“What was her name?” I ask, more curious than I probably should be.
“Rosaline,” he says. “She and Romeo got along very well. They talked for hours and took long walks in the country, accompanied by her nurse, a giantess with an infected leg who breathed heavily and reeked of vinegar and killed even the thought of romance.” His nose wrinkles, but the grin on his face fades quickly. “One day, Romeo convinced Rosaline to meet him behind her father’s stables. But instead of the heated kisses the boy was expecting, Rosaline told him she had vowed to remain chaste and was planning to devote her life to the Church. She asked the boy not to call on her anymore, and denied him even a single kiss.”
“So,” I say, sensing that the story isn’t finished. “What did the boy do?”
“He went out with his cousin Benvolio and got very drunk, and crashed the party of his father’s sworn enemy. It was a costume ball, and easy to hide in plain sight. He and his cousin drank their enemy’s wine, ate his food, and danced with his women. And then the clock struck ten and a girl of unimaginable beauty appeared on the stairway, and Romeo fell in love again. Just like that. The girl was … the sun, and she blinded him.”
He stares into the distance, like he’s seeing the girl again and finding her beauty as painful as ever. Something inside me—the childish part that thinks fairies and unicorns and all kinds of magical things could be real if we believed in them the way we believe in bombs and the Internet—knows that this story is truth. Dylan’s truth. Or … someone’s truth.
Maybe the truth of a boy named Romeo.
“Her name was Juliet,” he says. “She was the daughter of Romeo’s enemy, but it didn’t matter. Being with her was magical. She was so good and passionate and sweet and loving and … his, in a way no one ever had been. He should have been happy.” Now the words come in bursts, forced out. “But he wasn’t, and he made the biggest mistake of his life. He betrayed her. His intentions were good—at least he convinced himself they were—but he was a coward and …” He pulls in a breath, but it only seems to make him more upset. “He was cursed, destined to wander the world for eternity doing terrible things. There was no love in him, and he was sure there never would be. And Juliet … died. And it was his fault.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t deserve your pity,” he says, voice cracking.
“I don’t care.” I stand on tiptoe to press a kiss to his sad lips.
For a second he’s still, but then he kisses me back, deep and desperate, like my mouth contains the oxygen he couldn’t find in the air. His arms wrap tight around me and squeeze, and I can feel his heartbeat echo in my chest. He kisses me until my lips bruise and my head spins and my pulse races and I start to feel … dangerously close. It would be so easy to slip out of my skin and seep into his. I could lose myself in him, step through the door he holds open and never find my way back through. I could—
“Dylan? Ariel?” Mrs. Lorado sounds more shocked than scandalized, but her interruption still has the same effect.
Dylan and I jump apart, breathing deep, hands shaking. I turn to Mrs. Lorado, but it’s hard to focus on her milky face with its puckered lips. All I see is a blur of white swimming before me, and an explosion of color below her neck. She’s famous for wearing obnoxious sweaters with cartoon characters or googly-eyed puppies or Santa Claus and his reindeer, months after Christmas is over.
When I first met her, I thought the sweaters were a sign that she was lovably quirky, like my sixth-grade teacher, who handed out unbirthday cards every Friday. But Mrs. Lorado isn’t lovable, and doesn’t realize she’s quirky, and I get the feeling she hates kisses in the library as much as she hates beverages and food and talking above a whisper.
“This is unacceptable,” she says when the seconds stretch on without a word from me or Dylan. “What do you have to say for yourselves?”
“Sorry?” I think I should add something else, but I can’t think of what. All I can think of is Dylan’s story about Romeo and Juliet and magic and unimaginable possibilities that I can nevertheless imagine. Pretty easily.
“Sorry is inadequate, Ariel. It’s this sort of thing that leads to the library being closed until the librarian is here to open it,” she says, gearing up into full lecture mode. “And you know that there are no public displays of affection allowed anywhere on campus. It’s in the handbook. Twice.”
