Girl Who Never Was Read online

  “What happened to her?”

  “No one knows the answer to that. Trust me, she’s a dead end; we’ll never find her. If we’re going to find the other three fays, we need Benedict. It’s what the prophecy says.”

  “If the prophecy says Ben’s going to help us, then won’t it just happen? He has to escape and help us; it’s prophesied.”

  Will shakes his head. “That’s not how prophecies work. Prophecies war, one against the other. Until the words are written down, the possible paths are manifold. We have one; the Seelies have another. The prophecy isn’t that you will restore peace to the Otherworld. It’s that it will never be done without you.”

  “Then we don’t have a choice, do we? We have to go to the Seelie Court to rescue Ben.”

  “I would like you to tell me how you propose to waltz into the Seelie Court and waltz out with a prisoner.”

  I frown. “Well, first, you’re going to help me.”

  “Even if I thought this foolhardy plan wasn’t going to get all of us named immediately, I can’t actually set foot in Tir na nOg, no non-faerie can, not without a silver bough, and nobody knows how to make one of those except the Seelies.”

  There is too much here for me to unpack. Will is using words that make absolutely no sense to me. “You need to start at the beginning.”

  “No,” says Will. “I don’t need to start anywhere. You are going straight home. I am not going to be responsible for getting the autumn fay killed.”

  “So that’s it?” I say. “You’re just going to let Ben be named?”

  Will falters. “Benedict knew the risks.” He must realize how lame that sounds, because he adds, “There’s nothing I can do, Selkie. Nothing any of us can do. I’m sorry. But if Benedict’s going to get out of Tir na nOg, he’ll have to find some astonishing way to do it.” There’s a moment of silence. “He’s an exceptionally talented faerie. He’ll figure it out.”

  I am silent, thinking furiously, because I can’t just leave Ben in there. I can’t; he’s there because of me in the first place.

  A rabbit comes hopping into the room, and I look at it fully. “Does it talk?” I ask, thinking maybe it will be of help, the way the talking rat could have been in Ben’s world.

  “No, that’s just Bunny,” says Will.

  “Not very original when it comes to names, are you?” drawls Kelsey sarcastically.

  “Don’t be silly. Those aren’t their real names.” Will glares at her, then turns back to me. “Now go home.”

  I’m not going to go home, I think. The subways are links with the Otherworld. If I can figure out how they work, if I can just get to a subway…

  Will ushers us out the door. I am deep in thought, but I grab a button from his change-collecting bowl on the way out because you never know.

  “Now what?” Kelsey asks when we find ourselves standing on a Salem street, with the Salem Which Museum disappeared behind us again.

  “You should go home,” I say. “Take the ferry, like we came.”

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to get on the T,” I say grimly.

  “Then I’ll go with you.”

  “Not a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “The T is…supernatural.”

  Kelsey lifts her eyebrows. “The T is? Supernaturally terrible at working, maybe.”

  “No, it really is.”

  “Then I’ve got to see this.”

  “Kelsey,” I protest. I wish Ben’s enchantment made me able to force people to do as I wish rather than just keeping them from forcing me to do things. It would make life so much easier. The enchantment he’s left me with seems boring and stupid and useless at the moment.

  So Kelsey and I walk to the T, which is in chaotic disarray because one of the lines has stopped running—probably the line I need to take to get to Tir na nOg. I wish I knew what to do to make the subway a portal to the Otherworld, but it seems just like the usual subway. Kelsey and I get on and it kicks into motion. I peer out the window, and I don’t know what I’m looking for—maybe a glimpse of that bright, sunny world Ben transported us to? But all I see is the dark tunnel.

  I turn away with a sigh. The man across the aisle, dressed in a dapper trench coat with a plaid scarf, reading a Metro, is looking at me. Is he looking at me? I feel paranoid and confused. I look away, then back at him quickly, and in that moment, reality flickers. It’s the best way I can describe it. I am, for one brief moment, no longer in the T. I am in what seems like an expensive hotel lobby with clusters of fancy, uncomfortable seating and a fireplace. And then, before I can get my bearings and look around, I’m not. I’m just on the T, and it’s squealing into Park Street.

