The Girl Who Never Was

by Skylar Dorset

  'Okay then,'I agree.

  'They taste like omelet.'Kelsey grins at me.

  'Strawberry jam,'insists Safford good-naturedly, and Kelsey actually giggles.

  I sit at the table with them, feeling like a third wheel. 'Where's everyone else?'I ask awkwardly.

  'As only Benedict is unaccounted for as far as you're concerned, you must be asking after him,'remarks Will, whisking my omelet.

  I might blush.

  'Still sleeping,'says Kelsey. 'He slept with me last night.'

  I blink. 'What?'

  She grins. 'Relax. There was an extra bed in my room. When I woke up this morning, he was in it.'

  'He needs his sleep,'says Will, flipping my omelet, 'so we'll let him sleep as long as he can.'

  I wish Ben had chosen my room to crash in, but I suppose it was already crowded with my aunts and we didn't have an extra bed.

  Kelsey reads my thoughts. 'Don't read anything into it. I don't even think he knows my name.'

  'I didn't sleep at all last night,'says Safford. 'I stayed up all night watching that magnificent thing.'He gestures to the television.

  'Safford thinks he's on holiday,'says Will, sounding disapproving as he puts my omelet in front of me.

  'I haven't left Mag Mell in years. Or minutes. I am on holiday. There is water in this house. On command. When you want it.'

  I pause. 'Is he talking about sinks?'

  Kelsey nods.

  'Kelsey says it's very common in the Thisworld. Benedict must hate it.'

  'Safford's been telling me how Ben is allergic to water,'says Kelsey. 'How does he wash up? I'm so confused.'

  Now I am too. 'You know, I've never asked him.'I look at Safford. 'So what did you think of the shower, then?'

  Safford looks confused. 'The what?'

  'Oh, if you liked the bathroom sink, you're going to love the shower.'

  Safford brightens and leaps up and makes a beeline toward the bathroom.

  'Now you've done it,'sighs Will. 'We'll have a flood, and I'll never hear the end of it from Benedict.'Will goes after Safford.

  I eat my omelet steadily. It's actually really fantastic.

  'So,'says Kelsey. She draws the word out playfully. 'You and Ben, huh?'

  'I don't know,'I admit. 'Maybe? It's confusing.'

  'You don't say,'says Kelsey. 'Odd, since everything else about your life makes total sense.'

  'Shut up,'I say, knowing that I'm blushing.

  'So I guess that's the end of you and Mike then, huh?'

  'Mike,'I exclaim, suddenly remembering him.

  'Don't worry. He thinks we went to Europe. Which I guess we kind of did. But you'll have to break up with him when we get back.'

  I am perplexed. 'Why does he think we went to Europe?'

  'Everyone does. It's what Will made everyone believe, so it wouldn't look like we'd just disappeared. He said he's not as good at that sort of thing as Ben is but that it should hold. I asked him what his specialty is and he said remembering. What do you think that means?'

  I look at Kelsey, so calmly talking about all these insane things. 'I'm so sorry you're involved with this,'I say honestly.

  She looks back at me. 'I'm not. You need help. At first I thought it was because you and everyone around you had gone insane, and now I know it's because none of you are insane. So I am with you here to the end of this little coup d''tat everyone keeps talking about.'

  'This is above and beyond the call of friendship,'I tell her.

  'Well, that's me,'she says. 'Awesome. I expect really good birthday gifts from you for the rest of my life.'

  'Deal,'I say and pause, then add nonchalantly, 'Of course, it doesn't hurt that Safford's here.'

  Kelsey blushes crimson. 'Stop it,'she hisses and looks over her shoulder, where Safford is nowhere in sight. Then she turns back to me, eager. 'He is cute though, don't you think? And funny.'

  I smile, and I'm about to reply when my aunts arrive,

  and then there is bustling about as they make tea. Will and Safford come back, and Will makes more omelets, and Safford shows us the wonders of the television, and eventually Ben gets up. He sits at the table, looking adorably mussed with sleep, and eats his omelet mechanically, looking more awake when he's done.

  'How are you feeling?'I ask him. I ask it just because I love him, of course, but I'm also anxious to get back home. I feel like it's been forever since I saw home.