“Does anyone actually read the handbook?” Dylan asks.
“Don’t sass me, Mr. Stroud.” Mrs. Lorado crosses her arms, making the eyes of the Persian cat on her sweater narrow threateningly. “Consider this your warning. Next time I catch you doing anything but reading in the library, you’ll be marching straight down to the principal’s office. Now get to homeroom.”
Dylan and I mumble “sorry” a few more times, grab our backpacks, and hurry toward the library door as the first bell rings. We emerge into the sunshine, but it doesn’t feel as warm as it did, and the happy cloud that carried me along the path has blown away. I aim myself toward my locker but can’t muster the speed walk that’s required if I’m going to make it there and back to building four before the second bell. This world doesn’t seem as urgent, not with Dylan’s story lingering in my mind, so big and unfinished.
“That was a true story,” I say, breathless, though I’ve barely reached strolling speed. “Wasn’t it?”
“It’s my story. I know it sounds crazy, but—”
“Is that how you learned about magic?” I ask, letting him know I won’t waste his time with talk of how crazy things can also be true. I know all about crazy. And true. And I know a crazy truth when I hear it. “Were you really cursed?”
“I was. A man tricked me into signing away my soul, and I spent hundreds of years trapped in my own private hell.” I make a sound, but he cuts me off. “Don’t. I meant what I said. I don’t deserve pity. I was … very selfish. And a coward.”
I take his hand. A couple of girls rush by on our left, but their hurry doesn’t infect us. If anything, we walk slower. “You’re not that person now.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I am.” He stops and turns to me. “But I do care about you, probably more than I’ve cared about anyone since—”
“Juliet,” I finish, surprised that I’m not jealous. Not even a little. I’m … dizzy. He hasn’t said he loves me, but he might as well have.
“Yes. Since Juliet.”
“So you’re … Romeo.” He nods. “But how? And why? And … Shakespeare?”
“I knew him.”
“You knew Shakespeare? The Shakespeare.” My god. He’s ancient. His story made me think he might be, but … Shakespeare. It’s mind-numbing to think about how old that is.
“I told him a version of the story I told you, and he turned it into a play. He’d heard the legend before; I simply drew his attention to its dramatic potential.” He stops outside a darkened classroom, one of the resource rooms that aren’t used until later in the day. “I told him the easy part. The rest is a longer story.” He glances down the path before reaching for the door.
A voice in my head whispers that I can’t stay here with him—my mom will not be happy if she gets a call about me skipping class—but I ignore the voice and let him pull me into the shadowy room. I’ll get home before Mom and catch the recording.
Even if I don’t, who cares?
There is magic in the world.
There are cursed boys and dangerous secrets and maybe answers and hope and happy endings. For all I know, there might be unicorns and fairies, too, and there’s no way I’m going to let real life stick its ugly, wart-covered nose into this moment.
THIRTEEN
Ariel
As soon as the latch clicks shut behind us, Romeo leads the way to a dark corner that can’t be seen from the rectangular window in the door. He settles down cross-legged on the tight blue carpet. I sit down beside him, feeling like a little kid again. It’s like circle time, when we’d go around and share whatever we’d brought for s
how-and-tell, but a thousand times more exciting, with none of the terrifying pressure of having to speak when my turn comes.
He reaches out and takes my hands. “This isn’t a happy story,” he warns, staring down at the places where we’re linked. “I knew I was joining a dark group of people. As I said, I wasn’t the nicest boy. I was angry and selfish and thought there were a lot of people in the world who deserved to suffer.”
I think about Jason and the real Dylan and all the other boys who made the bet. I think about Hannah and the girls who’ve avoided me like my scars are a plague that’s catching, and I shrug. “You were probably right.”
