Between the Lines (15 page)

One hour into their journey, Oliver and his faithful entourage reached the River of Regret, a mile-wide whitewater fury that had
claimed the lives of many who’d tried to cross it. The only hope for passage was the Bridge of Trolls, which—it had to be said—was nearly as perilous.

It is a well-known fact that trolls either
always
tell the truth or
always
lie. And that every day they build two bridges—one safe and one designed to collapse at the first hint of weight.

Oliver dismounted, patted Frump on the head, and walked to the edge of the cliff. He could see three small, squat men shuffling about with hammers and nails on the far side. One of the bridges appeared rickety and weak; the other was strongly fashioned—but Oliver knew that looks could be deceiving.

“Helloooo?” Oliver called, but the trolls continued working, unable to hear him over the roar of the water.

Oliver turned and dug the megaphone from the mermaids’ treasure collection out of his rucksack. “Helloooo!” he yelled again, and this time the trolls all looked up. “My good men,” Oliver said. “Which bridge should I use to cross?”

The first troll, Biggle, glanced up. When he spoke, Oliver had no trouble hearing him; trolls were known to talk in decibel levels that could shake the Earth. “Why, what have we got here? Some fancy man with his fancy horse, and what’s that? A big rat or somethin’?” Biggle stroked his long gray beard.

“Sir, I do see you’re working quite hard,” Oliver said with a smile. “I would greatly appreciate your advice.”

Snort and Trogg, the remaining trolls, started to laugh, grunting and holding their bellies. “Ye can only ask one of us to
choose for you,” said Trogg, the chubby one. “Make yer pick.”

Oliver thought about this. If trolls
always
lied or
always
told the truth, how to find out which troll was trustworthy? “Do you tell the truth?” he yelled through the megaphone.

Biggle replied, but at that moment, the water between them roared, so that Oliver could not make out the answer.

Snort cupped his hands near his mouth. “He said he always tells the truth!”

“No, he didn’t,” called Trogg. “He said he was a liar.”

Oliver glanced from each hideous face to the next. Biggle, he realized, must have said he was truthful. This would have been his response if he
was
indeed truthful, because of course he’d say so; but it also would have been his response if he was a liar.

Which meant that Snort’s statement
had
to be the truth.

In other words—
he
was the troll to trust.

“You!” Oliver said, pointing to the short troll in the middle. “Which bridge?”

“This one,” Snort proudly answered, pointing to the rickety bridge.

Oliver mounted his stallion again and, without a moment’s hesitation, crossed the bridge Snort had indicated.

“That’ll be a guinea,” Biggle grunted.

Oliver patted down his pockets and saddlebags, but all his spare change had fallen into the ocean when he was with the mermaids.

The mermaids.

The trolls advanced, menacing, ready to pound him into the dirt.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “do you know what’s more precious than gold? True love.”

“We’re trolls,” said Trogg. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”

“I happen to know three lovely ladies who could overlook that fact,” Oliver said.

“Honestly?” asked Snort.

Oliver grinned. “I always tell the truth,” he said.

“BEDSPREAD,” DELILAH SAYS.

“Um… pink.”

“Good. Number of stuffed animals on the bed?”

“Three.”

“Excellent. What are they?”

I close my eyes, trying to remember. “A pig, a bear wearing a strange little shirt, and a duck with quite a sassy look on its face.”

“And the book?”

“Purple leather, with gold lettering that reads
Between the Lines
.”

It’s odd to think of my story as a physical entity, because obviously I’ve never seen the outside of the
tome in which we all live. But Delilah has described it in excruciating detail.

In fact, she’s spent hours this Saturday evening giving me a thorough tour of her bedroom by carrying the open book from end to end. I have read fortune cookie messages tacked onto her mirror; I have met her pet fish—named Dudley; I have stared at a whiteboard she can write upon and erase, which is festooned with small favors from places she and her mother have visited: the Flume in New Hampshire, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory, Boston, the Statue of Liberty. We realized that the only error in our plan was that Delilah could not watch the painting actually happen—since that would have to occur when the book was closed and I could meet privately with Rapscullio in his lair.

To this end, Delilah insisted that I memorize every last detail of her room, so that it could be as accurate a representation as possible on that magic canvas. Like me, she doesn’t want to leave anything up to chance.

“How many lamps are in here?” she quizzes.

“Three. One on the desk, one clipped to the bed, and one on the dresser. And next to the lamp on the dresser is a music box you got from your mother for your fifth birthday; and there’s a sticker on your headboard of Curious George that you put there when you were three and could never quite peel off entirely; and right now
there are three pairs of earrings that you haven’t put into your jewelry box yet, which are sitting next to your hairbrush.” I smirk at her. “
Now
do you believe I’m ready?”

