Between the Lines (20 page)

I don’t always have a ready reply. But the mere fact that Delilah is asking is magical to me. Never before has anyone ever thought I might be anything other than what I appear to be on the page. No Reader has assumed that
there are thoughts in my head other than the ones put there by an author.

Last night, Delilah asked me if I believe in Fate.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Since I just can’t accept that my destiny is to play a role in someone else’s story.”

“But what if that isn’t the case?” Delilah whispered. It was late, after midnight, and the moon had silvered half of her face. It made her look otherworldly, magical. Like someone who’d belong in a fairy tale.

“I’m not following you….”

“What if you and I were meant to be together?” she said. “What if the reason Jessamyn Jacobs wrote this story in the first place was because some higher power—Fate, Destiny, whatever—compelled her to do it, since it was the only way for us to meet?”

I liked that idea. I liked thinking that whatever Delilah and I had between us was so strong that there was no boundary between the true and the imagined, the book and the Reader. I liked the idea that although I started my life as a figment of someone’s imagination, that didn’t make me any less real.

Today, while Delilah is in classes, I’m sitting on a crooked, twisting branch in the Enchanted Forest. The fairies flutter around me, chattering. Although they
do
like gossip, unlike the characters they play they’re actually not nasty little creatures at all. They’re always happy
to be pawns when Frump and I play chess, and they are good sports about shimmying down cracks and crevices too tight for the rest of us to pick up a dropped penny or a lost button. They’re also the strongest creatures in the story, with more strength than even the thuggish trolls, and they don’t mind helping Queen Maureen redecorate by hauling furniture up and down the castle steps. I’ve seen a single fairy roll aside a boulder that had blocked the road to the castle without even breaking a sweat.

“Glint, can I borrow your poisonberry lip gloss?” asks Sparks.

“Get your own,” Glint says. “I’m tired of you using all my stuff.” But she tosses an acorn to Sparks, who twists off the cap and dips her finger into the cosmetic. She leans toward a dewdrop to see her reflection and then swipes her tiny finger across her lips. I try to read the book in front of me, but branches block out the light. Suddenly, a hovering glow illuminates the page. I squint at it and see Ember shining.

“Thanks for that,” I say.

She flashes a brilliant smile. “No problem.”

I flip through the pages, absently wondering if in some other world, there is a cast of royalty and mermaids
and pirates all racing into position so that I can enjoy my story.

I wonder if in some other world a prince is pining away for a girl he loves.

“Love?” I say out loud.

“Love?”
Glint repeats.

“Did someone say
love
?” Ember asks.

“Love?” I hear again, followed by an echo, and another, and another, as every fairy in the forest repeats the word.

“Oh yes,” Sparks says, “I totally called this.”

“Remember yesterday, when you walked into a tree?” Ember asks.

“That,” Glint says, “is when we started taking bets.”

The fairies perch on my shoulders and arms. “Who’s the lucky princess?” Ember asks.

I have no intention of telling them; I couldn’t betray Delilah that way. “You wouldn’t know her. She’s not from around here.”

“Uh… who
isn’t
?” Sparks says.

All of a sudden I hear a bark from across the woods. “Frump,” I say with relief.

“I’m pretty sure Frump is from around here,” Sparks replies.

Waving them away, I hop off the tree branch and land on the ground just as Frump skids to a stop at my feet.

“Hey, buddy… you got a minute?” he asks. The look on his face is one I’ve seen before—mostly when he’s under the table begging for scraps.

With reluctance I tuck the book beneath my tunic. He leads me out of the forest, away from the keen ears of the fairies. As soon as we clear the woods, Frump breaks into a run. I have to sprint to catch up to him.

We race past the cliff walk and the turnoff for the trail to where Orville the wizard lives. “Is there a reason we’re in a hurry?” I pant.

“We have to get to the unicorn meadow in time,” Frump shouts back to me.

“What’s in the unicorn meadow?” I ask as we break into its center. The field is full of snowy, horned creatures grazing on lush silver grass.

“You are,” Frump admits, coming to a stop. “I told Seraphima you’d be here.”

“Why?”

He looks down at the ground. “So she’d come. If it had just been me, she’d never bother.”

