Beside me, Rapscullio grabs the canvas and smashes it against the rock wall of the cave, breaking the frame in half. He punches his boot through the center.
At that moment, all the letters in Delilah’s bedroom fall to the ground, so that she and Oliver stand ankle-deep in ink.
“What was that?” Delilah says, breathing heavily.
“Nobody sent the message,” I murmur. “That canvas was writing on itself.”
“It’s not the canvas.” I turn at the sound of Frump’s voice. He comes through the doorway on all fours, completely transitioned back into a hound. He sits back on his haunches and turns sad eyes up to the top edge of the book, meeting Oliver’s gaze. “It’s the book correcting itself.”
Oliver’s face is stricken. “Frump,” he whispers. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Frump’s ears droop. “Because if I didn’t tell you, maybe it wasn’t really true.”
“I thought maybe Orville could do something,” I say. “It’s worth a try, right?”
Oliver tries to offer an encouraging smile, but Frump looks defeated. “Maybe we were all just kidding ourselves,” he sighs. “Maybe we can’t pretend to be something we’re not.”
Oliver slips his arm around Delilah’s waist. “Well then,” he says. “We’re not giving up without a fight.”
Orville’s home is awfully crowded when you stuff two humans, a dog, and a horse inside. Since Oliver and Delilah insist on being here as we try to un-dogify Frump, we are bound by the conventions of the book: we had to pick a page that includes all the necessary characters, in the right place. On page 32 of the original fairy tale, Oliver, Frump, and Socks came to Orville’s cabin so that the wizard could show Oliver his future. In my adaptation, the scene’s pimped out a little bit. Orville’s crusty old shack is now a state-of-the-art laboratory where he crafts antigravity potions and synthetic alien DNA.
Above me, I hear Oliver whistle softly. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
Frump is pacing underneath a table. “What if it doesn’t work?” he asks.
“Then we’ll try something else,” Oliver insists. “Right, Orville?”
The old wizard, now decked out in a lab coat and goggles, nods. “Let’s see what I’ve got.”
He digs out the old grimoire that was part of the fairy tale before I arrived, blows dust off its cover, and begins to flip through the pages. “Invisibility…no, no…Poisoned apple—that’s not it…. Pumpkin into carriage, definitely not…”
There’s a clatter from the other side of the room, and we all look up to see Socks stepping delicately through a pile of broken glass. “Oops,” he says. “My bad. You don’t happen to have anything for adult acne, do you?”
Five pairs of eyes glare at him.
“Nope? Not the time? Right. Okay.” Socks ducks his head.
“Ah, I think I’ve got something that will work,” Orville says. He pushes his goggles on top of his head, revealing a pair of thick glasses underneath. “It’s a wishing spell. It can only be used once per person.”
Oliver’s jaw drops. “Wait a moment, are you kidding me? You had this all along?”
Orville glances up at him. “I’ve only read about it being used once, when I was a young boy, and the side effects were catastrophic. Chap named Midas, who wished for riches beyond compare, and for everything he touched to turn to gold. Didn’t work out so well when his whole family became a bunch of solid statues. You wanted to give Delilah your heart, boy—for all we know, she might have wound up with two beating in her chest, and you dead on the floor in front of me.”
“Oh, fabulous,” Frump mutters. “Make me the guinea pig.”
“Technically,” Socks says, “you’re a dog.” He glances up, wincing at Frump’s expression. “Too soon?”
Orville begins to move around the laboratory, grabbing vials and emptying them into a titanium crucible. “Desperation,” he murmurs, dumping the contents of one vial. “Desire. A pinch of stardust.” He drops in a four-leaf clover. “A hint of luck.” Finally he pours in a silver powder. “A scoop of hope,” he pronounces, and as soon as the material hits the liquid in the container, it begins to bubble.
A thick blue mist rises over the crucible, forming a watery screen, and projected across it the tiniest print:
WARNING
Make sure your wizard knows before you take this potion. Not for use by children under twelve. Tell your wizard if you experience chest pain, dryness of the mouth, or the growth of a third eye. This is not a love potion; another’s affection cannot be granted. This medicine should not be used in conjunction with a Revenge Tonic or serious side effects may occur. Be careful what you wish for and please wish responsibly.
