I swat at her. “Who asked you, anyway?”
“Ignore him,” Sparks whispers. “He got up on the wrong side of the royal bed, obviously.”
I ball my hands into fists. “WILL YOU ALL JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?”
“Well, I never,” Ember mutters.
“Honestly!” Glint seconds.
Sparks lifts her chin. “Come on, ladies. We know when we’re not being appreciated.”
They disappear between the branches of the trees in the Enchanted Forest, and Captain Crabbe follows after them.
“Not you,” I say. “You can stay.”
“Oh. Aye.” He faces me again. “Look, son. Even if what you said was possible… that doesn’t mean I’m not happy right where I am.”
“But how could you be? Doing the same thing over and over again, as if it doesn’t matter whether or not you have your own mind, or your own thoughts?”
He shrugs. “I may be doing the same thing over and over again, Oliver… but I’m doing something I love. I get to be an actor and I get to do orthodontia.” Captain Crabbe looks up at me. “What if instead of focusing on what you don’t have, you concentrated on what you’ve got?”
I snort. “A supreme amount of frustration?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a beautiful girl, in your arms, every time the story is read. A loyal sidekick who’ll do anything for you.” Captain Crabbe hesitates. “And fantastic gums.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry, lad. But sometimes the key to happiness is just expecting a little bit less.” The pirate smiles. “That way, you’ll never be disappointed.” With a cheery wave, he heads through the trails of the forest. “Must get back to the ship. By now, Walleye and Scuttle have probably lit the galley on fire.”
As I watch him walk off, I lean against the trunk of an ancient, weathered oak. Could the captain be right? If I’d never spoken with Delilah, would I know what I was missing?
That’s it. I’m going to go sit on page 43 and wait for her to come back to me, and I’ll tell her she’s right—that this is simply impossible. That there’s no way I’m ever going to transcend the pages of this story. I’ll tell her that—
“Ooomph!” I am knocked flat on my back, and for a moment, all I can see are stars circling my face. At first I assume this is payback from the fairies, but then I hear a very clear, clipped voice behind me.
“I don’t have all day….”
I frown. That’s the line Rapscullio says on page 45, once I’ve finished climbing the rock wall and have crept through the tower window where he is imprisoning Seraphima. I overhear him, and then I leap forward with my dagger drawn.
Except this isn’t page 45.
Rolling onto my belly, I look up and spy Rapscullio, who is brandishing one of the pirates’ fishing nets, rigged in a loop at the end. Just out of his reach is a stunningly brilliant spotted butterfly.
“Now what?” he growls.
Another line. From page 58, when he’s holding his sword to my throat.
I get up, brushing dirt off my knees. “What on earth are you doing?”
Startled, he faces me—and the orange butterfly wings its way into the Enchanted Forest. “I was trying to kill two birds with one stone: practicing my lines like Frump suggested, whilst also catching a specimen of Polygonia interrogationis.”
“Gesundheit.”
“You cretin. It’s a species of butterfly,” Rapscullio says. “One which has now eluded me, thanks to your interference.”
I realize that Captain Crabbe and I have walked more of a distance than I intended, that we are actually not far from Rapscullio’s lair: a small, dark hovel built into the wall of a cave and lit with hundreds of tallow candles. I think about what Queen Maureen told me—the rows and rows of love stories on the shelves of his library. “You know,” I say slowly, “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen your entire collection. Of butterflies, I mean.”
Rapscullio’s face lights up. “Oliver! Are you a closet entomologist?”
“Me?” I say. “Yes! One hundred and ten percent!” I have no idea what an entomologist is. I am hoping desperately that I haven’t just admitted to Rapscullio that I like to bathe in garlic, or dress up in ladies’ clothing.
“Well, come along, then! One never knows how much time one will have before the book is opened again.” Rapscullio cocks his net over his shoulder and takes off through the grove at a brisk clip.
I run after him. “Do you happen to know how many species of butterflies exist?”
