Between the Lines (23 page)

I skim through the book until I land on page 43. There’s Oliver frozen, clinging to the rock wall, dagger in his mouth. “Oliver,” I demand, “say something.”

Nothing.

“Oliver!” I groan. “I don’t know why he’s not talking to me.”

“And how does that make you feel?” Dr. Ducharme asks.

Oliver knows I’m here. I can see it, in the way his eyes slide toward mine when he thinks the psychiatrist isn’t looking. Can’t he understand that I need him more than ever? That this isn’t the time to fool around? That our entire future together might be dependent on him actually emitting a sound right now? I lean in and press my nose to the book. “Oliver,” I grit out.
“Speak!”

There’s no response.

Well, if he wants to play games, I’m perfectly happy to do just that.

“Fine, then. Let’s try
this
scene.” I turn to the last page in the book, where Oliver and Seraphima are locked together in a perfect kiss.

I think I see him squirm.

It serves him right.

“Do you ever have trouble telling the difference between… for example… a dream you’ve had the night before and reality?” the doctor asks.

“I’m not making this up,” I insist. “Hmm. Let’s look at that again.” Angry, I flip back and forth between a scene where Oliver is fighting the dragon and the final page. Is it my imagination, or is he actually kissing Seraphima as if he’s
enjoying
it?

Angrily, I open and close the book a few more times.

Then, faintly:

“I give up.”

“Did you hear that?” I cry.

“You heard something?”

Oliver. I heard Oliver, loud and clear. “Didn’t you?” I ask, but I already know the answer. Oliver told me that in all the years he’s been in this fairy tale, I’m the first reader who ever listened.

The psychiatrist gently pries the book out of my hands and places it on the coffee table between us, still open to the page where Oliver stands toe to toe with Pyro.

“Delilah,” he says quietly, “I know sometimes it’s easier to make believe than to have to deal with the truth.”

“This isn’t make-believe!” I glance down at the book, and my eyes widen. Something’s wrong, terribly wrong.
My eyes fall on the text across from the illustration:

“Wait!” Oliver cried. “I didn’t come here to fight you. I’m here to help!”

The dragon took a menacing step forward and roared.

Because I have read this book a hundred times, I know what comes next. Pyro snorts and lights a tree on fire. Except now it reads differently:

As Pyro snorted, Prince Oliver rushed headlong into the ball of fire.

“Oliver!” I scream. “No!”

The illustration quivers and re-forms, like a pond after a stone’s thrown into it. Before my eyes I see Oliver being burned alive as the dragon rears its head behind him.

I reach for the book, hoping to slam it closed, but it singes my fingers. “Ouch! You have to help him,” I sob, grabbing at the psychiatrist’s sleeve. “Please. Before it’s too late…”

Dr. Ducharme puts his hands on my shoulders. “It’s all right, Delilah. Take a few deep breaths.”

I do what he says, but my eyes are on the book that’s on the table behind him. It’s glowing red, like coals, at the edges of the page.

“I’m going to get your mother to join us for these last few minutes,” Dr. Ducharme suggests. “Are you all right now?”

I nod. The minute he steps out of his office, the book bursts into flames.

Oh my gosh.
I grab my coat, and using it as a giant pot holder, snatch the book from the table and thrust it into the enormous fish tank. Two angelfish scuttle out of the way as the book bubbles and fizzes down to the plastic-pebbled bottom.

With a small smile, I realize I’ve rescued the prince, instead of the other way around.

The book is dripping wet, so I hold it over the tank as I turn to page 43. Oliver is healthy and intact—if a little bit damp. I remember my tears splashing on him as well; whatever seal is between us must be porous to liquid. “What were you trying do? Kill yourself?” I yell.

“Exactly,” Oliver says, taking the dagger from between his teeth so that he can talk to me. “I was proving a hypothesis.”

“Like whether you could burn this office down?”

