before Will comes back and asks why I'm vandalizing his books of power, his museum's only exhibits. I get up and walk to Iggy's kitchen, and I call to Will, 'Thanks for letting me look at the books on Boston! I'm leaving now!'

I step out into the mist without waiting for him to reply. Here on the streets of Salem, Halloween is still in full swing, witches roaming around, modern day and centuries old, like

the pages of my family's ancient history tucked in my pocket. I hurry away from the Salem Which Museum, oblivious to the press of the costumed, festive crowds, preoccupied with the words of the pages in my pocket. Stewarts, Stewarts everywhere. And not a single Blaxton.

x My aunts move through our house like ghosts. They always have, for as long as I can remember. They glide silently from room to room, dressed always in long-sleeved black blouses tucked carefully into knee-length black skirts with black boots gleaming underneath them. I find myself wondering now for how many centuries they have done this.

'How was Salem, dear?'Aunt Virtue asks me vaguely, because they are focused on other things. Mainly, the arrangement of the furniture. They are always convinced that the furniture is being moved on them'tiny, infinitesimal adjustments in its angles. They blame gnomes. This is the kind of life I lead: my aunts are genuinely convinced gnomes are real, as real a plague on Beacon Hill as the mice and rats are.

'Fine,'I answer.

I'm not even sure they hear me.

'Insufferable gnomes!'curses Aunt True as Aunt Virtue tips a picture frame an unseeable amount of space to the left. She is standing tiptoe on top of a pink-and-gilt Queen Anne chair to do this. The house is an odd combination of styles,

and I always assumed it was inherited from generations of Stewarts past. Now I wonder if Aunt True and Aunt Virtue have been collecting through the centuries.

This is madness, I think. I'm losing my mind.

'It looks better,'Aunt True tells Aunt Virtue, and Aunt Virtue leaps down from the Queen Anne chair with a nimbleness that belies her age.

'Damnable gnomes,'says Aunt Virtue, stepping back so she can study the picture for herself.

Aunt True nods in firm agreement. 'Come now,'she says. 'I do believe they pushed the chaise lounge a bit to the left in the conservatory.'

I watch them march down the hallway to the conservatory. I swallow trepidation and follow them. I love my aunts, of course I do, but sometimes I feel like, even though they've raised me from infancy, they have no idea what to make of me. They look at me sometimes like I'm not what they expected, but other times they look at me like I'm exactly what they expected. Either way, I feel like they're not sure how they feel about who I've turned out to be. I always feel loved, but there is usually an undercurrent of something like dread too. I have no idea why, but the dread has infected me. They are afraid for me, and to me it seems like more than the worry of other people's parents; it is genuine fright. So I always try not to say anything that might alarm them, but now I find that I just have to. There are too many questions welling up inside of me.

'How long have there been Stewarts in Boston?'I ask.

'Forever,'answers Aunt True absently.

'Look at this chaise lounge,'says Aunt Virtue.

'Oh, they have definitely been at this chaise lounge,'agrees Aunt True.

I watch them nudge the chaise lounge a hairsbreadth to the left.

'Do you know anything about them?'I ask, trying to sound casual.

Suddenly, I am the center of both aunts'attention. They are still leaned over the chaise lounge but their gazes are sharp on me.

'Know anything about whom?'asks Aunt True shrewdly.

'The Stewarts who settled Boston,'I clarify.

There is a long moment of silence. My aunts slowly straighten, still looking at me closely. I want to fidget. I feel like I have asked something I should never have asked, but I don't know why.

'What about them?'Aunt Virtue asks carefully.

What were their names? I want to ask. But somehow the words stick in my throat. I can't make myself say them. My aunts'dark eyes, full of love and that terrifying dread, are steady on me. I can see them willing me to drop the entire thing. But I can't. I can't drop all of it. There is so little I know about myself, and I feel like my aunts will never want me to ask any of the questions I have.

'What about my mother?'I persist almost desperately.

'What about her?'demands Aunt True, a challenge being flung to me. Ask another question.

'Who was she? Did you know her? Where did she come from? Why can't I find any other Blaxtons?'

'Have you been looking for them?'asks Aunt True.

'You need to stop looking for them,'commands Aunt Virtue.

'Do you understand how hard it is for me to know nothing about her? She's my mother,'I cry, trying to make them see.

'It means nothing,'Aunt Virtue says staunchly. 'She was never supposed to be here. She did not belong here. You are one of us: a Stewart of Boston. We who have been here from the beginning and will be here to the end. This is your home, we are yours, and you are ours. It matters not what anyone else may say, what words may be used on you. You are a Stewart of Boston. Remember that.'

'I know that,'I say. 'I won't'run away. I'm not trying to''

'Are you unhappy?'Aunt True asks me gently.

'No,'I say honestly. 'I'm not.'

'Then forget about your mother,'she says, still in that tender, loving tone of voice. She walks over to me and cups a hand on my cheek. 'This is your life. This. This time, this place, this world.'Her words are strangely firm, as if, by pronouncing them so clearly, she can make it be this way, make me be this way.

She turns back to Aunt Virtue, and they resume the minute adjustments of everything in the room, but I stand frozen, her words trembling in the air around me.

School the next day feels unbearably long. It's so hard to concentrate on things like the Pythagorean theorem when I have decided that it's possible my aunts are immortal creatures. I meet up with Kelsey for American literature class. She is complaining because she lost a button on the brand- new cardigan she's wearing.

'Oh,'I note. 'I picked up a button this morning.'I fish it out of my pocket, avoiding the old book pages occupying the same space, and hand it to her.

'Of course it's a perfect match,'Kelsey sighs. 'I don't know how you do that.'

'I'm a good best friend,'I tell her.

'That you are.'Kelsey tucks the button into her own pocket. 'You okay, by the way? You seemed quiet in Salem, but I thought you just weren't having a good time. But you don't seem yourself today either.'

'I'm fine,'I say.

But I'm not, of course.

I decide that I have to go see my father. I just have to. I spend a sleepless night worrying about all the questions

in my head and knowing that my aunts will never answer them, but somebody has to. I know my aunts are convinced I should know who I am without knowing anything about my mother, but I feel like I just can't. How can I? And the fact that my aunts are so dead set against it makes me feel like I really have to know. I'm not usually such a brat, but in this case I can't help it. I just have to go see my father. He is not always lucid enough to answer questions like that'the poem about my name being a prime example'but I can at least give it a try.