“I know it seems excessive,” she admits. “But it’s always gone at the end of the day. About half of it winds up in Seraphima’s tower.”
Having watched that girl devour everything that was not nailed down at the mall, I hardly find this surprising.
I watch Maureen roll out a square of dough and begin to slice through it with a sharp knife, cutting it into triangles. “Now it’s my turn to ask you something,” she says. “What was it like?”
I glance at her. “You mean out there? Imagine no boundaries. No walls.”
She holds her hand up to her throat. “It seems terrifying.”
“It is. But in the best way,” I say. “There are books with so many recipes you couldn’t count them all.” I glance around the kitchen. “There are ingredients and spices from countries whose names you can barely pronounce. Pans in every shape and size. And so many people…so many people that you could bake all day and all night and still not feed everyone.”
Queen Maureen’s eyes widen in awe. “I can see why you might be struggling to be back here.”
I pick up the spatula and slop a layer of frosting onto the top of the first round of cake.
“It might not be ideal, in your situation, but we all must keep a stiff upper lip, you know. Make the best of things. It’s the lot we’ve been given.”
“But by whom?” I ask, jamming the second layer of cake onto the first. “Why should I have to be locked in here just because a woman decided to tell a story?”
“Why is the sky blue? Why does the sun rise?” Maureen says. “Can you honestly tell me that this girl of yours in the other world doesn’t have to play by rules as well?”
I think of school, of chores, of Allie McAndrews. Of all the walls that box Delilah in.
I suppose the difference isn’t that there is a box. It’s that I’m not inside it with her.
“What you need to do, dear, is find an avocation. Something to occupy yourself. Perhaps you could take up whittling. Or I hear Sparks has started a knitting circle.” She smiles. “Maybe you’ll even find that you have a knack for baking.”
We both look down at the creation between my hands. The confection lists to the left, frosting pooling on one side, with a large crack running down the center where I accidentally speared the cake with the spatula.
“Or maybe not,” Queen Maureen says kindly.
Rapscullio and I sit side by side in the unicorn meadow, in front of our respective easels. On each is a bare canvas. We both pick up a palette of paints, and I mimic his actions. One of the beasts munches moongrass just a few feet away from us, completely oblivious to the fact that he is a model.
“When we think about foreshortening,” Rapscullio instructs, “we really want to use our eyes. The horn facing us is going to be ten times larger than the back left hoof, simply because of perspective.”
He looks at me with so much hope for my understanding that I give him a toothy grin, even though he might as well be speaking ancient Greek.
“Now,” Rapscullio says, “pick up your brush, and feel the energy. Let the art flow from your mind through your fingertips. No sharp edges, just gentle movements of the hand.” He sketches with his paintbrush, and a reasonable facsimile of the unicorn appears on his canvas.
I take a deep breath and draw my first line.
“You know,” he muses, “of all the people in this book, I’m probably the only one who truly understands what you’re feeling right now.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Well, after all, I know what it’s like to not end up with the girl.”
I hesitate, my brush hovering over the canvas. “But that’s not you. That’s your character.”
“What is a man, if not his character?”
I shake my head. “It’s different. You didn’t choose to fall in love with Maureen. It was written to happen that way.”
“Did you really choose to love your Delilah? Do you remember the exact moment you made that decision? Or did it just…happen?” Rapscullio cocks his head. “Perhaps your romance was written too. By fate, by the stars. We all have authors, Oliver.”
Suddenly Pyro, flying overhead, dips low and startles the unicorn, which goes bolting into the Enchanted Forest. Rapscullio sighs. “I suppose we’ve lost our model. Let’s see how you’ve done.”
On my canvas, I haven’t drawn a unicorn. Just two stick figures, holding hands.
Rapscullio clears his throat. “Well,” he says politely, “I think you’ve really captured its essence.”
When I burst into Orville’s cottage, he is on a ladder, stirring a cauldron three times his size. “What are you—” I shake my head. “Never mind. I don’t even want to know.”