“Very,” she says.

“Okay. I’m off, then.”

“Wait!” I turn back to find her staring at me, biting her lower lip. “What if… it doesn’t work?”

I reach up, as if I might be able to touch her, but of course I can’t. “What if it
does
?”

She traces one finger along the edge of the page close to me. The world beside me ripples. “Goodbye,” Delilah says.

*   *   *

Rapscullio’s lair needs a thorough cleaning. There are cobwebs in the corner, and I am pretty certain a rat runs over my shoe as I enter. “Anybody home?” I ask cheerfully.

“Over here,” Rapscullio calls out. I turn a corner to find him examining a butterfly that’s been trapped inside a glass jar. There are holes in the lid, but the insect’s wings are beating desperately as it tries to escape.

I know how that feels.

“Rapscullio,” I say, “I need your help.”

“Kind of busy right now, Your Highness…”

“It’s an emergency.”

He sets the captured butterfly down on a table. “Go on,” Rapscullio says, folding his long, bony arms.

“I was hoping you could paint something for me. A gift.”

“A gift?”

“Yes—for a friend of mine. A very special friend of mine.”

Rapscullio’s face lights up. “I have just the thing—I’ve been working on a close-up of a long-toed water beetle—”

“I was thinking of something different,” I interrupt. “And maybe a little more romantic.”

He scratches his chin. “Let’s see…” he says. When he stalks into the adjacent room—the studio I’ve been in before—I follow him. Rapscullio pulls three canvases with Seraphima’s face from the piles stacked along the walls. “Take your pick.”

“The thing is… this isn’t for Seraphima.”

A slow, itchy smile twitches over Rapscullio’s lips. “Well, well,” he says. “Our little prince is playing the field.”

“Oh, cut it out, Rapscullio. You know Seraphima and I were never really a ‘thing.’”

“Then who’s the lucky lady?” he asks.

“No one you know.”

He laughs. “I’d say, given the size of our world, that’s highly unlikely.”

“Look,” I say, “just do me this one favor, and I’ll do anything you want.”

“Anything?” He looks at me from the corner of his eye.

I hesitate. “Sure.”

“Will you… sing something for me?”

I’ll be perfectly honest, my singing ability ranks at about the same level as my drawing ability. But I nod, only to have Rapscullio turn aside, move some canvases out of the way, and pluck out a tune on an ancient piano.

I listen to the first few notes. “Do you know it?” he asks hopefully.

“Um. Yes.” I clear my throat, and start to sing:
“For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow. For he’s a jolly good fellow… that nobody can deny.”

When I finish, I look up to find Rapscullio wiping a tear from his eye. “That,” he says with a sniff, “was beautiful.”

“Er… thanks.”

He clears his throat. “Sometimes it’s hard being the bad guy, you know?” With one final snort, he turns his attention to me again. “Now,” Rapscullio says. “Your painting?”

“Well,” I begin, “I sort of need it to be painted on the magic canvas. The one you use to bring the butterflies to life.”

Rapscullio scowls. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to re-create my lair perfectly in that painting? I’m sorry, Oliver, I just—”

“You
can.
Because the minute the story starts again, the canvas will be back to normal—with your original painting on it. Just like always.”

I watch his face as he processes this information. “That’s true,” Rapscullio admits.

“It’s a room. With a bed in it. A bedroom,” I tell him.

“Yes, that’s usually the case when there’s a bed in the room….”

“And it’s very… girlie. The walls are pink.”

Rapscullio picks up a brush and swirls together some pigments. “Like this?” he asks, and Delilah’s walls come to life.

“Yes!” I say. I point to a corner of the canvas. “Right there’s a mirror—no, the wood is more blond than brown. And it sits on a dresser. Can you redo that bit, so that there are five drawers instead of four?”

It is painstaking, asking Rapscullio to re-create a room full of things he has never seen. When he gets really stuck (a lampshade? A clock radio?) I draw a mock-up of the item in the dirt floor with a stick. “And a book on the bed,” I continue. “It’s purple with gold lettering on the cover, which reads
Between the Lines
.”

He lifts a brow. “As in… the name of our story?”

“Um. Yes. I thought it was a nice touch.” There’s no point in explaining to him why I really need the book to be
there. I continue to give instructions, making corrections when necessary:
No, the magnet is shaped like a boot, not a circle. And the sheets are more fuchsia than pastel violet.

Finally, when Rapscullio is through, I look at the canvas and see a detailed replica of Delilah’s room. “Well?” he demands.

“Perfect,” I murmur. “It’s absolutely perfect.”