Off the Page Read online

  There’s a little red wristband she wears while she’s running in case she falls off the moving walkway or gets hurt. If this happens, a cord on the wristband makes the machine stop dead.

  I imagined that is exactly what happened when I left the book. I pulled the cord, and everyone else stayed frozen in the moment, static, waiting for me to start them up again.

  But I suppose I was just kidding myself.

  They all seem to be going on with their lives and their stories, as if they never needed me in the first place.

  I should be happy for them. I should feel good about the fact that they, like me, have moved on. But I’m fairly certain happiness doesn’t feel like a stone in the pit of one’s stomach.

  When I opened the book and I saw that beach, I could still picture myself looking up at the words hanging like balloons in the sky. I could feel the spray of the ocean, and the sun beating hot on the back of my tunic.

  For the first time I can remember, seeing Seraphima was a delight, not a chore.

  I couldn’t even make eye contact with Queen Maureen because it hurt too much.

  And Frump . . . well. Seeing him on Everafter Beach, so happy and human—I wanted to be excited for him. But all I noticed was him standing beside Edgar, and how easily Edgar seemed to have replaced me.

  Once upon a time, Frump and I swapped out the salt for the sugar in Queen Maureen’s pantry, causing her to make the world’s most inedible cake for a birthday party for Ondine the mermaid. Then there was the time we painted Socks electric pink while he was fast asleep. I can’t count the number of hours we spent playing chess on the beach, using the fairies as pieces. Sometimes I wouldn’t even have to tell Frump what I was thinking. He just knew.

  I can’t imagine my life without Delilah in it. But to be honest, I always believed Frump would be there too.

  I reach over Delilah’s bed to the words COME HOME, which are still floating like lanterns, and crush them in the palm of my hand. They leave smudges on my skin. When I toss them in the trash, they look like a tangle of black ribbon.

  Delilah puts her hand on my arm. “Are you okay?”

  I nod. “I just . . . I thought they might need me a little more.”

  “I need you.” She leans forward, and I tuck her against me. Her skin is soft as satin. This is what’s real. This is why I’m real.

  It’s Delilah’s idea to take a walk in the woods. We strike out behind her house, following an overgrown path littered with fallen leaves the color of fire. “I used to come here and make fairy houses out of acorns and pine needles and twigs,” she says.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I scoff. “Fairies would never live on the ground; they’d be stepped on. They make their homes in the notches of trees.”

  She laughs. “Well, not all of us have the benefit of firsthand experience.”

  “I had a spot in the Enchanted Forest where I used to play with Frump as a child. It looked just like this,” I tell her. “We built a fort between two boulders and spent hours trying to hunt a squirrel for dinner.”

  “Queen Maureen would have let you eat a squirrel?”

  “No,” I admit. “Luckily we never caught one.”

  “Come here,” she says. “I want to show you something.” She takes my hand and leads me through a thicket of overgrown brush and tangled roots, which opens suddenly into a small clearing. A canopy of leaves filters the sunlight above us, dappling the ground. A willow tree arches like a dancer, its arms extended and its long hair cascading. Delilah parts the vines, revealing a mossy log. She sits down and pats the space beside her. “I used to come here when I wanted to run away from home.”

  I think about Delilah’s cozy house, her attentive mother. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because no one is always happy where they are. Every time I got mad at my mom, or frustrated because she was working too hard to be around a lot, I wanted to escape. So I’d pack everything I thought I should take with me into my pillowcase and I’d come here. And then, by the time the sun went down, I couldn’t remember what had made me want to leave in the first place. All I could think of was the dinner my mother was probably cooking, and the way my pillows sank down just the way I liked, and my favorite pair of pajamas. It was all those little things that reminded me of why I couldn’t run away.” She looks up at me. “I’m scared, Oliver. I’m scared the sun is going to go down and you’re going to realize you want to go home.”

  I frame her face in my hands, looking into her eyes. “I am home,” I tell her.

  After supper, Delilah’s mother pulls out a stack of photo albums. Delilah is mortified, her cheeks flaming, but I can’t get enough of the pictures. I watch her morph from a tiny baby waving a pair of oversized sunglasses to a child on a swing to a young girl in a sunflower dress at her piano recital. Delilah’s mother sits beside me, the dog curled at her feet. “Look, Lila,” she says, turning the page to reveal a preteen, all angles and elbows, with a full mouth of metal. “Remember how we thought you were going to have your braces till you were thirty?”

  At that, Delilah practically leaps over me, slamming the album closed. “Shut it down,” she says.

  “Kids grow up so fast,” her mother says. “Edgar, I’m sure your mother would agree.”

  “Maybe not,” I murmur under my breath. I’ve been a teenager my whole life.

  Delilah’s mom strokes the cover of the photo album as if she would rather give up her life than lose what’s inside. It’s exactly the way Delilah looked when she used to open the fairy tale. Her mother glances from Delilah to me. “One day you two will understand.”

  “Oh my God, Mom. No.” Delilah pulls her mother to her feet. “Don’t you have a date to get ready for?”

  The date in question is with Delilah’s former psychiatrist, Dr. Ducharme. I would have expected Delilah to be less than pleased, but actually, she’s overjoyed. Once they started dating, Delilah stopped having to go for appointments, because it was a conflict of interest.

  Mrs. McPhee looks at her wristwatch. “You’re right. Greg’s going to be here in fifteen minutes. Delilah, help me with the dishes?”

  Humphrey leaps to his stubby feet, waddling into the kitchen behind them in the hopes of catching a dropped scrap. Meanwhile, I carry the albums back to the shelf where Delilah’s mother found them. As I return them to their spots, I notice one thin slice of an album labeled HALLOWEEN. Inside it, Delilah changes from a pumpkin to a gypsy queen, to a monkey, to a bunch of grapes.

  On the next page, I pause.

  Delilah is young—maybe six or seven. She is wearing a blue ball gown, long white gloves, and a jeweled tiara.

  This is what she might have been like had we met as children in the middle of my world instead of hers.

  With a grin, I slip the photograph out of its protective sleeve and into my pocket.

  She would have made a lovely princess.

  On Saturday, I run out of clothes.

  Unlike in the fairy tale, where there’s always a fresh tunic and hose whenever I need them, in this world one is left to one’s own devices to ensure a clean wardrobe. For the first month or so, I didn’t even notice the difference—Jessamyn would simply disappear with my hamper full of worn clothes and they would magically be returned, pressed and folded, to my bureau. But today, when I pull out the drawer, there’s a single folded shirt. I check my closet and realize my dirty clothes are still in the hamper.

  Perhaps Jessamyn has forgotten. I call out for my pseudo-mother, but there’s no answer. Jessamyn told me she might go grocery shopping today—another extraordinary inconvenience in this world. In the book, our pantry is always full. But I’m not in the book. I’m not a prince. I have to learn to take care of myself. How hard could this possibly be?

  Cheerfully I carry the hamper down the stairs into the laundry room, where I’ve watched Jessamyn go through the motions at least a dozen times. I know it involves pouring a liquid soap and pushing a series of buttons. I dump the tangle of laundry into the