I think of all the beautiful paintings hanging in museums around the world—muses captured on canvas: the Mona Lisa, the birth of Venus, the girl with a pearl earring. “Voilà,” Oliver declares, and he steps aside.
Carved onto the rock wall is a disproportionate figure with bug eyes, snake hair, and a flat line of a mouth. Apparently, to Oliver, I look like a Muppet.
“Not bad, eh?” he says. “Although, I don’t think I quite captured your nose….”
No wonder; he’s drawn it as a triangle.
I hesitate. “No offense, Oliver, but you might not be the ideal choice to paint a picture of my room.”
He frowns at the portrait he’s drawn of me, and then smiles. “Perhaps not,” Oliver says, “but I know just the fellow who is.”
page 31
Prince Oliver dreamed that one of the mermaids was still kissing him. He was fighting to pull away from her, struggling to breathe—and then he opened his eyes. No mermaid was kissing him, just Frump, licking his face as Socks whinnied and stamped his foot a few feet away. Oliver sat up, damp and bedraggled, on the ocean shore. He had no recollection of the mermaids bringing him to the surface, and he might have considered it all a nightmare, except for the fact that in one hand he was clutching his compass, and in the other he was holding a sack that contained the flotsam and jetsam the mermaids had claimed to be treasures.
One hour into their journey, Oliver and his faithful entourage reached the River of Regret, a mile-wide whitewater fury that had claimed the lives of many who’d tried to cross it. The only hope for passage was the Bridge of Trolls, which—it had to be said—was nearly as perilous.
It is a well-known fact that trolls either always tell the truth or always lie. And that every day they build two bridges—one safe and one designed to collapse at the first hint of weight.
Oliver dismounted, patted Frump on the head, and walked to the edge of the cliff. He could see three small, squat men shuffling about with hammers and nails on the far side. One of the bridges appeared rickety and weak; the other was strongly fashioned—but Oliver knew that looks could be deceiving.
“Helloooo?” Oliver called, but the trolls continued working, unable to hear him over the roar of the water.
Oliver turned and dug the megaphone from the mermaids’ treasure collection out of his rucksack. “Helloooo!” he yelled again, and this time the trolls all looked up. “My good men,” Oliver said. “Which bridge should I use to cross?”
The first troll, Biggle, glanced up. When he spoke, Oliver had no trouble hearing him; trolls were known to talk in decibel levels that could shake the Earth. “Why, what have we got here? Some fancy man with his fancy horse, and what’s that? A big rat or somethin’?” Biggle stroked his long gray beard.
“Sir, I do see you’re working quite hard,” Oliver said with a smile. “I would greatly appreciate your advice.”
Snort and Trogg, the remaining trolls, started to laugh, grunting and holding their bellies. “Ye can only ask one of us to choose for you,” said Trogg, the chubby one. “Make yer pick.”
Oliver thought about this. If trolls always lied or always told the truth, how to find out which troll was trustworthy? “Do you tell the truth?” he yelled through the megaphone.
Biggle replied, but at that moment, the water between them roared, so that Oliver could not make out the answer.
Snort cupped his hands near his mouth. “He said he always tells the truth!”
“No, he didn’t,” called Trogg. “He said he was a liar.”
Oliver glanced from each hideous face to the next. Biggle, he realized, must have said he was truthful. This would have been his response if he was indeed truthful, because of course he’d say so; but it also would have been his response if he was a liar.
Which meant that Snort’s statement had to be the truth.
In other words—he was the troll to trust.
“You!” Oliver said, pointing to the short troll in the middle. “Which bridge?”
“This one,” Snort proudly answered, pointing to the rickety bridge.
Oliver mounted his stallion again and, without a moment’s hesitation, crossed the bridge Snort had indicated.
“That’ll be a guinea,” Biggle grunted.
Oliver patted down his pockets and saddlebags, but all his spare change had fallen into the ocean when he was with the mermaids.
The mermaids.
The trolls advanced, menacing, ready to pound him into the dirt.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “do you know what’s more precious than gold? True love.”
“We’re trolls,” said Trogg. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”
“I happen to know three lovely ladies who could overlook that fact,” Oliver said.
“Honestly?” asked Snort.
Oliver grinned. “I always tell the truth,” he said.
OLIVER
“BEDSPREAD,” DELILAH SAYS.
“Um… pink.”
“Good. Number of stuffed animals on the bed?”
“Three.”
“Excellent. What are they?”
I close my eyes, trying to remember. “A pig, a bear wearing a strange little shirt, and a duck with quite a sassy look on its face.”
“And the book?”
“Purple leather, with gold lettering that reads Between the Lines.”
It’s odd to think of my story as a physical entity, because obviously I’ve never seen the outside of the tome in which we all live. But Delilah has described it in excruciating detail.
In fact, she’s spent hours this Saturday evening giving me a thorough tour of her bedroom by carrying the open book from end to end. I have read fortune cookie messages tacked onto her mirror; I have met her pet fish—named Dudley; I have stared at a whiteboard she can write upon and erase, which is festooned with small favors from places she and her mother have visited: the Flume in New Hampshire, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory, Boston, the Statue of Liberty. We realized that the only error in our plan was that Delilah could not watch the painting actually happen—since that would have to occur when the book was closed and I could meet privately with Rapscullio in his lair.