He shakes his head. “No one deserves what these people do. They are utterly evil. I had no idea how evil until I vowed my allegiance to them. As soon as I did, I knew I’d made a horrible mistake, but it was too late. There was no way out. The way they force their converts to live …” He tries to pull his hands from mine. I hold tight, wanting him to know I’m with him. “I lived inside the dead.”
“What do you mean?”
“My soul entered the corpse of my choosing, and the magic of the people I served made it appear lifelike. But it was still a dead body. It still felt …” He looks up. I try to keep thoughts of zombies and horror movie monsters from my face. I manage, but then another fear zips through my mind.
“Is Dylan dead?” I ask. “Is that why you—”
“No. His body is alive, and his soul is resting in another place. This shift is different. This is my first time in a living, feeling form in hundreds of years. Before Tuesday night, I couldn’t taste or touch or smell. And I did terrible things. Unspeakable things, but … I could speak of them. If you want me to.”
I want to tell him it’s okay and I don’t need to hear it. That who he is now is all that matters. But I know it’s not that easy, and he doesn’t really want it to be. “How terrible is terrible?”
“I was a monster.” He lays the words down like a verdict. Blunt. Inescapable. He means murder and things worse than murder that I don’t even want to think about, but for some reason it doesn’t change the way I feel.
“But you would take it all back if you could,” I say. “You’re different now.”
He nods, relief flooding into his eyes. “I am different. I swear to you.”
“What changed? Why are you here? You’re not here to do something terrible to me, are you?”
He hesitates for a second too long. “No.”
“Are you sure?” I feel like I have to ask, but I’m still not afraid. Not of him. I’m still haunted by this feeling that Dylan and I—Romeo and I—are going to end badly, but I no longer think it will be because of anything he’ll do.
“I didn’t set out to hurt you. A short time ago, I did something marginally noble that drew the attention of a different magic. Good magic.” He wrinkles his nose. “Or better magic, at least. I was given a chance to …” He sighs. “This is difficult.”
“I haven’t run away yet.”
“I … You’ve heard the story of The Little Mermaid.”
I nod, not surprised by the abrupt change in course. At this point, I’m not sure anything he says could surprise me. “Yeah. I have the same name as the character in the Disney version. But my mom named me after the archangel.”
“The angel of wrath and creation. Suits you.” He does a decent impression of his amused smile. “Then you know that the mermaid traded her voice for legs, and was unable to tell the prince why she washed up on the shores of his kingdom, or what she required in order to be able to stay.”
“So … you’re saying you can’t tell me why you’re here.” He nods. “And you can’t tell me what you need from me to stay.” He nods again, making my empty belly burn. “But you need something. And you … want to stay.”
“I would give anything to stay,” he says. “But the play worries me.”
“What does the play—”
“I’ve never lived in a world where there was no Romeo and Juliet. I don’t know what it means. The play is gone. Does that mean I simply never spoke with Shakespeare in this reality, or is it something more?”
My mind sputters, hiccupping over the latest piece of his puzzle that he’s tossed out so casually. “You mean there are … other realities?” The cells in my brain move farther apart, spread like the expanding universe, leaving me wobbly and less solid inside. “Like … things going on at the same time, but in different … spaces?” I’m not sure I’ve made sense, but he seems to understand.
“There are,” he says, confirming the existence of something I find harder to believe than the story of his curse or another soul living in Dylan’s body. But magic has always seemed more real to me than science. Just thinking about how our bodies are composed of tiny, racing particles with their own internal life is enough to give me a bad case of the creeps if I dwell on it too much.
“I’ve only experienced two,” he continues. “But I’ve been assured there are more, the world branching off into parallel versions of itself as people make choices that alter the course of the future.”
“That’s … wild.” The same people. Different business. It makes me wonder … What if there’s a reason his story isn’t as impossible to believe as it should be? What if … “Have we … Did I know you before? In another reality?”
