Between the Lines (37 page)

My heart is pounding so hard I am certain that everyone on the beach can hear it, and possibly Delilah and Edgar too. Could this really be working? Could I be this close to being free?

I look at Frump, who stares at me with a mix of betrayal and fear on his furry little face. I can’t speak to him—I haven’t been given the words—but I silently mouth a message.
Goodbye, friend.
I close my eyes, and hope for the best.

“Edgar?” An unfamiliar voice floats over the beach. “What are you two reading?”

My world reels and then rights itself. Delilah’s grabbed the book and has propped me against the computer screen. Now I can still peer into the room, but my perspective is from a different angle. Edgar has stepped forward so that the translucent phantom limbs that are knitting themselves together again are blocked by his own body—so that as Jessamyn Jacobs enters, she cannot see what’s happening.

“That old fairy tale,” Edgar says, his voice too high. How can she not guess that he’s lying? “I forgot how it ends.”

“Happily ever after, of course,” Jessamyn says.

“Right.” Delilah smiles brightly. “Of course.”

All of sudden, I can feel the blood rushing back to my chest and my arm. It’s like they are on fire, like I am about to burst out of my skin. Groaning, I fall to my knees on the sand, crippled by pain.

“I just came to say good night. Delilah, do you need anything?”

“I’m fine….” She smiles. “Thanks. For everything.”

Although I am kneeling now, I feel myself being dragged closer to Seraphima again. Yanked upward by some kind of reverse, perverse antigravity. My hand smacks against hers, glues itself tight in a clasp.

I know what’s happening. Just like every other attempt to release me from the book, this one has failed. The story always wins.

Jessamyn comes closer, another Reader. I watch her peer down at the page. “I used to love this final scene….”

Edgar grabs the book, making my head spin. “Whatever,” he says, and he slams the cover shut, so that I collapse to the ground.

There is an immediate buzz as the other characters discuss the odd incident that has just unfolded before their eyes. Seraphima bursts into tears, covers her face with her hands, and runs off the beach. Orville rushes toward me, feeling the length of my arm. “My boy,” he
says, “what sort of black magic was that?”

“I’m fine,” I tell him, and then I address the others. “It was a freak accident or something. Everything’s back to normal.”

At my reassurance, the little group begins to disband, still talking about what they’ve witnessed. Only Frump remains, sitting beside me. “Ollie,” he says, “we’ve been friends too long for you to lie to me.”

I scuff my boot in the sand. This is how it all began, with a chessboard we’d drawn between us. “I want out, Frump,” I admit. “I don’t belong here any more than you belong in the body of a hound.”

“But that’s not for us to decide,” Frump says.

“How come I’m the only one who gets the happy ending?” I say. “Didn’t that ever seem wrong to you?”

“I guess I just assumed you were the lucky one.”

“We could all be lucky,” I say. “We could all be who we want to be, instead of who someone else told us to be.”

Frump shakes his head. “You’re making things up, Ollie.”

“Isn’t that how we all got here in the first place?” I say gently.

Frump’s eyes light up as he imagines the possibility of a future different from the one he expected. And then he remembers what happened to me minutes ago. “You
were trying to leave,” he states slowly, understanding.

“Yes. I can’t stay here.”

Frump sits a little taller. “Then I’ll go with you.”

I nod my chin toward the distance, where Seraphima is sitting on a rock near the edge of the sea, still delicately wiping away her tears. “That’s not really what you want, is it?” I smile faintly at him. “If I get out of here, you have my word: I will do everything in my power to make sure you’re a human again.”

He scratches behind his ear, lost in thought. “Ollie? Could I ask you for something else? If you do get out of here… could you make… her… notice me?”

“I think she already
has,
” I say, elbowing him gently. “Go on.”

He shuffles down the beach to the rock where Seraphima is sitting. Absently, the princess begins to pat him on the head. Frump glances back at me, just once, his tail wagging.

