Off the Page

  Delilah returns, her arm around Seraphima. I can tell that without Delilah’s support, she would have collapsed by now. She stands stiffly in front of the open grave, her eyes swollen and her cheeks red, as I lift Frump into my arms and gently lower him.

  Seraphima starts to cry again and presses a tissue to her nose. “Sometimes at a funeral,” Delilah says, “people say a few words.”

  Seraphima nods. “A few words,” she repeats solemnly.

  “Frump,” Delilah continues, “I didn’t know you very well. But I’ve never seen someone love as hard, or as loyally, as you did.”

  She looks up at me, and I realize it is my turn to speak. I clear my throat. “I hope that wherever you are, you’re finally who you want to be.”

  Seraphima falls to her knees, sobbing, and Delilah glances at me, communicating silently. I lift Seraphima into my arms and carry her back inside, settling her on the living room couch. By the time I come back out, Delilah has already filled the pit halfway with dirt.

  For a moment, I am frozen with agony watching her. Then I grab the shovel from her hands and begin to viciously toss heaps of earth into the grave. My whole body trembles with the effort, and sweat pours down my back. It takes Delilah three tries to wrench the shovel from my hands.

  “Stop!” she pleads. “That’s enough!”

  My face twists with sorrow. “This is my punishment,” I say. “He wouldn’t have been here if it weren’t for me.”

  “Oh, Oliver,” she murmurs, and I fall into her arms, giving in to the grief.

  When you love someone, silence isn’t awkward. Delilah sits next to me, her arms wrapped tightly around me, and neither of us speaks. I was born in a sea of words, I lived and breathed language, but right now, this quiet is the most comfortable place in the world.

  When Delilah’s mother comes home, she spends an hour outside at Frump’s grave with Dr. Ducharme’s arm around her. Seraphima retires just after supper, saying she has a headache, although I know it is just the day’s events that have overwhelmed her. For the first time since I came to the house this morning, I find myself alone with Delilah in her room, with a Herculean task ahead of me.

  “Are you ready?” Delilah asks as she pulls the fairy tale from her shelf.

  I take a deep breath and open the book to the final page.

  The entire cast of characters stands in position on Everafter Beach, in an odd mash-up of fairy tale and science fiction. The mermaids swim in the shallows; Captain Crabbe steers a spacecraft; the trolls are shooting lasers from behind a barricade. Edgar stands with his sword raised high in victory. Beside him, Jules is pulling at the chafing neck of her princess gown. As soon as she sees our faces, she relaxes. “I told you guys it would be Delilah and Oliver,” she says. “Now can I get out of this corset?”

  But I’m not focusing on her words. My eyes fall to the spot where Frump would have stood and where, instead, Humphrey now holds a laser gun in his jaw.

  “Whoa, boy,” Edgar says, grabbing the gun as the dog swings it wildly back and forth. “That’s not a toy.” He glances up at me. “And before you ask, no, we haven’t found another portal yet. But maybe if you stopped interrupting us by opening the book, we could actually get some work—”

  “That’s not why I called you here.” I swallow. “I don’t know how to say this….”

  Delilah covers my hand with hers where it rests on the edge of the page. “It’s Frump.”

  “He…he’s dead,” I manage to say.

  Queen Maureen blinks up at me. “For goodness’ sake, darling. That happens to Rapscullio every day. Just close the book.”

  “I don’t live in a book anymore,” I reply. “And neither did Frump, when he died. It’s different here. There are no second chances. It’s…permanent.”

  A cloud of shock settles over the cast. “What if we bring him back here?” Socks asks. “Maybe he just needs to be back in the book?”

  “It doesn’t work that way, my boy,” Orville answers. “When you’re in a given world, you must play by its rules. Frump can’t die out there and be resurrected here.”

  One of the mermaids starts to cry, and then another, and then the third, and the tide begins to rise. Pyro exhales a plume of white smoke. Socks sits down heavily on his rump. “But he was my friend,” the horse wails. “How can he just be gone?”