To this end, Delilah insisted that I memorize every last detail of her room, so that it could be as accurate a representation as possible on that magic canvas. Like me, she doesn’t want to leave anything up to chance.
“How many lamps are in here?” she quizzes.
“Three. One on the desk, one clipped to the bed, and one on the dresser. And next to the lamp on the dresser is a music box you got from your mother for your fifth birthday; and there’s a sticker on your headboard of Curious George that you put there when you were three and could never quite peel off entirely; and right now there are three pairs of earrings that you haven’t put into your jewelry box yet, which are sitting next to your hairbrush.” I smirk at her. “Now do you believe I’m ready?”
“Very,” she says.
“Okay. I’m off, then.”
“Wait!” I turn back to find her staring at me, biting her lower lip. “What if… it doesn’t work?”
I reach up, as if I might be able to touch her, but of course I can’t. “What if it does?”
She traces one finger along the edge of the page close to me. The world beside me ripples. “Goodbye,” Delilah says.
* * *
Rapscullio’s lair needs a thorough cleaning. There are cobwebs in the corner, and I am pretty certain a rat runs over my shoe as I enter. “Anybody home?” I ask cheerfully.
“Over here,” Rapscullio calls out. I turn a corner to find him examining a butterfly that’s been trapped inside a glass jar. There are holes in the lid, but the insect’s wings are beating desperately as it tries to escape.
I know how that feels.
“Rapscullio,” I say, “I need your help.”
“Kind of busy right now, Your Highness…”
“It’s an emergency.”
He sets the captured butterfly down on a
table. “Go on,” Rapscullio says, folding his long, bony arms.
“I was hoping you could paint something for me. A gift.”
“A gift?”
“Yes—for a friend of mine. A very special friend of mine.”
Rapscullio’s face lights up. “I have just the thing—I’ve been working on a close-up of a long-toed water beetle—”
“I was thinking of something different,” I interrupt. “And maybe a little more romantic.”
He scratches his chin. “Let’s see…” he says. When he stalks into the adjacent room—the studio I’ve been in before—I follow him. Rapscullio pulls three canvases with Seraphima’s face from the piles stacked along the walls. “Take your pick.”
“The thing is… this isn’t for Seraphima.”
A slow, itchy smile twitches over Rapscullio’s lips. “Well, well,” he says. “Our little prince is playing the field.”
“Oh, cut it out, Rapscullio. You know Seraphima and I were never really a ‘thing.’”
“Then who’s the lucky lady?” he asks.
“No one you know.”
He laughs. “I’d say, given the size of our world, that’s highly unlikely.”
“Look,” I say, “just do me this one favor, and I’ll do anything you want.”
“Anything?” He looks at me from the corner of his eye.
I hesitate. “Sure.”
“Will you… sing something for me?”
I’ll be perfectly honest, my singing ability ranks at about the same level as my drawing ability. But I nod, only to have Rapscullio turn aside, move some canvases out of the way, and pluck out a tune on an ancient piano.
I listen to the first few notes. “Do you know it?” he asks hopefully.
“Um. Yes.” I clear my throat, and start to sing: “For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow. For he’s a jolly good fellow… that nobody can deny.”
When I finish, I look up to find Rapscullio wiping a tear from his eye. “That,” he says with a sniff, “was beautiful.”
“Er… thanks.”
He clears his throat. “Sometimes it’s hard being the bad guy, you know?” With one final snort, he turns his attention to me again. “Now,” Rapscullio says. “Your painting?”
“Well,” I begin, “I sort of need it to be painted on the magic canvas. The one you use to bring the butterflies to life.”
Rapscullio scowls. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to re-create my lair perfectly in that painting? I’m sorry, Oliver, I just—”
“You can. Because the minute the story starts again, the canvas will be back to normal—with your original painting on it. Just like always.”
I watch his face as he processes this information. “That’s true,” Rapscullio admits.
“It’s a room. With a bed in it. A bedroom,” I tell him.
“Yes, that’s usually the case when there’s a bed in the room….”
“And it’s very… girlie. The walls are pink.”
Rapscullio picks up a brush and swirls together some pigments. “Like this?” he asks, and Delilah’s walls come to life.
“Yes!” I say. I point to a corner of the canvas. “Right there’s a mirror—no, the wood is more blond than brown. And it sits on a dresser. Can you redo that bit, so that there are five drawers instead of four?”
It is painstaking, asking Rapscullio to re-create a room full of things he has never seen. When he gets really stuck (a lampshade? A clock radio?) I draw a mock-up of the item in the dirt floor with a stick. “And a book on the bed,” I continue. “It’s purple with gold lettering on the cover, which reads Between the Lines.”
He lifts a brow. “As in… the name of our story?”
“Um. Yes. I thought it was a nice touch.” There’s no point in explaining to him why I really need the book to be there. I continue to give instructions, making corrections when necessary: No, the magnet is shaped like a boot, not a circle. And the sheets are more fuchsia than pastel violet.
