The Girl Who Never Was

by Skylar Dorset

  The Threader is still shrieking her displeasure. 'Come back here! Come back here immediately!'

  I duck through the swirl of bats, battering them away from my face, and tug open the door. She can't make me go back, I think. Ben's enchantment is coming in handy after all.

  'Selkie!'I hear Kelsey call, and I hesitate on the doorstep, guilty, and then shout back to her, 'I have to go!'before darting across Beacon Street and onto the Common. I weave around the tourists and get to the subway station. It is still in chaos from the fire on the tracks, annoyed commuters complaining loudly to the world at large about the incompetence

  of the subway system. I get to the turnstile and swipe my card through, and everyone around me disappears.

  The silence is terrifying. I look around the suddenly empty subway station and try not to panic. All of this stillness is far more panic-inducing than the teeming crowds had been. I am used to the press of people'the subway station is in its natural element then. Here, now, I feel completely lost. And for the first time since I got it into my head to rescue Ben, I suddenly fully comprehend why nobody wanted me to do this: because I have no idea what I'm doing and will probably get myself killed.

  I take a deep breath. I can't turn back now. Ben is depending on me. I swallow and am just about to push through the turnstile when the door to the subway station opens.

  I whirl, startled now at the idea that someone else is here with me. And it's Kelsey. 'Bats,'she announces dramatically. 'I had bats in my hair.'

  'What are you doing here?'I ask her.

  She is looking at the eerily empty subway station. 'Where is everyone?'

  'You're not supposed to be here,'I tell her.

  'Well, I'm here. Your aunts are so devastated that they're sobbing, and the wizard and the sewing lady are busy arguing about some love affair they had a few centuries ago, and do you realize that I think we've both hit our heads and are having some kind of shared hallucination?'

  I look at Kelsey, such an anchor of normality in the craziness

  that has been my life, and she has been for as long as I've known her. I feel like crying suddenly. Just the other day, we were in class complaining about the impossibility of precalculus, and now I'm going to save my faerie quasi-boyfriend from a faerie prison where he's been put by my mother, who also wants to kill me. 'I'm in love with him,'I say, because it's the first thing I can think of to say, because I feel like it might explain everything, because I've never admitted it out loud before. 'He's some kind of weird enchanting faerie, and I have no idea if I can trust him, but it doesn't matter because I'm in love with him.'

  'You've never even mentioned him,'Kelsey points out, which is fair.

  'I know. I'd forgotten him. And then when I knew him, I'My life is a mess.'I give up trying to explain it.

  'So I gathered.'

  A train squeals ominously into the station. A Green Line train. I look at it and say, 'That's for me.'

  'I'll go with you,'Kelsey says immediately.

  'You can't,'I tell her. 'You can't. This is all so crazy, and I'm already being selfish and breaking my aunts'hearts, and I never even said good-bye to my father, and I can't be the reason anything happens to you. I can't. Please, Kelsey.'

  Kelsey looks at me for a long moment and then pulls me into a fierce hug. 'Don't cry,'she commands, even though she sounds on the verge of it herself. 'This is a stupid thing to cry about. I'll see you in school tomorrow, and then

  afterward you'll introduce me to this boyfriend you've been keeping a secret.'

  'We'll be recovered from our shared hallucination in time for school tomorrow?'I ask, a weak joke.

  'Yes,'Kelsey says and hugs me a bit tighter. 'Absolutely.'

  I cling a little bit to Kelsey, trying to freeze-frame the feeling of being here with someone who likes me and loves me and wishes me no harm and only good things. I have a feeling I'm going to need to remember what that's like.

  Then I turn and take a deep breath and push through the turnstile and walk up to the train, whose doors slide open with a chiming of bells.

  I am just about to get on the train, just about to put my foot on the first step, when the subway station door bangs open. I look back, and Kelsey looks up the stairs behind her in surprise, and then Will comes jogging down the stairs.

  'Wait,'he commands me and pushes through the turnstile. 'Wait, wait, wait.'

  I set my jaw. 'I'm going,'I tell him.

  'Fine. Yes. I can see that. Anyway, they've sent a train for you, so you'll never outrun it at this point.'