  “I know it hurts,” Delilah says, “but every day, it will hurt a little less.” She turns away from the book to wipe her eyes.

  If I stay with them while they grieve, I’m going to be ripped apart all over again too, and I have barely managed to regain control since the funeral. “It’s more important than ever that you find a way for Seraphima to return to the book,” I tell Edgar. “She needs to be back there with all of you.”

  Rapscullio puts his arm around Queen Maureen’s shoulders. One by one, the fairies emit a shower of sparks, becoming memorial candles for Frump.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell everyone, my voice husky with regret. “I never thought something like this could happen.”

  And then I can’t hold myself together anymore. I step back before everyone sees me fall to pieces. Before I can, however, Delilah closes the book.

  I sit down on the edge of her bed, burying my face in my hands. “How can anyone survive in this world?” I ask. “How can you keep letting go of people you care about?”

  I don’t really mean for Delilah to answer, but she sits beside me and threads her fingers through mine. “Because you know they’re in a better place,” she says quietly. “That’s what everyone always tells you, but I didn’t really think it was true, until now.”

  There is something in the tone of her voice, a catch to her words, that makes me look up at her. Her eyes shine with tears, and she’s biting her lower lip. “Since Edgar told us he wanted to get out of the book, I’ve been trying to find a way to keep you here too. When you love someone, you want to keep him safe. It’s why Frump wanted Seraphima to go back to the book with him.” She takes a deep, rattling breath. “I am so scared of losing you forever. I don’t think I could live, if you didn’t. Which is why I realize Seraphima isn’t the only one who needs to leave.”

  Slowly her words swim into focus in my mind, and I realize what she’s saying. “But I love you.”

  “I love you too. So much that I’d rather have you a world away, safe, than not have you at all.”

  I want to argue, but I know I’ll never win. The proof is in Delilah’s backyard, under the willow tree. The proof is in the dirt still caked beneath my fingernails.

  Delilah throws herself into my arms, and I clutch her, as if holding her tightly enough were all it would take to keep me from falling back into those pages. I hold her as if she could leave her impression on my skin, on my heart.

  I try to commit all of this to memory: how it feels to touch her, the vanilla scent of her hair.

  I wonder how many people I will lose in one day.

  Death is the guest you didn’t invite: arriving when you least expect it, when you least need it, and when you least want it.

  It’s a blow from behind.

  A knife in the back.

  The shadow that’s following you.

  It’s why you always keep looking over your shoulder.

  EDGAR

  How do you explain the idea of never in a world where possibility is endless?

  Socks turns to me, his eyes clouded with confusion. “So when Oliver said that Frump isn’t coming back,” he asks, “he just meant, like, this week…right?”

  I look around to find everyone staring at me, waiting for answers.

  The way people explained death to me, after my dad was gone, was a load of crap. He’s in a better place. He’ll always be with you. As long as you remember him, he’s still alive. None of that’s true. When someone you care about dies, no matter how hard you hang on, he starts to fade away. One day you can’t remember the pitch of his voice anymore. Then you forget the way he smells. And before you know it, the only me
mories you have are the ones that come from photographs.

  “Not this week,” I tell Socks. “Not ever.”

  “Could we maybe talk to Frump about this?” Socks asks. “I’m pretty sure I can get him to reconsider dying.”

  “It’s not his choice,” I explain. “It’s like getting erased. Like he’s not part of the story anymore.”

  “Like Oliver?” asks Glint, the fairy.

  “Yeah, kind of…if Oliver could never open this book. And if you were never able to speak to him again.”

  I glance around at the stunned faces on the beach, wondering if I’m only making this worse. If Oliver were here instead of me, he’d know exactly what to say. As usual, I’m just a poor substitute.

  Socks’s upper lip trembles. “But I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

  “That’s the thing about death,” I hear as Jules steps forward. “You hardly ever do.”

