Off the Page Read online

  Delilah approaches, her hands tucked in her back pockets. “That’s perfect. Let me get Seraphima and—”

  “Not yet,” I interrupt. “I think maybe just a little deeper.”

  The hole, I know, is plenty big. It’s just that I am not ready for what has to come next. I fear I may never be.

  “Oliver,” Delilah says. “We have to. My mom’ll be home soon.”

  I nod and set the shovel down. I kneel in front of Frump while Delilah goes to fetch Seraphima.

  I lean over and whisper. “Remember when we convinced Socks that if he kept eating carrots, he’d turn orange? And when you gave me fleas and Queen Maureen quarantined us both in the tower?” I am quiet for a moment, lost in the past. “All those times we walked through the forest and the unicorn meadow, you’d run ahead, and then you’d always circle back, just to make sure I was still there.” I rest my hand on Frump’s head. “Don’t forget to circle back, my friend.”

  Delilah returns, her arm around Seraphima. I can tell that without Delilah’s support, she would have collapsed by now. She stands stiffly in front of the open grave, her eyes swollen and her cheeks red, as I lift Frump into my arms and gently lower him.

  Seraphima starts to cry again and presses a tissue to her nose. “Sometimes at a funeral,” Delilah says, “people say a few words.”

  Seraphima nods. “A few words,” she repeats solemnly.

  “Frump,” Delilah continues, “I didn’t know you very well. But I’ve never seen someone love as hard, or as loyally, as you did.”

  She looks up at me, and I realize it is my turn to speak. I clear my throat. “I hope that wherever you are, you’re finally who you want to be.”

  Seraphima falls to her knees, sobbing, and Delilah glances at me, communicating silently. I lift Seraphima into my arms and carry her back inside, settling her on the living room couch. By the time I come back out, Delilah has already filled the pit halfway with dirt.

  For a moment, I am frozen with agony watching her. Then I grab the shovel from her hands and begin to viciously toss heaps of earth into the grave. My whole body trembles with the effort, and sweat pours down my back. It takes Delilah three tries to wrench the shovel from my hands.

  “Stop!” she pleads. “That’s enough!”

  My face twists with sorrow. “This is my punishment,” I say. “He wouldn’t have been here if it weren’t for me.”

  “Oh, Oliver,” she murmurs, and I fall into her arms, giving in to the grief.

  When you love someone, silence isn’t awkward. Delilah sits next to me, her arms wrapped tightly around me, and neither of us speaks. I was born in a sea of words, I lived and breathed language, but right now, this quiet is the most comfortable place in the world.

  When Delilah’s mother comes home, she spends an hour outside at Frump’s grave with Dr. Ducharme’s arm around her. Seraphima retires just after supper, saying she has a headache, although I know it is just the day’s events that have overwhelmed her. For the first time since I came to the house this morning, I find myself alone with Delilah in her room, with a Herculean task ahead of me.

  “Are you ready?” Delilah asks as she pulls the fairy tale from her shelf.

  I take a deep breath and open the book to the final page.

  The entire cast of characters stands in position on Everafter Beach, in an odd mash-up of fairy tale and science fiction. The mermaids swim in the shallows; Captain Crabbe steers a spacecraft; the trolls are shooting lasers from behind a barricade. Edgar stands with his sword raised high in victory. Beside him, Jules is pulling at the chafing neck of her princess gown. As soon as she sees our faces, she relaxes. “I told you guys it would be Delilah and Oliver,” she says. “Now can I get out of this corset?”

  But I’m not focusing on her words. My eyes fall to the spot where Frump would have stood and where, instead, Humphrey now holds a laser gun in his jaw.

  “Whoa, boy,” Edgar says, grabbing the gun as the dog swings it wildly back and forth. “That’s not a toy.” He glances up at me. “And before you ask, no, we haven’t found another portal yet. But maybe if you stopped interrupting us by opening the book, we could actually get some work—”

  “That’s not why I called you here.” I swallow. “I don’t know how to say this. . . .”

  Delilah covers my hand with hers where it rests on the edge of the page. “It’s Frump.”

  “He . . . he’s dead,” I manage to say.

  Queen Maureen blinks up at me. “For goodness’ sake, darling. That happens to Rapscullio every day. Just close the book.”

  “I don’t live in a book anymore,” I reply. “And neither did Frump, when he died. It’s different here. There are no second chances. It’s . . . permanent.”

  A cloud of shock settles over the cast. “What if we bring him back here?” Socks asks. “Maybe he just needs to be back in the book?”

  “It doesn’t work that way, my boy,” Orville answers. “When you’re in a given world, you must play by its rules. Frump can’t die out there and be resurrected here.”

  One of the mermaids starts to cry, and then another, and then the third, and the tide begins to rise. Pyro exhales a plume of white smoke. Socks sits down heavily on his rump. “But he was my friend,” the horse wails. “How can he just be gone?”

  “I know it hurts,” Delilah says, “but every day, it will hurt a little less.” She turns away from the book to wipe her eyes.

  If I stay with them while they grieve, I’m going to be ripped apart all over again too, and I have barely managed to regain control since the funeral. “It’s more important than ever that you find a way for Seraphima to return to the book,” I tell Edgar. “She needs to be back there with all of you.”

  Rapscullio puts his arm around Queen Maureen’s shoulders. One by one, the fairies emit a shower of sparks, becoming memorial candles for Frump.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell everyone, my voice husky with regret. “I never thought something like this could happen.”

  And then I can’t hold myself together anymore. I step back before everyone sees me fall to pieces. Before I can, however, Delilah closes the book.

  I sit down on the edge of her bed, burying my face in my hands. “How can anyone survive in this world?” I ask. “How can you keep letting go of people you care about?”

  I don’t really mean for Delilah to answer, but she sits beside me and threads her fingers through mine. “Because you know they’re in a better place,” she says quietly. “That’s what everyone always tells you, but I didn’t really think it was true, until now.”

  There is something in the tone of her voice, a catch to her words, that makes me look up at her. Her eyes shine with tears, and she’s biting her lower lip. “Since Edgar told us he wanted to get out of the book, I’ve been trying to find a way to keep you here too. When you love someone, you want to keep him safe. It’s why Frump wanted Seraphima to go back to the book with him.” She takes a deep, rattling breath. “I am so scared of losing you forever. I don’t think I could live, if you didn’t. Which is why I realize Seraphima isn’t the only one who needs to leave.”

  Slowly her words swim into focus in my mind, and I realize what she’s saying. “But I love you.”

  “I love you too. So much that I’d rather have you a world away, safe, than not have you at all.”

  I want to argue, but I know I’ll never win. The proof is in Delilah’s backyard, under the willow tree. The proof is in the dirt still caked beneath my fingernails.

  Delilah throws herself into my arms, and I clutch her, as if holding her tightly enough were all it would take to keep me from falling back into those pages. I hold her as if she could leave her impression on my skin, on my heart.

  I try to commit all of this to memory: how it feels to touch her, the vanilla scent of her hair.

  I wonder how many people I will lose in one day.

  Death is the guest you didn’t invite: arriving when you least expect it, when you least need it, and w