  “End of the line,” the PA tells us. “Everyone off.”

  The man I thought was watching me gathers up his briefcase and exits the subway car.

  “But this isn’t the end of the line,” I point out, bewildered.

  Kelsey shrugs. “Something must be going on.”

  We find out what once we’re back on the platform.

  “Fire on the tracks,” someone comments. “No trains past Park Street.”

  Park Street is a mess at the best of times; now it is a teeming mass of irritated humanity. The air sounds like complaints and annoyance. And it’s pointless to stand here, jostled and crowded, unable to get anywhere. I wish I knew what to do. I curse Will for not helping me.

  Someone says to me, “You should get out of here.” A man, tall and dark, with brilliant blue eyes.

  I shrink away from him instinctively and do just that, taking Kelsey with me.

  And when we get aboveground, Will is there, looking very unamused. “You,” he says, “are an enormous amount of trouble.”

  “How did you find us?” I grumble, annoyed.

  “The goblins control the subways. You don’t think the goblins know when the autumn fay gets on?”

  “And then you beat us here?” I demand.

  “I came express. The king of the goblins is a friend. Now what do you think you’re up to?”

  “For someone who won’t help me,” I retort, “you’re awfully concerned with where I go.”

  “Look,” he says, “I don’t know what to make of the prophecy now that Ben’s gone—reading prophecies isn’t, strictly speaking, my specialty—but I’m not going to lose the one fay we’ve found. You are, right now, the one glimmer of hope we have in taking back the Otherworld. So, like it or not, I’m keeping you safe. And surely you’ve noticed by now that that’s getting harder to do, that the walls between the worlds are breaking down. We’re scrambling to reinforce them, but it would be easier for all of us if you would just stay put.”

  “Okay,” Kelsey interrupts. “I’ve had enough. Finally. I mean, I think I’ve been pretty patient so far, but what the hell is going on here?”

  Will looks at her. “Who are you, anyway?”

  Kelsey opens her mouth, but I cut her off. “Don’t tell him. Names have power, and he’s a wizard, and not one I’m sure I trust.”

  Will looks highly indignant. “Not trust me? Not trust me? I have kept you alive your entire life, child!”

  “Ben’s kept me alive,” I point out. “Ben and my aunts and my father. All I know is that from the moment I’ve met you, I’ve barely had two seconds strung together where my life isn’t in danger. So the verdict’s still out on you.”

  “Trusting a faerie over a wizard,” grumbles Will. “It’s easy to tell you are new to the Otherworld.”

  “This is what I’m talking about,” says Kelsey, frustrated. “Faeries? Wizards? What is going on?”

  “Humans don’t get involved in Otherworld politics,” Will snaps at her.

  “Huh?” says Kelsey eloquently, staring at him.

  “Your friend here,” says Will, sweeping
a hand toward me, “is half-ogre, half-faerie-princess. There’s a dangerous prophecy that she is going to overthrow the ruling faerie government and restore peace to the Otherworld, which is why her mother wants her dead. Everything clear now?”

  Kelsey blinks at Will then looks at me in amazement. “He is insane,” she hisses at me, obviously worried about Will’s state of mind.

  “Possibly,” I agree awkwardly. “But he’s not wrong.”

  She stares at me.

  “You’re going home,” Will says. “Both of you. To your separate homes.”

  “No, definitely not,” says Kelsey. “Either Selkie is surrounded by crazy people, or you’re all totally sane and this is true. Either way, do you think I’d leave her alone?”

  I have never in my life loved Kelsey as much as I do at that moment. I mean, I’ve always known that she is pretty much the best friend you could ever ask for, that she is the definition of loyal, that she will stand by you through thick and thin, but I never really stopped to consider if she would stand by me if I found out I was some kind of faerie princess harbinger of death or something. I mean, who would consider such a thing? But there she is, just outside Park Street station, as if this is totally within the realm of what you sign up for when you become friends with someone.