It is the first time since I’ve been back that I feel like I have a purpose. I may not be able to live in Delilah’s world, but I know how to get a glimpse of it again. If I can just see her, that might be enough to get me through the day. After all, it’s unreasonable to expect me to give her up wholly and completely, instead of weaning myself from her bit by bit.
“Ollie, my boy! I’m so glad you dropped by! I can use some help with this—Pyro is suffering from heartburn, and it’s a challenge to stir a kilo of sodium bicarbonate into twenty gallons of yogurt, but that’s the only way to keep it from tasting like tar.”
“Orville,” I begin, “do you remember when you showed me my future?” Before I escaped the book, the wizard created a plume of smoke that illustrated what was yet to come. A seed, for example, morphed into a vision of a flower. And a strand of my hair allowed me to witness a scene that now makes perfect sense: me, in an unfamiliar home, with an unfamiliar woman—Jessamyn Jacobs.
“Of course,” Orville says.
“Do you have something that can show me the present?”
Orville looks at me, confused. “You mean…your own eyes?”
“No,” I say. “I want to see the present somewhere else. I want to see someone else’s life.”
“Ah! Perhaps a telescope.”
“I don’t think that’s going to reach quite far enough.”
“This is an enchanted one,” Orville explains. He climbs down from the ladder and rummages through a satchel that I’ve seen him wear numerous times around the book. “Sometimes, when I’m being called by another character, I use this,” he confesses. “If my knees are stiff or if I’m just feeling a tad lazy, I check to see if it’s an emergency before I expend the effort to hike all the way across the pages.” He hands me the brass tube, and I extend it to its full length.
“How does it work?” I ask, peering into one end.
Orville snatches it away from me. “Not like that, naturally.” He chuckles. He sets the scope on the ground and, with a flick of his fingers, sets it spinning like a bottle. “Round and round and round it goes…. Where it will stop, nobody knows!”
“Well, that’s rubbish!” I exclaim. “What good is that going to do me?”
“No, that’s the spell, Oliver. Say it, and it will show you what you wish to see.”
“Oh.” Feeling silly, I give the telescope a good spin and repeat the incantation. It stops spinning, and the end glows like the beam of a lantern.
I lift it to my eye and squint.
I’m staring at a place I’ve never seen before, but I know it’s Delilah’s world. There are cars and streetlights and billboards. Delilah is there, and Jules, and Chris, and Edgar. They are playing what seems to be a miniature form of croquet.
Jules starts to swing her mallet, and Chris ambles behind her, wrapping her arms with his own. He starts to count, and she releases the mallet.
All the breath leaves my body.
Edgar holds Delilah, kissing her the way I ought to be.
I drop the telescope as if it is burning my palm and run as fast as I can to page 43.
First I pace.
Who does she think she is?
She’s already found my replacement.
I take out my dagger and begin to hack away
at the rock wall.
Every time I think of her, I picture Edgar’s mouth on hers, and I strike the rock until sparks shower.
By the time she finally gets around to opening the book, it is hours after I viewed that catastrophe through Orville’s telescope. She smiles down at me as if she hasn’t been snogging another fellow all afternoon.
I stand up, my fists balled at my sides. “You have quite some nerve!” I yell. “Tell me, will you take anyone, or is it just guys who look like me?”
Her jaw drops. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw you. Orville gave me an enchanted telescope, and I watched you kissing him.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’ve been spying on me?”
“You’ve been cheating on me!”
“I have not. I didn’t kiss Edgar; he kissed me. And it’s not like either of us wanted it, trust me.” She tilts her head. “How many times did I watch you kiss Seraphima?”
“You knew Seraphima meant nothing to me. It was a part I was playing.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing!”
“FINE!” I yell.
“FINE!” she shouts back.
We stare at each other for a long moment, furious. Then Delilah lifts her chin. “Is that all you have to say to me?”