His eyes meet mine and I feel him struggling, but I don’t know if it’s because of the things he’s forbidden to say or his own reluctance to answer the question. “Yes,” he says, making my heart stop. “And no.” It picks up beating again, with a jerky thu-thump. “I saw you, but we never spoke. I was in that world on a mission for the dark magicians who owned me for more than seven hundred years.”
“But you’re free now.”
“I’m enjoying a reprieve,” he says. “But I may have been tricked. The woman who lent me the power to borrow Dylan’s body … I don’t trust her.”
“She’s a sorceress?”
“More like a witch,” he says, a wry smile lifting one side of his lips.
“A witch.” I know he means more than her ability to work magic. “Like the sea witch in The Little Mermaid.” It sounds silly when I say it out loud.
In this darkened room, hunched together on the carpet, it feels like we’re playing some elaborate game of pretend. But this isn’t pretend. This is Romeo’s life, and maybe his death if I’m understanding him correctly. In the original story of The Little Mermaid, she turned to sea foam because the prince didn’t have the sense to love her.
I think I love Romeo, but it’s so hard to know for sure. I’ve never felt anything like what he makes me feel—this overwhelming mixture of terror and joy, bliss and foreboding.
And there’s something else that bothers me. A lot.
“You said that Dylan’s soul is somewhere else, and that you’re borrowing his body.” He sighs, and I know the answer to my question before I ask it. “He’s coming back. Isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Oh god. Dylan. Not the Dylan who loves me or stands up for me or kisses me like I’m the heroine in an old 1980s movie. The other Dylan. The one who took bets on whether he could get me to sleep with him and thinks I’m a loser-freak-joke.
“I’m sorry.” Romeo tugs the end of my braid. “Do you hate me?”
I look up. “Why would I hate you?”
“We don’t have much time. Maybe it would have been better …” His eyes scan my face, as if trying to memorize every part. “I don’t want you to think I’m using you. I’m here because I care, but maybe it would have been better if I’d left you alone.”
“No.” The strength in the word surprises me. “How long do we have? To figure out what to do?”
Romeo pulls my hand to his lips and whispers against my skin, “If the witch keeps her word, until Friday at midnight. Three days from when I arrived in Dylan’s body.”
Three days. That means it could all end tomorrow night. If I don’t figure out how to help him, then … what happens next? I don’t
know. But I can guess it will be bad. Heartbreakingly bad.
The thought has barely flashed through my mind before I’m reaching for him. I can’t speak. I can’t think about him dying or worse. I can’t think about being alone without him. I need him close while he still has a body to show me how he feels.
He comes to me, moving over me as I lie back on the carpet. His hands cup my face and his lips meet mine, and he kisses me with all the pain and love and desperation that I’m feeling. My heart is so full I feel I might explode, but the particles inside of me are still spreading, reaching out, finding space that wasn’t there before. Finding hope that feels more like a peephole into another world than a chink in my armor.
“I’ll figure it out,” I whisper. “I’ll find a way. I won’t let you go.”
“Just promise me one thing.” His fingers brush my cheek, even that small touch enough to make my heart race faster. “Promise me you’ll never forget how this feels.”
“I promise.” It would be impossible to forget. If he’s gone by tomorrow night, I’ll spend the rest of my life replaying every second with him, this person who fits me more perfectly than I imagined possible.
“And I want … If we can’t be together, I want you to find someone else. Let someone else love you as much as I wish I could.”
Love. He said it. Or at least he said he wished he could love me, which is practically the same thing. Isn’t it? I don’t know. I only know that, “I don’t want anyone else.” Tears rise in my eyes, a stinging flood I refuse to set loose. “And no one wants me. I’m nobody.”
“You’re not nobody,” he says. “Not to me.”
And then he kisses me again, and I kiss him back, and keep kissing him. Even when the bell rings, signaling the end of homeroom, and the halls outside fill with the sounds of people talking and laughing and slamming locker doors. All of that is distant and unreal, another world. I’ve entered my own alternate reality, one where I’m brave and not afraid to fight for what I want.
Romeo