Finally, when Rapscullio is through, I look at the canvas and see a detailed replica of Delilah’s room. “Well?” he demands.
“Perfect,” I murmur. “It’s absolutely perfect.”
Now comes the hard part. Delilah and I have realized that if I’m to paint myself into this canvas, Rapscullio can’t be watching. It’s just too much to risk—what if I confide my plan to him and he tries to stop me, or tells Frump and the others that I’m attempting to leave the story? I could try to dupe him into simply painting me onto the canvas as part of the gift portrait, but what if he figures out, midway, what is happening and leaves me half in Delilah’s world and half in mine? I am not an artist by any means, but it’s all we’ve got.
Together we’ve devised a plan—with the help of something called Google and a search for rare species of butterflies. If I stick to the script we’ve written, Delilah is certain Rapscullio will leave me alone here—we hope long enough for me to pick up a paintbrush and create an image of myself on that canvas.
“Oh my goodness!” I cry, snapping my head toward the open window. “Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“I’m sure it was nothing. Just a butterfly.”
“Butterfly?” Rapscullio’s eyes widen. “What did it look like?”
“Tiny and electric blue… with a black-and-white border on its wings?”
He leaps toward the window. “An Adonis blue? You saw an Adonis blue? But they’re supposed to be extinct!” Rapscullio hesitates. “You don’t think it was just a Chalkhill blue, do you?”
“No, not a Chalkhill,” I say. “Definitely not a Chalkhill.” What the devil is a Chalkhill?
“Hmm.” He glances out the window again. “Are we all set here, then? Because if you don’t mind, I might take a poke outside with my net to see if I can catch the Adonis before we have to do our next book performance.”
“Go right ahead,” I say. “Perfectly understandable.”
I wave as he sprints out of the room. Then I look at the canvas again. It is a stunning, realistic representation of Delilah’s room. I only wish I had Rapscullio’s artistic talent.
“Here goes nothing,” I mutter, and I pick up the paintbrush that Rapscullio’s left on the palette. I catch my reflection in the window glass—Delilah and I both think with the subject right in front of my eyes, I may be able to at least make an adequate copy, even if I’m no artist. I touch the canvas, leaving a faint mark the same color as my sleeve. I rinse the brush and mix a new color, one that matches my flesh.
But then I hesitate. Putting the brush down, I walk into the adjoining room, where the butterfly is still beating senselessly against the glass jar. I twist the lid, and watch it fly out the open window.
Just in case something goes wrong, at least one of us will be free.
Delilah
WHAT IS TAKING HIM SO LONG?
I’ve been waiting for an hour and a half, and still, zip. Nada. Nothing.
I could open the book.
I told him I wouldn’t open the book.
The minute I do, of course, any headway he’s made with Rapscullio will be erased, and they’ll all be performing the story again.
“Oliver,” I say out loud, “this is ridiculous.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
I nearly jump a foot when I hear my mother’s voice. She is standing in the doorway, looking worried.
“Delilah, it’s after midnight. And you’ve been talking to yourself the whole night—don’t try to argue with me, I’ve been listening through the door—”
“You’ve been eavesdropping on me?”
“Honey,” my mother says, sitting down on the bed, “I think maybe you need someone to talk to.” She hesitates. “Someone real, I mean.”
“I am talking to someone—”
“Delilah, I know what depression looks like—and I know what it feels like. When your father walked out, I had to drag myself out of bed every day just to get you to school,
and to pretend for you that everything was okay. But you don’t have to pretend for my sake.”
“Mom, I’m not depressed—”
“You spend all your time alone in your room. You say that you hate swimming, that you hate school. And your only friend looks like a vampire—”
“You’re the one who told me not to judge a book by its cover,” I argue, immediately thinking of Oliver. “I’m fine. Honestly. I kind of want to be alone right now.”
From my mother’s face, I can tell this was exactly not the right thing to say. “On Monday, I’m going to see whether we can get you an appointment with Dr. Ducharme—”
“But I’m not sick!”
“Dr. Ducharme’s a psychiatrist,” my mother says gently.
I open my mouth to argue, but before I can speak, I notice something shimmering beside my mother’s left shoulder.
It’s a hand.
A disembodied, floating, translucent hand.
I blink, and rub my eyes. I have got to get my mother out of this room now.
“Okay,” I say. “Whatever you want.”
Her jaw drops. “You mean, you’re not going to fight me on this?”
“No. Dr. DuWhatever. Monday. Got it.” I pull her to her feet and walk her to the threshold. “Gosh, I didn’t realize I was so tired! Good night!”
I slam the door and turn around, certain that the hand will have disappeared—but there it is, and now there’s an arm attached too.
Except the arm is flat and two-dimensional. Like a cartoon arm. Which is exactly what I was afraid would happen if Oliver were to come into this world.
I’d rather have him stay the way he is than change. I just wish other people—like my mom—felt that way about me.
I grab the book and rip it open to page 43. Oliver stands at the bottom of the rock cliff. As I watch, the blue paint spattering his tunic vanishes, until he looks the same way he always does on page 43. “What are you doing?” he yells.