Girl Who Read the Stars Page 12

  “I thought you said we couldn’t after Ben left,” I point out. Honestly, I just thought Ben was fulfilling a different prophecy, one my mother had taunted me with. Benedict Le Fay will betray you. And then he will die. But Will keeps insisting it’s not actually part of the prophecy. I don’t know what to believe anymore. Prophecies are so tricky, so hard to pin down, that as far as I’m concerned, we might as well not have them.

  “I’m still not entirely sure we can,” Will admits. “But take a look outside, would you? The sun has gone out. And the church bells are falling out of the towers as far away as Lexington and Concord. We have to do something.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “The Seelies love light. Why would they put out the sun?”

  “The Seelies love their light,” notes Will grimly. “Can’t have the Thisworld sun competing with their Otherworld light. Got to get rid of the Thisworld sun first.”

  “The Seelies can’t get into Boston though,” Aunt True says, wringing her hands. “Aren’t you protecting Boston? Don’t you have it locked from them?”

  “The Seelies have been picking at the lock for a while now,” Will says. “They’re going to get in, sooner or later. Especially without a Le Fay enchantment to add to the protections. Our only chance is to get out now, while we can, and find the other three fays.”

  He says it like it’s so easy. “How are we supposed to do that? I wouldn’t know where to even start looking,” I point out.

  Will goes to answer, but Aunt Virtue cuts him off. “You mean to tell us that, after all this time, that foolish boy Benedict suddenly leaves and all of Boston is going to fall?”

  “Boston was always living on borrowed time,” Will says harshly. “We built it to be ready for battle, because we knew that sooner or later, the battle would come. You’ve just forgotten that. Well, the battle is here.” Will gestures toward me. “She triggered it. It’s coming. There’s nothing we can do to stop it now. We have to take a stand, and we have to fight.”

  There’s a beat. Kelsey says, “Let’s get out of Boston then.”

  “No, you don’t understand because you’re human,” Will informs her scathingly. “Boston is the safest place we can be. Good luck with the rest of it.”

  “Kelsey’s human,” I say. “Won’t she be fine? The Seelies, they want me, they want us, they want—”

  “They want everything. You’ve met them. You’ve spent time with them. The Seelies have always been in the Otherworld because we kept them there. If you start to blur the lines between the worlds, they’ll be everywhere. Fresh blood for them to feed off. They need fresh blood, you know. It used to be you could throw them a few changelings here and there. Younger blood, faerie or human, it didn’t matter. They need the youth, the vibrancy. They feed off of it. And the most alive creatures in either world are humans—they live everything so intensely. So no. The humans won’t be safe. Not if we don’t hold the line in Boston.”

  “And we can’t hold the line in Boston without Ben,” I conclude.

  “Or the other three fays,” says Will. “Look, I can’t read the prophecy anymore. It’s a mess; it’s too in flux. You can’t predict the events that you’re already living. All I can do is guess. We needed the other three fays. Benedict was supposed to help us find them. This is why you can never trust a faerie.”

  “We don’t have Ben anymore,” I say practically. “So what can we do without him? What does the book say?”

  “Nothing useful,” grumbles Will.

  “Well, the Witch and Ward Society have been stalking me to get it back, so it must say something.”

  “Yes. It says that the key to all of this is Benedict’s mother. So now we know.”

  “Then give the book back,” Kelsey tells him. “It’s getting kind of annoying having little men popping up everywhere.”

  “I’m not giving the book back,” says Will. “It was mine to begin with. Lord Dexter left it to me. I was only letting them borrow it.”

  “I don’t want to get into whatever happened centuries ago with this book,” I cut in. “I want to know how we get the sun to come back out. And how we can find the other three fays without Ben.”

  “We can’t,” Aunt Virtue says. “We should just forget about the prophecy and—”

  “We can’t forget about the prophecy. There is no status quo anymore, Virtue. Don’t you see? We can’t just wait for the next opportunity to come around to save the Otherworld. We need to do it now,” says Will.

