The Girl Who Never Was (26 page)

'She's my mother, Will.'

'She's a faerie, with a lot of very ancient faerie blood in her, Benedict. You know how these things work. Ask Selkie about her mother.'

'I know about Selkie's mother,'Ben snaps. 'Selkie's mother is a Seelie. Selkie's mother is not my mother.'

'If you wanted to trap Benedict Le Fay, can you think of any better way to do it than to dangle in front of you the promise of the mother you are so relentlessly compared to?'Will asks him pleadingly. 'You have it in your head that she's better at this than you are, and she's really not. You're the most powerful Le Fay in existence.'

Ben takes a deep breath and then exhales very slowly. Then he says, 'I appreciate your concern. I'll be fine. You can wait for me if you like.'

'Do it later,'begs Will. 'You can do it later, after we're done. You're not even thinking this through.'

'Thinking this through,'echoes Ben. 'It's like you've never met a faerie before in your life.'

I suddenly lunge forward, catching Ben's sleeve, terrified he's going to disappear and go somewhere.

He glares at me.

I have no idea what to say to him, but I want to talk to him.

I want to apologize. I want him to look at me without all that hurt accusation in his eyes.

'I didn't think it would help, to tell you. I was going to tell you, in Tir na nOg, and then I didn't think it would help, to get your hopes up like that, when I thought it was just'a faerie tale. I didn't think it was really true.'

'It doesn't matter,'he says.

'Of course it does.'It's obvious that it does.

'It really doesn't,'he denies again. 'I am so very old, Selkie. It really doesn't.'

'I know what it feels like, to want a mother so desperately and then to have her turn out to be'Even if your mother is alive, the fact that she never found you'I went looking for my missing mother, and look what happened. I didn't want the same thing to happen to you.'

'It really doesn't matter,'Ben snaps, finally looking at me. His eyes are dark and flat. 'I made a mistake. It won't happen again.'

'What mistake?'I ask blankly.

'Never trust a faerie,'he says, and the words slice through me like he's cut me.

He shakes me off, but I grab for him again, refusing to be shaken, terrified that if I let him go, he will immediately jump somewhere else. Grappling, we move untidily across Beacon Street and onto the Common.

'Ben, listen to me. You can trust me. I would never hurt you. I was trying not to hurt you. I''The words I love you

get stuck in my throat. Can I say them now, like this, when he is angry and hurting and probably won't say them back? Can I bear that? I'm not sure I can.

He is not slowing down and he is still fighting me, and now I am no longer apologetic and desperate. I am furious that he's not listening and that he's doing this in the first place. So I gather myself and shout at him, with intent, 'Benedict Le Fay.'

He stumbles, reaching out a hand to a tree to catch himself from falling completely to the ground.

He looks at me and narrows his eyes. 'Not fair,'he says.

'Shut up,'I snap back. I am so angry with him I could shake him. 'You're lucky I didn't use all four of them. What is wrong with you?'

'Wrong with me?'he repeats. 'Wrong with me?'He sounds offended at the very idea.

'Yes! You're going to leave me, in the middle of all this, to go after your mother?'

'And now I know why you didn't tell me about her either!'he accuses.

'I didn't tell you about her because I was trying to keep you from getting hurt. Which is exactly why you lied to me about who I am for my entire life.'

He seems to acknowledge that point. 'If I don't go after her now''

'You're not the only one who never knew their mother, Ben,'I remind him scathingly. 'You're not the only one who was manipulated into staying away from her.'

'That's different''he begins.

'And when you asked me not to go to her, when you asked me to trust you and not her, I did.'

'That was different,'he insists.

'Excuse me,'says someone to my right, and we both turn our heads. A smiling couple is standing there, looking cheerful and bundled up against the bright Boston cold. The male half is holding up a camera. 'Would you take our picture?'

Ben and I both stare at them for a second.

Then Ben reaches out, snatches the camera, and flings it up over our heads, where it explodes into a million fluttering pieces of tinsel.

'Oooh!'exclaims the woman. 'Was that a trick?'

'I will do that to you,'says Ben, 'if you don't walk away from us right now.'