My eyes flash. “Well. I imagine you’re tired from your…exertions this afternoon.”
A muscle tics in her jaw. “If all you’re going to do is insult me, I’m going to go.” She curls her hand around the edge of the book and starts to close it. It feels like the world closing in on me.
“Wait,” I say softly.
The book opens again, and she smooths the page flat.
“You have no idea how hard it was to see you doing that,” I confess.
“It’s just for a little while. Until we can come up with an excuse to stage a breakup.”
There is a voice at the door—Mrs. McPhee. “Delilah?” she calls. “Who are you talking to?”
Immediately the world goes dark as Delilah shoves the open book beneath the covers of her bed. “No one,” she says. “Jules.”
“Which is it? No one, or Jules?”
“Jules,” Delilah answers, flustered.
“Are you guys having a fight? I heard yelling.”
“We were arguing about something stupid. What movie to see this weekend. No big deal.”
There is a hesitation. “It sounded like a lot of shouting for just a movie.”
“We’re both PMSing,” Delilah says. “I’m totally exhausted, Mom. Can’t you see I want to sleep?”
There is a sound of the door closing, and suddenly Delilah’s face comes into view again.
“That was rather harsh,” I murmur. “What’s this ‘PMSing’?”
“You don’t want to know,” Delilah answers. She glances away from the book. “I wonder if my mom realized that my phone’s plugged into the wall at my desk.”
“So?”
“It makes it considerably harder to be having a conversation with Jules.” She sighs. “How long until my mother thinks there’s something wrong with me again, because I’m obsessing over this book?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ll try to be quieter next time I yell at you.”
This, at last, makes her smile.
“When he touches you,” I ask softly, “do you think of me?”
Delilah’s eyes are like molten gold. “I think of how he’s not you,” she replies. “Of how no one ever could be.”
I stare up at her. She’s my sky, my whole universe. “Tell me about your day,” I say.
The next morning, I decide to turn over a new leaf. Baking clearly isn’t my forte, art isn’t quite in my wheelhouse, and apparently stalking doesn’t qualify as a hobby. So, borrowing some equipment from Scuttle and Walleye, I head to the beach to try my hand at fishing.
No sooner have I cast my line than Marina surfaces, her tail slicing through the ocean. “You know, fish have feelings,” she says reproachfully.
“So do plants,” I point out. “How was your kelp salad this morning?”
In a huff, she dives beneath the surface. For a few moments, I enjoy the sun beating down on the crown of my head, and the lull of the waves, and the distant cries of seagulls circling overhead. It feels good to stretch my muscles as I reel in and cast again. This…this is something I could get used to.
My solitude is shattered by the wet, messy, barking arrival of a tornado of fur, which knocks me to my knees and proceeds to slobber all over my face. “Humphrey!” I hear. “Heel!”
Immediately the dog sits, his tail still quivering, so that he is moving closer inch by infinitesimal inch. His tongue hangs so far out of his mouth it nearly brushes the sand.
Seraphima clips a leash onto Humphrey’s collar. “Sorry,” she says. “We’re still working on basic training.”
The dog looks up at her. “You’re so pretty. Your hair looks like the sun.”
She blushes and pats his head. “Thanks, Humphrey.”
I put down my rod and get to my feet. “So,” I say. “How have you been?”
Seraphima looks out over the ocean. “I keep thinking it was a dream. The crazy carriage without horses…and the indoor marketplace…and how Frump…well, you know. But it wasn’t a dream, Ollie, was it?”
I shake my head. “It was real.”
Her eyes light up. “I was real,” she whispers. “I never thought about making my own choices before, I guess. I mean, when you’re a princess, why would you want to be anything other than that?” She leans toward me, conspiratorial. “Can I show you a secret?”
“Erm…yes?” I say.