“But of course,” he says. “There are five hundred and sixty-one. I have a book at home with illustrations of every single one.”
“Huh.” I pretend to mull over this information. “And how many have you managed to capture, exactly?”
Is it my imagination, or do his cheeks go pink? “Well, so far, only forty-eight. But then again, I only have sixty pages in which to collect them.”
By now, we have reached the moldy wooden door of his residence. “What if I told you that you could catch the other five hundred and thirteen species?”
Rapscullio pauses, one hand on the doorknob. “You know, it’s not nice to tease.”
“I’m not, Rapscullio. I swear it.” I follow him into his lair. I’ve been here a million times, of course, but it never fails to creep me out a bit. The walls are slightly damp to the touch, and mist rises from a mossy floor. In one corner is a cluttered desk that has been fashioned out of animal bones and rotted wood. The only natural light comes through a hole cut into the rock wall of the cave, and it illuminates an easel with a large canvas propped upon it: a half-finished portrait of Queen Maureen as a young girl, the crush who—in the story—led Rapscullio into a life of evil. There are a half dozen more pictures of her scattered around the small space, as well as some of dragons breathing fire.
“Here’s the thing,” I say, shrugging off the observation. “I think there might be a portal of sorts. A way to get out of this fairy tale into the real world. And in the real world, Rapscullio, you could spend every minute of your day hunting for butterflies you can only imagine in your wildest dreams.”
“Why would I have to do that?” he says. “I can do the same thing right here.”
“But you said there were only forty-eight types—”
“So far,” Rapscullio retorts. He elbows me out of the way, his bony arm reaching behind me for a painting that I haven’t noticed. Moving aside Maureen’s half-finished face, he sets this new canvas on the easel.
It is a perfect, realistic replica of the exact room in which we are standing. In it is an easel. And on that easel is a canvas with an exact replica of this room as well. And so on and so on. In fact, it makes me a little dizzy to stare at the picture, as if a window has opened up directly in front of me.
“Wow,” I say, impressed. “Maybe you should give up the villain thing and become an artist.”
“Watch and learn, my friend,” Rapscullio says. He lifts his painter’s palette and dips a crusty brush into a splat of crimson. Then, with careful, fine strokes, he adds a glorious butterfly to the canvas, hovering just over the desk. He finishes with some yellow and black touches, then steps back to survey his handiwork. “Voilà,” he says, and as I watch, the butterfly slowly evaporates off the painting.
And reappears four inches in front of my nose, before flitting out the window.
“Make that forty-nine species,” Rapscullio says.
In one of the flashbacks of the fairy tale, we learn how Rapscullio managed to get a dragon to terrorize the kingdom and kill King Maurice. Instead of chasing one down in the Hidden Highlands, where the beasts are rumored to live, he conjures one with a magical easel. Anything painted on the canvas would peel itself free, just as three-dimensional and alive as the rest of us.
I can’t believe I’d forgotten that.
“Hang on,” I say, flabbergasted. “You can create anything you want just by painting it—even when the story isn’t being read?”
 
; In reply, he picks up another paintbrush and sketches a steaming mug onto the desk in the painting. It immediately appears in his hand. “Some tea?” he offers.
“Rapscullio, this is huge. This is bigger than huge. You can actually put anything you want into this story?”
“So it seems,” he says. “I don’t know why it works when the story isn’t in play. Or why I can draw something other than Pyro into existence. But I must admit it’s been rather handy.”
“Do you ever paint anything other than butterflies?”
Rapscullio looks down, sheepish. “Last week I had the most intense craving for chocolate-covered gooseberries, and I painted a bowl of them and ate until I thought I was going to explode.”
“If you can paint something into the story,” I say slowly, thinking, “can you paint something out of it?”
He opens his mouth to reply, but before he does, we hear Frump’s frantic voice, as if on loudspeaker:
Places, everyone! Book is opening! We have light along the seam, people! And remember, make this performance award-worthy!
