Skylar Dorset - The Girl Who Never Was

'Okay,'says Ben, his eyes flickering around us as if he's scared I'm making a scene, attracting attention. 'You clearly have a lot of questions, and you deserve answers''

'I deserve answers?'Something about the phrase makes me even more furious than I already was, like the truth about my entire life is a treat he's giving me, a reward for good behavior. 'How nice of you.'My voice is dripping sarcasm. 'Exactly how much do you know about me, Benedict Le Fay?'I fling his name at him, the only thing I've managed to learn about him.

He hisses in a breath. 'Stop that,'he commands harshly. 'You need to stop that.'

I am so sick of being ordered around. 'Stop what? Saying your name? What is the big deal? I know one thing about you. Benedict Le Fay, Benedict Le Fay, Benedict Le Fay.'

Ben staggers away from me as if I'd shoved him, although I haven't touched him. For the first time, confusion begins to thread through my anger. This upsets him that much?

'Benedict Le Fay,'I say again, curious now.

Ben seems to gather himself enough to lunge forward and

grab my shoulders unexpectedly, the motion making his

hood fall away from his head.

I gasp in surprise.

'Stop saying it like that. Please. Where did you learn that? You're going to''

The skies above us open up suddenly, drowning out whatever he was going to say. He groans and drops my shoulders, hastily pulling his hood up again.

I feel so battered by strangeness I'm exhausted. 'You need to tell me what's going on, Ben.'

'Fine,'he agrees. 'Yes. But not here. We can't stay here.'

'I'm not going anywhere,'I tell him, annoyed.

'You don't have a choice.'

'I'm not,'I repeat very deliberately, 'going anywhere. You're going to tell me what's going on. Right now.'

'I can't,'he snaps. 'You said my name. Several times. Not nicely. And now it's pouring and I'm wet. So we do not have a choice. We are going. If we stay here, the world will end.'

'I'm not going anywhere until you start making sense,'I insist.

'Selkie,'he bites out, 'I am the only thing that has ever made your life make sense. Do you trust me?'

I hesitate. Only hours earlier, I would have said yes unequivocally. I study Ben's pale eyes, but I might as well try to interpret the mood of the puddles growing around us. 'I don't know,'I admit.

'Good answer,'says Ben cryptically, which doesn't exactly

inspire confidence. 'But I need you to now, just for a minute more, just the way you usually do, and come with me.'

I search his face, his well-known features, the well-defined slope of his cheeks, the elegant curve of lips that I have given far too much thought to. I look over my shoulder. Beacon Street is nothing more than a row of impressionistic lights, looking very far away and unattainable to me.

'Please come,'Ben begs me.

I look back at him.

'Please come now,'he says. He is looking anxiously around him, and he is coiled up, poised to spring. 'Please. I will explain everything to you, but there isn't time right now. We have to go.'He looks back at me, pleading with me, and I realize that, up until this moment, Ben has never asked me for anything. I am still angry, but I am also struck by his nervous determination, so unlike him; he is normally so unflappable.

'Where?'

'The subway station,'he says.

It sounds safe enough, I figure. It's late, but there are still people in the subway, and it's only a few feet away. 'Okay,'I say.

'Thank you,'says Ben, heartfelt, and then he takes my hand, dashing to the cover the station represents. The raindrops are hard as they hit the cement, tiny explosions that reverberate and soak the cuffs of my jeans as I am pulled in Ben's wake, and then he tumbles through the station doors, pulling me after him, and he slams them shut behind us,

and every single person around us in Park Street station, the people going in and out, the people going up and down, all vanish into thin air. The silence that falls is terrifying in this space that is made for the noise and bustle of a city.

I stare around myself in shock because there were people there; they were everywhere.

'Well,'says Ben, and I realize that he is breathing much harder than the quick dash through the rain should have warranted. 'We just made that. Let's not do that again in the future if we can avoid it.'

I look at him, leaning against the door. 'What have you done?'

'I haven't done anything. You did it. You said my name. A lot.'

'And that made all the people in Park Street station disappear?'

'All the people in Boston,'he corrects me, and he steps carefully away from the door. 'If you open this door, we will be pulled out into the Nowhere, do you understand me? You cannot open the door. But you can look through the window.'

I walk to the door, and I realize that Ben is standing very tensely, as if he expects me to throw the door open and that somehow we will be pulled out into some place called Nowhere and that will be very bad. I don't pull the door open. I put my face to the window. Outside is nothing but darkness. It is not just that the lights have gone out in Boston. It's that there are no lights to go out. There is nothing.

I step back in alarm. 'I don't understand. Where did it go?'

'You broke my enchantment,'says Ben simply, as if that makes sense.

I stare at him. 'I what?'

'You broke my enchantment. You said my name, and you made it rain, and you broke it. And really I'm never going to hear the end of it, I must say.'

'What are you talking about?'I demand, bewildered. 'I didn't make it rain. I can't make it rain.'

'Of course you can,'Ben says, as if I am the crazy one.

'You're not making any sense.'I am losing patience now. 'Nobody has made any sense''

'Ever in your life. You're just noticing it now.'

'Ben,'I say firmly, ignoring his flinch. 'Tell me what's happening.'

'What's happening right now? What we'd been waiting for, I suppose, although I didn't think it would happen quite this way. But you told me your birthday'that was the first break in the chain.'Ben starts pacing, shaking rainwater out of his thick, dark hair with his hands, the droplets flying everywhere. 'Then you got into the Salem Which Museum, and Will gave you the books, and you started asking the right questions finally, and it was only a matter of time until you knew the right words, but I thought we'd be able to tell you everything very calmly. I think your aunts were planning an old-fashioned tea or something. I didn't think you'd be able to dissolve my enchantment. That's usually so much harder to do than you made it look just now.'

'What are you talking about? Your enchantment?'

'Yes. You know. Your whole life and the way you were just normal enough to stay hidden and safe.'

I stare at him, thinking he's lost his mind. 'You're telling me that my whole life is nothing but an enchantment?'

Ben stops pacing and looks at me, quicksilver eyes serious. 'Yes,'he answers simply. 'And you just broke it.'

I continue to stare at him, silent, trying to comprehend this.

'I told you the world would end if you kept saying my name,'says Ben.

Let's go,'says Ben, as if it's a typical evening out in Boston. He starts jogging down the stairs at Park Street, toward the subway.

'Wait. I don't understand,'I say. I am tired of saying this, and I don't even think Ben hears me saying it anymore, if he ever did. I decide to avoid the doors with their terrifying black emptiness beyond and follow him. He leaps over the barrier. I halt, pull my T pass out of my pocket, and swipe the card. It beeps its approval, and the gates swing open.

Ben, who had been leaning over and frowning down the Green Line track to our left, turns at the noise, and he looks absolutely astonished. 'Did you just pay to get in here?'