The Boy with the Hidden Name (29 page)

just so I could have you name him.” Ben opens his eyes and

looks at me. “I’m sorry, you know,” he says. His eyes are dark

and heavy and sad. “For leaving you on the Common that

day. I’m just…sorry. You’ve always taken me by such surprise,

and I’ve always behaved so poorly in response.”

I hold my breath, lick my lips, and say, “Ben.” Then I don’t

know what else to say.

“I really am so sorry, Selkie,” he says. “For everything.”

“Don’t talk like it’s over,” I tell him, because I realize sud-

denly what he’s doing. “Don’t tell me good- bye.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” he says, his voice urgent.

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He sits up and lifts his free hand. He pushes my hair behind

my ear and leaves his hand on my cheek in a caress, and I am

furious that he would do this
now
.

“We have to beat them. We have to win.”

Ben shakes his head a little bit and closes his eyes.

“Ben. Listen to me.” I lean over him a bit more, getting

myself closer to him, as if with proximity I can convince him

of what I’m saying, even though his eyes aren’t even open.

“How can we fight? We don’t know their names, so we can’t

name them, so tell me what else we can do.”

“I don’t know,” Ben groans. “We don’t know the right words.”

“What does that mean?” I demand.

“There’s power. In words. If we could find the right ones,

the right combination. That’s why the Seelies don’t write

things down— they don’t want to capture the power in the

words. If we could find the right words, the right story to tell, then maybe…But the fourth fay must be the key, because

otherwise I’ve no idea what…” Ben opens his eyes, realizes

for the first time exactly how close to him I am.

“The right story to tell,” I echo him. “We need to rewrite

the story.”

“I guess,” he says, “that would be one way of putting it.”

“It’s what Merrow said her mother said to do. Rewrite the

story. It’s what you’re saying to do too. Find the right story.”

“Words have power. You know that. It’s why the Seelies hate

to write them down. But the right story involved four fays,

and I don’t know what you’re going to do without them.”

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And then Park Street Church starts chiming the hour, the

grandfather clock in the house echoing it.

One, two, three
, go the chimes, and Merrow, Trow, Safford, and Kelsey all leave off talking to the pedestrians and instinctively hurry back toward where Ben and I are sitting on the

steps of the house.

Four, five, six
, go the chimes, and Ben draws his hand out of mine and stands warily. I follow suit.

Seven, eight, nine
, go the chimes, and we are all looking around us, waiting for something to happen.

Ten, eleven, twelve
.

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T here is a sharp, resounding crack, and Seelies tumble

headlong from the sky over the Common. On the side-

walk, people have stopped to look. The cars have slowed to

a crawl, as their drivers are clearly gaping at the supernatural hole that has opened up over their heads.

“They need to keep moving,” Ben says. “Why don’t they

keep moving?”

“Because do you
see
that?” says Trow, pointing at the hole in the sky.

“That’s exactly why they should keep moving.
Humans
.”

Ben takes a step forward, as if to prosaically direct the traffic away from the Seelies, just as a howling noise starts up.

“What’s that?” Kelsey asks.

“Wind,” answers Ben, as if there can be nothing worse

than that.

It’s frequently windy in Boston, so I don’t know what to

make of that.

Ben shouts at everyone around us, “Run! Run for your lives!”

The people on the sidewalk look at him in curious

puzzlement.

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And then the wind slams into us. It’s so strong that for

a moment, I think an actual enormous hand has reached

and slapped me backward, up against the front door, hold-

ing me in place. But it’s just the wind, so forceful that I can

barely breathe.

It ends just as suddenly as it started, and I flop unceremoni-

ously to the top step of the stoop without the wind there to

hold me up. There is a moment of complete silence, because

none of us had been able to get up enough breath to scream or

utter any noise at all. And then noise rushes on— the people

on the street screaming and shouting, children wailing.

I stagger to my feet and take stock of everyone else.

Breathless but basically okay. My head is buzzing a little bit

from where I knocked it hard against the wall, but I can push

through that.

“Everyone okay?” asks Trow, looking around at us, and I

have this thought about him being a natural caretaker.

Ben has recovered. “Go!” he is shouting at the panicked

people in the street. “Get out! Move!” And then he turns

back to us and says hastily, “Get in the house. It’s safest here.

Don’t move.” And then he leaps lightly down into the street,

toward the Seelies assembling on the Common.

Like hell I’m going in the house while he runs out into

battle. Traffic has thronged around a car accident, and people

are abandoning their cars. I don’t see the Seelies anymore,

which is terrifying to me. Weren’t they just tumbling out of

the sky? I can’t even hear any bells chiming. Did they just

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blow a wind and leave? It seems unlikely, but I don’t know

what else to think.

“Go, go, go!” Ben is shouting at people as he darts among

the cars, opening doors and pulling people out of them.

Everyone looks shocked, like they don’t know what to

make of him, and I don’t blame them. But I understand what

he’s trying to do. Wherever the Seelies are, they haven’t gone

forever. They’re going to come back. All they’ve done so far

is blow a little wind, but I am sure they can do much worse.

So I run out into the street, following his lead, urging

people along, off the street. “Where are we sending them to?”

I shout to Ben.

“What are you doing out here?” he snaps at me, and then

he is off, trying to turn some cars around that have joined

the melee.

“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, knock-

ing 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.

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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 ragdoll.

There is a moment as I’m flying through the air when every-

thing 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 shout-

ing, although there is less, and I think about what that might

mean, of the people who must already have died. The con-

crete 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.

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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 blood pouring out of her thigh.

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 die.

“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 actu-

ally 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.

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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 gob-

lins 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

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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 pleas-

antly as she falls into step behind me.

I limp another step forward, feeling like every bone in my