  There’s a moment of silence. I don’t say anything because part of me feels guilty that I was willing to ever drop the ball on the prophecy. It was like I’d forgotten how terrible the Seelies are, forgotten my responsibility to a world I just learned existed but is depending on me to save it. I have no idea how to do it, and I doubt that I’ll be successful, but I surely have to try.

  “If Ben’s mother is the key to finding the fays,” Kelsey says slowly, “then shouldn’t we be looking for Ben’s mother?”

  “Ben’s mother, who up until a few days ago, everyone thought was dead?” Will retorts scathingly. “I’ve no idea how we would even begin to find her. Only Benedict would know, and he’s gone.”

  “Thank you for repeating that as much as possible,” I say, because it’s not like I don’t already remember every single minute that Ben is gone. “What about the guy who was guarding the book? He wasn’t in that society, was he? He didn’t try to stop us from taking the book, not really. So maybe he’d help? Maybe…he would have picked up some information about the book while he was guarding it, or something?” I feel like I’m flailing. “I mean, I don’t know, but Ben seemed to think he was important, so…” I trail off, feeling like an idiot, but Will is looking at me as if I’ve just said the most interesting thing in the world.

  “The Erlking,” he says. “Of course.”

  “The what now?” says Kelsey.

  “The Erlking. King of the goblins.”

  “The goblins,” I echo.

  I suddenly have a vague memory from long ago in my past, a past I’m no longer even sure I lived. Goblins have come up before in my life, have been referenced by my aunts even, but there’s one time in particular… “Wait, that’s what Brody was.”

  “Who?” asks Will.

  I look at Kelsey. “Brody. We went to Salem Willows with him. Remember? Did we still live that?” The summer I met Kelsey, when we had a summer job together and went on a double date with some boys from school. Hot boys, both of them. Except one of them, Brody, the one interested in me, turned out to be…I can’t seem to remember it clearly now. I seem to think he’d turned into a monster while I was kissing him, and then I pushed him into the water, and then… But the official story was…

  “Of course I remember,” Kelsey says. “He died in a shark attack, Selkie. It was awful.”

  That was the official story. He died in a shark attack. But he didn’t. “No, he didn’t, Kelsey.” I turn back to Will. “Ben mentioned something about him being a goblin. Something.” I am trying so hard to remember. How did I not remember all this before, when Ben was around? “It’s all fuzzy now.”

  “Wait,” says Kelsey, and her face is also screwed up in concentration. “You might be right. I think…I mean, he wasn’t a goblin. Wasn’t he a…monster? Was he a monster? But it was a shark attack.” Kelsey gives up. “I’m confused.”

  “Yes,” Will says. “Too many overlapping enchantments. But it wouldn’t surprise me if you’d had a brush with a goblin before. They’ve been keeping a close eye on you. You’re just as valuable to them as you are to the rest of us. They’re really all around, most of the time masquerading as attractive humans. It’s an ego thing.”

  “Brody tried to kill me.” At least, I think he did. I wish I could remember the encounter better.

  “You probably misinterpreted. You said he looked like a monster?”

 
I nod. I’m fairly sure he did. He was hideous and terrifying.

  “Then he was in some distress, as goblins usually have no problem maintaining their disguises. He was probably asking you for help.” Will shrugs, as if this is no big deal.

  “And then I killed him?” I gasp in horror.

  “You probably didn’t. Goblins are very difficult to kill, and it wasn’t like you had any special powers. I’m sure he’s fine.” Will continues to look very unconcerned about all of this. “You can ask the Erlking when we see him. I’m sure he’ll know.”

  • • •

  We decide to all go see the Erlking together, because Boston isn’t safe anymore. I don’t want my aunts to stay behind, and they don’t want me to leave without them, and so we are agreed.

  It is Will who says, “What do you wish to do with Etherington?”

