Girl Who Never Was

by Skylar Dorset

  He hums contentedly into my neck. I can feel his wet eyelashes brushing raindrops against my skin. I hold him, absently patting him dry with the blanket as much as I can without dislodging him. His breaths are evening out, which is a relief, as I suspect they’d been ragged since we left him that morning.

  “I’m going to get you out of here,” I promise him.

  “Are you?” He sounds amused. “Do you have a plan? How very ogre of you.”

  “Well. Not really,” I admit.

  “Then it’s a good thing I do, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” I say, relieved. “What is it?”

  “Well, it’s not an especially good one. It involves continuing to breathe.”

  “That is a terrible plan, Ben.”

  “It’s a pretty good plan for a faerie, I’ll have you know. We’re not exactly natural planners. And I’m so wet, I’m always so wet. If you can keep bringing me blankets, I might be able to get dry enough to think one of these days, and then maybe I can…Maybe I can…” He falls silent for a second. “No one’s ever escaped Tir na nOg, Selkie.”

  I consider, in that moment, telling him about his mother, that she was rumored to have been the only faerie to ever escape Tir na nOg, but I’m not sure that’s the best information to impart at this moment, when I need him focused on escaping, not his mother. “Don’t talk like that,” I tell him.

  “There has to be a way, I just can’t put the pieces together. If I could just get dry…”

  “All right,” I say soothingly, brushing at his hair. I have never touched his hair before today. I have always wanted to, of course, but I have never done it. It is lovely hair, soft and thick, and I wish it wasn’t wet. It seems, somehow, not like Ben’s hair like this. “Tell me the pieces; I’ll put them together for you.”

  “We can use Safford,” he says. “You met Safford?”

  “With the hot air balloon?”

  “Yes. He’s my cousin. Not that they know that or they’d never…He remembers…He remembers…We can use Safford, he’ll help, as much as he can, but I don’t know how…We’d have to get me over this moat, and I can’t…I can’t…”

  “You could jump it, Ben. It’s not that wide.”

  He is shivering again, and I can tell it is at just the idea of doing it. “I can’t,” he says. “I can’t.”

  “All right,” I say. “Shhh. All right. We’ll figure out a way to get you over this moat. Ben, I swear to you, I’ll get you dry.”

  He stops shivering and chuckles against me. “I’m supposed to be protecting you, you know. We’ve got this all mixed up.”

  “This is going to even our debt,” I tell him. “After this, you’re on your own.”

  I am joking, and luckily, he realizes it. He laughs, full-fledged, and cuddles me closer.

  “What about your enchantment? I don’t want you to be imprisoned.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. It protects you, not me. I don’t have enough energy to protect both of us.”

  “Is it taking up a lot of your energy, my enchantment?”

  “Forget about it, Selkie.”

  “If you can only protect one of us, you should—”

  “Can you not waste the energy I have left fighting with me? Be nice to me.”

  “I’m always nice to you,” I say. “I just think—”

  “No,” he says, his voice stony and stubborn, and it’s actually good to hear him momentarily energetic, even if it is an energy being channeled into disagreeing with me. “I will fight you on this until I have no fight left in me, and only then will you win this argument.”

  Because those aren’t exactly circumstances under which I want to win, I let silence fall, thinking.

  “So there’s Safford,” I muse eventually. “And maybe I could figure out how to make a silver bough?” It’s the only thing I can think of, the only vague plan I have, the idea that maybe I could get someone in to help us.

  “How would you ever find out how to make a silver bough? Only Seelies know how to—Oh.” He cuts himself off. “Yes. Seelie blood. Of course.”

  There is an awkward silence. I feel like remembering I’m a Seelie has made Ben uneasy.

  “I’m still me,” I assure him. “Look. I’m still me.”

  “Yes,” agrees Ben. “But they make you forget. That’s what they do. They make you forget—”

  “I’m not going to forget,” I vow.

