Between the lines

“Good Lord,” I whisper, and just then, the entire beach drains of pigment, until I am completely surrounded by nothing at all.

I am still holding the book and the sliver of charcoal. With shaking hands I spread the page flat and write:

And he lived happily ever after with Delilah Eve McPhee.

As soon as the last letter of Delilah’s name is complete, the white space before my eyes begins to burn, opening in the center the way a flame eats its way through paper. The white curls back, revealing every color and inch and stitch and knot of the ratty old fortress into which Delilah had brought me.

That growing flame of color burns away a bit more of the white, and I begin to see Delilah’s shocked face. “Oliver?” she says.

But then her voice fades, like Frump’s did before, until it sounds like she is speaking to me from the opposite end of a long tunnel. The holes in the white space begin to narrow, closing themselves so that I can no longer see the tin cans with their colored pencils or the stack of newspapers in the corner. Frantically I look down at the open book in my lap and watch with horror as the last letter I’ve written, the e in McPhee, unravels itself from the tail to the loop, and then quivers and disappears. The same happens with the previous e, and the h and the P and so on, until my revised ending has been completely erased.

Then there is a slam of force against my chest, knocking my breath out of my lungs and causing me to see stars. When I get my bearings again, I’m in Seraphima’s arms, and all around me the characters from this story are cheering and clapping and celebrating my new marriage.

Or in other words, I’m right back where I never wanted to be.

* * *

Before Delilah and I can talk about what went wrong, her mother calls her. I hear Delilah say she’ll be back as soon as she can, but I don’t acknowledge her. Instead I accept the congratulations of the pirates and offer pecks of consolation to the mermaids, who are in tears, and all the while I am praying that Delilah will close the book and free me from this recurring nightmare.

The minute she does, Frump yells, “Cut!”

I grab him by the collar. “Where’d you go? And why did you come back?”

“Go?” Frump shakes his head. “Buddy, I think you’ve got sunstroke. No one’s gone anywhere. We’ve been watching the wedding like always,” he says with a grimace.

“But I saw you vanish… and… and… everything went white…”

This must be how Delilah feels, when nobody believes a word she’s saying. How could no one remember the beach evaporating? And where did they all disappear to?

Their memories have been wiped clean, I realize. Just like always, the book’s reset itself. It is as if that last scene I was trying to rewrite never happened.

And that’s probably for the best, because otherwise, they’d want to lynch me.

Frump looks at me strangely. “You might want to go to Orville and get that checked out.”

Before I can respond, a tree smacks into me from behind. Or so I think, until I turn around to find Snort-the shortest troll-clapping me on the shoulder. He pushes me aside so he can talk to Frump. “Boss,” the troll says, “I’m having a little trouble giving my character credibility in the last scene. Am I still holding a grudge against the prince, or do I just plain want to kill him?”

“It’s a happy ending, Snort.”

The troll furrows his brow. “So, then I want to kill him?”

Frump sighs. “I don’t care what you’re thinking. Just look happy while you’re thinking it!”

To my right, Socks and Pyro are locked in deep discussion. “You know the illustration puts on ten pounds,” Socks says.

“So true, so true,” Pyro replies.

“That’s why I’m on a no-carb hay diet,” Socks admits. “It’s doing wonders for my waistline.”

Ducking my head so that I won’t have to field any invitations for a game of chess or a swim with the mermaids, I slip away from Everafter Beach.

What happened back there?

Everything seemed to be working. Why did it stop?

I have walked halfway to the wizard’s cottage before I even realize where I’m headed. Perhaps Frump is right-maybe all I need is one of Orville’s potions to set my head straight again.

He lives in a rickety old cottage that looks, now that I think about it, something like Delilah’s fortress. Outside, hanging from the beams of the porch, are bundles of drying herbs and wind chimes made of rusty spoons. I knock on the door and hear an explosion and a crash inside.

“Orville?” I yell.

“Everything’s fine!” the wizard responds. “Just a slight backfire!”

A moment later he opens the door. His skin is blackened with ash, in stark contrast to his snowy beard and wild cloud of white hair. “Ah, my dear boy. Don’t tell me the queen sent you. I promise I’ll get around to the Fountain of Youth potion by the end of the month…”

“The queen didn’t send me,” I say. “I need your help, Orville.”

“What can I do for you?” the wizard asks, stepping aside to invite me in.

It’s hard to believe that he can see well enough in the dim light to concoct his potions. There are books upon books, old tomes so dusty that I find myself coughing uncontrollably. A table sits in the center of the room, missing one of its legs-which has been replaced by a stack of grimoires. On its surface are several large cast-iron cauldrons, each with a spoon that is stirring itself. “Orville,” I say, “I think that one’s boiling over.”

The wizard turns to see a thick, glowing green ooze bubbling over the edge of one pot. He gasps, sticks his hand in a jar of eyeballs, and tosses three into the mix. Immediately, the liquid hisses at him.

“What the devil is that?” I ask.

“Jealousy,” Orville says, gesturing at the contents of the cauldron. “Nasty, foul stuff.” He wipes his hands on his apron, leaving behind two glowing palm prints. “Now, Prince Oliver, what’s your fancy?” He grins, gesturing to the floor-to-ceiling shelves full of glass canisters, all labeled carefully in Orville’s spidery writing: STRENGTH. PATIENCE. BEAUTY. GIGGLES.

I rub the back of my head, making my hair stand on end. “I blacked out a little while ago. Frump thought maybe you’d have something that could make me… I don’t know… a little more focused.”

“Ah, certainly,” Orville says. He starts moving jars, handing me a container of serpent’s teeth and another of dragon claws as he rummages. “I know it’s around here somewhere,” he mutters, and he climbs a dodgy ladder to the top shelf, knocking down a long, gauzy spool of memory and a cobalt blue shaker full of fairy dust, which overturns in a fit of glitter and sends us both into paroxysms of uncontrollable sneezing.

“If you can’t find it,” I yell out, “I’m happy to make do with a couple of leeches…”

“Aha!” Orville cries. He clatters down the ladder, holding a muslin sack. He unties the drawstring and shakes a handful of iridescent clamshells into his palm. Choosing one, he pries it open with a knife to reveal a pair of perfect white pearls inside. “Take two of these and call me in the morning,” he says cheerfully.

I put the pearls into my pocket just as there is a fiery explosion across the room. The heat blasts me flat onto my back on the floor and sends Orville flying. He ends up tangled in the wrought-iron candelabrum that hangs from the ceiling. “Excellent! It’s ready!” Orville says.

“What’s ready?” I ask, sitting up.

“Just a little something-something I’m trying out.” Orville walks toward a black pedestal that looks a bit like a birdbath but is filled with purple, hazy smoke. He rubs his hands together with glee, then extracts a chicken egg from his apron pocket. “Cross your fingers,” he says to me as I come to stand beside him.

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.”