“Ben said the house was safest,” Kelsey says by my side. “Can we put a bunch of them in the house with us—”
There is a flash of white light so bright that it blinds us. The screams which had been dying down are renewed, except that now no one can see, so people are stumbling around, knocking me this way and that. And when the light dies down, the howling starts again, from far away.
Wind, I think and dive for the nearest car, ducking down behind it. But then the street underneath me starts shaking. I look down at it in shock. The people around me actually fall quiet. We are all looking down at the pavement underneath us as it starts to crack and buckle.
I look up at Ben, who is staring off down Beacon Street, toward the Public Garden. I follow his gaze, and what I see doesn’t make any sense. I blink, trying to figure it out, but it looks like…a wave. A wave of…concrete, rising up and then over the buildings and trees, cars gathering in front of it like foam would in water. That can’t be possible. But it seems as if all of Boston is turning into an ocean of movement right in front of us.
“Get off the street!” Ben shouts, and then he reaches for me. I see him do it, almost as if in slow motion. I see him lean to grab me, and then the street underneath me jumps, flinging me off like I’m nothing but a rag doll.
There is a moment as I’m flying through the air when everything seems silent and still. And then I land with a thud, with a crack in my ear that I imagine is my own skull. I try to pick myself up, but I put weight on my arm when I do it and it gives way with blinding pain. Broken, I think. It seems that way.
I try sitting up again, more carefully this time, and wait for a nauseous moment of dizzying pain to pass. I’m on the Common. From the street, there is still screaming and shouting, although there is less, and I think about what that might mean, of the people who must already have died. The concrete and cars are still going this way and that, tossed in a tempest, and I can see people’s bodies flying through the air, the way mine did. A woman in jeans and Uggs and a black pea coat lands not far from me with an unpleasant crunch. Blood spreads out underneath her onto the dead grass, and she doesn’t move again. There is a little girl crying nearby, hands pressed around her thigh, blood pouring through her fingers.
I should get to her, I think. Although what am I going to do? How am I going to help? I feel powerless, and I wonder where Ben is. Or Trow. Trow has healing powers, right? He could heal my broken arm, and then maybe he could also do something for these poor people.
And then I think of the rags in my pocket, taken from the Urisks. Tourniquets, I think, and get up and struggle over to the little girl. Someone else has stopped to help, which is good, because I still have a broken arm to deal with and can’t tie.
“She needs a tourniquet,” I gasp and thrust the fabric at the man.
He looks panicked but also like he understands, taking the proffered fabric and getting to work.
“What’s your name?” I ask the little girl.
“Hannah,” she manages.
“Hannah,” I say gently, infusing it with all of the warm intent that I can.
And Hannah stops sobbing, her face lightening. She actually almost smiles. “That feels better,” she tells the man still tying the tourniquet, who looks up at her, surprised.
I stand, pleased that I was able to make it better for her, and look around, getting my bearings, trying to find someone else who I might still be able to help.
As I am thinking it, just like that, a Seelie appears in front of me. And smiles. “Selkie,” this Seelie says, and the pain is like a vice around my brain. I find myself falling back to the ground, writhing with pain, and those moans of agony I hear, those are mine.
When the world stops swirling Technicolor with pain, I pant for breath, lying on my back, staring up at the Seelie over me. He smiles, one of those anti-smiles that they’re so expert in, and I brace myself, wondering if he knows enough of my name to name me, if this is the end, what it will feel like—
A man suddenly throws himself onto the Seelie, knocking him to the ground, and once he has him pinned, he pulls out a sword and slices it clean through the Seelie’s neck, severing his head. I cry out in surprise, because I can’t help it, but then the Seelie’s head reattaches and he smiles his anti-smile again.
The goblin—I can only assume it is a goblin—starts just hacking away at the Seelie, not that it seems to matter, because the Seelie just keeps fixing itself. But at least he’s distracted. This is my opportunity, I know, as they grapple with each other, but in my haste, I jostle my arm enough that pain blossoms through me anew.
When I get to my feet, I can see that the Common is dotted over with skirmishes, Seelies clashing with goblins. The goblins are all flashing swords that glint in the bright, artificial Seelie sunlight as they heave them around, stabbing through Seelies who all seem completely unaffected by it.
I don’t know what to do. The world seems to be swimming around me, but I can’t tell if it’s from pain or because I feel like I can’t really breathe or if it really is pitching and heaving to and fro. I try to struggle back to my house, but I feel like I am never going to get there. I wonder where everyone else is, if they’re okay, if the house is even still standing. The street in front of me is still a frothy tempest of concrete and cars.
And I feel like I have barely taken two steps when my mother says, with false sweetness, “Selkie.”
I wince at the pinch of the pain, not as severe as when the other Seelie used my name. My mother, I think, is just toying with me, the way Ben said: the Seelies like to toy.
“I don’t think we finished our discussion,” she says pleasantly as she falls into step behind me.
I limp another step forward, feeling like every bone in my body is a protesting bruise, and then I whirl on her. “Where is my father?” I demand between my teeth.
