Between the lines

Delilah

THE FIRST THING I SEE WHEN I OPEN MY EYES is the book, peeking out from beneath my bed, wide open.

I roll from my stomach onto my back and blink at a purple ceiling, with little glow-in-the-dark stars. “My room,” I breathe.

It worked. Our plan worked.

“Well, of course it’s your room,” my mother’s voice floats to me.

I try to sit up, but a hand eases me down. “Take it slow, Delilah,” says a voice that I cannot quite place but that seems familiar.

I look to my left to find Dr. Ducharme standing beside my mother.

My mother sits down on the edge of the bed. “You’ve got a nasty bump on your head,” she says. “You must have fallen when you were trying to reach the box of videos in your closet.”

Wincing, I touch my forehead; it’s tender. “How long have I been gone?”

“Gone?” Dr. Ducharme grins. “Well, you’ve been asleep-but you haven’t gone anywhere. Your mom even got a doctor to make a house call last night to make sure you were all right. And she called me when you started talking in your sleep.”

I struggle to a sitting position. “What was I talking about?”

They exchange a look. “That’s not important,” my mother says. “You need to rest. And you’re going to have a nasty headache.”

I glance over her shoulder and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. On my forehead is a giant goose egg and an impressive bruise.

But I couldn’t have just hit my head. I was in that book with Oliver. I know I was.

I think back to what might have happened. The last I remember, we were at Orville’s cottage, and I’d managed to recapture the Pandemonium. Almost as quickly, my arms had begun to fracture, sprouting fine cracks, like a disintegrating marble statue. Gasping, I grab for my right arm with my left hand.

It’s perfectly intact.

What is going on?

“What day is it?” I ask.

“Tuesday,” my mother replies. “It’s nearly three o’clock.”

“I’m, um, starving…”

“Then we’ll get you something to eat.” She gives me a quick embrace first. “I was so worried you weren’t coming back,” she whispers.

My arms close around her. “Me too,” I murmur.

She stands up, and as she leaves the room, Dr. Ducharme puts his hand on her shoulder.

There’s something about that casual gesture that makes me relieved. While I was in the book, I worried about my mother being left alone. But maybe, one day, she won’t be.

As soon as I hear the door click shut, I scramble under the bed and grab the book. Sitting up, I see my reflection in the mirror. There is something sticking out of the collar of my T-shirt that looks remarkably-and terrifyingly-like a tattoo.

I pull down the collar, afraid to peek.

Strung around my neck is a line of backward cursive. I slip a fingernail under one edge and peel it off my skin like a Band-Aid. Then I drape the letters over the edge of my bedsheet.

Just like the spider I pulled from the book days ago, the mermaid’s necklace-on the outside-has transformed into words. But I saw a vision of Oliver in Orville’s cottage-a vision where he was in the future, in this outside world, and he wasn’t just letters on a page.

Focus, Delilah, I tell myself. I grab the book and open it to page 43, where Oliver looks up at me with obvious relief.

“You’re alive!” he cries.

“What happened?” I say. “It was real, wasn’t it?”

Oliver’s face falls. “Don’t you remember?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “But I want to make sure I didn’t make it all up.”

“Just because it’s fiction doesn’t mean it’s any less true,” Oliver replies. He squints at me. “You’re hurt?”

“Just a bruise,” I tell him. But that reminds me of the Pandemonium, and the devastation it caused. “What about you? Are you all right? And Orville? His poor home!”

“It’s all intact again,” Oliver says. “The minute you opened the book, everything went back to the way it used to be.” He looks away from me.

“Frump?” I ask.

Oliver nods. “Just a dog.”

“But it worked, Oliver. Exploding your copy of the fairy tale set me free.”

“And I’m still here,” he says sadly. “So we’re back to square one.”

“No, we’re not. Remember the vision? Your future? I know who that woman is. It’s Jessamyn Jacobs.”

“Who?”

“She’s the author,” I tell him. “The woman who created you.”

Oliver’s eyes light up. “So that vision,” he says. “I’m in her house?”

I hear footsteps on the stairs. “Soup!” my mother sings out.

I slam the book hard, stuffing it under a pillow and yanking the covers over me. The door creaks open. “Thanks,” I say. I take a sip of the soup to satisfy my mom.

She sits down on the edge of the bed and watches me take one spoonful, then another. I blot my mouth with a paper napkin. “You’re not going to watch me eat the whole thing, are you?”

My mother looks flustered. “Yes. I mean, of course not.” She hesitates. “I just don’t want you to fall asleep. Steve says that’s the worst thing possible after a concussion.”

Steve? “Mom,” I say, “when’s the last time you slept?”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” she says, squeezing my hand.

“I may not have to,” I tell her. “But I do.”

She smiles, but she doesn’t move.

“Mom?” I say. “If I promise you I’m not going to conk out, can I eat in privacy?”

She’s reluctant, but she stands up. “Call me when you’re done,” she says.