And then, all of a sudden, I am falling backward and tumbling head over heels, until I land, catlike, clinging to a sheer rock wall on page 43.
Delilah
EVERY TIME I GO TO SWIM PRACTICE, I AM the last one out of the locker room. I just don’t have any great eagerness to rush toward an hour of torture. I am the swimmer who comes in twenty-fifth out of twenty-five competitors, no matter what the stroke. I’m the one whose coach practically cringes each time she calls my name to get onto the blocks.
Today, though, I feel a little different. Maybe it’s talking to Oliver—but I actually think that today, I might not come in last during our mock races. After all, he seems to believe in my ability to do the impossible—so why shouldn’t I?
“Swimmers, take your marks,” my coach says, and I slip into the far right lane, hanging on to the edge of the pool in preparation for the backstroke. I fix my goggles and adjust my swimming cap, glancing down the row of my teammates. I’m next to Holly Bishop, who came in third in the state in the backstroke. Awesome. Farther down the line are some freshmen, and then in the far left lane is Allie McAndrews, the cheerleader, who (as far as I can tell) swims only because it gives her the chance to wear a bathing suit and flirt with the guys on the team.
There is an electronic beep, and I duck under the water and push off the wall, undulating in the first few meters. Already, it feels different to me, as if I am a creature of the sea—a mermaid, like the ones in Oliver’s story—with a tail so powerful I could outswim a boat, much less Holly Bishop. I break the surface and stare up at the fluorescent lights of the aquatic center, streaking blindly backward. I am a machine. I am invincible.
I do my flip turn and when I surface again I can hear my fellow competitors yelling and cursing—and my coach screaming my name. That’s how fast I’m going; nobody can believe that finally this day has come for ol’ Delilah McPhee. Any moment now, I’m going to feel it—the electronic sensor board that will the stop the clock and herald my win. There is a flurry of water rushing beneath me, and my outstretched arm smacks something hard behind me—
“Owwwww!”
Sputtering, I pivot and rip off my goggles to find Allie McAndrews holding her nose, which is now streaming with blood in the deep end. “Are you kidding?” she screams.
I look at her, horrified, and then at some of the other girls on the swim team who are dragging her out of the pool. “Everybody out,” my coach yells. “Bodily fluid in the water!”
“I… I’m sorry,” I stammer, wondering what Allie McAndrews was doing in my lane. But then I glance around.
Somehow, I’ve managed to cross five pool lanes, to the far left one Allie had been swimming in. And with my killer backstroke, I’ve probably broken her nose.
* * *
“How was swimming?” my mother asks as soon as I slide into the passenger seat of her car.
“I’m quitting. Swim team, high school, life in general.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” My phone beeps. There’s a new text from Jules, but I don’t even feel like telling her about my latest catastrophe. Besides, I’m sure she’ll figure it out at school on Monday when I become an even bigger pariah than I already am.
My mother glances at me. “Well, whatever it was, it’s nothing a double chocolate milk shake from Ridgeley’s Diner can’t fix. Let’s stop there for dinner.”
I know, for my mom, this is a big deal. We aren’t the kind of people who eat out a lot. We can’t afford to. “Thanks,” I mutter. “But I really just want to go home.”
“Delilah,” my mother says, frowning at me. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, Mom. I just have… a lot of homework.”
I successfully manage to avoid conversation for the rest of the ride home. When we pull into the driveway, I rush into the house and upstairs to my room. The book is lying on my bed, just where I left it.
I open to page 43 without even trying—the spine is developing a natural split there, I think—and find Oliver at the bottom of the rock cliff. He offers me a brilliant smile. “Did you enjoy swim practice?”
I’ve managed to hold it together through the end of practice; through the locker room, where everyone was whispering and giving me dirty glares; through the ten-minute car ride home. But now, in front of Oliver, I let go and burst into tears. As I do, droplets splash on the page. One lands on Oliver and bursts over his head like a water balloon, leaving him soaking wet.
