The Girl Who Kissed a Lie by Skylar Dorset

fragile fabric probably crushes into dust underneath me, but it’s better than the floor in the other room. I keep one ear open for the sound of books tumbling onto Will ( What will I do? I wonder. Call 911 and say a mountain of books toppled onto him? ) and flip open my books. The first one is some kind of epic poem about the first winter of the Plymouth Plantation, the second is a more traditional history, and the third, practically crumbling in my grasp, seems like some odd combination of the two, serious stories and anecdotes about kraken all mixed up into one. This is the one I decide to look through, and there, in the middle of it, is a list of Boston’s first settlers. I look for Blaxtons, but there are none there. And then I decide to look for Stewarts. After all, I think, smiling to myself, my aunts have lived in the townhouse on Beacon Street since the beginning of time.
    And then their names are there.
    True Stewart
    Virtue Stewart
    Etherington Stewart
    My aunts. And my father. Their names. Right there.
    I stare at them for a long time. Coincidence , I think. The Stewarts are an old family, one of Boston’s oldest. And the names True, Virtue, Etherington—not exactly modern ones. Maybe old family ones. Maybe recurring, from generation to generation.
    I pick up the history and let it fall open where it wants, to a well-worn page in the middle, and it is a portrait of old, dour-looking people. The date of the portrait is 1753. I study it, wondering how many of these people were still alive when the Revolution broke out twenty years later.
    I turn the page, and there are my aunts’ faces, staring out at me. I blink, startled, but there is no mistaking it. It is them—as much them as a portrait can be. Their wide, deep, dark eyes, sorrowful and ageless under perfectly sculpted dark eyebrows. Their dark hair pulled back from their high foreheads. Their pursed, unsmiling lips. Their sharp cheekbones under unlined, olive skin.
    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