~~ This product was not tested on animals. ~~
“If it wasn’t tested on animals, how do we know what it’s going to do to me?” Frump asks.
Orville looks at him gravely. “We don’t.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Delilah says softly. “You’re perfect just the way you are.”
“Well, not everyone feels that way.”
Oliver reaches toward the book and stops when he realizes he can’t offer a reassuring pat anymore. “Frump, there’s more than one girl in the universe, you know.”
Frump just stares at him. “Really, Ollie? Is there?”
Oliver reaches for Delilah’s hand. “No,” he admits. “There isn’t.”
“Then put that stuff into my dog bowl,” Frump says, his voice growing stronger.
Orville ladles the potion into a dish and places it on the floor for Frump. He approaches it carefully as the liquid glows. He looks up at me. “If it doesn’t work…you’ll tell her? You’ll let Seraphima know that I tried?”
I nod. The blue mist surrounds Frump’s face. He closes his eyes, leaning in, and then stops. “Oliver?” he asks, his voice very small. “What do you do when you’re scared?”
Oliver meets his gaze. “I remember that my best friend is always by my side. And suddenly it’s not so terrifying.”
Frump lowers his head and laps at the potion.
The floor beneath me begins to rattle, and the walls feel like they’re closing in, although the book is wide open. There’s a deafening roar that grows so loud it drowns out the sound of Delilah and Oliver screaming our names. The laboratory stretches and twists, as if it’s being turned inside out, and the book slams shut with a definitive clap. Then, finally, there’s a blinding flash of white light, and every glass item in Orville’s lab shatters.
It takes a minute for my vision to clear. I look up at the top edge of the page, but Delilah and Oliver are gone. Orville lies on his back, the lenses of his glasses cracked. He sits up, holding his hand to his head. Socks, against all odds and laws of gravity, has curled himself into a fetal position in the sink.
I turn to where Frump should be, but he’s missing.
Holy crap. Did this actually work?
“Where is he?” Orville asks, looking around.
“Socks, get out of the damn sink before you break it. I need you to gallop through the pages and see if you can find—” But before I can finish, Orville’s lab coat, which has been tossed aside during the explosion, begins to wiggle.
I crawl toward it and tug the fabric free.
The dog that was in Delilah’s bedroom is happily wagging his tail in front of me. His tongue snakes out, awkwardly rounding to form a word. “Hi, I’m Humphrey,” he says. “Are you my new best friend?”
OLIVER
The book literally leaps out of my hands, tumbling into the sea of ink on the floor of Delilah’s bedroom. I reach down, fishing through a mass of black letters that slip through my fingers like eels, trying to locate the fairy tale.
“Um, Oliver,” Delilah whispers. “We have a little situation here.”
I glance up, ripping off a U that has leeched itself onto my sleeve, to find Delilah staring down at the dog on her bed.
The dog that isn’t Humphrey.
If y
ou aren’t looking too closely, you might not notice. But this dog is slightly larger and older, and his spots have been rearranged. His collar has a royal seal.
“Frump?” I gasp.
He opens his mouth to speak, but a small yelp comes out instead. His eyes widen in terror.
“Easy, boy,” I coach. “Just take it slow and try again.”
This time, he barks outright.
“Okay,” Delilah says, drawing in her breath. “I’m seriously freaking out, here. How did he get out of the book? And what happened to Humphrey?”
Frump scratches at his throat and then leaps off the bed into the clutter of language on the floor, letters splashing up randomly as he disappears beneath the surface. He bobs up, dogpaddling toward Delilah’s desk, and hops onto her chair. Then he bites a pencil and, gripping it between his teeth, begins to slowly scrawl letters across a scrap of paper.
SWITCHED
We both wade toward the desk to read his response. “How?” Delilah asks.
Frump starts scratching out a message again.