  Until now, I almost forgot about her.

  The streak of white in her hair has tripled in size. She still looks ridiculous in a princess’s gown and combat boots, but the characters are hanging on her every word, as if each one is a precious gift.

  “The fact that you don’t get to say goodbye is what makes it feel so unreal,” Jules continues. “That’s why it’s so hard to wrap your head around. You feel like if someone’s going to leave forever, there should be a last hug or kiss, right? But death’s a bitch.” She sits down on a rock. “Maybe you’ll see a cloud the shape of a dog bone and you’ll call out Frump’s name, so that he can see it too—but he isn’t with you anymore. Or you might dream about him digging in the castle’s strawberry patch as if he’s still here, when he’s not. But as much as you think it hurts now, I’m sorry to say it only gets worse. Once the shock wears off and the truth sets in…that’s when you realize how much you’re missing.”

  Queen Maureen frowns. “Then what do we do?”

  Jules glances at her. “We keep on living.”

  As the group begins to disperse, Jules walks toward me. “Thanks, Dr. Phil,” I mutter.

  “Shut up, Edgar.”

  I flinch, remembering what high school was like. It was a hell of a lot easier to be silent and overlooked than to be constantly shut down.

  A spark of anger flares in me. “What makes you the expert on death, anyway?”

  “None of your business.” She glances at me. “We’d better get moving if we’re going to find that portal. Because I’m not planning on sticking around another day.”

  There must be a thousand trees in the Enchanted Forest, and we have to examine every one. Jules and I stuff our fists into the small hollows of the trunks where squirrels usually live, trying to see if there’s a hidden passage out of this book. Glint, Ember, and Sparks crawl into crevices in the trees as well, lighting them up like display cases in a museum as they peek inside, trying to find something of value.

  “I don’t get it,” Jules says, up to her elbow in a willow. “Haven’t you guys done this before?”

  “Oh yeah. I stick my hands into trees whenever I get a chance.”

  “No, I mean the whole escape-hatch thing. Isn’t that how you and Oliver switched lives in the first place?” Jules cranes her neck around a trunk. “Can’t we just Freaky Friday this and be done with it?”

  “If it were that simple, don’t you think I would have already done it?” I point out. “The way Oliver and I traded places was by rewriting the plot so that it was a sci-fi battle starring me instead of him, saying he was an imposter all along. And yeah, I guess we were able to fool the book long enough to make the switch. But the book wants to go back to its original form. It started leaving notes for Oliver in the real world. And it started to turn Frump back into a dog, before he left.”

  “So…if we wait long enough, won’t we get spit out of this book anyway?”

  “No, it’s not like that. It seems to be able to tolerate swapping characters but not messing with the story. It wants a happily-ever-after.”

  Jules rolls her eyes. “That’s so Disney.”

  “So was Miley Cyrus,” I say, and Jules laughs.

  “Can I ask a stupid question? What are we looking for? Is it an actual Easter egg?”

  That makes me think about my mom, and what Oliver said happened to her. Delilah assured me she’s totally fine now, but I want to see for myself. “It could be anything.”

  “Then I’ve definitely found it,” Jules tells me, and she holds up a handful of squirrel poop. “This is totally going to get me back home.”

  “You’re right. We’re not going to find anything here.” I knock against one of the tree trunks. “Hey, Glint,” I say, and she pops her tiny bright head out from the knothole. “You guys are free to go.”

  The fairies zip away, leaving a trail of light behind them, like the phosphorescent glow of a Fourth of July sparkler.

  “Now what?”

  “The ocean,” I suggest. “Warning: the mermaids are major hoarders. Who knows what we’ll find in there.”

  “My aunt’s a hoarder,” Jules says. “I swear, when I was there this summer, I had to army-crawl to the bathroom. And I’m pretty sure Amelia Earhart’s body is stuffed somewhere underneath piles of newspapers in the living room.”

