Between the Lines Read online

  He drops the egg into the purple smoke, but I never hear it hit bottom. Instead, the smoke rises into a tall column and forms a lavender screen. After a moment, a chicken materializes upon the smoky display.

  “I… I don’t get it,” I say.

  “What you’re looking at,” Orville explains, “is the future.”

  Or the past, I think. After all, what came first—the chicken or the egg—

  Orville interrupts my thoughts. “Pretty ingenious, don’t you think?”

  “But that… you can’t…”

  “Let’s try something else.” The wizard glances around the shack and then plucks a caterpillar off the lopsided window frame. He drops it into the mist, and a moment later, a butterfly made of violet smoke rises in a spiral from the pit of the pedestal.

  “Orville!” I cry. “That’s incredible!”

  “Not bad for an old guy, huh?” He elbows me, then reaches up to pluck a hair from his head. “Here goes nothing….”

  He drops his own hair into the mist, and a moment later, there he is, clear as can be—if a little more wizened and lined in the face. This future Orville is bent over a cauldron that suddenly explodes in a purple blast.

  “Yessir,” Orville says. “Looks entirely accurate.”

  “I want to try. I want to see my future.”

  The wizard frowns. “But why, Oliver? You already know what happens to you. You live happily ever—”

  “Yeah, yeah, right. But still. You never know. I mean, will I live in the kingdom or move away? Have kids? Start a war? I just want some details….”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea….”

  Before Orville can stop me, I yank a hair out of my head and toss it onto the pedestal.

  For a long moment, there is nothing but a swirling lavender whirlpool. Then a geyser of mist sprays toward the ceiling, raining down in a dome. Inside this snow globe made of smoke, I can see myself.

  The first thing I notice is that I’m not wearing a tunic.

  I’m not carrying a sword or a dagger.

  And I’m not standing in a scene from this fairy tale.

  Instead, I am dressed just like the people in the photographs I’ve seen in Delilah’s house. I’m sitting in a room that reminds me of Delilah’s bedroom… except different. There is a fireplace, for example, that Delilah’s room doesn’t have. And there’s a bookcase behind me, with every shelf filled. I can’t understand some of the writing on the volumes; it is in tongues I do not recognize.

  Still, this looks awfully promising for a future outside this story.

  Or so I think, until I see a girl walk in and wrap her arms around me. I can’t see her face from where I’m standing.

  Orville suddenly rushes forward and waves his hands through the purple smoke so that the image dissolves. “Your Highness, this is obviously still in the testing stages,” he says nervously. “Still working out several glitches…”

  I grab the wizard by the throat. “Bring it back!”

  “I can’t, sire….”

  “Do it now!”

  Orville is trembling. “You won’t want to see it,” he whispers. “The person you’re with… is not Princess Seraphima.”

  I pluck another hair from my head and throw it into the fountain. Again, the dome of smoke rises and the scene appears, exactly as it was a moment before. “If you touch it,” I mutter to Orville, “those frog eyes go straight down your throat.”

  The girl in the purple mist wraps her arms around me. Slowly, she turns so that I can see her features.

  Orville was right.

  I didn’t want to see this at all.

  Not because it’s not Seraphima, but because it’s not Delilah either.

  * * *

  I used to think that all I ever wanted was to get out of this stupid book. Now I realize that one must be careful what one wishes for. Getting out might not be my wildest dream—but my biggest nightmare.

  I tried to write myself out of the book, and it didn’t work. I saw my future, and Delilah wasn’t a part of it. I can live without leaving this fairy tale, but I can’t live without her.

  I need help. And I need it fast. And so, even with the uncomfortable knowledge that what I am about to do could hurt someone else, I begin to run toward Rapscullio’s lair.

  By the time I arrive, I am sweating and out of breath. The lair is open, and there is a heavenly vanilla scent wafting out the door. I poke my way inside to find him baking sugar cookies in his kitchen. As he’s dusting the tops with pink sprinkles, I clear my throat to get his attention.

  “Ah, Your Highness! You’re just in time to taste the first batch. They’re still warm!”

  “Rapscullio,” I say, “this is no time for cookies. I need your assistance.”

  Sensing my urgency, he puts down his spatula. “I have twelve to fourteen minutes before the next batch comes out of the oven,” he says solemnly.

  I grab his hand and drag him into the library—the one where, not long ago, I tried to paint myself out of this book and failed miserably. “I need you to draw something for me.”

  “Again?” Rapscullio says. “This is your emergency? You’re having an artistic epiphany?”

  “Just do it,” I argue, frustrated. “I need a picture of a young woman. I’ll tell you what she looks like, and you create it on that special canvas of yours.”

  His eyes brighten. “You mean a wanted poster!”

  Well. Truer words were never spoken. “Exactly,” I say.

  “I’ve done several, you know. My masterpiece is the one I painted of the Knave of Hearts after he stole the queen’s tarts. It’s still hanging in the castle jail.”

  “Great.” I sit down on a stack of books, and a cloud of dust rises around me. “Now—she has dark hair that comes down to her shoulders. It’s straight, with a bit of a curl on the ends.”

  “I’ll have to start with a sketch first.” Rapscullio takes a pad and begins to scribble. “How tall is she?”

  I realize I have no idea. I have no reference point for that.

  “Medium height,” I say, guessing.

  “And her eyes?”

  “They’re brown.”

  “Limpid chocolate brown, or dark-corners-of-the-soul brown?”

  I shrug. “Warm brown, like honey. And her mouth…”

  “Like this?”

  Rapscullio shows me a tiny bow, lips pursed together, but that’s not Delilah at all. Her mouth is always on the verge of a smile. It makes her look like there’s something amazing she needs to tell me, even when it’s just hello.

  We continue in this fashion long after the next batch of cookies has burned to a crisp, as I suggest and tweak and correct Rapscullio’s portrait. “Hurry,” I say, wondering how much time I have before Delilah opens the book again and all this hard work is lost.

  “Genius takes time,” Rapscullio says. But he finally turns the pad around so that I can see it. And sure enough, there is Delilah, staring straight back at me.

  “Yes,” I say, nodding.

  Rapscullio is pleased with himself. “So what’s the rush?” he asks. “What did she do?”

  “Do?” I say.

  “What crime did she commit?”

  Then I remember the ruse I’ve used to get him to draw Delilah. “She’s a thief,” I say.

  It’s not really a lie, after all. Because she’s totally, unequivocally stolen my heart.

  Delilah

  WE ARE SO CLOSE—THERE IN FRONT OF ME in the quiet corner of my old tree fort, I can see Oliver’s face appearing. But before he is more than just a misty hallucination, he’s gone.

  While I’m still trying to figure out what happened—and what didn’t—I hear my mother call my name.

  “Now?” I mutter. “Really?”

  “Delilah?” Her voice is getting closer. She’s standing at the base of the tree fort. “What are you doing up there?”

  I quickly close the book and shove it between the old newspapers. My mother’s head bobs