The headache she promised is emerging. I know that Oliver expects me to open the book and finish our conversation, but there’s something I have to do first. I get out of bed and gingerly walk to my desk, where my laptop sits. Opening a search engine, I type in Jessamyn Jacobs. All the websites connected to her are listed. I click the first one, and a photo of the woman in Oliver’s vision fills the screen. I start to read the text below it:

Jessamyn Jacobs was born in New York in 1965. After graduating from NYU, she got a job as an editor at HorrorFest magazine. But she realized quickly that she didn’t want to correct other people’s words-she wanted to write her own. Her first thriller was published when she was only twenty-six years old, and she wrote ten consecutive bestsellers. However, after writing one children’s book, the author retreated into anonymity. She has not published since 2002, choosing to live quietly in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

After writing one children’s book, the author retreated into anonymity.

My whole life, and its current obsession, has been reduced to a throwaway sentence in the biography of a famous thriller writer, who hasn’t been writing for years.

But at least I know where to find her.

I unplug my cell phone from its charger and text Jules.

I’m a jerk, I write.

I count all the way to sixty-two before there is an answering beep.

I know, Jules has replied.

My thumbs work furiously over the tiny keyboard. Ur Aunt Agnes is Voldemort in drag. If I could I would hide u in my closet 4 the summer. In fact, why don’t we try? Might work.

Another beep: I’m closetrophobic.

I grin. Jules, I text. I know I have no right 2 ask, and you can tell me 2 go jump in a lake if u want, but I need ur help. Have 2 get to MA ASAP. I hesitate. Will explain when I see u.

This time it takes Jules even longer to respond. I can be at ur house in 5 mins. Dad’s car is in the garage.

You don’t have a license, I text back.

There is another beep. That doesn’t mean I can’t drive, Jules writes.

The hardest part is leaving my mother again-just moments after I’ve returned. I consider reasoning with her, but what excuse can I make that would convince her to take an impromptu trip to Cape Cod, particularly when I am still fresh from a concussion? If I insist, she’ll probably take me for a neurological exam. No, the only way to do this is to leave her out of it.

The one immediate challenge to that strategy is that in order to leave the house, I have to walk downstairs, right past her.

I’m not the most graceful person-okay, I’m a bona fide klutz-but again, desperate times call for desperate measures. If I think it’s unlikely that my mother will agree to a four-hour car ride, it’s even more unlikely that she’d let me go with the unlicensed Jules as my chauffeur. So I throw open the sash of my bedroom window, eyeing a tree with branches close enough for me to reach.

I used to have romantic fantasies about a guy throwing pebbles at the window, climbing up to my room, kissing me in the moonlight, stealing me away.

Wrong fairy tale, I think wryly. I’m the one who’s going to save the prince.

I grab the notepad on my desk and rip off a sheet of paper. I write:

Be back soon. Don’t worry.

I’m fine.

Really.

Love,

Delilah. xoxo

My mother is going to worry anyway-but at least when she finds me missing, Dr. Ducharme will be there. And maybe he can keep her calm long enough for me to explain why I had to do this. After all, if it works, Oliver will be here-alive and three-dimensional and very, very real-and he’ll confirm this whole crazy story.

I dig around in my underwear drawer for the small jewelry box I use to store my allowance and the money I have from babysitting: three hundred and twenty-two dollars. It’s not a fortune, but I tuck it into my backpack, then grab the book and stuff it inside too. I look around my room to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything and catch sight of myself in the mirror. I look like I’ve lost a fight. If I show up at Jessamyn Jacobs’s house like this, she will probably run away screaming. In my closet, I find a knit winter hat that covers my forehead perfectly. It’s a little warm for the season, but maybe I can pull it off as a new fashion trend.

I open the window and stretch a leg out. I swear the tree has moved. Like, three feet away.

Taking a deep breath, I jump from the windowsill, and to my great shock wind up hugging the trunk tightly. I shimmy down, thinking of Oliver, who has to climb a cliff wall every day.

With a thump I hit the ground and tiptoe down the block, to the cul-de-sac where Jules is parked and waiting, just like we’d arranged. She looks weird sitting behind the steering wheel of a car. When she sees me, she grins and lowers the power window. “You owe me big-time,” she says.

I never would have guessed it based on her personality, but Jules drives like an old lady. She putts along ten miles below the speed limit and puts on her turn signal miles before she actually veers off the exit. “So,” she says, when we have been driving for ten minutes on the highway, “when are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

“Wellfleet,” I say. “On Cape Cod.”

Jules nods, flexing her hands on the steering wheel. “Okay,” she says. “Why are we going?”

I take a deep breath. “What I’m about to tell you isn’t going to make a lot of sense,” I say. “But I need you to listen to the whole story and not judge me, okay?”

Wordlessly, Jules holds up her right hand for a pinkie swear.

I start, well, at the very beginning. I tell her how I got a shock the first time I touched the spine of the fairy tale, and how even though it was a kids’ book, I couldn’t manage to put it down. I tell her about Oliver, the prince who grew up without a dad, like me. I explain how, one day, the illustrations changed before my eyes, and how without even trying, I could hear Oliver speaking to me-words that weren’t written for him but that came from the heart.

I tell her about the spider and how the book caught fire and how I wound up getting sucked into it and then ejected.