She anti-smiles at me. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yes,” I retort. “I would.”
She leans down, puts her face very close to mine, and whispers smoothly, “Would you? Would you like to see your father?”
I answer before I can think. “Yes,” I say furiously.
A sharp pain runs through me, and I convulse with it. I have the strangest sensation, as if my blood is spilling out of my fingers and onto the floor, although my hands look perfectly normal. There is just pain, spreading through my center, spreading through the world.
I look from my hands to my mother, who is watching me with detached satisfaction. “What are you doing?” I gasp out. “What are you doing to me?”
“Selkie!”
I hear Ben shout my name, and I even turn in his direction. He is dashing toward me, Kelsey behind him, but they seem far away.
“Selkie!” Kelsey screams, launching herself toward me. “Grab my hand!”
Why does she want me to grab her hand? I wonder. Where does she think I’m going? Why doesn’t she just lean over and get me, I’m right there—
—And then I’m not.
I am in a huge, light room overlooking a vast ocean.
With my mother.
CHAPTER 25
The room is gorgeous, hewn out of a bright white stone, and, except for me and my mother, completely empty. Archways run across the opposite end of it, open to the air, and warm, delicious breezes drift through. My mother anti-smiles at me and then walks confidently away, over to the archways, and then she turns to the left.
“Where are we?” I shout at her. “Where is everyone? Where’s Dad?”
“Come along, Selkie,” her voice drifts back to me. I wince in reaction and then hurry up to follow her.
We walk beside the archways. The view beyond them is an expanse of deep blue sea stretching out to meet a paler blue sky. It’s gorgeous, frankly. The castle appears to be perched on a cliff right at the edge of the water.
“Here y
ou are.” My mother opens a door that appears in front of us onto a large, airy bathroom, tiled over completely in colorful mosaics in shades of rose and gold and turquoise. There is a huge tub that seems to have been made out of a seashell, and a matching seashell sink and seashell toilet. And there is a bright blue Seelie dress hanging by the window opening in the wall, edged with tiny, jingling bells.
“It matches your eyes,” my mother tells me.
“Where is my father?” I ask, voice steely.
“All in good time.”
“No,” I insist. “Not in good time. Now. I don’t have time for this.”
“Oh, you delightful little creature.” She looks down at me from her full height and tsks. “You have nothing but time. All the time in the Otherworld and the Thisworld. Because of the time you’re keeping. You think you need to get back home to fight your little battle.” And then she laughs. “Don’t worry. No matter how much time you spend here, we will still be able to bring you back to Boston in time to see it fall, to see it topple back into the sea it was stolen from in the first place.” And then she closes the door behind me.
I stare after her. Because I’m pretty sure that where I am is Avalon. A fay on Avalon, Ben’s mother had said. The warring prophecy. I am helping the wrong prophecy win. I have to get away from here.
Somehow.
I tear out of the bathroom with no clear idea where I’m going, which is as faerie of me as I’ve ever been, to have not even a shadow of a plan.
My mother is standing at one of the archways, talking to someone else. She turns toward me immediately.
“Ah. Selkie,” she says, and I bite my tongue with the hiss of pain that comes with it. “You didn’t change.”
I have nothing to say to that. I look around, trying to find some way out, but I have no idea where I could run where I wouldn’t be caught immediately.
“No matter,” says my mother. “I did not expect you to be satisfactory, even now. Come here, my dear.”
I do so, because now I recognize the faerie at her side.
“You know our darling Benedict’s mother, don’t you?”
Ben’s mother smiles at me. “It’s so nice to see you again, Selkie.”
“Likewise,” I lie and smile sweetly. I’m half Seelie, I think. I can play this game too.
“It seems you’ve injured your arm,” says Ben’s mother, and just like that, it stops hurting me.
I look down at it, move it experimentally. It’s as good as new.
I refuse to thank her for that. I look at my mother instead. “Where’s Dad? What have you done to him?”
She blinks at me and puts a dramatic hand to her throat, as if taken aback at my accusation. “Why, I’ve done nothing at all to him! He is going to join us for dinner.”
“Now that you mention it,” remarks Ben’s mother, “isn’t it time for dinner?”
“Depending on the time, indeed.” My mother waves her hand, and it sounds as if she’s ringing a tiny dinner bell.
A table appears by one of the archways, laid out with a bright white tablecloth and gleaming china, silver, and crystal.
I take my seat slowly. My muscles are literally jumping to get away instead, but I need to play this game until I can figure out a way to get out, to save the right prophecy. My mother walks away to the right, into a hallway that swallows her into darkness. I wonder if this is my chance to make a break for it, but Ben’s mother looks hard at me and I think not.
The room pulses with the energy of named faeries—I can feel it in my bones. They whisper around me, crying out for help. I think of all of these voices begging me for help, and I don’t know what to do, what I can do. I am failing right now at saving my own father, never mind the rest of the faeries who are counting on me.
Ben’s mother sits next to me and studies me. “I must say, I am very surprised to see you looking so…well.”
I think of the cursed coat that should have killed me. “You shouldn’t be. He’s stronger than you. You know it, and he knows it. If I were you, I’d be worried.”