WISH
“I thought you wanted to be human again,” I say. “What the devil did you wish for?”
Frump rocks back on his haunches, looking up at me with, well, puppy-dog eyes. He tilts up his snout, and distinctly howls, “YOOOOOOOOOUUUU.”
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“It’s the same principle as you and Edgar,” Delilah explains. “The way you were able to leave the book was by substituting something similar enough to you for the book to tolerate the change. Otherwise, it would correct itself.”
“So Frump is truly here? For good?” I wrap my arms around his neck. This is really too perfect. Now I have everything I want in one place.
Frump starts scratching at the desk again with the pencil.
VOICE?
Delilah and I exchange a glance. “Excuse us just a moment?” I say to Frump. Pulling Delilah aside, I lean closer so that Frump won’t hear. “There must be something we can do for him.”
“Oliver,” she says, “he’s like the Little Mermaid! He traded his voice to be with the prince.”
“He’s not a mermaid. What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry, Oliver. In this world, dogs don’t talk.” She glances at the desk. “It’s pretty much a miracle that he can write.”
“I’ll take him home with me,” I say. “We’ll figure something out.”
“You can’t. He’s not your dog,” Delilah replies. “With any luck my mother will still think he’s Humphrey. It would be immensely helpful if you could convince him to be a little less human until we can figure out how to get him back into the book.”
“Wait,” I say. “Why does he have to go back?”
“He doesn’t belong here.”
I hesitate. “You could argue that neither do I.”
She grabs my wrists, pulling them up between us. “Don’t ever say that. You belong where I am.”
I smooth her hair back from her face and press my lips to hers.
A ringing bark slices between us. Frump sits up on Delilah’s desk chair, his paws balanced on the back, trying to get my attention. His tail wags vigorously.
“Right,” I say, clearing my throat. “Listen, Frump, here’s what we’re going to do.”
Before I can continue there is a knock on the door. Delilah and I freeze. “Just a second!” Delilah calls, and then she turns to me, hissing, “We have to clean this up!”
I look down at the pool of letters flooding Delilah’s bedroom floor. “How?”
Her eyes roam around wildly. “Closet,” she mutters, and she begins scooping up the words. They drip over her arms like tentacles, leaving behind an oily residue.
“I heard Humphrey barking,” Mrs. McPhee says, through the closed door. “Is everything all right?”
I rip the sheet off her bed and start shoveling the letters into a pile in the center. Frump leaps down from his perch, biting one corner and dragging it closer so that I can tie them in a knot.
“He saw a chipmunk,” Delilah says to her mom.
Together we wrestle the gargantuan bulge into the closet and manage to shut the door by leaning all of our weight against it. By the time we’re finished, we’re panting and flushed.
Frump hops onto Delilah’s bed and she walks to the door just as I notice an errant N lying on the floor. I snatch it up and stuff it beneath her pillowcase as she turns around to make sure we’re ready. Then she yanks the door open and smiles at her mother, who looks Delilah up and down and then glances at me and raises an eyebrow.
“I see you two made up,” her mother says, and I think my cheeks must be as red as brick.
She pats her leg. “Come on, Humphrey. It’s time for dinner.”
Frump doesn’t budge.
I clear my throat. “Humphrey, come now. Be a good dog.”
Frump shoots me a look that could slay a dragon and jumps off Delilah’s bed, trotting to her mother’s side. As they leave the room, Delilah’s mother reaches for the doorknob and then—on second thought—leaves the door wide open.
“Where’s the book?” Delilah asks once her mother has gone downstairs. “I didn’t come across it when we were cleaning up.”
“I didn’t either.” We both begin to tear the room apart, looking for the fairy tale, which has floated somewhere in the recent flood of letters. “There!” I cry, spotting it beneath the bureau and crawling on my hands and knees to retrieve it.
Delilah rips it out of my hands and immediately opens to the page we were on last. Rapscullio, Edgar, and Socks stare up at us from the center of the laboratory, looking quite the worse for wear.