“Sorry,” I say, and sniffle. “I had a pretty lousy afternoon.”
“Maybe I can cheer you up, then,” he says.
Just being here cheers me up, I think, and I realize that at swim practice, when my whole life was falling apart, the one person I really wanted to see was Oliver.
Who, technically, isn’t really a person.
I wipe my eyes. “I just practically drowned the most popular girl in my school—the same one I crippled last year. Monday morning when I go to school every single student in the building is going to hate me.”
“I won’t hate you,” Oliver says loyally.
I smile a little. “Thanks. But unfortunately, you don’t go to my school.”
“Ah, but maybe I could—sooner than you think….”
My eyes widen as I realize what he’s talking about. “You found another way out?” I would much rather talk about Oliver’s problems than my own.
“Well, I found some kind of portal, at the very least! I met with Rapscullio, and he’s a brilliant painter!”
“Painter? I thought he was a villain!”
“No,” Oliver says. “Remember, I told you, that’s just his role in the story. Anyway, he’s figured out how to paint an object onto a special canvas that’s an identical portrait of his lair… and have that object magically appear.”
“That’s how he creates Pyro, the dragon—”
“Exactly. But apparently the mechanism works even when the story isn’t in play.”
I shake my head. “How will that help? It’s not like Rapscullio lives here. He can’t just paint you into this world.”
“Yes, but I think I might be able to paint myself out of my own.”
I ponder this for a moment. “That won’t work. You’d just wind up repainted somewhere else in your story. Like a clone.”
“A scone?”
“No, a cl—Never mind.” I get up from the bed and start pacing in front of it. “If there was a way, though, to get a painting of my world into Rapscullio’s lair, then maybe—”
“I thought you might need some comfort food….” At the sound of a voice, I whirl around to find my mother standing in the doorway with a dinner tray. There’s a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. She peers around the room. “Who on earth are you talking to, Delilah?”
“My… a friend.”
My mother glances around again. “But there’s no one here….”
r /> “Oliver’s on the phone,” I say quickly. “Speaker phone. Isn’t that right, Oliver?” He doesn’t answer, of course, and I feel myself blushing furiously. “It’s a pretty bad connection.”
My mother’s eyebrows raise. It’s a boy? she mouths silently.
I nod.
She gives me a thumbs-up and—leaving the tray—backs out of my room. “That was close,” I tell him, and sigh.
He grins. “What’s for dinner?”
“Can we be serious here?” I say. “I don’t suppose you’ve taken any art classes?”
Oliver laughs. “Those,” he replies, “are for princesses.”
“Oh yeah? Tell that to Michelangelo. Let’s say that someone painted over that magic canvas so it isn’t a portrait of Rapscullio’s lair… but instead a painting of my bedroom. And then you happen to start to paint yourself onto it. Logic says that—”
“I’ll wind up in your bedroom!” Oliver’s eyes shine. “Delilah, you are amazing!”
When he says those words, a shiver runs the length of my spine. What if he did show up right now, sitting on my bed? Would he high-five me? Hug me?
Kiss me?
At the thought of that, my cheeks burn like they’re on fire. I hold my palms up against them, hoping Oliver hasn’t noticed.
“Ah, now I’ve embarrassed you,” he says. “All right, then. You are not amazing. You’re perfectly ordinary. Run-of-the-mill. Completely dismissible.”
“Shut up,” I say, but I’m smiling. “I want to try an experiment. Have you got your dagger?”
“Of course,” Oliver replies. He draws it from its sheath. “Why?”
“Draw a picture of me. On the rock wall.”
He blinks. “Right now?”
“No, next Thursday.”
“Oh, good.” Oliver starts to put the dagger away.
“I was joking! Of course right now!”
Is it my imagination, or does he look a little green? “Right,” Oliver mutters. “A portrait.” He poises the tip of the knife over the granite. “Of you.” He steps forward, blocking my view as he begins to etch on the rock. Twice, he looks over his shoulder to peer at my face.