Skylar Dorset: The Girl Who Never Was

I look at the caption. True and Virtue Stewart, it reads. 1760. I look back at them, at their faces. Family resemblance, I try to think. The Stewarts are an old family, I remind myself. Their names and features might be recurring.

I flip through the rest of the portraits in the book. No Etherington Stewart turns up. Just True and Virtue, posed in stiff black dresses, looking exactly like the True and Virtue

Stewart in my house, the True and Virtue Stewart who have raised me.

I reach for the epic poem, let it fall open as well, and the first lines on the page are not even a surprise to me at this point. The house of the Misses Stewart / Theyre brother late returneth / Frome an excursion to a newe settlement / Fulle of truth and virtue / Befitting of theyre names.

I look from the poem to the portraits. I can hear Will humming to himself in his weird library place, and following one of my usual spur-of-the-moment impulses, I reach out and rip the portrait out of its book. I do the same for the lines of the epic poem. I pick up the history and thumb through it until I find the list of settlers again, and I rip that out as well. Then I fold the pages up and stick them in the kangaroo pocket of my Boston sweatshirt.

What have I done? I have ripped pages out of old, priceless books belonging to a museum. A really strange museum but still. And what am I going to do with these pages? What am I doing?

I'm finished here. I have to be before Will comes back and asks why I'm vandalizing his books of power, his museum's only exhibits. I get up and walk to Iggy's kitchen, and I call to Will, 'Thanks for letting me look at the books on Boston! I'm leaving now!'

I step out into the mist without waiting for him to reply. Here on the streets of Salem, Halloween is still in full swing, witches roaming around, modern day and centuries old, like

the pages of my family's ancient history tucked in my pocket. I hurry away from the Salem Which Museum, oblivious to the press of the costumed, festive crowds, preoccupied with the words of the pages in my pocket. Stewarts, Stewarts everywhere. And not a single Blaxton.

x My aunts move through our house like ghosts. They always have, for as long as I can remember. They glide silently from room to room, dressed always in long-sleeved black blouses tucked carefully into knee-length black skirts with black boots gleaming underneath them. I find myself wondering now for how many centuries they have done this.

'How was Salem, dear?'Aunt Virtue asks me vaguely, because they are focused on other things. Mainly, the arrangement of the furniture. They are always convinced that the furniture is being moved on them'tiny, infinitesimal adjustments in its angles. They blame gnomes. This is the kind of life I lead: my aunts are genuinely convinced gnomes are real, as real a plague on Beacon Hill as the mice and rats are.

'Fine,'I answer.

I'm not even sure they hear me.

'Insufferable gnomes!'curses Aunt True as Aunt Virtue tips a picture frame an unseeable amount of space to the left. She is standing tiptoe on top of a pink-and-gilt Queen Anne chair to do this. The house is an odd combination of styles,

and I always assumed it was inherited from generations of Stewarts past. Now I wonder if Aunt True and Aunt Virtue have been collecting through the centuries.

This is madness, I think. I'm losing my mind.

'It looks better,'Aunt True tells Aunt Virtue, and Aunt Virtue leaps down from the Queen Anne chair with a nimbleness that belies her age.

'Damnable gnomes,'says Aunt Virtue, stepping back so she can study the picture for herself.

Aunt True nods in firm agreement. 'Come now,'she says. 'I do believe they pushed the chaise lounge a bit to the left in the conservatory.'

I watch them march down the hallway to the conservatory. I swallow trepidation and follow them. I love my aunts, of course I do, but sometimes I feel like, even though they've raised me from infancy, they have no idea what to make of me. They look at me sometimes like I'm not what they expected, but other times they look at me like I'm exactly what they expected. Either way, I feel like they're not sure how they feel about who I've turned out to be. I always feel loved, but there is usually an undercurrent of something like dread too. I have no idea why, but the dread has infected me. They are afraid for me, and to me it seems like more than the worry of other people's parents; it is genuine fright. So I always try not to say anything that might alarm them, but now I find that I just have to. There are too many questions welling up inside of me.

'How long have there been Stewarts in Boston?'I ask.

'Forever,'answers Aunt True absently.

'Look at this chaise lounge,'says Aunt Virtue.

'Oh, they have definitely been at this chaise lounge,'agrees Aunt True.

I watch them nudge the chaise lounge a hairsbreadth to the left.

'Do you know anything about them?'I ask, trying to sound casual.

Suddenly, I am the center of both aunts'attention. They are still leaned over the chaise lounge but their gazes are sharp on me.

'Know anything about whom?'asks Aunt True shrewdly.

'The Stewarts who settled Boston,'I clarify.

There is a long moment of silence. My aunts slowly straighten, still looking at me closely. I want to fidget. I feel like I have asked something I should never have asked, but I don't know why.

'What about them?'Aunt Virtue asks carefully.

What were their names? I want to ask. But somehow the words stick in my throat. I can't make myself say them. My aunts'dark eyes, full of love and that terrifying dread, are steady on me. I can see them willing me to drop the entire thing. But I can't. I can't drop all of it. There is so little I know about myself, and I feel like my aunts will never want me to ask any of the questions I have.

'What about my mother?'I persist almost desperately.

'What about her?'demands Aunt True, a challenge being flung to me. Ask another question.

'Who was she? Did you know her? Where did she come from? Why can't I find any other Blaxtons?'

'Have you been looking for them?'asks Aunt True.

'You need to stop looking for them,'commands Aunt Virtue.

'Do you understand how hard it is for me to know nothing about her? She's my mother,'I cry, trying to make them see.

'It means nothing,'Aunt Virtue says staunchly. 'She was never supposed to be here. She did not belong here. You are one of us: a Stewart of Boston. We who have been here from the beginning and will be here to the end. This is your home, we are yours, and you are ours. It matters not what anyone else may say, what words may be used on you. You are a Stewart of Boston. Remember that.'

'I know that,'I say. 'I won't'run away. I'm not trying to''

'Are you unhappy?'Aunt True asks me gently.

'No,'I say honestly. 'I'm not.'

'Then forget about your mother,'she says, still in that tender, loving tone of voice. She walks over to me and cups a hand on my cheek. 'This is your life. This. This time, this place, this world.'Her words are strangely firm, as if, by pronouncing them so clearly, she can make it be this way, make me be this way.

She turns back to Aunt Virtue, and they resume the minute adjustments of everything in the room, but I stand frozen, her words trembling in the air around me.

School the next day feels unbearably long. It's so hard to concentrate on things like the Pythagorean theorem when I have decided that it's possible my aunts are immortal creatures. I meet up with Kelsey for American literature class. She is complaining because she lost a button on the brand- new cardigan she's wearing.

'Oh,'I note. 'I picked up a button this morning.'I fish it out of my pocket, avoiding the old book pages occupying the same space, and hand it to her.