Between the Lines

  “It did,” I say, grasping his arm. “I know it seems crazy and impossible, but you have to believe me—it’s real. He’s real. And I promised I’d help him get out of this book.”

  This is huge. If I’m not the only person who can hear Oliver, then there’s somebody else in this world who can help me save him. And yet, I feel the tiniest twinge in my chest, thinking that if I’m not the only person who hears Oliver, it makes the connection between us a little less special.

  “What is that?” Oliver’s eyes gleam. I follow his gaze off the edge of the page to the computer screen, which has rebooted and shows a massive army of aliens attacking Earth.

  “Battle Zorg 2000,” I reply. “It’s a computer game.”

  “How did all those little people get inside the box?”

  I’m not about to give Oliver a tutorial on electronics. “I’ll explain it later. All you need to know is that that little box is the machine Jessamyn Jacobs used when she wrote Between the Lines. The original story is still in there.”

  “So what?” Edgar and Oliver speak simultaneously—and then look at each other.

  “Oliver, you couldn’t change the ending of the book. And Jessamyn Jacobs may not be willing to change the ending of the book.” I wait for him to meet my gaze. “But I’m going to try.”

  page 52

  In the dungeon below Timble Tower, with rats running over his boots and bats screeching past his face in the dark, Oliver thought this was a rather ignominious way to end one’s life story.

  That is: failing in one’s attempt to rescue a potential bride.

  He felt sorry for Seraphima, but he felt even sorrier for himself.

  He would never ride Socks again at breakneck speed across a meadow.

  He’d never throw a stick for Frump to fetch.

  He’d never rule a kingdom.

  He’d never feel the rain on his face.

  He’d never kiss his true love.

  Think on the bright side, Oliver, he schooled himself. He’d never have to worry about going bald. He’d never have to suffer through another meal of liver and onions. He’d never get chicken pox.

  He wouldn’t have to feel that horrible little itch on the small of his back, which he couldn’t reach because his hands were tied behind him.

  Frustrated, he tried to inch his bound hands up toward the itch, but instead, he only managed to jostle his tunic.

  Something clattered to the stone floor.

  In the dim light, Oliver squinted. The shark’s tooth that the mermaids had given him. He’d kept it, like a good-luck amulet, in his pocket. After all, it didn’t have much use, unless you were a shark in need of dentures.

  Or, perhaps, tied up in the dungeon of a tower.

  Falling to his knees, Oliver fumbled for the tooth and managed to roll over it. With careful, small movements, he started to saw through the ropes that were binding him. It felt like it would take forever, and Seraphima didn’t have forever. Any minute now, Rapscullio was going to take her as his own bride.

  Oliver felt something scramble up his boot and then along his leg. One of the rats. The rodent, hearing some movement, had decided to get in on the action. Amazed, Oliver held still while the rat chewed through the rope enough for him to use his own strength to burst free.

  The tower was too old to have formal cells, so Oliver only had to hoist himself out of the dank, fetid pit where he’d been dumped. Silently, he climbed the circular stone stairs, listening for the sound of Rapscullio’s voice. When he reached the tower room and poked his head inside, however, it was empty.

  Or so he thought, until someone leaped onto his back from behind and started beating him around the ears.

  In a cloud of tulle and taffeta, he wrestled Seraphima to the ground, pinning her by her wrists. “You’re not Rapscullio!” she gasped.

  He grinned. “Disappointed, are you?”

  Seraphima shook her head and smiled. She was beautiful when she smiled. Then again, Oliver thought, she was beautiful when she didn’t smile too. “I knew you’d come for me,” she said.

  Oliver stared down at her, suddenly convinced that he could slay a hundred men, if necessary. Was that all it took to be brave? Knowing that someone believed in you?

  “I have a plan,” Oliver whispered, pulling her to her feet. “But I need your dress to make it work.”

  OLIVER

  I’M NOT SO SURE I AGREE WITH DELILAH.

  In the first place, even if she manages to rewrite the story, that doesn’t mean the fairy tale won’t try to correct itself the way it’s done a hundred times before.