  Ben takes a deep breath, lays his head back down, no longer buried in my neck but tipped against mine, so that our foreheads touch comfortingly. “A silver bough,” he says after a moment. “That means we could get someone else in. We could work with that. We could…Maybe we could do this…If you could figure out…But, really, how would you…”

  I think about the moat. How can I get him over the water…?

  “Ben,” I say abruptly.

  He jumps, and I realize he’d fallen asleep. “What?” he whispers, tense, and I think that he must assume I’ve woken him because someone is coming.

  “I don’t think anyone knows I’m here,” I assure him.

  “Oh, of course they know you’re here,” he snaps at me. “How do you think you even got here?”

  “I don’t know, I thought maybe your enchantment…I wanted to find you…”

  “It’s not about what you want. It’s about what you don’t want. People can’t make you do what you don’t want to do.”

  “I didn’t want to be lost.”

  “Not being lost doesn’t necessarily mean finding me.”

  “Yes,” I insist. “It does.”

  “You could find me and still be lost,” he points out.

  “I wouldn’t be lost anymore, because I’d be with you.”

  Ben looks at me for a long moment, his expression as inscrutable as always, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far, said too much, and I want to take it back. But when he eventually speaks, what he says is, “They’re just waiting for you to forget. That’s all it is. They’re waiting for your Seelie blood to kick in, and you’ll forget Boston and your aunts, and me.”

  “But I won’t forget. I have ogre blood,” I remind him. “You can’t forget that I’m not going to forget, okay? Can they hear what we’re saying?” I have no idea how faerie magic really works.

  “No. Not unless they’re here in the room with us, and they’re not.”

  I find his hand and squeeze it. “Ben, whenever it snowed in Boston, it didn’t bother you.”

  “Oh,” he says. “Snow isn’t really wet. Not until it melts. But as long as it was snow, no, that doesn’t bother me.”

  “So if we could freeze the moat…” I suggest. I shift so I can see him under our blanket.

  “I could walk over the ice,” he realizes. He looks at me, and even in the darkness, I can tell how relieved he is. “I could walk over the ice!” he exclaims. “Selkie, you’re brilliant.”

  “Glad you finally recognized it,” I tell him lightly.

  “Oh, I recognized it ages ago. I just kept it to myself,” he rejoins. “Now we just have to figure out how to freeze the moat.”

  He says it like it’s a simple problem. I decide to let him think it is. Anyway, I am thinking of other things.

  “Do all faeries work that way?” I muse.

  “Work what way?”

  “Well, not all faeries are bothered by water. Clearly my mother isn’t.”

  “No,” he replies. “Some are, some aren’t.”

  “Like an allergy.”

  “If you like.”

  “Don’t the Seelies have anything like that? Anything at all?”

  “It’s church bells,” says Ben. “Everyone knows that. Seelies love chiming bells, but church bells weaken them. But I’d like to see you try to get a church bell over Mag Mell. The Seelies would name you immediate
ly.”

  Not if they don’t know, I think.

  CHAPTER 21

  Ben wakes me. I do not know how long I have been sleeping, but it is still dark in the cell; I can tell even through the blanket.

  “You have to go,” he says, sounding heavy to admit it. “If they find you here in the morning…They know you’re here, but I’d rather not…You have to go.”

  I know he’s right. I sigh and look at Ben, hesitant, trying to think what to say in farewell. Ben is staring intently at my sweatshirt.

  “What?” I ask and look down at it. “Is there something wrong with it?”

  “No.” He shakes his head, and then he smiles at me. “Just thinking again how…You remembered.”

  “Of course I remembered,” I tell him.

  “I wasn’t sure you would. I hoped, of course, but I wasn’t sure.”

  I think of how much I missed him, even when I didn’t remember—of how the Common felt empty, of how I longed for his unusual pale eyes. “Don’t be silly,” I say. “How could I not remember you? I will never forget you. I will always remember you.”