  'Better,'he says and smiles. 'Let's go for a walk.'

  My aunts both look alarmed.

  'Is that safe?'Aunt Virtue demands.

  'Just as safe as being in here,'Ben points out. 'It's not like this little cottage is going to hold back the Seelies.'

  Not the best way to reassure my aunts, who utter little cries of protest. 'I'd love to get out of the house,'I say, standing, and then glance at Kelsey questioningly, feeling bad about abandoning her.

  Kelsey shakes her head, eyes on Safford. 'I'm fine.'

  'I don't know''Aunt True starts worryingly.

  'I'll be fine,'I promise her. 'We won't go far.'

  I am delighted to be able to join Ben outside. The weather has cleared, and the day is bright and cheerful. It's been so many hours since the last time I was in immediate terror for my life, it seems to have faded a little bit for me.

  'Do you want to see something lovely?'Ben asks me.

  xx We are climbing up a gentle hill, wending into woods.

  'Here we are,'Ben says finally and sweeps his hand out in front of us. 'St. David's Ruin.'

  It is still a little ways away from us, but it is lovely, a picturesque ruined tower, roofless, doorless, windowless, almost pointless, but lovely nonetheless, a circle of stone in the middle of the forest.

  I am delighted by it, imagining it in medieval times, in times filled with faeries, when Cottingley was drenched with magic and faeries came here to convalesce, like a Caribbean resort. 'How old is it?'I ask. We are nearly all the way to it now.

  'Not as old as you'd think,'answers Ben as we reach it. He watches as I duck into the tower itself. 'It's a folly, built to be a ruin.'

  I look at the sky through its lack-of-roof. 'Why would you build something to be a ruin?'

  'Because you're impractical,'suggests Ben. 'The world used to be a much more impractical place.'

  I look at him. He is leaning against the stone of the open doorjamb, watching me. 'Do you miss that? The world being a more impractical place?'

  He shrugs.

  Standing there, in a fake ruin, seems like the proper time to ask, 'How old are you, anyway?'

  'Is that important?'

  'You sound like my aunts,'I tell him.

  He laughs like I have told the most hysterical joke ever, sagging against the doorjamb in his hilarity.

  'What?'I ask, staring at him.

  'Sorry,'he gasps, trying to catch his breath. 'It's just'if you'd been present for any of the numerous arguments I've had with your aunts over the years, you'd know how hilarious is the idea that I sound like them. Sorry.'He clears his throat, attempting to become sober. 'The thing is that time passes differently in each world. You can live a century in a minute and vice versa. Asking me how old I am is impossible. It isn't an age I could translate for you, not an age you could understand. We don't even keep track of things like that in the Otherworld.'

  Which explains my aunts. I lift myself up to perch on the open windowsill of the fake ruin's fakely ruined window. 'So how old am I then?'

  'You may be seventeen,'he replies, 'you may be four hundred and twenty-three, and neither one of those numbers is your age.'

  'Well, maybe that explains it then,'I say.

  'Maybe that explains what?'

  'Why sometimes I feel so very young and sometimes I feel so very old.'

  'No,'says Ben, his mouth tipping up in a smile. 'I think that's just life, Selkie.'

  'Ah,'I say. 'How very philosophical of you.'

  'Why didn't you leave?'The question is abrupt, catching me off guard. T
he way he asks it is abrupt. His eyes are very serious, a storm-cloud gray in the fading light of the day.

  'What?'I ask, confused. 'When?'

  'When we were trapped, outside Tir na nOg, and your mother was there, and I told you to go, you didn't go. I kept telling you to go, and you never went.'

  He is walking toward me very slowly, very deliberately, in that way he has, that way of making you realize that all of his attention has shifted toward this very moment, toward whatever he intends to do next. I curl my fingers into the stone of the windowsill underneath me, grabbing what little purchase I can, because tumbling out the window is the very last thing I would like to have happen at this moment.

  'I wasn't leaving without you.'My mouth is very dry. I have to make a huge effort to swallow to get the words out.

  He has reached me now, stands in front of me and looks down at me, and he looks like I am a puzzle he is desperately trying to figure out. This confuses me, because usually I wonder if I can possibly be any more humiliatingly obvious in my interactions with Ben.