  And up until that moment, selfishly, like a terrible daughter, I had not really thought about my father. It’s not because I don’t love my dad—because I do—but because I’m not used to him being involved in stuff. And I’m used to thinking of him as being safe where he is.

  But that was before I learned that Boston is about to turn into a battleground.

  I look at my aunts, who look back at me.

  Aunt Virtue says, “We will have to go get him.”

  Aunt True pulls out a white handkerchief, heavily embroidered because she’s probably been adding embellishments to it for centuries now, and blows her nose, her eyes weepy.

  “How will we get him out?” I ask. I’ve never really thought about it, but surely we’re not just allowed to walk in and retrieve our institutionalized family member?

  Aunt True looks at me blankly with red-rimmed eyes.

  Aunt Virtue draws herself up proudly and intones grandly, “We are the Stewarts of Beacon Hill. Who would dare to stop us?”

  I decide that maybe they know better than I do about this, and anyway, it’s nice to have something that someone else is in charge of.

  “Selkie,” Will says to me, “get your sweatshirt.”

  I hesitate. I took the sweatshirt off in a fit of anger right after Ben left me on the Common, because if he was going to walk away and abandon me, then I wasn’t going to cling to his gift, even if it was supposedly keeping me safe. I don’t know that it will work anymore, that Ben cares enough to be maintaining the enchantment over it, over me, because he doesn’t care. He left.

  Will walks over and stands next to me, stalled at the bottom of the stairs, looking up toward my bedroom.

  “It wasn’t about you, Benedict leaving,” he tells me in a low voice. “I’ve never seen him so fond of anyone before, and I’ve known him a very long time, longer than either of us would care to remember.”

  I look at Will. “I don’t care. I don’t care why he left. I don’t care what he was thinking. I’m not worrying about him anymore.”

  Will looks dubious.

  I frown. “I don’t. I’ll get the sweatshirt if you want me to, but I don’t care.” I shrug to show how much I don’t care, then say, “The only thing I’m worrying about is that my mother said Ben was going to die. That he was going to betray me and he was going to die.”

  Will shook his head. “She was saying it to get to you, Selkie.”

  “He did betray me,” I point out. “I don’t care, but I don’t want him to die.” I remember how my mother named Ben when we were trapped in Tir na nOg. Saying his name over and over with dangerous intent. Causing him pain.

  “He’s got a hidden name, Selkie. He’s going to be fine. And if it really is a prophecy, then all we can do is find a way out of it.”

  “Fulfill part of the prophecy without fulfilling all of it?” I say hollowly.

  “Get the sweatshirt,” says Will. “It’s the first step. We need to keep you as safe as you can possibly be.”

  “And you think the sweatshirt is still enchanted to protect me?” I am not nearly as sure about that.

  “Benedict liked you more than I’ve ever seen him like anybody,” Will repeats.

  Which shouldn’t mean anything to me, considering he also left me. But I can’t help it; it does. So I jog up the stairs.

  My sweatshirt is just where I left it, crumpled on the floor. I take a deep breath and pull it over my head, and then I take another deep breath and look around me at my room. I step onto the landing and peek out of the Palladian window, choosing one of the lavender panes, letting it tint Boston Common below into wavy purple. This is my home, and now it’s a battleground, and somehow I’m the one who is leading everyone into battle.

  Or something.

  “Selkie?” Kelsey says behind me hesitantly.

  I don’t turn to face her.

  “I guess this means we won’t have to take the quiz on Emerson,” I say, because that was what had been on our schedule for today, before all this.

  “Yeah, that’s at least one good thing to come out of all of this. We’ve been saved from having to pretend we understood any of ‘Nature.’”

  “You should go home,” I say. “You should go home to your mom and—”

  “You heard Will. It’s not safe. What good would it do?” Kelsey comes up to the window and looks out of it with me.

  “I called my mom,” she says eventually. “She didn’t pick up. I left her a message and I told her I loved her. I…didn’t know what else to do. How can I say to her, ‘Mom, I’m scared the world’s ending, but don’t worry, Selkie and I are trying to stop it’?”