  Second, I feel a little uncomfortable watching Delilah sit at this computer box looking for the story in its contents. It’s like sifting through someone’s mind. Like stealing.

  “I think this is a bad idea,” I say out loud.

  Delilah sighs. “Then tell me, Oliver—what are we supposed to do? We’ve tried everything else.”

  “I thought you told us that the author herself said you can’t change a story once it’s been told—”

  “Which is exactly why this makes sense,” Delilah says. “We’ll be the only ones with this edited version.”

  I can feel this Edgar character staring at me intently. Every now and then he jabs a finger up against my face, bending my world, still finding it hard to believe what’s right before his eyes. “Did you see that?” he says. “He moved, right?”

  Delilah swivels in her chair and, just like that, is out of my line of vision. “I can’t see you,” I holler, and she turns, exasperated.

  “Edgar, can you prop up the book?” she asks.

  I cling to the rock wall as Edgar tips me sideways, jabbing the points of a sagging letter k into my back before righting me again.

  “Could we make this snappy?” he asks. “I kind of want to get back to my game.”

  I know Delilah has a computer too—she’s mentioned this word to me before, and I’ve heard the faint clicking of her hands doing something computer-related, but I’ve never actually seen the instrument. There’s a huge window with pictures floating on it, and it’s attached by some sort of umbilical cord to what looks like an open book, with all the letters arranged in neat rows in a foreign language I cannot read.

  Delilah’s hands move over this odd book, and letters appear on the window, as if by magic. “That’s amazing!” I cry out. “I must tell Orville about this!”

  Delilah doesn’t seem to hear me. “The file won’t open. There’s a password. It’s five letters.”

  “E-D-G-A-R,” I suggest.

  Delilah types the word and hits another key. There is a high-pitched beep, but nothing changes on the big window in front of her.

  “Can you think of anything else?” she asks Edgar. “Did you have a pet?”

  “I’m allergic to everything but naked mole rats….”

  “How about your dad’s name?” Delilah suggests.

  Edgar looks down at the ground. “Isaac.”

  I watch Delilah’s hands: I-S-A-A-C. Again, that high-pitched beep. Delilah bangs her fist on the computer table. “I can’t believe we’re this close,” she murmurs. “Is there any other password you can think of, Edgar?”

  He throws out suggestions: the street address of the house where his mother was born, the name of his mother’s childhood pet, the title of her first published novel. But nothing works. With each failed attempt, I feel heavier and heavier, as if I am physically becoming part of the material of this book.

  After a fruitless half hour, Delilah gets out of the chair and kneels down so that I can see her more clearly. “I’m sorry, Oliver,” she whispers, her voice thick with disappointment. “I tried.” She reaches her hand toward me, a five-fingered eclipse, and I raise my hand to hers. But it’s not like it was when she was inside the pages with me. Between our skin, once again, is the thinnest layer of paper.

  Orville once told me that people never really touch. That’s because we’re all just a bunch of very tiny atoms surrounded b
y electromagnetic force. Even when we hold hands we’re not holding hands. The only things coming into contact are the electrons caught between us.

  It didn’t make any sense to me at the time; it was more of Orville’s scientific mumbo jumbo. But now… well, now I completely understand.

  “So that’s it?” Edgar interrupts my thoughts. “We just quit?”

  “It was probably a stupid idea anyway,” Delilah murmurs.

  “But what about him?” Edgar jerks a thumb in my direction. “Everyone deserves a happy ending.” He shakes his head. “I sound just like my mother. She used to say that to me every night before she tucked me in.”

  Delilah slowly turns, counting on her fingers. She slips into the chair again, and her hands fly over the letters in front of the computer. “Everyone,” she repeats, and she types the letter E.

  “Deserves.” D.

  “A Happy Ending.” A-H-E.

  And just like that, the window of the computer is filled with hundreds of words—words I have lived a thousand times, every day of my life.

  Delilah scrolls down and starts to speak. Before I can even realize what she is doing, Edgar flips through the pages of the book to find the part she is reading aloud.

