The Girl Who Never Was (16 page)

is to be believed, the object was to keep him alive enough to

lure me in.

'Benedict,'announces my mother grandly, entering the room.

Ben flinches so minutely that, if I hadn't been watching for it, I wouldn't have noticed it. All of my hopes that I can find some way to get out of this that will leave me with a mother and Ben fall to pieces in that moment. 'Good morning,'he says in reply. 'Afternoon. Evening. Whichever it is.'He waves a hand in the air negligently, which I would imagine is the equivalent of a shrug had he been standing. He is staring fixedly up at the ceiling, looking very deep in thought about something.

'Look who I have brought, Benedict.'He flinches again. 'A visitor just for you!'

It is a moment before he reacts, turning his head slowly to look at me. Then he sighs, closes his eyes briefly, and then looks back at the ceiling.

'Oh, come now, Benedict!'Flinch. 'Is that any way to greet the creature you valued greater than your own well-being?'My mother's voice is cold as ice now.

I can see Ben's eyes close again. Then he sits up, drawing his knees up, propping an elbow on them, his chin on his fist, and regards me carefully. 'Hi,'he says to me finally.

I have no idea what to say to him. I stand there and realize that somehow, I had not been prepared for the sight of Ben trapped. Will was right: I had been thinking that I would find Ben and he would have an idea and we would get out of

this mess. Or that there wouldn't be a mess, that my mother would see me and gather me up in a surfeit of maternal affection. I sit and look at Ben, looking thinner and paler than I can ever remember seeing him before, and I wonder how much longer he has, and I realize that I am going to have to do all of this myself. I'd like to tell him not to worry, that I will figure it out, but at the moment, I can barely think straight long enough to even say hi back to him. I wonder whether I should tell him to use the power of my name like Will said, blurt the directive out to him, and get him to say it. But even if that works amazingly well and gets Ben to feel much better, what will it have truly accomplished? He would still be imprisoned by the moat. All the success might do is cause my mother to never let me see Ben again. No, I decide. I need to get a better handle on what's going on here before we use the power of my name.

'Well, go on,'my mother urges me. 'Answer him. Benedict''flinch''is an extremely reticent guest, you know. We cannot draw him out on any of the usual conversational topics.'

'It's true,'Ben tells me. 'I am appallingly ill educated on the cantos of Spenser.'

My mother laughs in delight. 'He is a wit, our Benedict''flinch''isn't he?'

'This was a trap, you know,'Ben informs me.

I shrug at him.

He crinkles his nose at me.

I am relieved to see the nose crinkle. He is okay enough to be annoyed with me. Maybe that gives me enough time to come up with a plan.

I look at the rushing water of the moat around him.

'Oh,'says my mother, clearly catching the direction of my eyes. 'It is so very deep. Not that it really needs to be; it could be the merest trickle of water, and it would deter Benedict.'Flinch. She looks at Ben, her anti-smile frozen upon her face. 'It is a drawback of yours, isn't it, my dear?'

Ben sends her an anti-smile of his own.

'Well.'My mother turns to me. 'Now you see. He is quite well. We should dress for dinner.'She looks back at Ben. 'We shall visit again later.'She pauses, relishing the moment, and I can see Ben tense, much as I know he is trying to hide it. 'Benedict Le Fay,'she says lightly, almost playfully, and I can hear it tear the breath out of him. She nods her head, pleased, and sweeps out of the room.

I do not want to delay following her; I do not want to give her the opening to say Ben's name anymore, so I scurry after her with just a glance in his direction. He is very still, his eyes closed, and it is only as I leave that I hear him take a ragged breath.

The room my mother takes me to is very large. The floor is stone, but it's covered in thick, furry rugs. There are wide openings that look out over an ocean, windows without glass, and I wonder what side of the building I am on or if the view is just an enchanted view, nothing like what actually exists out the window. There is a large four-poster bed, hung with tapestries that are trimmed with tiny bells. There is also a large white armoire, intricately carved with abstract swirls, and my mother throws it open. Inside, lined up, are a number of the flowing dresses that all the female faeries seem to be dressed in, all of them covered in tiny bells.

'You will dress for dinner,'my mother informs me.