The couple's eyes widen, and they bustle away, and I would think it almost funny, except for the fact that I feel on the verge of tears, like their interruption has made all of my fury recede away from me, leaving nothing but a swamping sorrow.

'I knew what I was talking about with your mother,'Ben tells me. 'You've never met my mother. You want me to give up on finding her on the basis of some self-serving suspicion Will has that''

'I want you to give up on finding her because of me, Ben,'I interrupt him, and now I am worried that I sound like I am about to cry, and I don't want to sound that way, even if it is

true, even if it is possible that I am crying already. 'You're not supposed to leave me. You promised me that you wouldn't leave me. I know that you're upset, but I'but I''All of the words refuse to come out. I gulp at them.

He is silent long enough for me to collect myself, for me to pull the tears back inside and grow furious at him again.

'I have to do this,'he says. 'The same way you had to find your mother. When everyone told you to stop asking questions, did you stop?'

'I should have,'I say helplessly.

'And then you would never have known who you were,'he points out. 'And you wouldn't have been able to bear that.'

I look at him, and he is looking at me so tenderly that I just say it. 'Stay with me because you love me.'

I decide, in that moment, that I will remember the look on his face for as long as I live, however long that is in the strange changeling life that I lead. And it's not that I'm going to remember it because it's plain on his face that he doesn't love me. That would almost be easier to take. Because I think that it is plain on his face that he does, and that it is never going to be enough for him'that he loves me, this little changeling girl, one of so very many that, for all I know, he has loved throughout centuries. I will simply never be enough. It could be that Benedict Le Fay loves me now, at this moment in space and time, in this human world, but his eyes dart, and he looks toward Park Street, and the clock ticks forward.

I let go of him and take a step away.

'Selkie,'he says, his eyes returning to me. 'I can't. Please. Can't you understand? I''He reaches for me, and it's funny, because I was just clinging to him, but now I step backward, avoiding him as much as I can.

'Don't,'I say, holding up my hands to keep him away.

'No, Selkie, listen to me. I don't want to''

'Of course you want to. If you didn't want to, then you wouldn't.'My voice sounds flat, and I feel flat, like everything inside me has retreated. 'You promised me, Benedict Le Fay.'I don't say it with much intent, but he flinches anyway. 'Silly me. Never trust a faerie.'

We stand on the Common, separated by a few feet, and stare at each other. Then he vanishes, and I realize at that moment exactly what that means: he is the best traveler in the Otherworld, and the best enchanter, and the strongest Le Fay. I may never find him ever again if he doesn't want to be found. And how did we get here?

I have never felt more lost in my entire life.

All of the emotion that had retreated inside of me barrels back, a tidal wave of it that had gathered force and momentum in the interim, but I don't let it. I tremble with the effort of refusing to let it, my hands deep in the pocket of my sweatshirt, standing alone on the Common.

'Selkie,'Will says gently, and I feel his hand, tentative, on my shoulder. 'Let's go. You'll freeze out here.'

It seems like such a silly thing to say when I am already

frozen. I feel like everything stopped in the instant before Ben vanished, that I am just holding my breath now. 'Benedict Le Fay will betray you,'I hear myself say, as if from a very great distance. 'And then he will die.'

aCknOWLeDgMentS

I admit that I kept putting off writing my acknowledgments because I wasn't sure what to say. At first I thought I would write this really witty acknowledgments section full of all of the little things that inspire a book'Andrew Belle's album The Ladder for being on constant repeat while writing; Tealuxe where so much of the book was written; the city of Boston and its inhabitants and all of its/their quirks for filling the book so entirely'but then I realized that, actually, while those things all deserve nods of acknowledgment for being true and real influences on the book, they were kind of taking the easy way out: they are easy for me to write about in the acknowledgments, because I know what to say about them.

All of the people who have been a part of this book are so much more difficult for me to write about, which is why it's taken me a full paragraph to get to them. Of all the words I've ever written, these are the ones that seem least capable of capturing the true depth of emotion I want to convey. I have decided that maybe all I can say is Thank you and hope that everyone listed here understands how wholly inadequate the words are. So:

Thank you, first, to my fantastic agent Andrea Somberg, whose enthusiasm for the book gave it life.

