Between the lines

Pyro snorted, the fiery ball igniting a tree just to Oliver’s left. “Denying it will not make it any better,” Oliver insisted. “Do you or do you not have a smoky aftertaste in your mouth?”

The dragon blinked.

“Classic symptomology. You, my friend, suffer from an impacted firecuspid. If left unattended, it can lead to scaly skin, flaring of the nostrils, charred tongue…”

With each recognizable symptom, the dragon backed away, eyes wide.

“…and untimely death.”

The dragon sat back on his haunches and clamped his mouth firmly shut.

“Lucky for you, I have some experience with orthodontia.” Oliver took a step forward. “Just close your eyes, and open your mouth wide.”

The dragon slowly, warily, opened his massive jaws.

This was the place his father had died. Holding his breath, Oliver cautiously climbed onto the dragon’s spongy tongue. He stared at the teeth, large as boulders, with bits of flesh and blood caught between them. His boot slipped, and as he fell to his knees, something winked at him. It looked like a silver filling.

Oliver narrowed his eyes and realized that it wasn’t a filling at all. It was a knight’s helmet, a piece of the armor he’d created with Orville-made of the strongest, most fireproof material in the kingdom-reduced to a shredded ball of foil.

This knight had died. Oliver’s father had died. This dragon could swallow Oliver whole. No amount of skill with words and lies and ruses could protect him from bodily harm.

As if to underscore this fact, the dragon belched, and a gust of flame rushed toward Oliver like a wave. He reached into his rucksack and closed his fingers around the fire extinguisher that the mermaids had given him.

He pulled out the metal key to activate it and carefully positioned the canister between two enormous molars. “Now,” he said, gingerly backing out of the dragon’s mouth and wiping his tunic clean of saliva, “I need you to bite down very gently.”

Pyro clamped his mouth shut. Oliver counted to three under his breath, and suddenly white foam began oozing out from between the dragon’s gums. “Ah,” he said. “I can see it’s working…”

The dragon began wheezing. His mouth opened, but instead of a burst of flames came a sad, weak cough. Like any cornered animal, Pyro began to lash out with his claws and his tail, slicing the air. Oliver leaped out of the way, hiding behind a rock as the dragon retreated down the hill to the ocean.

When he heard the dragon’s cry growing fainter, Oliver edged forward. Pyro’s head was beneath the surface of the water, and he was drinking greedily to flush out the taste of the chemicals. While he was submerged, Scuttle and Walleye crept from their hiding places and threw their nets over Pyro, trapping the dragon, who let out a feeble snarl. Then Captain Crabbe emerged with a huge tank. “Now, now, my friend, you won’t feel a thing.” He placed a tube into the dragon’s mouth and released laughing gas into the beast’s lungs. Pyro’s overbite softened into a drunken smile. His huge eyelids drooped, and his roar dissolved into loud, smoky hiccups. Then he collapsed, creating a small earthquake around him.

Oliver started walking away from the dragon’s lair, a victory route his father had never taken.

***

OLIVER

THE NEXT TIME DELILAH OPENS THE BOOK, I FIND myself in a place I’ve never been. Missing are the bureau and mirror and the pink bedspread I am used to seeing in Delilah’s bedroom. I climb to the edge of the page, trying to see more of this new location. “Where are we?”

“Somewhere I used to come to a lot when I was little. My fort.” Delilah steps away so that I can see better. The walls are made of wooden slats, and there is a poorly sawed window. Shelves are filled with tin cans containing colored pencils, pennies, and stones. A stack of newspapers crowds a corner, their edges curled with age and humidity.

I must say, I am not impressed. I have never seen a fortress in such disrepair. “It’s a wonder the enemy didn’t sack you ages ago,” I murmur.

“No, but the neighbor’s dog came pretty close one time,” Delilah says. “It’s not a real fortress. It’s a pretend one.”

“Why would you pretend to be at war?”

“Because that’s what kids do,” Delilah explains. “You’ll see, when you’re here.”

At those words, we both grow silent. It’s time to try to write me out of this fairy tale.

“I brought you here on purpose,” Delilah says. “I thought it would be safer.”

“How so?”

“Well… for one thing, we don’t know how loud this is going to be… Second, if my mother hears me talking to a book one more time, I’ll definitely be locked up.” She hesitates. “And third, if it does work, I don’t think she’ll be too thrilled to find a strange guy in my bedroom.”

“Good thinking,” I say. I look down at the copy of the fairy tale I took from Rapscullio’s bookshelf. In spite of its brush with fire, it is in perfect condition, healed of whatever scars and burns it once bore.

“So now what?” Delilah asks nervously.

“I guess I need to rewrite the ending.” But now that the moment has arrived, my heart is pounding. What if this doesn’t work, and instead of appearing in Delilah’s world, I resurface in another book-one whose story I don’t even know? Or stuck within the barrier that exists between my world and Delilah’s? What if rewriting the story just creates a new book, and I find myself in the same situation, but one layer deeper and that much harder to escape?

And even worse, what if it does work, and Delilah decides she doesn’t want to be saddled with a clueless former fairy-tale prince who doesn’t know the first thing about real life? What if the reality of me pales in comparison to the guy she’s been imagining?

“What are you waiting for?” Delilah asks.

And perhaps, most frightening of all, what if I start this and it ends me? What if the place I go to is not her world or my former world, but nowhere at all?

I look at Delilah’s face, at the way she bites her bottom lip. I want to taste that bottom lip. I want her. None of these risks compares to the horror of staying here and knowing I never took the chance to be with Delilah.

“Right.” I reach into my tunic and pull out a piece of charcoal, which I tucked into a pocket after my last scene with Pyro-it’s simply not practical to carry around a quill and ink in one’s clothing-and I sharpen the edge against the cliff where I’m standing. “Here goes,” I say, and I flip to the last page of the book.

Studiously avoiding the illustration on the facing page, I slide the charcoal across the words THE END.

Suddenly I am flying head over heels through the pages, struggling to hold on to the charcoal and the copy of the fairy tale. Branches from the Enchanted Forest strike my face, stinging; a rogue comma hooks the edge of my hose and rips a hole; I am plunged into darkness and back into light; I am dragged through water and wind and fire, and finally land facefirst on the sand of Everafter Beach.

I push myself up onto my elbows, spitting out a mouthful of dirt and wincing at the ache of every muscle in my body. Surrounding me are all the characters awaiting my wedding to Seraphima. I sneak a glance at the book I’m still holding-and see that I have not fully crossed out the words. Grabbing hold of the charcoal, I strike the last letter in THE END.

“Oliver!” Frump barks. “What are you doing?” But even while he is speaking, I can see the edges of his shaggy ears and the point of his tail becoming transparent as he disappears. I swing my head to the right, just in time to see Seraphima reaching her hand out desperately toward me as she too fades away. Each of my friends in this story vanishes, leaving behind a white silhouette and utter silence, until there is just me, sprawled on the beach, and blank holes in the shapes the characters used to be.