  “I don’t know how I got us into this,” I say, because I don’t understand how it all spiraled so quickly to this moment here.

  “You were you,” Kelsey replies. “And I always knew you were going to be a little bit crazy to be friends with, from the very beginning.”

  “You didn’t think it would be this crazy.”

  “Maybe I had a suspicion,” says Kelsey.

  “Remember when all you had to worry about was cheerleading?”

  “No,” Kelsey answers frankly. “I don’t. That seems like a lifetime ago. Look, the world might end, right? I want to be able to brag to my grandkids that I stopped it. So let’s go.”

  I lean forward and hug her fiercely and say, “It’s so good to have you here.”

  And Kelsey says, “Right back at you.”

  And then we head down the stairs together. Only I get distracted on the landing, looking at the clock.

  Because it’s stopped.

  “Selkie?” Will says from the foyer. “Ready?”

  “The clock stopped,” I call down to him.

  “What does that mean?” he asks.

  I look down at him in surprise. “I thought you would know.”

  “Why would I know what that means? It isn’t my clock. But I’m going to assume, based on recent events, that it is probably another portent of ill to come and we should get moving and not spend time winding it.”

  I am already on my way down the stairs. “Fine,” I say to him. “I didn’t need a speech.”

  My aunts are already outside, standing on the front stoop with Safford. They both look typically anxious, wringing their hands, and I don’t blame them. I think of how they had to go through my entire existence worrying that all of this was going to happen someday and they were going to lose me, and it makes total sense to me now, all of the stuff that I dismissed as craziness on their behalf.

  Aunt Virtue closes the door and carefully locks it.

  Aunt True lays a hand against it, reverently and adoringly, sniffling.

  “True,” Will says to her, his voice very gentle. “Everything we’ve been through together, all of us, here, it does not end like this. Do you hear me?”

  Aunt True looks up at him, eyes wide and welling with tears. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I am not going to stand by and just give them Boston
,” says Will. “I lived on this hill when it was an actual hill, before its height was stolen to create new land. I was hanged out on that Common for being a witch. I will not surrender it to the Seelies. Not until one of them names me, and not a second before.”

  “That isn’t going to be necessary,” I say, trying to sound soothing. “We’re going to take down the Seelie Court.”

  My aunts stand side by side, almost identical with their dark features and dark hair and matching long-sleeved black blouses and knee-length black skirts and black boots, all neat and gleaming. And they look at me, their eyes sad, like they’re worried I’m so delusional that they don’t even know what to do with me anymore.

  Aunt True takes Will’s arm. “Will,” she begs. “Could you cast a protective charm? Please?”

  He looks down at her. “I can’t promise it would do any good, True, not now.”

  “Please?”

  He sighs and glances back at the house. I don’t see anything happen but something must, because, after a second, my aunt relaxes slightly and breathes, “Thank you.”

  Will nods once, brusquely, and then we set off down the Common together.

  “So,” says Will as we walk, “the plan is that we retrieve Etherington and then we go to the goblins.”

  He seems to be much calmer now that we have a plan, a direction. I think he was feeling rudderless without the prophecy, and it was making him panicked. I think of how panic-inducing it must be for someone like Will, who lives in a world where he’s used to thinking he knows what’s going to happen and suddenly he’s lost that. It must be, in a way, like suddenly losing a sense, suddenly going blind or deaf.

  “How are we getting to the goblins?” Kelsey asks.

  “We’re going to take the subway, of course,” Will says matter-of-factly.

  “The subway is a mess,” Kelsey says.

  “It’s true,” I agree. “The lines were all backed up. We were going to take it to go find you.”

  “It’ll work for us,” Will assures us confidently.

  Park Street is crowded during rush hour on the best of days, but it’s worse today, balanced on the edge of a full-fledged riot. You can taste panic in the air.