  'Ben outran a Green Line train.'

  'He's the best traveler in the Otherworld; he can do that. If you're determined to go and do this stupid thing, then there's something you need to know. You are'extraordinarily good at naming.'

  I stare at him. 'What does that mean?'

  'You broke Benedict's enchantment with just two of his names. Snapped it in two. That takes power, Selkie. That takes an extraordinary amount of power, to do something like that to a Le Fay enchantment with only two of his names. There is power in your name; it's thrumming through it. When you get to Benedict, make him use that power. Tell him to stop being noble about it and use it. Make him say your name. It's your Seelie blood, and it might be your only chance to get out of there, using the Seelie blood against them.'

  'I'm only half-Seelie,'I remind Will.

  And Will, to my disbelief, actually smiles. 'True. And your ogre blood will get you the rest of the way out. You're absolutely insane, you know, but you also just broke the Threader's thread for you, completely unthreaded her needle, and I've never seen anyone do that before. So maybe you can do this, fay of the autumnal equinox. Maybe this is your prophecy.'Will looks at me, really looks at me, and I feel like he's trying to read something, like the future is written in my eyes if he could only look closely enough. Maybe it is to Will. 'I hope it is,'he says softly, almost to himself. 'I really, truly, genuinely do.'

  And I do feel like he means it. Will and I may have had our differences, but I'm glad that he came here to tell me this before I set off. I feel like I really needed to hear it. 'Thanks,'I say.

  'You are a Stewart of Beacon Hill,'Will tells me. 'Remember that: you are not one of them. They'll try to make

  you forget who you are; they will try to erase your past and your future: do not let them.'

  I nod because Will's right. What else can I do? I can only remember who I am: Selkie Stewart of Beacon Hill, daughter of Etherington and niece of True and Virtue, and I am only half of anything and maybe that's the point.

  'Words are important,'Will says gravely. 'The most important things there are. Remember that. Don't let them make you forget that.'

  He says that words are important, but all I can do in response is nod mutely. And then he nods mutely back and takes a step away, as if he doesn't want to accidentally trip onto the train with me or something. I glance at Kelsey, who gives me a little wave, and then I make myself move forward. I mount the steps into the car and sit on one of the seats. The doors close, bells chiming, and the train jerks into motion.

  I am on my way to save Ben. I am also about to meet my mother.

  Chapter 16

  The train squeals along, and it seems like I am just on a conventional T in a conventional tunnel, except that we never hit Boylston. The train goes and goes, and I watch the tunnel pass by my window. I have my hands pulled back, hidden in the sleeves of my enchanted sweatshirt. In my pocket are tattered pages from old books, a piece of glass wrapped in a tissue, a button from the Salem Which Museum, and a threaded needle. I have no idea what I intend to do with these items, but they are all I have brought in terms of weapons, and I don't even know if they are weapons. I have these and the power of my name. Words: the most important things, according to Will. I don't even know what that means.

  Maybe I won't need any weapons. Maybe there won't be any fight. Maybe my mother will be wonderful; maybe she'll hug me and tell me how much she's missed me. And then I'll say,
Can't we all just get along, all of us, the faeries and the Seelies and the ogres in Boston? And my mother will say, Of course, this has all just been a huge misunderstanding. And I'll have a regular family. And Ben.

  While I am indulging in this fantasy, the train suddenly bursts out into sunlight. One minute there is a tunnel, and the next minute there is sky. Just sky. Lots and lots of sky. And there, in the distance, dimly, some land that I cannot really perceive. It's like looking too hard at it makes it dissolve into blurs.

  The train stops. Its doors open, chiming at me. I swallow thickly and exit, carefully stepping out on the narrow strip of land that lies between the train and the sky. It is a canyon, I can see now'a vast chasm of red rock, stretching to my right and to my left and below me, as if it is the only thing that exists.

  'Are you crossing Mag Mell?'asks a voice behind me.

  I whirl around, startled. The train has soundlessly disappeared, and there is a little girl watching me from a few feet away. She is an extremely beautiful little girl, her black hair pin straight and pulled back with a large pink bow. She is dressed in the sort of frilly pink lace dress that can only be described as a princess dress. And she is eating an enormous lollipop.