  'I told you I was right behind you,'he says.

  I try to smile at him. 'Never trust a faerie,'I manage.

  He chuckles and leans his head down, but he doesn't kiss me. 'You should really, really remember that more often than you do,'he murmurs at me.

  'Should I?'My hands are fisted into his shirts. I wonder when that happened. But if I let go, I really am worried I'll just tumble bonelessly backward, so I keep them there.

  'Yes. You're appallingly bad at it.'

  He leans his head closer, so close that I actually close my eyes, because he really is so close that he should be kissing me at this point, and I don't know why he's not. His hands are on either side of me, which makes me surrounded by Ben on three sides, which is kind of a lovely thing to be, much lovelier than this ruined tower.

  'But you're the only faerie I trust,'I am barely able to say, tipping my head a bit, so I can feel his breath across my cheek.

  'I know.'The words drift across my skin. 'That's what makes you so appallingly bad at it.'

  And then he kisses me. It is so lovely to be kissed that I am light-headed with it. Kissing Ben is one of the world's best activities. I lean closer to him, and if time is confused, if you can live a century in a minute, then I want this to be the minute in which I live a century, I want this to be the only minute I have, if I can only choose one.

  He draws back, and I think he is going to say something, which I desperately don't want him to, but all he does is shift slightly, lifting his hands up to cup the back of my head, and then he kisses me again, and I sigh with joy and wonder how it could ever possibly be wrong to trust him.

  And just like that, I hear my mother's voice again, telling me that Ben will betray me. And then he will die.

  I pull back, and he looks at me questioningly.

  I take a deep breath, thinking about the prophecy, whatever it is, about the other three fays that are out there, hiding, waiting for us to find them. I think of all the faeries named for no reason, of all the terror in the Otherworld, of everything that I am supposed to do. I feel momentarily swamped by it. And I know that I have my aunts and I have Kelsey, but that is not as comforting as having Ben, who is always so coolly, calmly capable. Even when he's soaking wet in a prison cell, he has never been able to destroy my utter, complete, absolute, unwavering faith in him.

  'We'll do this together, right?'And I mean all of it, everything. 'You promised, right?'

  He seems to know exactly what I mean. He smiles a little bit and says, 'I promised.'He leans forward, pressing his lips against my temple.

  I lean forward as well, so that I'm settled heavily and comfortingly against him. It seems like the safest place in the world, and I never want to leave it. I squeeze my eyes shut and let Ben hold me, and I wonder if we'll ever reach the point again where our lives are normal and we're sitting on the Common and we're not in mortal peril.

  To get there, I have to fulfill this prophecy and save the Otherworld. Which means I need to find this book. Which we can't do until Ben gets us back to Boston.

  'When do you think you'll be ready to take us back to Boston?'I murmur against him.

  'Wouldn't you know, I'm feeling much better?'remarks Ben.

  I smile a little bit, not quite a chuckle, because I want to be able to just laugh with him, but there is still dread in my stomach over everything that has to happen first. And I could try to hide from it, I could, but I remember that poor little girl screaming as her brother disintegrated in her arms, and I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath and then straighten away from Ben. 'Good,'I say firmly. 'Let's go take down the Seelie Court.'

  Chapter 27

  Boston looks exactly the way it has always looked, which is astonishing to me. With all that has happened, how can I just go back to the same townhouse with the lavender windowpanes and the non-working clock?

  We sit in the conservatory that was filled with bats the last time I saw it, and we develop a plan of attack.

  'They'll keep the book in the banned books room at the library,'Will says.

  'I'll be able to jump in easily,'says Ben confidently.

  'But you won't be able to jump out. They'll have taken that precaution.'

  'So I'll walk out.'

  'You don't think they'll have a goblin guard there?'

  Ben frowns.

  'What's the big deal about a goblin guard?'I ask.

  'Goblins can stop a traveler from jumping away just by touching them,'says Ben. 'So needless to say, we are not usually friends, travelers and goblins.'

  'And that's why it's a good idea to protect a room with a goblin guard,'I conclude.