  There is a very nice moment when we lay there under our blanket and smile at each other, and I wish we’d done things like this when our lives were relatively normal.

  “Promise me you won’t leave me again,” I say.

  A shadow passes over his face. “Selkie,” he starts.

  “No.” I shake my head vehemently. “You won’t leave me, and I won’t leave you. From now on, we do this prophecy thing—or we don’t do it—together.”

  He is silent for a long time.

  “Ben,” I say worryingly.

  He winces.

  “Oh,” I realize. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—it’s frustrating. How can I keep from naming you every time I say your name?”

  “I told you,” says Ben, “it’s about intent.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you then.”

  “Maybe not, but you were displeased with me, and you’re actually a very good namer who doesn’t quite have control over it yet, so…”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it. I may have been miffed at him but that’s very different from wanting to cause him pain, and I wish my naming power would understand that.

  “It’s fine,” says Ben. “It has some advantages. When you say my name like you like me, it’s actually very nice.”

  “Is it?”

  He nods. “I discovered that last night. That’s not true of most namers—or at least, none I’ve met. Maybe I’ve just never met any who liked me.” He shrugs, looking unconcerned about this.

  “Maybe it’s my ogre blood,” I suggest.

  “Perhaps,” he allows.

  I look across at him for a moment. Our blanket is saturated by now, sopping wet and heavy over us. Ben is not dry—far from it—but he’s drier than he was. He looks bedraggled and exhausted, but he is still Ben. Ben, Ben, my Ben, who got himself locked up in this terrible prison just to keep me safe.

  “Ben,” I say, and what I mean is I love you. He blinks, so slowly that it’s more like he closes his eyes for a moment. I hesitate, but it seems appropriate to our current coziness to reach out and brush his tangled hair off his forehead. “Ben, Ben, Ben,” I repeat softly, trying to make sure that I’m saying it like I like him, like I love him. I want my tone to be dripping with love for him. I want him to be more drenched by my love than he currently is by the water all around us. I want him to realize what it is I’m saying in asking him to promise.

  “Yes,” he says, his voice sounding husky and his gaze very intent. “That’s much better.”

  “Is it?” I can’t get my voice to be louder than a whisper. My hand is still resting in his hair. I feel it would be awkward to withdraw it now.

  “I promise,” he says, and then he breaks the moment, pulling away slightly

  I gather myself, moving my hand away from his hair, and then roll out from underneath the blanket, getting to my feet. Ben stands beside me, sweeping the blanket off of himself and handing it to me. He winces a bit as the drizzle spits at his cheeks.

  “Keep it,” I say.

  “No, you need to take it. I don’t want them to find it here.”

  I know he is probably right, but I am loath to take it. Ben looks severely miserable in the wetness attacking him now.

  I reluctantly gather the blanket into my arms. “You should say my name a couple more times,” I say. “It would do you good.”

  He shakes his head. “Not really. Unless you think we’ll be escaping today. I’d rather save it until I truly need it. It can get diluted if you use it too often. Anyway, you just helped, saying my name the way you just did.”

  “Ah,” I say, a little embarrassed. I watch Ben give the rain a glum look before futilely pulling up his collars and adjusting his coats. Then he sends me a falsely cheerful smile. “When we get out of here,” I promise him, “we can go to some world that’s never even heard of the concept of water.”

  “You won’t last there very long,” he points out.

  “I’ll bring some water bottles.” I shrug.

  He laughs and then abruptly turns serious. “Listen to me,” he says and closes his hands around my shoulders. “You are you. You are not one of them. Don’t think of yourself that way. Don’t let them trick you into thinking that way.”

  “I won’t,” I promise.

  His faerie eyes, bright silver-blue in the darkness, flicker over my face for a moment. Then he drops his hands from my shoulders. “Be careful. Keep breathing.”

  I nod, then lean up and quickly kiss his cheek before I can overthink it. Then, because I know I am blushing, I quickly take my running leap over the moat.