Thank you also to my delightful editor Aubrey Poole, whose particular brand of magic made the book better, and better again, and then impossibly still better!

Thank you to the entire team at Sourcebooks, especially Jillian Bergsma, Cat Clyne, Kay Mitchell, Katherine Prosswimmer, and Derry Wilkens.

Thank you to all of the friends who have read my writing over the years, listened understandingly to my venting, and cheered me on, including Hillard Bowe, Jean Bowe, Joanne Bush, Erin McCormick, Bill Mullally, Colleen Mullally, Chrystie Perry, Stephanie Pina, Laura Randall, and Kelley Walsh.

Thank you to everyone on the Internet'you know who you are'who has made me a better and much more thoughtful writer and has reminded me of the true rewards of writing at times when I needed it, including a special shout-out to Jennifer Roberson, who forced me to up my game.

Thank you to Claudia Gray, who has the distinction of having taken me for my first drink to celebrate my agent and my first drink to celebrate my book deal! It's a very good thing to have a guide in all this!

Thank you to David Hosp, who was another guide in all this, and whose tales of novel-writing during commutes were a source of inspiration for me to get this novel done. And who also, incidentally, still wins the award for Single Nicest E-mail I've Ever Received About My Writing

(although I admit it's a close race and there are many, many runners-up).

Thank you to David Kowalczyk and his students, who provided invaluable feedback.

Thank you to Heather Wilson and everyone else who was an early reader of the book, whose words of encouragement, support, and advice were more important than can be said.

Thank you to Jennifer Mendola, whose Ben-for-Benedictnot- Benjamin inspired the idea of my Ben-for-Benedictnot- Benjamin.

Thank you to Kristin Gillespie, who was always excellent at asking just the right question to flush out the rest of the plot.

Thank you to Noel Wiedner, whose writing I genuinely admire and desire to emulate more than I think she realizes. Noel also deserves a special mention for being so incredibly selfless and giving whenever I have fretted over anything. She also drew several beautiful sketches for me. Yes, she draws too! Such is the extent of her talent!

Thank you to Larry Stritof, who puts up with an incredible amount of whining from me but nevertheless agreed to provide really excellent tech assistance, website building, and author photography. (Actually, maybe he agreed to do that because of the whining, not in spite of it.)

And while I'm on the topic of author photographs, thank you to George and Susan DoCanto for the gift of the pink coat, Helen Lantagne for doing hair, Caitlin Cabral for doing make-up and tagging along for the shoot even when she felt

ill, Sonja L. Cohen for location suggestions, and Dunkin'Donuts for fueling the whole thing with its maple-frosted donuts. All of you made me feel like a celebrity! Okay, maybe Dunkin'Donuts didn't have much to do with that, but the rest of you did!

Speaking of Sonja: thank you to Sonja L. Cohen, who was this book's first editor and whose input at every step along the long and winding road here, whether it be swooning over Ben or reading fresh drafts while on vacation in Prague, has been vitally important. If you can, I highly recommend you find a friend who loves your book as much as you do. She has known, all along, just when and how to nudge me along and when to remind me to take a breath, usually with a glass of Prosecco and a hot British actor (on DVD, not in real life; her powers have some limits). Oddly, when thinking about the acknowledgments section of this book, the anecdote that I kept thinking of to explain Sonja's value has been this one: once I was eating dip at a party, and I said I was only going to have one more bite so as not to ruin my appetite for dinner, and she said, 'You'll want to make sure it's a bite with a black olive in it.'And she was right, of course, because black olives are the best.

Last but not least, thank you an incredible amount to my family. Selkie doesn't have the biggest family, or the sanest one, and in that respect she doesn't resemble me at all, because I have been blessed with the world's best family (and they are even mostly sane!). My family is large and extended and

far-flung, and I love and thank all of them for everything, big and small, and they know who they are and how much they mean to me, especially Ma, and Jordan, my only nephew so far and therefore also, as of this writing, my favorite nephew. Some cherished family members have also been lost along the way, but I continue to feel their support and am so grateful to have had them in my life. I also offer a thank-you here to the rest of my Rhode Island 'family,'who may not be genetically related but are nonetheless family.