Between the Lines (30 page)

page 44

O
liver could feel the mortar of the stone tower beneath his fingernails. He didn’t know how much longer he was going to be able to hold on. But then again, below him there were only crashing surf and jagged rocks. One false move, and he would surely be dead.

With a mighty heave, he hoisted himself onto the wide stone ledge of the tower window.

But instead of seeing a beautiful princess, the girl of his dreams, the one he’d traveled far and wide to find—he saw a tall, caped man pacing back and forth. “Well?” the man demanded.

His voice was like fog crawling over the horizon. His hair fell like a raven’s wing over one brow, and a scar that ran the length of his face curved his mouth downward. His fingers
were long and bony, tapping impatiently on his arms.

“I don’t have all day,” he said.

No one had told him to expect anyone other than his true love in this tower, but in retrospect, Oliver knew that he should have anticipated this. If it had been easy, someone else would have rescued Seraphima by now.

Before he could begin to wonder how he—a boy who didn’t even carry a sword and who had promised his mother he wouldn’t fight—could defeat a villain who was at least six inches taller and forty pounds heavier, Seraphima emerged from behind a folding screen.

She was wearing a dress so white it was dazzling, beaded and jeweled at the bodice, and with sleeves that tapered down to her fingers. On her head was a gossamer wedding veil.

Immediately, over Rapscullio’s shoulder, she saw Oliver.

Oliver’s eyes lit upon her silver hair, her violet eyes, her heart-shaped face. And just like that, something inside shifted very subtly, so that all the empty spaces in him suddenly disappeared, so that his breath was timed to hers, so that his blood sang.

This was why there was music, he realized. There were some feelings that just didn’t have words big enough to describe them.

Seraphima’s lips parted. “Finally,” she whispered, as if she had known he was coming all along.

But that one word was enough to make Rapscullio turn around, his cape billowing like a cloud of smoke. “Well, well,” he said, every word a whipping, “look who’s crashed the party.”

THE NEXT MORNING, I ARRANGE FOR A PICNIC
breakfast with Delilah in the tower where I rescue Seraphima. I figure that before we start out to Orville’s cottage, we should be fortified.

And I kind of want to spend a few more minutes alone with her, instead of letting Queen Maureen grill her over the banquet table.

I thought I’d memorized everything there was to know about Delilah—from her freckles to her favorite blouse to the way she always gives her goldfish an extra helping of food—but as it turned out, there was so much left to learn. Like the fact that her skin is as soft as a feather, and that her hair smells of apples.
Her hand fits mine like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

Delilah scrambles up the tower steps ahead of me, kicking her skirts out of the way. “Stupid dress,” she mutters.

“It may be stupid,” I reply, “but it looks quite nice on you.”

She looks over her shoulder at me. “I bet you’d feel different if
you
were the one wearing it. Have you ever traipsed through a meadow in heels? I think
not.
…”

“I don’t traipse. Men don’t traipse. We… swagger.”

Delilah bursts out laughing. “Swagger? You?”

Affronted, I pause on the steps. “What? What’s the matter with the way I walk?”

But before Delilah can answer, she reaches the top of the tower and gasps. “Oliver,” she says, “when did you do all this?”

“Every now and then, having a castle full of servants is a real perk,” I say. I peek over her shoulder and see that they have exceeded my expectations. A sheepskin blanket has been draped over the middle of the floor, and a feast is spread across it. There’s an entire roast turkey, and apricot chutney, and stuffed figs. There are olives and grapes and plums piled high in the queen’s best china bowls. A carafe of blackberry cider sits beside two golden chalices.

“I’m going to gain ten pounds before I leave this place,” Delilah mutters. “A piece of toast would have been fine.”

Doves coo in the rafters above us as she sits down on the blanket, her loathed dress whispering around her. She pops a grape into her mouth and sighs. “This is so unreal. I feel like a princess.”

She couldn’t have given me a better opening for the conversation I’ve been hoping to have.

“Funny,” I say. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Delilah frowns. “You feel like a princess too?”

“No!” I shake my head. “I just… well, I think
you’d
make a wonderful one.” I force myself to meet her gaze. “I’ve never done this before. I mean, not for real, anyway.” Swallowing hard, I get down on one knee and take her hand in mine. “Delilah, will you marry me?”

“What? What!
What
are you doing?” She shoves me backward, so that I topple over. “Oliver, I’m fifteen! I’m not getting married before I even go to prom!”

“Maybe we could travel there on our honeymoon?” I suggest.

She stands up, frustrated. “You don’t understand.”

“I thought you wanted us to be together,” I say.

She moves to the open window, a flashback to the climax of this fairy tale. “In my world, you don’t get married when you’re fifteen,” she says. “Unless you’re pregnant and
have been on an MTV show. I want a boyfriend. I want to go to movies and hold hands and have inside jokes. I want to take silly pictures with the camera on my phone. I want to get a Valentine’s Day card that’s not from my mother.” Delilah looks up at me. “I want a date with you.”

“A date. You mean like… the first Thursday in July?”

She smiles. “Not quite. It’s when you go somewhere and get to know the other person a little better.”

The picnic suddenly seems garish, over the top, a lousy idea. “We don’t have to get married,” I say. “All I really ever wanted was to be with you.”

“I thought that was all I wanted too—but it turns out, I was wrong,” Delilah admits. “I also want to wake up in my own bed. And wear pants. And—oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m saying this—go to school.” She puts her hands on either side of my face. “I want you in my life. But I want it to be
my
life.”

Guilty, I break away from her. “I know it’s all my fault. But when I realized that I was never going to be able to leave the book, I couldn’t stand the thought of—”

“Back up,” Delilah says. “What do you mean, you were never going to be able to leave the book?”

My face turns red. “I saw my future, when I was with Orville,” I whisper. “And you weren’t part of it.” I hesitate. “There was another girl in the vision he showed me.”

“What?” Delilah says. “Who? Seraphima?”

“Please. Ugh.”

“Then who?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before.”

Delilah considers this. “The future’s always changing,” she points out. “A week ago, you wouldn’t have pictured me in this book, for example. For all we know, if Orville manages to cast a spell that sends me home, your future might be completely different.” She reaches for my hand and pulls me across the stone floor. “There’s only one way to find out.”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Orville was flirting.

I’ve never seen the old coot move so quickly before. He’s been blushing like a schoolgirl since I introduced him to Delilah, and he’s showered her with all sorts of magic tricks: the disappearing newt, the violin that plays itself in midair, and his latest project—a duck that speaks fluent Hungarian.

In return, Delilah is apparently telling him everything she ever learned in science class. “You mix the zinc into the sodium hydroxide, and then heat it till it’s practically boiling. Then you add the pennies, and they’ll turn silver. If you heat up those same pennies, they’ll turn to gold.”

“Alchemy!” Orville gasps.

“Well, not really. It’s the zinc and copper fusing together to make brass. But it looks like gold, anyway,” she says.

Scowling, I fold my arms. “If you two are finished exchanging notes, I’d very much like to see my future again… ?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Orville says. He leads Delilah into his workroom and lugs the stone birdbath onto the wooden table, along with several colored glass bottles. He begins to pour a mixture into the bowl, stirring rhythmically.