  'What's Mag Mell?'I ask.

  She nods in a vague way that seems to indicate the canyon and takes a slurp of her lollipop and says, 'So? Are you crossing it?'

  'I'm trying to get to Tir na nOg,'I tell her.

  She looks at me like I'm stupid. 'That's the only reason you'd cross Mag Mell,'she informs me.

  'Oh,'I say awkwardly, because I feel stupid. How did I

  ever think that I would come here and save Ben and that this would all somehow work?

  She studies me for a second, and I wonder what she's thinking, if she's thinking, Who is this complete idiot who has shown up here and wants to get into a prison?

  What she says is, 'Seventeen fusel.'

  'Seventeen what?'I echo.

  'Seventeen fusel,'she repeats impatiently. 'For the train fare.'

  'I'But I paid at Park Street,'I inform her, because I can think of nothing else to say.

  'Well, that was stupid of you, wasn't it? Paying before it takes you anywhere? How'd you know the train'd go anywhere at all?'

  I think about that for a moment. 'Good point, actually.'

  'So. Seventeen fusel.'Slurp.

  'I don't know what a fusel is,'I admit.

  Her eyes narrow. And one foot, encased in a pink Mary Jane topped with an absurdly huge bow, begins tapping against the wildflower-strewn grass underneath it. 'Well,'she says. 'You are stupid and useless.'And she turns on her heel and stomps off, bows flouncing.

  I watch her go, thinking that I'm off to a great start here in the Otherworld. And then I turn my attention to the vast canyon that I'm somehow supposed to be crossing. I bet Ben could just jump us across it, but I have no idea if I can do that sort of thing and how to go about it if I could. I stand there with my hands in the pocket of my sweatshirt, fingering

  my feeble weapons and trying to determine if one of them could come in handy. Maybe if I threw one of them into the canyon, it would turn out to be magical and a bridge would suddenly form?

  And then I realize that there is something drifting across the canyon toward me. A hot air balloon, gaily colored and whimsical looking, trailing fluttering flags after it. I watch it as it gets bigger and bigger and then drifts to a landing right next to me'and then keeps skidding across the grass, thudding up great chunks of turf, and I find that my heart is in my throat because I'm convinced it's going to go tumbling right over the edge and I have no idea if it will be able to regain flight once that happens, until it finally comes to a swaying stop and a head peers over the top of the basket.

  It's a boy, roughly my age, with a shock of untidy red- orange hair that he has squashed underneath a newsboy cap. His face is heavily freckled, his eyes are wide and green, and he looks at me and says sadly, 'I wish I could tell you to run, but you wouldn't get anywhere anyhow.'

  I ignore this uplifting remark, refusing to let myself be afraid. 'Can you take me across''I wave my arm toward the empty space of the air occupying the canyon. 'That, to the prison?'

  'Of course I can,'he replies. 'That's my job.'

  'Oh,'I say and walk over to the basket. It's tall, and I can tell it's going to be awkward to get in. I reach for the top of the basket, and he reaches over to grab at me, and somehow

  together we get me over the top and into the basket with only a minimum of inappropriate groping, until we fall in a heap at the bottom of the basket.

  'You're quite graceful, aren't you?'he says good-naturedly.

  I try to ignore him, but I'm sure I blush as I roll off of him. He sits at the bottom of the basket and looks at me as I stand, leaning against the side. I can see now that he's dressed in white pants with pink pinstripes and a loud, electric blue, Hawaiian-print shirt. He must really like color.

  He just sits there staring at me for so long that I grow uncomfortable. 'Shouldn't we'get going?'

  'Oh, don't worry. They'll make sure we get back there. I like to see how long I can stay here, just'breathing. It's hard to breathe over there.'He looks around himself wistfully, looking so forlorn that I feel awful for him.

  'You don't get to come over here often?'I guess.

  'Often enough, but it's always just to pick people up and then ferry them back over, and that's not'I mean, that's never''He shudders a bit. 'Well.'He looks at me, suddenly smiling brightly. 'Let's talk about something else.'