  Tumbling head over heels, I am slammed into the margins. A fairy crashes into me so quickly I cannot recognize her; just when I think I’ve caught a glimpse of her silver hair, all the breath is knocked out of me as Trogg the troll rolls like a cannonball and hits me square in the chest. “Places!” Frump shrieks, and Queen Maureen floats past me, the bell of her gown acting like a sail as we whip through a dozen pages to the final scene.

  The sand is hot beneath my boots. Seraphima is wrapped in silk and lace and smug delight, clasping my hand. But for the first time, she’s not looking at me. With a wistful expression, her gaze is following Frump as he waddles across the beach, the wedding ring tied to his collar. Socks waits and whinnies in the distance, with cans tied to his saddle and a big sash that reads JUST MARRIED fluttering out behind his hooves.

  Delilah’s voice narrates, as if on a loudspeaker, and like a puppet, I do as I’m told.

  “On Everafter Beach, as far as the eye could see, the entire kingdom gathered to witness the wedding of Prince Oliver and Princess Seraphima. Captain Crabbe and his mates had illuminated the beach with torches fueled by laughing gas and ignited with a gentle flame of Pyro’s breath. The mermaids had crafted a long aisle of crushed pink shells; the trolls had built a gazebo of twisted willow fronds, which Orville had decorated with magical flowers that glowed from within, and that sang as the bride approached. The fairies carried Seraphima’s silver train as she gazed up at the man she wanted to be with forever.”

  I can feel them bubbling up inside me, the same words I have said so many times before.

  “Seraphima,” I speak, my voice an echo of Delilah’s, “everyone deserves a happy ending. Will you be mine?”

  Hearing the sentence, I wonder why I didn’t think of it as a password.

  “Oh, Oliver,” Seraphima replies. “Do you even have to ask?”

  I may be the only one who notices the slight tremor in her voice. Could it be, finally, that she realizes there’s more to us than just the story?

  This is the part where she launches herself into my arms and slobbers all over me. I get the sense that perhaps for the first time, neither one of us wants to play the parts we must. I close my eyes and stiffen my spine, bracing myself for what’s to come, but instead, I feel a magnetic pull on my foot, tugging me backward, as if I have absolutely no choice but to take a step away from Seraphima.

  “Oliver,” Delilah says aloud as she types, “suddenly wrenches away from his would-be bride.” She glances over her shoulder at me. “How’s that?” she asks.

  My mouth fills with the sharp edges of words that poke into my tongue and force me to spit them out. “I can’t marry you,” I say, hearing Delilah speak the same sentence simultaneously. “I’m being sent to start my own story, in a different world, with Delilah Eve McPhee.”

  Seraphima blinks at me, her eyes bugging out. She looks hopeful, and scared, and confused, but she knows better than to question the plot when the book is wide open and there’s a Reader involved. I can see, from the corner of my eye, everyone else shifting uncomfortably. After all, this isn’t the fairy tale they know.

  There is a tingle in my right hand. At first I think Seraphima has succeeded in cutting off my circulation, but then I realize my flesh is fading, flickering in and out like a flame, until in an instant, it’s gone.

  “Your arm!” Seraphima gasps, breaking the rules. Or so I think, until I realize that Delilah has said it too. I glance out of the book and see a disembodied wrist and hand floating in the space between Edgar and Delilah.

  “I think it’s working,” Edgar whispers.

  I’m feeling light-headed, and finding it hard to breathe. When I look down, there is a quivering in the fabric of my tunic, and suddenly, it begins to unravel and vanish before my eyes.

  “Oliver,” Delilah says, “your tunic. It’s weaving itself together in front of us!”

  My heart is pounding so hard I am certain that everyone on the beach can hear it, and possibly Delilah and Edgar too. Could this really be working? Could I be this close to being free?

  I look at Frump, who stares at me with a mix of betrayal and fear on his furry little face. I can’t speak to him—I haven’t been given the words—but I silently mouth a message. Goodbye, friend. I close my eyes, and hope for the best.

  “Edgar?” An unfamiliar voice floats over the beach. “What are you two reading?”