'No, I won't,'I respond. It is nice, this act of teenage rebellion. I've never gotten to be an obnoxious teenager to my mother before. And I didn't want to start things off this way, but if she would just smile at me, really smile, be nice to me, just a little'

'Yes,'she retorts icily. 'You will.'

'No, I won't.'

She looks mystified by this, and I wonder if she is

encountering the resistance of Ben's enchantment. She narrows her eyes and walks over to me, and I wonder if the enchantment is holding or if she will remark upon it. But she doesn't so much as glance at my sweatshirt, so I'm thinking Ben, however many times his name has been used against him, is managing to maintain it for me.

'You will come to dinner,'she spits out finally.

'Yes,'I agree, because I don't want to get ordered around, but, well, as unpleasant as she's been, this is my mother, and I do want to get to know her'even if it's to get to know her so I can get the fantasy out of my head that she might actually love me.

She looks momentarily baffled by me, and I am pleased to have had that effect, and then she sweeps angrily from the room. Faeries don't stomp, I assume, but she comes as close to it as she can.

I stand in my room and wonder how I will know when it is time for dinner. I wonder if I am allowed to eat at the Seelie Court. I think of the myth where Persephone eats the pomegranate seeds and is condemned to be tied to the Underworld always. I wonder if it will be like that, and if so, why Will didn't warn me.

I walk over to the open window'a bit dangerous but maybe easier to escape from. Tir na nOg seems to be an endless maze. I cannot figure out how anything connects. Maybe my pane-less window is our best bet. But the window leads down to a sheer cliff face. I cannot even see any other

windows from my viewpoint. And there stretches the ocean. It is calm, smooth as glass, and a long way out I can see the outline of an island.

It doesn't matter. Even if I had some way to get Ben to my room and then both of us out this window, there is no way Ben could deal with all that water, especially not in the state he's in at the moment. We need to go out the way I came in and hope for a way across the canyon but I just have no idea how to find it again.

It's enchanted, clearly'enchanted to be a labyrinth, to be impossible to escape. I would have to break the enchantment, but how am I ever going to learn the name of a member of the Seelie Court? And would one name even be enough? Would I need all of their names? The Threader and Will had been impressed with my ability to break Ben's enchantment with only two of his names. I think of my sweatshirt. Clearly, my mother is not breaking all of his enchantments with merely two of his names. But even if I am unusually talented in naming magic, as Will told me I was, I doubt that breaking the enchantment over this place is similar at all to breaking Ben's enchantment. Surely the faerie prison from which no one has ever escaped isn't going to be dissolved by my saying a word or two, no matter how powerful Will might claim words are.

My door is flung open, and my mother floats in. 'It is time for dinner,'she announces with a sweetness that makes me shiver.

Dinner with my mother'something I have fantasized about my entire life.

In my fantasies, it didn't go like this. I do not even try to keep track of the twists and turns my mother takes on her way to dinner. All I know is that eventually we are back in what I am sure is the same garden room as before, only now a huge table occupies its center, at which sit the colorless faeries of the Seelie Court. The entourage of odd creatures in copper armor is lined against the gilded walls, and I can feel their eyes on me.

The sun is no longer fiercely bright. In fact, it appears to be twilight. The air is gloomy around me, breezes sighing heavily and lifting strands of white hair to tousle.

'You never told me: what should I call you?'I say to my mother.

Her discomfiting eyes turn upon me. 'You can call me Mother,'she says, and then, with one of those smiles I find chilling, 'Don't ask such stupid questions.'

Dinner seems to already be in full swing when we get there. The Seelies are loud and raucous. Frankly, if I didn't know better, I'd say they were drunk. Then I notice all of the red wine flowing freely into copper goblets and I think, Yep, they are definitely tipsy.

'Here is a seat for you, Selkie,'says my mother sweetly, putting just a bit of power into my name, enough for me to feel the pinch.

I refuse to let her see that it hurt, giving her a tight smile in response. Pretty much an anti-smile. I wonder if I inherited that ability from my mother.

I sit and look at the food in front of me. It is almost like

food I recognize but slightly skewed. For instance, it looks like a bunch of grapes, but when I try one, it tastes like pork. All of the foods are like that. But I realize I am ravenous, and I fill my plate. I wonder if Ben is getting enough to eat, and slip a roll that tastes like cotton candy into the pocket of my enchanted sweatshirt. I don't know how I'm going to get it to him, but at least I have it if the opportunity presents itself.