“What office? Where are you, anyway?” Oliver asks. “And why am I sopping wet, down to my undergarments?”

“Long story…” I suddenly realize what he’s said to me. “You… you want to die?”

“No—I want to get out of here. But everything that changes in this story winds up fixing itself in the end. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Dead men walk again; broken barns fix themselves. What good would it be for me to
write myself out of this book if I’m going to wind up right back inside it sooner or later?”

I remember the words on the page shimmering and changing before my eyes. “Hang on,” I say, and I flip to the page that has Pyro and Oliver fighting on it.

The text has gone back to the way it used to be.

I hurriedly turn again to page 43, where Oliver and I can speak freely. “You’re right,” I tell him.

“Obviously. I didn’t burn to death.” He sniffs at his sleeves. “Not even smoky. Delilah, I’m afraid I’m stuck here, destined to be part of this story forever. Nothing from this book will ever break through to the outside world.”

I think about how water has permeated that barrier—but in both cases, it was water from
my
world entering his, a one-way valve. The only time we tried to extract something from the book—that spider—it didn’t work.

Except, this time, something
did
escape.

“Oliver,” I say, “you’re wrong.”

He lifts his face toward mine. “How so?”

“When you ran into Pyro’s flames, were you holding the book you found at Rapscullio’s?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that must be the difference. When it caught fire,” I say, “so did the book I was reading. And it wasn’t just words like
inferno
and
blaze
writing themselves all over the place—it was actually
flaming.
”

Oliver’s eyes widen. “You mean—”

“Yes.” I laugh. “You did it!”

“
What
did you do?” My mother has come into Dr. Ducharme’s office. They are both staring at me as I stand in front of the fish tank talking to an open book.

“I, um, was just… proving a hypothesis,” I say, borrowing Oliver’s phrase. “In Biology we’re studying the ability of, uh, sea creatures to recognize the written word.” Closing the book, I wrap it in my coat and hug it to my chest. It leaves a damp spot on the front of my shirt.

If the psychiatrist didn’t think I was crazy already, seeing me reading to his angelfish will have sealed the deal. Knowing there’s no way to get out of this one, I smile at Dr. Ducharme. “So,” I say brightly. “Same time next week?”

page 40

I
n a way, Oliver could argue that his whole life had led up to this moment: when he stood toe to toe with the beast that had killed his father.

The dragon’s red scales shimmered in the heat of the day. His eyes were as black as the heart of the man who’d conjured him. His clawed feet scrabbled for purchase on the bald rock of the Cape of Passing Tides. As Oliver watched, Pyro tilted back his long throat, drew in a deep breath, and bellowed a plume of fire into the sky.

Oliver’s pulse was racing. He was so close to the dragon that he could smell charred flesh and ash. This was danger, up close and personal, in a way he’d never experienced and had carefully avoided his whole life. He wondered, as he had many times during his childhood, what his father had been thinking at this moment.
Had King Maurice stood, steadfast, with no fear as he brandished his sword and ran toward his death? Had his last thoughts been of his beloved wife? The son he would never meet?

I cannot get out of this alive,
Oliver thought.

He reached around his neck for the compass his mother had given him. If there was ever a time to turn tail and run back home, this was it. But as his fingers closed around the small disk, he imagined his father clutching it even as he battled this same dragon. Oliver wanted to be the sort of son that his father would have been proud of. The one who faced his fears, instead of falling prey to them.

He let the compass drop back beneath his shirt.

Maybe he did not have his father’s skill with a sword, or the kind of courage that inspired epic poems and legends. But that was not the only way to win a battle.

“Wait!” Oliver cried. “I didn’t come here to fight you. I’m here to help!”

The dragon took a menacing step forward and roared. Flames singed the hair around Oliver’s brow.

He remembered a childhood story that his mother used to read to him at night. “My,” Oliver said softly, “what big teeth you have.”

The dragon proudly flashed his massive overbite, gnashing his teeth inches away from Oliver’s face.