  My world reels and then rights itself. Delilah’s grabbed the book and has propped me against the computer screen. Now I can still peer into the room, but my perspective is from a different angle. Edgar has stepped forward so that the translucent phantom limbs that are knitting themselves together again are blocked by his own body—so that as Jessamyn Jacobs enters, she cannot see what’s happening.

  “That old fairy tale,” Edgar says, his voice too high. How can she not guess that he’s lying? “I forgot how it ends.”

  “Happily ever after, of course,” Jessamyn says.

  “Right.” Delilah smiles brightly. “Of course.”

  All of sudden, I can feel the blood rushing back to my chest and my arm. It’s like they are on fire, like I am about to burst out of my skin. Groaning, I fall to my knees on the sand, crippled by pain.

  “I just came to say good night. Delilah, do you need anything?”

  “I’m fine….” She smiles. “Thanks. For everything.”

  Although I am kneeling now, I feel myself being dragged closer to Seraphima again. Yanked upward by some kind of reverse, perverse antigravity. My hand smacks against hers, glues itself tight in a clasp.

  I know what’s happening. Just like every other attempt to release me from the book, this one has failed. The story always wins.

  Jessamyn comes closer, another Reader. I watch her peer down at the page. “I used to love this final scene….”

  Edgar grabs the book, making my head spin. “Whatever,” he says, and he slams the cover shut, so that I collapse to the ground.

  There is an immediate buzz as the other characters discuss the odd incident that has just unfolded before their eyes. Seraphima bursts into tears, covers her face with her hands, and runs off the beach. Orville rushes toward me, feeling the length of my arm. “My boy,” he says, “what sort of black magic was that?”

  “I’m fine,” I tell him, and then I address the others. “It was a freak accident or something. Everything’s back to normal.”

  At my reassurance, the little group begins to disband, still talking about what they’ve witnessed. Only Frump remains, sitting beside me. “Ollie,” he says, “we’ve been friends too long for you to lie to me.”

  I scuff my boot in the sand. This is how it all began, with a chessboard we’d drawn between us. “I want out, Frump,” I admit. “I don’t belong here any mor
e than you belong in the body of a hound.”

  “But that’s not for us to decide,” Frump says.

  “How come I’m the only one who gets the happy ending?” I say. “Didn’t that ever seem wrong to you?”

  “I guess I just assumed you were the lucky one.”

  “We could all be lucky,” I say. “We could all be who we want to be, instead of who someone else told us to be.”

  Frump shakes his head. “You’re making things up, Ollie.”

  “Isn’t that how we all got here in the first place?” I say gently.

  Frump’s eyes light up as he imagines the possibility of a future different from the one he expected. And then he remembers what happened to me minutes ago. “You were trying to leave,” he states slowly, understanding.

  “Yes. I can’t stay here.”

  Frump sits a little taller. “Then I’ll go with you.”

  I nod my chin toward the distance, where Seraphima is sitting on a rock near the edge of the sea, still delicately wiping away her tears. “That’s not really what you want, is it?” I smile faintly at him. “If I get out of here, you have my word: I will do everything in my power to make sure you’re a human again.”

  He scratches behind his ear, lost in thought. “Ollie? Could I ask you for something else? If you do get out of here… could you make… her… notice me?”

  “I think she already has,” I say, elbowing him gently. “Go on.”

  He shuffles down the beach to the rock where Seraphima is sitting. Absently, the princess begins to pat him on the head. Frump glances back at me, just once, his tail wagging.

  I raise my right arm, a wave goodbye. My right arm, which is just where it always has been and always will be—drawn attached to me, on a page I may never escape.

  Delilah

  THE MINUTE HIS MOTHER LEAVES, EDGAR turns to me. “This,” he says, wide-eyed, “is wicked awesome!”

  I immediately sit down at the computer, furiously typing THE NEW END to the altered fairy tale that will allow Oliver out of the story—but the cursor leaps upward and begins to erase the words I’ve already written. The word NEW is the last to go, leaving THE END just the way it used to be.