  'But I don't get it.'I turn to Will. 'Aren't the goblins on our side? You keep talking about them mounting armies. I assumed they were helping us. We need this book to win.'

  'Because a wizard who had no doubt gone mad from being in the Seelie Court told you we did,'Will points out. 'And it's a powerful book. One of the most powerful there is, after mine, of course.'Will puffs up a bit with pride.

  Ben rolls his eyes.

  'The point is, they locked it up to make sure no one could get it, that no one would have the power contained in its pages. That was the point: we're all on an even playing field because none of us have the weapon. It maintains the alliance between all of us. It will look dubious to the goblins that we've suddenly decided to topple the balance of power our way.'

  'It sounds like you need diplomacy,'remarks Kelsey.

  'Kelsey's right. Why can't you talk to the goblins?'

  'Yes, because Otherworld creatures are always so persuaded by logical arguments,'drawls Will.

  'Well, it's worth a try.'

  'It's not necessary,'says Ben. 'I'll go in, I'll get the book, and I'll get out before the goblins touch me. I'm the best traveler in the Otherworld. I can move a bit quicker than a couple of goblins can.'

  'I'm going with you,'I say immediately.

  Ben sighs.

  My aunts immediately protest.

  'No,'I say staunchly. 'We promised, and it's my prophecy, and this is what I'm doing: I'm going with Ben, I'm getting the book, and I'm saving the Otherworld.'

  x I must be getting a lot better at standing up for myself, because no one really tries to stop me. They raise halfhearted protests, but I stare them down, and in the end, I take one of Ben's hands and Will takes the other and Ben jumps us to a large, high-ceilinged, marble room. The ceiling is so far over our heads you practically can't see it. Heavy, wrought- iron chandeliers filled with flickering, wax-laden candles seem to float in midair above us, the chains holding them up disappearing into the murk above our heads. One wall is lined with tall, narrow windows that stand open to sharp, cold air. Traffic sounds drift through them, and I walk over and peer out.

  'It's Copley Square,'I note.

  'Well, yes,'answers Ben. 'We're in the library.'

  'I didn't think you meant the real library.'

  I turn aw
ay from the windows. Will has started moving farther into the room, and Ben has wandered over to the rows upon rows of books lining the wall opposite the windows as well.

  'How are we ever going to find it?'he asks, frustrated. 'It's organized.'

  'What?'I ask in surprise.

  'It's like New York City, everything's so sensical; it's the only place in either world where I feel lost. It's so devious.'

  I peer at the books. Ben's right: they're alphabetized. Apparently, such a system stymies faeries. 'Good thing you brought a wizard with you,'says Will, coming up to us and holding up a book. 'Here it is. A Pickle for the Knowing Ones.'

  Ben is looking at him with something close to awe. 'How did you do that?'

  'I could have done that too,'I point out. 'He just walked over to the Ds. It wasn't any sort of wizard magic.'A bit disgruntled, I take the book out of Will's hand.

  The first few lines read: IME the first Lord in the younited States of A mericary Now of Newburyport it is the voise of the peopel and I cant Help it and so Let it goue.

  'It's'nonsensical,'I say, flipping through the book. 'I mean, the spelling is one thing, I know it's old, but there's no punctuation.'

  'The punctuation's all at the end,'says Ben simply, as if that makes perfect sense.

  There are indeed pages of periods and commas at the end of the book.

  'What are you supposed to make of this?'I ask in exasperation.

  'It's fluent Faerie,'says Ben, and takes the book back from me.

  I look down at the book, wishing that it made sense to me.

  Shouldn't it? It's part of my prophecy. But it doesn't. 'Can

  you read it?'

  'Of course I can.'

  'Then let's get this over with,'suggests Will. 'Figure out who hid the other three fays.'

  'That way if I get detained by the goblins, you can still go on and fulfill the prophecy without me,'notes Ben wryly.

  'No,'I say firmly and look at Will. 'We are not leaving him behind. We do all of this together. Ben and I promised each other.'

  'Ah. I see. A promise from a faerie,'says Will.

  'Stop, she won't be dissuaded,'says Ben distractedly, because now he is flipping through the book. His eyebrows are drawn together in dark consternation. 'This'doesn't make any sense.'