Between the Lines

  He drops the egg into the purple smoke, but I never hear it hit bottom. Instead, the smoke rises into a tall column and forms a lavender screen. After a moment, a chicken materializes upon the smoky display.

  “I… I don’t get it,” I say.

  “What you’re looking at,” Orville explains, “is the future.”

  Or the past, I think. After all, what came first—the chicken or the egg—

  Orville interrupts my thoughts. “Pretty ingenious, don’t you think?”

  “But that… you can’t…”

  “Let’s try something else.” The wizard glances around the shack and then plucks a caterpillar off the lopsided window frame. He drops it into the mist, and a moment later, a butterfly made of violet smoke rises in a spiral from the pit of the pedestal.

  “Orville!” I cry. “That’s incredible!”

  “Not bad for an old guy, huh?” He elbows me, then reaches up to pluck a hair from his head. “Here goes nothing….”

  He drops his own hair into the mist, and a moment later, there he is, clear as can be—if a little more wizened and lined in the face. This future Orville is bent over a cauldron that suddenly explodes in a purple blast.

  “Yessir,” Orville says. “Looks entirely accurate.”

  “I want to try. I want to see my future.”

  The wizard frowns. “But why, Oliver? You already know what happens to you. You live happily ever—”

  “Yeah, yeah, right. But still. You never know. I mean, will I live in the kingdom or move away? Have kids? Start a war? I just want some details….”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea….”

  Before Orville can stop me, I yank a hair out of my head and toss it onto the pedestal.

  For a long moment, there is nothing but a swirling lavender whirlpool. Then a geyser of mist sprays toward the ceiling, raining down in a dome. Inside this snow globe made of smoke, I can see myself.

  The first thing I notice is that I’m not wearing a tunic.

  I’m not carrying a sword or a dagger.

  And I’m not standing in a scene from this fairy tale.

  Instead, I am dressed just like the people in the photographs I’ve seen in Delilah’s house. I’m sitting in a room that reminds me of Delilah’s bedroom… except different. There is a fireplace, for example, that Delilah’s room doesn’t have. And there’s a bookcase behind me, with every shelf filled. I can’t understand some of the writing on the volumes; it is in tongues I do not recognize.

  Still, this looks awfully promising for a future outside this story.

  Or so I think, until I see a girl walk in and wrap her arms around me. I can’t see her face from where I’m standing.

  Orville suddenly rushes forward and waves his hands through the purple smoke so that the image dissolves. “Your Highness, this is obviously still in the testing stages,” he says nervously. “Still working out several glitches…”

  I grab the wizard by the throat. “Bring it back!”

  “I can’t, sire….”

  “Do it now!”

  Orville is trembling. “You won’t want to see it,” he whispers. “The person you’re with… is not Princess Seraphima.”

  I pluck another hair from my head and throw it into the fountain. Again, the dome of smoke rises and the scene appears, exactly as it was a moment before. “If you touch it,” I mutter to Orville, “those frog eyes go straight down your throat.”

  The girl in the purple mist wraps her arms around me. Slowly, she turns so that I can see her features.

  Orville was right.

  I didn’t want to see this at all.

  Not because it’s not Seraphima, but because it’s not Delilah either.

  * * *

  I used to think that all I ever wanted was to get out of this stupid book. Now I realize that one must be careful what one wishes for. Getting out might not be my wildest dream—but my biggest nightmare.

  I tried to write myself out of the book, and it didn’t work. I saw my future, and Delilah wasn’t a part of it. I can live without leaving this fairy tale, but I can’t live without her.

  I need help. And I need it fast. And so, even with the uncomfortable knowledge that what I am about to do could hurt someone else, I begin to run toward Rapscullio’s lair.

  By the time I arrive, I am sweating and out of breath. The lair is open, and there is a heavenly vanilla scent wafting out the door. I poke my way inside to find him baking sugar cookies in his kitchen. As he’s dusting the tops with pink sprinkles, I clear my throat to get his attention.

  “Ah, Your Highness! You’re just in time to taste the first batch. They’re still warm!”