“Have you seen Frump?” Edgar asks. “Socks rode the whole book and he’s missing.”
“We have him here,” Delilah replies. “Have you come across my dog, Humphrey?”
At the sound of his name, Humphrey comes skidding out from behind a laboratory table, carrying a model atom in his mouth like a tennis ball. He drops it, covered with drool, and wags his tail. “Hello, Most Favorite Person in the World. I found a ball. It’s the best ball. Also, you are a giant.”
“Oh my God,” Delilah whispers.
“Yeah,” Edgar says sarcastically. “So, thanks for this.”
“Orville, how do we get them to trade places again?” Delilah asks.
The old wizard shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Anything that springs to mind is rather complicated. I fear that any spell I cast to bring Frump back to the book might accidentally take you too, Oliver.”
My heart sinks as I realize that all of this—this world, this life, this girl—could be ripped away from me, simply because of Frump’s accidental wish. He came here because he wanted my help. Could I really be so selfish as to refuse to give it to him?
I may dream of reaching the stars, but I’ll never get there if someone else’s dream is anchoring me to the ground.
Orville glances up at us. “I need a little bit of time to think.”
“I’m so glad we’re all together. Look at my friends. So many friends,” Humphrey says. He flops down at Edgar’s feet and rolls onto his back. “Skinny boy, will you rub my belly?”
Edgar sighs and looks at Orville. “Don’t take too long.”
Gently I close the book and set it back on Delilah’s shelf. “If Orville’s right, I can’t ask Frump to sacrifice so much for me.”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“If we both stay here, he’ll never see Seraphima again. He’ll never speak again. He’ll always be a dog.”
Delilah’s face is so still it seems like porcelain, like something that might crack at any moment. “What about everything you’d have to give up?” she says.
But I can’t even think about that, about losing her. If I do, I know I’ll never leave.
By the time I get home from Delilah’s house, it’s dark, but a buttery glow shines from the kitchen windows. Usually at this time of the day, I can see Jessamyn mak
ing supper—chopping vegetables or seasoning meat in preparation for cooking. But she is nowhere to be seen. After I put Edgar’s bike in the garage, I walk inside. “Mom?” I call, belatedly wondering if she’s gone to bed early again, because of one of her recurring headaches.
That’s when I smell the smoke.
I run into the kitchen to find the air thick and hazy. Smoke billows from the oven. Grabbing a dish towel, I open the oven door and cough as the smoke clears around my face, revealing a blackened lump that must have been supper. I throw the window sash up, letting cold, clear air stream in. I take a step backward and trip.
Lying on the tile, with a halo of blood around her head, is Jessamyn.
I fall to my knees, grasping her shoulders and shouting in her face. “Jessamyn!” I cry. “Jessamyn!?”
Her eyes flutter open, and she winces. “Edgar…call nine-one-one.”
I jump to my feet, shaking all over. Her blood is on my hands, and unlike the blood I’ve encountered in the fairy tale, it doesn’t disappear when I close my eyes. I look down at her still body. “NINE-ONE-ONE!” I yell, fists balled at my sides. “NINE-ONE-ONE!”
But nothing happens.
“Edgar,” she whispers. “With the phone.”
I grab the phone from its cradle and press the corresponding buttons. Almost immediately a voice fills my ear. “Nine-one-one, what’s the emergency?”
“My mother,” I say. “She’s bleeding.”
“Where are you?”
“At home. Thirty-Nine Oak Hill Road.”
“Is your mother responsive?” the woman asks.
“She’s lying on the floor. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t see.”
“Is she conscious?”
I glance at Jessamyn, whose eyes are closed again. “I don’t know. She was talking and now she isn’t.”
My heart is pounding so hard I can barely hear the woman’s response. “Okay, listen, I’m going to put you on hold for one second. I’m going to get an ambulance on its way to you, and then I’m going to come back and stay on the line with you until they get there.”
I kneel down, afraid to touch Jessamyn, equally afraid to leave her alone. I wish Delilah were here; she would know what to do. I wish Edgar were here.