  “Why were you at your aunt’s?”

  “My parents told me it was so that I could experience the joys of country living, like hauling slop buckets to the pigs and cleaning out the chicken coop. But in reality they were just trying to ditch me.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  Something in Jules seems to shut down. “They thought it would be good for me or something.”

  I dig my hands into my pockets. “That’s why my mother wrote this book,” I tell her. “After my dad died, I was kind of terrified. Of everything.”

  “Your dad died?”

  I shrug. “I guess neither of us lived up to our parents’ expectations, huh?” I was never going to be the kid my mother hoped I’d turn out to be—namely, Oliver. I could only be myself, but that didn’t seem to be good enough.

  I turn the corner at the edge of the last paragraph and find myself at the page break. Jules, I realize, has stopped walking. “What’s up?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m still getting used to this.”

  I grin. “Someone’s got a fear of gaps….”

  “Cut me some slack; I’ve only been here a day.” She takes a deep breath, trying to look cool, but I can see how red her cheeks are and how she’s working hard to calm herself down. It’s kind of weird to see Jules—who could probably survive a tsunami or face down the entire Taliban—get so shaken by a page break.

  Finally, something I can do better than she can.

  I reach for her hand. “Try not to overthink it,” I say, and I leap onto the next page.

  We land in the unicorn meadow. I’m still holding on to Jules. I look down at our linked hands and feel a shiver run the length of my spine. Suddenly Jules pulls her hand away from me. “I could have done it myself,” she snaps, and she walks off.

  “That seems about right,” I mutter to myself. It’s not the first time a girl has looked at me like I’m pond scum.

  I catch up to her halfway across the meadow. For a moment we just walk side by side, silent. “Hey,” I say, trying to break through the awkwardness. “What’s a hipster weigh?”

  Jules doesn’t respond.

  “An Instagram.” I pause. “Get it? Instag—”

  I break off when Jules stops dead, staring at a unicorn that’s munching on silver grass. “Am I in a drug dream?” she asks.

  “Oh, wait. It gets better. This is the unicorn meadow…and they’re eating moon grass.”

  “How high was your mom when she wrote this book?” Jules asks.

  At that, I laugh. My mom doesn’t even like to take Tylenol. “There’s an outhouse behind that tree, and I’m pretty sure it’s where Elvis died….”

  Jules grins, and just like that, any weirdness between us is gone again. “So…if we’re headed to
the ocean,” she asks, “how come we’re landlocked with a bunch of mythical creatures?”

  “Shortcut,” I explain, pointing to the cliff in the distance. “The water’s on the other side.”

  We hike across the field, Jules gently patting a unicorn as she passes by. A swarm of butterflies forms a cloud around us, a festival of color. She glances around with delight. “You know what it means when you see this many butterflies at once, right?”

  I hesitate, expecting her to say what girls always say: that it’s a guardian angel, or good luck, or just plain romantic.

  “It means there’s something dead nearby,” Jules continues. “Butterflies feed on carrion.”

  I stare at her, impressed. “Zombie butterflies,” I say. “Very cool.”

  We reach the base of the cliff and start to climb. Jules is faster than I am and reaches the top a few moments before I do. I haul myself over the lip and onto all fours, then stop dead, nearly swallowing my tongue. Jules is stripping off her gown. “What?” she asks. “Haven’t you ever seen a girl in her underwear before?”

  Well. Actually, no.

  “You’re not wearing clothes,” I point out.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious. And technically, I’m wearing the equivalent of a bikini. Aren’t we going swimming?”

  “Yeah but…”

  “Do you swim fully dressed?”

  “N-no,” I stutter.

  “Last one in’s a rotten egg,” Jules says, and she does a perfect swan dive off the cliff into the ocean.

  You can do this, I think. I hop on one foot, trying to pull off my spacesuit, and stare down with shock at a pair of dark gray tights that I did not put on this morning.

  Great. So now this book is trying to turn me into a prince.