  “Rapscullio,” I say, “this is no time for cookies. I need your assistance.”

  Sensing my urgency, he puts down his spatula. “I have twelve to fourteen minutes before the next batch comes out of the oven,” he says solemnly.

  I grab his hand and drag him into the library—the one where, not long ago, I tried to paint myself out of this book and failed miserably. “I need you to draw something for me.”

  “Again?” Rapscullio says. “This is your emergency? You’re having an artistic epiphany?”

  “Just do it,” I argue, frustrated. “I need a picture of a young woman. I’ll tell you what she looks like, and you create it on that special canvas of yours.”

  His eyes brighten. “You mean a wanted poster!”

  Well. Truer words were never spoken. “Exactly,” I say.

  “I’ve done several, you know. My masterpiece is the one I painted of the Knave of Hearts after he stole the queen’s tarts. It’s still hanging in the castle jail.”

  “Great.” I sit down on a stack of books, and a cloud of dust rises around me. “Now—she has dark hair that comes down to her shoulders. It’s straight, with a bit of a curl on the ends.”

  “I’ll have to start with a sketch first.” Rapscullio takes a pad and begins to scribble. “How tall is she?”

  I realize I have no idea. I have no reference point for that.

  “Medium height,” I say, guessing.

  “And her eyes?”

  “They’re brown.”

  “Limpid chocolate brown, or dark-corners-of-the-soul brown?”

  I shrug. “Warm brown, like honey. And her mouth…”

  “Like this?”

  Rapscullio shows me a tiny bow, lips pursed together, but that’s not Delilah at all. Her mouth is always on the verge of a smile. It makes her look like there’s something amazing she needs to tell me, even when it’s just hello.

  We continue in this fashion long after the next batch of cookies has burned to a crisp, as I suggest and tweak and correct Rapscullio’s portrait. “Hurry,” I say, wondering how much time I have before Delilah opens the book again and all this hard work is lost.

  “Genius takes time,” Rapscullio says. But he finally turns the pad around so that I can see it. And sure enough, there is Delilah, staring straight back at me.

  “Yes,” I say, nodding.

  Rapscullio is pleased with himself. “So what’s the rush?” he asks. “What did she do?”

  “Do?” I say.

  “What crime did she commit?”

  Then I remember the ruse I’ve used to get him to draw Delilah. “She’s a thief,” I say.

  It’s not really a lie, after all. Because she’s totally, unequivocally stolen my heart.

  Delilah

  WE ARE SO CLOSE—THERE IN FRONT OF ME in the quiet corner of my old tree fort, I can see Oliver’s face appearing. But before he is more than just a misty hallucination, he’s gone.

  While I’m still trying to figure out what happened—and what didn’t—I hear my mother call my name.

  “Now?” I mutter. “Really?”

  “Delilah?” Her voice is getting closer. She’s standing at the base of the tree fort. “What are you doing up there?”

  I quickly close the book and shove it between the old newspapers. My mother’s head bobs
at the top of the ladder. “I’m cleaning it out,” I announce. “Turning over a new leaf. No more fairy tales, no more tree forts.” She looks at me dubiously. “Dr. Ducharme thought it would be a good idea for me to have some more age-appropriate things to do.”

  The words have the intended effect. “Well, then,” my mom says, surprised. “Good!” She shakes her head, as if she cannot quite believe me, and why should she? “Jules is here. She’s upstairs in your bedroom.”

  “Jules?”

  The last thing I want to do is hang out with Jules when what I really need is to speak to Oliver. I’ve realized something: he’s not the one who can rewrite the ending. I have a new plan, and I am desperate to share it with him.

  I take the fairy tale and tuck it under my arm, heading back to the house. When I get to my room, Jules is lying on my bed, listening to my iPod. I slip the book quickly between others on a shelf so that Jules doesn’t start asking questions about why I’m still reading a kids’ fairy tale. Then I sit down and pull the headphones out of her ears. “I wasn’t expecting you,” I tell her.