  'Okay,'I say slowly, a bit startled by the abrupt change in his demeanor. But then I don't know what else to talk about. I'm going to go to Tir na nOg, find one of the prisoners, and escape doesn't exactly seem like a good way to start a conversation.

  I must look blank, because he offers up a topic of conversation. 'For instance, I have just discovered that I have lost a

  button.'He indicates his loud Hawaiian shirt, where there is indeed a button missing.

  'Oh.'I blink and realize, 'A button.'I reach into my sweatshirt pocket and pull out the button I took from the Salem Which Museum. It, of course, matches the shirt perfectly.

  He takes it in delight. 'Thank you!'And then, 'I am Safford. And I am very pleased to meet you. You're very useful!'

  Yes, in lots of different ways, apparently, I think sardonically. But there is another thing I'm curious about. 'You just told me your name,'I note.

  'Yes. Well, I'm required to, aren't I? Required to tell my name to the passengers I ferry across Mag Mell.'

  'What happens if you don't?'

  'What always happens in the Otherworld when you do something the Seelies don't like?'

  'Not good things?'I guess.

  'One way of putting it,'agrees Safford. 'You came here by Green Line train.'

  'Yes,'I say. 'Doesn't everyone?'

  'Not many people crossing worlds these days. The borders are closed, you know.'

  He is looking at me very sharply, studying me, and I don't want him to ask what's so special about me; I don't want to get into half-ogreness and fay-of-the-autumnalequinox- ness.

  'Is it going to be a problem that I don't have any'fusel?'I blurt out to keep Safford from asking anything more about

  my journey from the Thisworld. I wonder if any of the items

  in my kangaroo pocket can qualify as fusel.

  'Fusel?'he echoes blankly.

  'That little girl asked me for seventeen fusel.'I indicate vaguely where I'd had the conversation with the little girl, who is no longer in sight.

  'Oh,'says Safford. 'Dark hair, lots of bows?'

  I nod.

  'She's just an extortionist, that one. You can't blame her though. Her parents were named when she was just a little girl. That left her and her little brother, who's a tiny little thing, not much talent of his own. She's devoted to him, and it's up to her to keep food in their mouths.'Safford shrugs.

  Now I feel terrible about not having any fusel to give to the little girl
. 'What did her parents do?'I ask.

  'Oh, you know.'Safford makes a vague gesture. 'A little bit of this, a little bit of that.'

  'No, I mean to get named.'

  Safford looks at me. 'You ask that as if there's a reason for being named.'

  'There'Oh''I trail off stupidly, absorbing that. I guess I had been thinking that there would be a reason for being named, like Ben was in danger of it because he had helped me. And I was in danger of it because I was me. But I guess there doesn't have to be a reason; I guess it could just be something that'happens, like a car accident or a plane crash.

  'Like me,'Safford continues, 'forced constantly to either ferry

  faeries across to their namings or to provide my name to faeries who won't be named and can then use it against me. And what have I done? I have no idea. One day they just'came and got me and brought me here. I don't know. I guess what I did was exist.'He looks so bitter, and so extremely sad, that I shudder.

  And at that moment, the hot air balloon lifts into the air and out over the canyon.

  'Lovely view, isn't it?'says Safford dully.

  I look at the ground a dizzying distance below me and silently disagree with him'strongly. I've never thought of myself as being afraid of heights, but I guess now I know that I should never go skydiving. Nice to know these things; self- discovery is good.

  Feeling giddy and thinking maybe I'm on the verge of hysterics, I turn away from the lovely view and sink to the floor of the basket. 'This is my first time in one of these,'I say, trying to explain my sudden weak insanity.

  'Really?'Safford looks shocked.

  The basket is rocking gently as we waft over the canyon, and I wish it would stop swaying. I can't tell if the thing is actually making me motion sick or if finally the prospect of what I'm doing is making me nauseated. 'We don't really travel by these where I come from,'I tell him.

  'What's it like, in that world?'He sounds genuinely curious.

  'I don't know,'I say helplessly. I can't think of how to describe home. I am coming up utterly devoid of words. 'It doesn't have many hot air balloons.'