  I bury her in a sudden, fierce hug.

  Will sighs. “Fine,” he says. Then again, more firmly and sounding more annoyed, “Fine. I will let your aunts deal with you.”

  He says this like it’s a threat, but I’ve had seventeen years now of dealing with my aunts. I’m confident that things are shifting my way.

  We walk toward Beacon Street together. The wind sweeps over the Common in the way that only wind over the Common can—like a sentient being that fiercely battles your desire to reach your destination. Will shudders deeper into the threadbare coat he has pulled on, but though I feel it raw against my cheeks, the wind halts at my sweatshirt, draws up short at the barrier of enchantment so much more perplexing than wool.

  If Ben could market these sweatshirts, he’d make a fortune.

  Will makes a little noise of disgust, a tiny hmph, as we reach the edge of the Common opposite my house, and I look at him.

  “It’s just, well, predictable, isn’t it? I was thinking that the other day. Looks exactly the same as it did in 1632.”

  “Houses weren’t built like this in 1632,” I tell Will.

  “How do you know how enchanted houses were built in 1632?” he demands.

  “This house is enchanted?” says Kelsey.

  “Got the lavender windowpanes. That’s how you know a house in Boston is an enchanted house.”

  “I knew it!” exclaims Kelsey triumphantly. “I always knew there was something weird about this house.” She pauses. “So, the lavender windowpanes, huh? I thought that was just a chemical reaction, a bad batch of glass.”

  Will gives her a withering look. “That’s never been replicated? Ever? Really? It’s actually been replicated lots and lots, just not by humans. It’s goblin glass.”

  My aunts open the door as we’re crossing Beacon Street, their voices tumbling over each other.

  “How dare you leave?”

  “Where have you been?”

  “With the Seelies wanting to capture you.”

  “And kill you.”

  “And the locks breaking.”

  “And the walls crumbling down.”

  “And you leave this house?”

  They finally fall silent. They both look at Kelsey.

  “And what is she doing here?” Aunt True demands.

  “Hi,” says Kelsey innocently.

  “Your…whatever she is,” sputters Will, “has it in her head to rescue Benedict at the Seelie Court.”

  This strikes my aunts momentarily dumb. They look at me in horror.

  “Selkie,” says Aunt True.

  “The Seelie Court?” says Aunt Virtue. “You can’t go to the Seelie Court.”

  “Could we possibly go inside to discuss this?” asks Will with strained politeness.

  “No one was supposed to be outside today at all,” Aunt True sniffs with a pointed look at me, and then she ushers all of us inside, including Kelsey.

  On the landing, the grandfather clock chimes seven.

  CHAPTER 14

  It’s an argument—more of an argument than I have ever had before with my aunts. I can tell that their desperation stems from fear for me, but I am growing progressively more frustrated that they won’t listen to me.

  “It’s a silly infatuation,” Aunt Virtue tells me.

  And maybe, on other days, even I have been worried that it might be a silly infatuation, but it doesn’t matter. I cannot possibly pretend not to be responsible for his current predicament. “I owe him,” I say. “Every second I am breathing is a debt to him. Even if I hated him, I’d have to go to the Seelie Court. I am…” I struggle for the word.

  Aunt Virtue blinks and wheels backward, looking at me in horror, as if that is the worst thing I could ever have said.

  Aunt True gasps. “Selkie,” she says in a low voice. “Stop it. Stop it right now.”

  “It’s too late,” says Will. “Honor bound. She’s an indebted faerie. The Threader will be here any minute to seal her fate.”

  “She is not!” Aunt True cries. “Don’t say such things! She is an ogre.”

  “She was only ever half that,” Will says gently. “The faerie part of her is just as strong, and she’s gotten her honor tangled up. If you don’t let her fix it, her power will leak from her and eventually she’ll just drift away. Faeries and their odd, nonsensical sense of honor, you know how they are.”