  “Since when do I have to make an appointment to be with my own best friend?” Jules asks. “And since when do you listen to Justin Bieber?” She shakes her head. “Maybe you do need psychiatric counseling. I don’t have any problem with you breaking Allie’s nose, but if you keep downloading songs like this, I may have to kill you.” She flops over onto her belly and looks up at me. “So how did it go?”

  “How did what go?”

  “Your shrink appointment?”

  It seems like that happened a thousand years ago, not three hours. “It was a nonevent,” I say.

  “Good, because I need you to have all your brains in place to help me get out of the worst situation ever.” She sits up, crossing her legs. “Remember my aunt Agnes?”

  “The one who smells like beets?”

  Jules winces. “Oh, God, why did you remind me of that? My parents said they’re sending me to her place for the summer to get a taste of the country. Can you imagine me in East Nowhere, Iowa, milking cows?”

  “They have cows?”

  “No, but they might as well. That’s not the point. The point is that I’m being shipped off like a FedEx box to the loneliest town on Earth.” She hesitates. “They still have dial-up, for God’s sake.”

  I want to feel bad for Jules, seriously. But my head is filled with thoughts of Oliver and what we are going to do next.

  “Maybe it won’t be that bad,” I say. “Summer’s over before you know it.”

  She stares at me. “Wow. Zero sympathy whatsoever.”

  “I don’t mean it like that—of course I feel bad for you—but I mean, it’s not the end of the world, Jules.”

  “Can you tell me something? Where’s Delilah? Because the friend I used to know would actually care.”

  “That’s a little dramatic,” I say, forcing a laugh.

  “Is it? I came over here because I wanted someone to commiserate with me. To tell me that my summer’s going to suck and that you’re sorry. To take my side. I’ll probably still have to go to Iowa and it’s going to be hell, but it sure would be nice to go knowing that there’s someone here who doesn’t want me to leave.”

  I can feel my cheeks heating up. I’ve been so obsessed with Oliver, I haven’t had time to spend with Jules. And the fact that she can’t hear him only makes her seem even more distant from me right now.

  It will be different, I tell myself, when we get Oliver here. Then Jules can meet him, and get to know him, and be happy for me because I’ve finally got a boyfriend. These arguments we keep having are little roadblocks; eventually we’ll find a way around them. “I’ve just got a lot on my plate right now.”

  Jules stands up. “I used to be on that plate,” she says. “I used to matter.”

  “Jules, don’t say that. You’re still my best friend—”

  “You know what? You don’t get to decide that. It takes two people to make a friendship work, and these days, I’ve been doing more than my fair share.”

  “Jules,” I say. “Come on.” I reach toward her, but she steps away.

  She looks at me. “Just remember—I had your back when the whole world hated you. I thought that counted for something.”

  She walks out of my bedroom and slams the door behind her. I let out a defeated sigh. I’ll make this right again, I swear I will, but first I have to finish what Oliver and I have started.

  My mother sticks her head inside the door. “Is everything all right with Jules?”

  “Fine…”

  “Funny, she didn’t look fine when she ran out the front door.”

  My eyes fill with tears. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I tell her. I’ve lost two friends in one day.

  My mother sits down beside me on the bed. “Well, if it’s not fine, it will be,” she says. “And when you’re ready to talk about it, I’m here.”

  It feels good to have her arms around me, to pretend, for a little while, that what she’s saying is true. To believe that in the end, everything works out. She drops a kiss on the crown of my head. “I have an idea,” she says. “Why don’t we watch a movie?”

  I look up at her. “Like old times?”

  “I’ll make the popcorn,” my mother says. “You get The Little Mermaid.”

  If I have any thoughts about why my mother would have a philosophical problem with me reading a fairy tale but be perfectly fine with me watching a Disney cartoon, they vanish in the anticipation of an evening spent believing that dreams can come true. “Okay,” I whisper, and she hugs me a little tighter.

  When she leaves, I go to the bookshelf to retrieve the story. I plan to just quickly pop to page 43 so that I can tell Oliver my brilliant idea. But then I think of my mother, downstairs, of how hard she’s trying to make me happy. For right now, anyway, Oliver can wait.