Frump was, according to the backstory we all know by heart, once human. My best friend, as a matter of fact, until Rapscullio stole some herbs from Orville, intending to kill the young prince (namely, me) he saw as an obstacle to his love for Maureen. The draught into which he mixed the herbs, however, was mistakenly drunk by
Frump. He would have died without Orville’s intervention. The wizard couldn’t reverse the curse, yet he managed a transfiguration: Frump would live, but in the body of a different creature. In this way, he’d be safe from Rapscullio’s wrath.

This, anyway, is what the text says during the course of our story. But I have known Frump only as a dog, because that’s what he is when the fairy tale begins. He’s a boy only in flashbacks, and flashback characters don’t exist the way the rest of us do, flesh and blood even when we’re offstage. It’s why I’ve never met King Maurice; it’s why Frump is a hound… with the heart and mind of a young man.

One who is utterly, incomprehensibly, madly in love with Seraphima. Who wouldn’t give him the time of day, even if he
didn’t
have fleas.

“Aw, Frump.” I scratch behind his ears. “You don’t need me to get a girl interested in you.”

“Oh yeah? Then how come she lit up like a firecracker as soon as I mentioned your name?”

I wince, thinking of Seraphima. “Doesn’t it bother you to know she can’t tell the difference between when the book is closed and when it’s open?”

“Not really. I keep telling myself that’s why she isn’t interested in me. To her, I’m just a dog.”

I suppose it could be argued that Delilah doesn’t
have the best track record either, when it comes to telling reality from fiction. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“How do you know she’s the one for you?”

Frump wags his tail. “Well, she’s got that beautiful, shiny blond coat… er… I mean,
hair
… and there’s that little space between her front teeth… and did you ever notice how, when she’s nervous, she sings? Off-key?”

“You
like
that?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Frump says. “I think her flaws make me love her even more. She’s not perfect, but she’s perfect to me.”

I think about Delilah—how she snorts when she laughs, how she bites her nails when she’s thinking hard about something. How she doesn’t seem to know the simplest things—like that if one has an ache of the head, a leech—not some small round white candy—will do the trick. How she makes wishes on eyelashes and stars or when her clock reads 11:11. “Yes,” I say softly. “I understand.”

Frump lets out a painful yowl. “You love her too?”

“Seraphima? No. A million times no.”

He gives me a look that betrays just the slightest doubt.

Even if I didn’t want to kiss Seraphima, the book would pull me into the embrace. And she’s pretty
enough. So kissing her isn’t really a hardship, and if I
have
to do it, I might as well pretend I am having fun.

Still, my intimate moments with Seraphima always leave me feeling guilty. Not just because of Frump, but because I know she is putting all her passion into that kiss since she thinks it’s real, when for me, it’s a day’s work… with some pleasant benefits.

“Then you’ve got to help me, Oliver,” Frump begs. “How do I get her to notice me?”

For a moment, I let myself consider this. Delilah saw me all on her own, and I doubt that even if Frump mowed the word
HELP
into this field, it would do anything but annoy the unicorns. “What about a gift?” I suggest.

“I gave her a bone—the best one I’ve ever buried. She threw it away!”

“What did you do?” I ask.

Frump shrugs. “I fetched.”

I start pacing. “The problem is that Seraphima always sees me as the conquering hero, when she needs to look at
you
that way. Which means, my friend, that you need a damsel in distress.” Several unicorns whinny as I pass by too closely. “That’s it.” I snap my fingers. “I’m going to die.”

“What?”

“Not for real. Just pretend. Then you can rescue me in front of Seraphima.”

“Ollie, no offense, but you make
a really ugly princess. And I’m not going to kiss you to wake you up from your fake sleep, no matter what.”

“You don’t have to, Frump. We’re going to pretend I’ve been gored by a unicorn. All you have to do is stop the fake bleeding.” I bend down in front of a sugarberry bush and grab a handful of the fruit.

Frump looks anxiously off in the distance. “Could you maybe pick berries
afterward
? She’s going to be here any minute.”

“I’m not going to eat them,” I mutter, mashing the berries between my hands. They are a red, runny mess. Opening my tunic so that my white shirt shows through, I smear the berry juice into the fabric. A red stain bleeds from the center of my chest.

“There’s just one problem,” Frump says. “No one’s ever been gored by a unicorn. They’re the sweetest creatures in the book.”

“Well… maybe I made one really angry,” I suggest. I lie down with my head against a boulder and cover my fake wound with my hand.

Frump is turning in nervous circles. “It’s not going to work, Oliver. She’s going to figure it out. I can’t act….”

“Are you kidding me? You act like a dog every day. Surely this has to be easier.”