I want to gather the courage to say something to my mother, strike up a conversation, but I can't think of any good openings. Why did you abandon me as a baby? How come you've never once gotten in touch with me? Do you really want me dead? Do you love me at all? None of these seem appropriate for casual dinner-table conversation, but when you have questions like these flitting through your head, how can you possibly talk about anything else? Nice night, isn't it? seems absurd. And my mother isn't helping. She just sits and eats silently next to me. And then there's Ben to worry about, and I can't think about him either. Well, it's irresistible, actually; I can't not think about him, but I have no idea how I'm going to get him out, and maybe my aunts and Will and the Threader were all right and this was all an enormous mistake.

'Is this seat taken?'says a pleasant voice, and I glance without much interest at the woman who has spoken. And then I look closer'because she is not like the other Seelies. Her hair is chestnut brown, and she is not dressed in something that's dripping with tiny bells. And she has brown eyes. Amazingly normal chocolate-brown eyes.

I am so relieved to see normal eyes I could cry. 'No,'I say hastily, because no one had sat next to me, obviously trying to avoid me at all costs.

'Pleasant evening, isn't it?'she asks as she sits elegantly. Everything about her would be old-fashioned in Boston: a towering, intricate hairstyle; a long pink silk dress with puffy sleeves. And her manners seem vaguely old-fashioned too, something lost-world elegant in the way she snaps a napkin out of thin air and lays it over her lap.

'This is Selkie Stewart,'introduces my mother, taking vicious pleasure in using my full name.

My hand clenches involuntarily around my fork, and I have to close my eyes for a minute at the flinching pain, but luckily I'm facing the new guest so my mother doesn't have the satisfaction.

'Selkie, this is Augusta Gregory.'

I am sure that my mother has just named her, given the sardonic look the woman sends to her, but the woman just says graciously, 'Gussie. Please. So.'She reaches for a copper goblet and takes a sip. 'A new visitor. We don't get many here. Liven up the dinner conversation, no?'

'Too many visitors,'complains the Seelie across from me. He looks like all the other faeries do, only his white curls are cropped shorter than the women wear their hair. His golden circle is tipped on his head, evidence of exactly how much he's had to drink. His pale, faerie eyes glow at me in the light that flickers from enchanted candles set in the middle of the

table. 'You'd think it was the old days again, Threaders flitting people back and forth as if they were the ones in charge.'He looks suddenly thoughtful. 'I can't remember what happened to the Threaders, but whatever it was, they deserved it.'

'It doesn't matter,'says my mother. 'It's in the past.'

'Yes,'he agrees. 'That's right.'The male faerie pushes his plate away and leans back. A pipe appears from somewhere, and he sticks it in his mouth. Smoke drifts out of it, glowing hazy silver in the darkness around his head. I can't help but blink at it in surprise. It shouldn't surprise me'I'm in a faerie prison, after all'but still.

'What are you smoking?'I hear myself ask, and I didn't even mean to ask it, but I can't resist, because that smoke is beautiful and dazzling and fascinating.

'Stardust,'he answers me. 'What else?'

 I am sitting by my glassless window when my mother arrives the following morning. At least, it seems as if it's morning'I watched the sun rise'but time seems to move oddly here. It should be morning, surely enough time has passed for it to be morning, but at the same time, I feel like it's only been a few minutes since my mother left me in my room, a cool kiss on my cheek that wasn't the least bit comforting. I haven't slept. I miss my aunts. I wonder what I'm doing here, why I wanted so desperately to meet this mother I have who is so distant and terrifying. I was so stupid to be asking questions about her. Such an idiot. I wish I could talk to Ben. I would feel better if I could talk to Ben. Ben always makes me feel better. I wonder if it's as simple as asking my mother if I can. I guess it's worth a try.

'Can I see Ben?'I ask.

'Who is Ben?'she asks and then realizes, 'Oh, Benedict? Clever of him, of course, not to give you his real full name.'Her eyebrows flicker upward, as if she is surprised. 'But I thought you'd have forgotten him by now,'she says vaguely. 'But, of course. If you wish.'