  Aunt True is clutching her teacup so tightly that her knuckles are white and I think it might break. “Will she drift away? Maybe she’ll just lose the faerie part of her. Maybe she just won’t be the fay anymore,” she whispers. “And what do we care about the fay of the autumnal equinox? Let her just be ours, forget about the rest of it.”

  “Is that a risk you want to take?” Will asks.

  There is a long silence. I don’t really understand what’s happening here, what they’re saying, but I know that I can see the path I need to take. I see it clearer than I’ve ever seen anything else.

  “Can I say something?” I venture.

  Everyone just looks at me expectantly.

  I take a deep breath and try to gather my thoughts. “I didn’t mean to ask for this, this prophecy, and…all this. I should have listened when you told me to stop asking questions about my mother. But I’m the one who brought us here, and I’m the one who has to fix it. This is my life, my parents, my friends; I can’t have you hide it from me, take it from me. You have to let me be me. Ogre, faerie, whatever I am, just let me be me. Surely it will all work out.”

  Aunt True and Aunt Virtue stare at me fearfully.

  “Do you really think you will live to see the fulfillment of the prophecy?” asks Aunt True finally, her voice swamped with sorrow.

  “We cannot protect you in the Seelie Court, child,” inserts Aunt Virtue, looking incredibly sad. “No one can.”

  “The Seelies block the magic of others,” adds Will. “They always have. You cannot reach into the Seelie Court from outside it; you will have to be on the inside. And none of our enchantments will work in there,” Will continues. “I could try to cast something over you, but my magic will break as soon as you reach the Seelie Court. Without a silver bough, only faerie magic works inside the Seelie Court.”

  “Good thing I’m a faerie then, isn’t it?” I say, and my aunts both make identical little strangled sounds, and I realize what I’ve said. “Oh.” I blink at them, feeling confused and a little lost. “I meant…” What did I mean? Am I a faerie? Is that how I’ve started thinking of myself? What about the ogre part of me? Where did that go?

 
“The Sewing Circle will be here any minute,” Aunt Virtue cuts me off stiffly.

  “Who are they?” I ask.

  “A bunch of old bats,” mutters Will.

  “In the old days, when all things were easier, the Sewing Circle kept track of faerie obligations,” explains Aunt Virtue, as if she is reading it from an encyclopedia. She seems to have detached herself from the conversation. “The Sewing Circles wove them into the tapestries. There are fewer Sewing Circles these days.”

  “Why?” I figure I need to know everything I can possibly know about the Otherworld.

  “Faeries don’t really interact with other faeries anymore,” explains Will. “Easier to keep your head down and not get involved with each other. You never know when the Seelies might come calling, when a betrayal might happen. Easier not to get into any obligations in the first place.”

  There is a sudden flapping noise from the fireplace.

  “And here they come,” says Will grimly.

  Kelsey, wide-eyed, shifts on the couch as far away as she can get, as the room abruptly fills with bats, streaming from our chimney. They settle on every free surface they can find. I have never seen a bat close up before; I never knew they could frown so effectively.

  “They’re literally old bats,” murmurs Kelsey, as if this is the thing pushing this entire day over the edge into full-fledged absurdity. And I tend to agree with her.

  There is a knock on our front door. I look at my aunts.

  “Well,” says Aunt Virtue calmly. “It’s you who have called her. Go and answer it.”

  Why not? I go to the front door and open it on one of those tour guides who dress in colonial garb and escort tourists around the city. Her dress is rust colored, striking against her dark skin, and her hair is topped by a scrap of cheap, white cotton edged in cheap, white lace and hoping to approximate a bonnet. She is holding a basket that she thrusts into my hands, and I take it automatically. Looking down into it, I realize it is full to the brim with pincushions and spools of thread.

  “Well,” she says cheerfully. “Let’s get started.”