  When I look back at him, he is standing hunched into his coats, looking awful. I send him a little wave, feeling a bit like an idiot. I think he flickers a small smile back at me, but I can’t quite be sure.

  ***

  I am soaking wet when I get back to my room. And what I find when I get there is Gussie, sitting perched on the windowsill. She looks at me, dripping onto the floor, and lifts an eyebrow.

  “Well,” she remarks, “I was wondering where you’d gone. And now I know. The Le Fays have always hated water. His mother was the same way.”

  I want to tell her to get out of my room, because I don’t want to deal with all of this for a little while. I just want to collapse and not think so hard. But she mentioned Ben’s mother, and I find myself saying, irresistibly, “Did you know her?”

  “Oh, yes. She was the best enchantress of the day. Everyone in the Otherworld knew her. Which was precisely why the Seelies imprisoned her. The Seelies like powerful faeries, you know. They drink up the power, make it their own. They like having power around them; they get a bit drunk off of it. It’s why I’m here and why you’re here. But Benedict’s mother was…not easily amenable. To anything. Headstrong. Seelies hate that.”

  “So they named her?” I conclude, feeling cold on Ben’s behalf. I want to hear what she says in response to that.

  “Oh, no, she escaped.”

  “Escaped?” So she did escape, I think. “She escaped from here? From Tir na nOg?” I want to clarify. I want to know everything about this story. If she was the only faerie to escape, then I want to know how she did it. And so I say, “How?”

  Gussie lifts both eyebrows this time. “If I knew that, do you think I’d still be here?”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Time doesn’t exist here. Haven’t you noticed? How long have you been here?”

  I know exactly how long I’ve been here. I open my mouth to say. And then realize that I have no idea. Has it been two nights? Or just one? Or maybe more? Surely I was in Boston just the other day. Wasn’t I? But it seems so far away. I can feel my face screwing up with effort as I think about this.

 
“See? They make you forget. It’s what they do.”

  “But…I haven’t forgotten. I won’t forget.”

  “Not yet. You’re stubborn. But it will come. I don’t remember where I came from anymore. I had a house once. I think I did. I don’t remember where it was. I’m not a faerie, you know. But I can’t remember what I am.” Gussie looks thoughtful for a moment. “They call me ‘Lady Gregory’ sometimes, and I think that maybe that means something? I don’t know.”

  Gussie looks so bewildered that I can’t stand it. I don’t know much about her, but so far, as long as I have been here, she has seemed to be pulled together, to know what’s going on. I realize at that moment that I’d been depending on her to know what to do—to give me guidance.

  “I need to make a silver bough,” I say desperately.

  She looks at me sadly. “For what? Who will you give it to? Even if you could make one.”

  She has a good point. And I don’t know. I falter. Who do I know who I could give the silver bough to?

  “Anyway, you need glass to make a silver bough. And they don’t allow any glass at the Seelie Court, haven’t you noticed? They hate silver boughs. You need a Threader too, because you need a Threader needle. And all the Threaders…I don’t remember what happened to the Threaders.”

  I think of the glass in my kangaroo pocket, of the Threader needle I grabbed on my way out of…the house…on…I can’t think of the name of the street, and for a second, panic rises inside of me. Then I press it down. I say, “If I had glass and a Threader needle, what then?”

  “You’d need a drop of Seelie blood.”

  And I am half-Seelie. I look across at Gussie and I say, curiously, “How do you know this? I thought only Seelies knew how to make silver boughs.”

  Gussie looks confused. “I…don’t remember, now that you mention it.” She makes a frustrated sound. “Oh, it’s so annoying, because there are things that I feel like I’ve been clinging to all along. Like you. You’re important—the visitor who would come to the Seelie Court. The fay of the autumnal equinox. As long as you are here, they will draw power from you. You will make them more powerful than they have ever been. That’s what they say, isn’t it?”