  I keep the Disney movies in a cardboard box in my closet, on the upper shelf. I can’t quite reach it, so I drag my laundry basket closer, overturn it, and use it as a foot-stool. Reaching up, I grab the edge of the box. But suddenly everything around me grows brighter and silvery, the way the world looks when it snows overnight. I find myself squinting against all this light, and then suddenly I am falling, tumbling head over heels through a big, wide wasteland of nothing.

  I start to scream. I’m falling so fast that I can hear the wind in my ears, and my eyes are watering. It’s as if I’ve been pushed out of a speeding plane. I can dimly make out black shapes as I streak by them. Then I am abruptly yanked to a halt. My T-shirt has caught on a hook, and I find myself bobbing, the wool bunched up around my shoulders.

  Except it’s not a hook. When I look around, I realize that I am hanging from a gigantic letter J.

  Until the curl of the J snaps beneath my weight and sends me free-falling once again.

  As I tumble, color begins to bleed into the space around me—faint at first, and then growing darker and more full of pigment, until I am sure I’m going to smack against the ground at any moment. I cover my face with my arms and try to curl into the smallest ball possible, so that I won’t get hurt when it happens.

  “Oomph!” With a blow that knocks the breath out of me, I land on a hard stack of something. A pile of books scatters, and a cloud of dust puffs up around me. I gingerly get to my feet, taking inventory of my bones to make sure nothing’s broken. From the corner of my eye, I see movement, and I whip around with my arms in a karate pose, as if I might be able to intimidate whoever else is here.

  The intruder makes the same exact movement.

  I take a step forward, and realize that I am looking into a mirror. At least, I think it’s a mirror—even if the reflection I’m seeing isn’t quite me.

  Once, my mother took me to Montreal. We went to a town square, which had come alive at dusk with street performers and vendors. Artists sat beneath umbrellas, drawing sketches of fidgeting children. My mother had a portrait drawn of me just for fun. You could certainly see that there was
a resemblance, but to be honest, the picture kind of freaked me out. It made me look flat and two-dimensional, not really me at all.

  The image I’m staring at in the mirror looks exactly the same way.

  Slowly, I reach out a finger to touch this odd girl who might or might not be me—When there is a high-pitched shriek to my left. I am knocked off my feet and pinned down by a scarred, goateed man I’d recognize anywhere.

  “You thief!” Rapscullio cries. “If you’re as awful as the prince says, you’ll be a dragon’s meal before nightfall.”

  * * *

  I am making this all up. That’s the only explanation I have for the fact that I am being dragged along by a fictional character through the Enchanted Forest. But if I am making this all up, then how come the rope Rapscullio has wrapped around my wrists is rubbing them raw? How come I can smell woodsmoke coming from Orville’s cabin and feel the fairies—the size of mosquitoes on steroids—tugging at my hair and pulling at my clothes?

  I know I should be freaking out, but I’m too busy looking around at this world I’ve dreamed of for so long. Above me, where there should be sky, are distant, dangling bits of letters. Beyond them, I can barely make out colors and shapes, as if I’m looking at the sun from the bottom of a pool.

  “Oh my gosh.” I gasp. “Is that the royal castle?”

  “No, it’s a loaf of bread,” Rapscullio mutters. “Oliver told me you were a felon, but he didn’t mention that you’re feebleminded…”

  If this is the castle, then I’m about to see Oliver.

  Really see him, for the first time.

  I dig in my heels, stopping Rapscullio. With my bound hands, I try to smooth my hair and adjust my shirt in a way that doesn’t show the rip from the letter J. “Do I look all right?” I ask my captor.

  “I suppose, if you’re into that starving-androgynous-plebeian look.” He tugs me forward, and as if by magic, the metal portcullis rises and four heralds trumpet my arrival. Rapscullio unties my wrists and shoves me forward, so that I land on my hands and knees in the middle of a circle of nobles and ladies-in-waiting.