Ben’s mother doesn’t look worried. She just lifts her eyebrows. “Bold words from a young fay trapped on the Isle of Avalon.”
“I’ve been trapped before. Haven’t you heard? I escaped from Tir na nOg.”
“You did that with Benedict. Benedict can’t get to you here.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because we’re on an island, Selkie.”
She does not say my name with intent. She doesn’t have to. She has said the one, simple fact that finally begins to make me worried. We’re on an island. I look out at the ocean, at the expanse of limitless water, and nerves knot in my stomach.
But I didn’t have to swim to get here. Maybe Ben won’t have to swim to get here. Or maybe someone else will get here to me. Merrow was good with prophecies. Maybe she’ll see something that will tell her where I am, and they will come and save me, the way they all came and saved me before.
Except that they are in the middle of fighting a losing battle that I’ve abandoned them in.
A tiny voice inside me says, Why would they even want to save you now?
“Here she is!” exclaims my mother gaily.
I immediately leap out of my seat, turning to face her. My father is standing with her, looking lost and confused, which is just how my father so frequently looks. It is my father, and I run to him, flinging myself onto him, and I realize that I am crying as I bury my face in his shoulder. He smells like my father. He feels like my father. He is alive. I cry with relief.
He lifts his arms and closes me into a hug. “There, there,” he soothes me and lays his cheek on my head. “There, there.”
“It’s me,” I weep against him. “It’s Selkie.”
“I know who it is.” He sounds offended.
I laugh at his offense. He sounds like normal. This is such an unexpectedly wonderful thing to have happen, and my crying shifts suddenly, away from relief, back toward despair. I want to have a happy ending. I want us to go back to Boston. I want Ben to be back on the Common. I want to lie in the sunlight and drink lemonade. I want it so much I ache for it.
I am never going to get it, I think.
“There, there,” my father says again. “It will be okay, Selkie. It’s all true. Didn’t I tell you? It’s all true.”
I try to catch my breath, to stop my tears. Now, alone with my father depending on me to get us out of this, is not the time for me to fall to pieces. “What’s all true?” I ask and lift my head to look at him.
“Everything,” he says.
“Yes,” I agree, because it makes sense to me. “Yes. It is.”
“Now.” My mother claps behind us. “Touching reunion concluded, it is time for us to eat.”
I walk with my father over to the table and we sit down together. The food is Seelie food, fluffy mashed potatoes that taste like fresh strawberries and heaps of turkey that taste like milk. I pick at it, pushing it around on my plate, and debate how to escape. Water doesn’t bother me. Could I swim away? Could I make it with my father? I can’t leave him here.
“Don’t you want to know the story?” my mother asks eventually.
“The story of what?”
“The story of you.”
“I know my story.”
“No, you don’t. You know part of your story. You know bits and pieces of your story. But the whole thing. Your story is the most important thing. Stories are the most important things, you know. The stories we tell. The words we use. Selkie Stewart. The fay of the autumnal equinox. So much prophecy around you. Your name shows up in the very oldest of the books about Boston. Did you never wonder about that?”
I think back to before I ever knew any of this. Flipping through an ancient book Will had given me from the Salem Which Museum.
My mother does
n’t wait for a response. “For so long, Selkie Stewart. For so long, we have been waiting. You included, although you don’t remember it. Will was very good, very clever. You leaked through to some records, but in many—in most—you never existed. Impossible to find. Hidden from view. Protected by the very strongest enchantments he could find. Present company excluded.” My mother indicates Ben’s mother.
Ben’s mother inclines her head and sips her wine. “Of course.”
“But we have been planning this. I know what you’re thinking: how very shocking, for the Seelies to plan. I must admit, it was very difficult to get the other Seelies to go along with it, and they do keep forgetting and losing their way every so often. But Ben’s mother is so very good at it. Planning comes naturally to her.”
I look at Ben’s mother, who anti-smiles at me.
“And so,” continues my mother, “we have been planning. How to get to you. You all have your weak points, each of you fays, because you are none of you fully faerie, and therefore you are none of you entirely strong. Because all of you love. It is the great vulnerability, you know. All of this affection. So it could have been any of you, any of you fays that we went after, but in the end, it was you who had to be the fay chosen to come here to Avalon to seal the reign of the Seelies forever. At first, we thought that the great weakness would be through Benedict. Your feelings for Benedict are so adorable, so quaint. But that turned out not entirely as prophesied.” My mother sends a dark look to Ben’s mother.
Ben’s mother says lightly, “On your end, as well. Don’t forget, she escaped your prison before she escaped mine.”
My mother ignores her. “Benedict turned out not to be the key. It was your father. Your love for your father would drive you here, and it would keep you here, willingly. And thus, we would have you, your power, your strength, here in Avalon, keeping us safe forever.”
But this is all unnecessary, I think. They would be safe forever because we don’t know where the other fay is. Because Ben’s mother hid the other fay from us. Wasn’t that part of their original plan?
The Boy with the Hidden Name: Otherworld Book Two Page 20