Delicately she lifts the hem of her gown, hiking it to her waist to reveal a pair of blue breeches stitched to look like a pair of jeans. “They’re incredible,” she enthuses. “You can run and climb and dance in these—you can do anything—and you don’t have to worry about getting tangled up in your petticoats.”
I grin. “Oh, I know. I’m always tripping over my petticoats….”
“Right?” she agrees. “I traded Scuttle a needlepoint trivet for his spare pair of breeches. And then it really only took a few hours of sewing to alter them to fit.”
“They look splendid on you,” I say.
Her eyes grow wide. “You won’t tell anyone, will you, Ollie? It’ll be our secret?”
Of all the characters here with me, Seraphima alone truly understands what it was to live in a world other than this book. Ironically, the one person with whom I had nothing in common is now the only one I can really relate to.
I suppose that means we’re friends.
“Have you ever been fishing?” I ask.
Seraphima blinks at me. “It’s not ordinary princess practice.”
“Good thing you’re no ordinary princess.”
A smile unfurls across Seraphima’s face. She glances down the beach in both directions, then drops Humphrey’s leash. He begins to run in circles, barking at the seagulls, while Seraphima unfastens the skirt of her gown and places it carefully on the sand. Dressed now in her bodice and her makeshift jeans, she crouches beside me as I pick up a worm.
“Ooh!” she cries. “Let me!”
I watch with no small amount of appreciation as she threads the hook through the worm. Who would have guessed that Seraphima is so bloodthirsty?
She stands, the rod in her hand and the worm wriggling. “Now what?” she asks.
Before I can answer, however, a breeze whips across the beach, whisking her skirt into the air like a kite. As I watch, it catches at her waist and wraps neatly around, fastening itself.
“That’s odd,” I say, the only words I manage to get out before being yanked off the beach and tumbled through pages and phrases and dangling participles that strike me in the face until I land, heavily, on the parquet floor of the throne room in the royal court.
It’s been so long since I performed the story that at first, I don’t realize what’s happening.
Why the devil is De
lilah starting from the beginning? Why not just meet me on page 43, as is our custom?
I do not appear on the first page of the story. That is a flashback to my birth, and so while I wait for my scene—the one where Rapscullio, our villain, convinces me that I must find his daughter, who has been kidnapped and locked in a tower—I am usually alone with Frump.
But that’s not possible anymore.
Humphrey whimpers and moves from edge to edge of the page. “What’s going on? What’s going on? It’s the end of the world. We’re gonna die. Wait! I know. I’ll chew through this wall. That’ll help.”
“Relax,” I tell him. “It’s not a thunderstorm. It’s just a Reader. All you have to do is sit next to me and look like a dog.”
“I…I don’t know. I’ve never done that before….”
“Trust me. You’ll be a natural.”
I can hear the lines being recited on the previous page, and I know my entrance is coming. Rapscullio slides effortlessly from the previous scene into this one, and I open my mouth, intending to ask Delilah what on earth she’s doing. But Rapscullio gives me a nearly imperceptible shake of his head, and when I look up at the Reader, it’s not Delilah at all.
It’s her mother.
We are rusty. But we are professionals. I feel the words pulled from my throat, as if they are a ribbon. Save who? I say, scowling.
Surreptitiously I glance at Mrs. McPhee and I see her eyes widen as she squints at my face. Oh God. She’s going to recognize me as Delilah’s boyfriend.
It takes all the effort I can muster to angle my head against the illustration’s will so that she can only make out my profile instead of my full features.
“What is inside this book that you can’t live without, Delilah?” Mrs. McPhee murmurs absently. She finishes the page and turns to the next. Suddenly I stand with Queen Maureen, trying to explain to her why I am about to embark on a mission to save this princess. Maureen’s lips tremble as I speak; I can register the fear on her face as she channels what it must be like as a mother to say goodbye to her son. She is doing an acting job better than I’ve ever seen, but then, so is everyone else. They are all bristling with energy, delighted to be read for the first time in months.