I raise my right arm, a wave goodbye. My right arm, which is just where it always has been and always will be—drawn attached to me, on a page I may never escape.

THE MINUTE HIS MOTHER LEAVES, EDGAR
turns to me. “This,” he says, wide-eyed, “is
wicked awesome
!”

I immediately sit down at the computer, furiously typing
THE NEW END
to the altered fairy tale that will allow Oliver out of the story—but the cursor leaps upward and begins to erase the words I’ve already written. The word
NEW
is the last to go, leaving
THE END
just the way it used to be.

“No.” I gasp, and I turn around to confirm my suspicions: Oliver’s body, which has been gradually appearing before our eyes, has vanished.

“Where did he go?” Edgar asks, looking underneath the bed and in the closet.

I don’t know why I can’t make the simple changes on the computer. Maybe it’s a strange firewall the author
installed for protection; maybe it’s just some crazy virus. But this is a physical manifestation of what Jessamyn Jacobs told me: this particular story lives in the minds of its readers. It can’t be altered, because it already exists in its original form.

It is just like the time Oliver tried to rewrite the ending of the book from within its confines, just like the time he summoned me into the pages. If something isn’t part of the original version of the story, the change can’t sustain itself. Once you call something a story, it’s set in stone. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end that can’t be transformed, because by definition, if you do that, it’s not the same story anymore.

“It’s happened before,” I explain to Edgar. “It’s like the story has a mind of its own.”

He thinks for a moment. “How good a writer are you?”

“Why?”

“Because I have an idea.” He sits down on the bed, placing his hand on the cover of the book. “You can’t change a story once it’s been told. But what if you create a new story?”

“I don’t understand.”

Edgar leans forward, excited. “Right now, Oliver is the only one who wants to change the plot. Imagine if all the characters inside that book are given a whole new play to perform. If they
all
buy into it, maybe the story will allow the change.”

I grab the book and open it to page 43. Oliver—white-faced and exhausted—stares up at me from the rock ledge. “You’re all right,” I whisper.

“I’m what I always am,” he mutters. “That’s the problem.”

“Edgar has an idea.” I explain the concept to Oliver.

“I don’t see why this is any different,” he says when I finish. “I’m still a character in the story.”

“But at the end of the new story, you leave,” I tell him, “and all the characters are expecting it to happen.”

Oliver sighs. “At this point, I suppose I’m willing to try anything.”

I sit at the computer, because I’m the faster typist. I look at Edgar. “So,” I say. “How does it start?”

We all get quiet. As it turns out, it’s a lot harder than any of us imagined to create something from nothing.

“How about a dog that meets a cat and falls in love even though their families are against it?” Oliver suggests.

“Okay, Romeo,” I reply. “Would you like to come out of the book as a poodle or a pit bull?”

Oliver shakes his head.

“No, I’ve got one.” Edgar’s eyes gleam. “It’s a dark and stormy night, and a zombie ax murderer is on the loose—”

“You really
are
your mother’s son,” I murmur.

Edgar shrugs. “Well, I don’t see
you
suggesting anything.”

And then, all of a sudden, it comes to me. “There’s this prince,” I say. “And he’s stuck in a fairy tale. Until a girl on the outside can hear him.”

Bending toward the keyboard, I begin to type.

page 58

R
apscullio’s footsteps thundered up the stone stairs of the tower. As he strode inside the room, a wind blew through the wide arched window. Beside it, Seraphima stood with her back to him, staring out at the ocean below.

“The pensive bride,” Rapscullio said drily, coming closer. “If you’re thinking of jumping… don’t.”

She didn’t respond, just continued to stare at the crashing waves.

Rapscullio put his hands on her shoulders, squeezing. She shuddered. His breath was at her neck. “You
will
learn to love me,” he commanded.

Seraphima turned in Rapscullio’s embrace. He lifted the veil that obscured her features.

But it wasn’t her face at all. “Don’t count on it,” Oliver said, and he rammed his head into Rapscullio’s belly, knocking him backward.