I tell her that I might just be in love with Oliver.

When I’m done, Jules keeps staring straight at the road, completely silent.

“So?” I say.

Jules doesn’t respond.

“You think I’m crazy.”

Jules shrugs. “No.”

“That’s it?” I ask, incredulous. “You believe me?”

“Well,” she responds, “I believe you believe it. And I’m your best friend. So that’s good enough.”

For the next few hours, everything seems almost normal. My best friend is my friend again; I don’t have to pretend that this book means nothing to me. It’s like old times. Jules and I play I Spy and eat a whole bag of Cheetos that she’s brought along from home. Finally, the GPS tells us we have arrived at our destination. Jules pulls over on the side of the main street of Wellfleet, Massachusetts, hitting the curb with her tires.

“You just failed your driver’s test,” I joke.

“But think of how many hours of practice driving I’ve got under my belt now,” Jules says. She looks into the rearview mirror. “So where are we going?”

Well. I haven’t quite figured that part out yet. I don’t have a street address for Jessamyn Jacobs, just the town in which she lives. But this much I know-I have to go by myself. Jules has already done enough for me; I’m not going to drag her into this mess. “Not we,” I say. “Me.”

“I’m not leaving you down here by yourself.”

I shake my head. “Jules, your parents are already going to kill you for stealing your father’s car.”

She laughs. “That’s my master plan. I’d rather be in reform school over the summer than with Aunt Agnes.”

She unhooks her seat belt and gets out of the car as I grab my backpack. “Are you okay driving home by yourself?” I ask. “It’ll be dark soon.”

“Piece of cake,” Jules says.

I give her a tight hug. “Thank you,” I whisper, and I watch her get into the car and put on her signal in preparation for pulling out of the parking spot.

Before she does, though, she unrolls her window. “I hope you find him,” Jules says with a smile. “Your prince.”

There’s a tiny coffee shop in the center of town. A bell rings when I walk through the door, and a waitress looks up at me. “Is there a restroom I could use?” I ask.

“Sure.” She points down the hall, and I lock myself into the small room and pull the book out of my backpack. I suppose I could have talked to Oliver in the car, but it was nice to spend some time with just Jules. I’ve missed that.

As soon as I open to page 43, Oliver starts yelling. “Where have you been? You left me hanging in the middle of a very important conversation. This Jessamyn Jacobs woman-”

“Lives here,” I interrupt.

I see Oliver peeking over my shoulder, taking in the scenery behind me. “Where are you?”

“Well, in a bathroom. She doesn’t live here. But I’m in her town, and I’m going to figure out how to get to her house. If anyone knows how to get you out of the story, it’s going to be the woman who wrote it.”

Oliver scowls. “You can’t very well walk up to her and say, ‘I’ve fallen head over heels for one of your characters.’”

I smile. “Oh yes, that Socks is a sexy beast.”

He laughs. “I’ll tell him you said so.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” I tell him. “And I don’t really have a plan yet.”

“And that’s supposed to inspire confidence?” Oliver says.

“No,” I tell him. “It’s supposed to inspire trust.”

I start to close the book, but I’m stopped by the sound of Oliver’s voice. “Delilah?” he says. “I never really got a chance to say thank you. For everything you’re doing to help me.”

I look at the hope written across his face, as clear as any of the words on the page. “Don’t thank me yet,” I answer.

After I return the book to my backpack, I flush the toilet and wash my hands, so as not to seem too suspicious. The waitress is still wiping off the counter when I walk back into the coffee shop. “Party of one?” she asks.

“Actually, I’m just looking for directions,” I say. “This is totally embarrassing, but I’m here to surprise my aunt for her birthday-I came in on the bus-and I can’t remember how to get to her house.” I offer my brightest I’m-not-a-psychopath smile. “Jessamyn Jacobs? Do you know her?”

The waitress looks at me uneasily. “She doesn’t much like visitors.”

“Visitors!” I say. “I’m family.”

The girl frowns. “Well, she’s the last house on Wilson Street. It’s the purple Cape that overlooks a cliff.”

“Right!” I slap my hand against my forehead. “Duh. Wilson Street.”

The waitress goes back to work.

“Can I ask just one more question?” I say, and I wait till she looks up. “How do I get to Wilson Street?”

Jessamyn Jacobs’s house perches on the edge of a cliff overlooking the water, like a swimmer afraid to jump in. It’s painted the color of a plum, and all the windows have curtains drawn down to their black trim. For a long moment I stand on the porch, running through possible introduction scenarios in my head.

Hi! I’m selling Girl Scout cookies-

No, too eager.

I’m doing a voter survey…

Nope. I don’t look old enough to work for a political action committee.

I’ve lost my pet cat. Have you seen him?

No. What are the odds it would be hiding in her house?

Well. Maybe there’s something to be said for brilliance under pressure. Before I can stop myself, I ring the doorbell.

But there’s no answer.

I ring it again, as if that might change the outcome. No one is home. Never in my wildest imagination did I picture finally reaching Jessamyn Jacobs’s house only to find her absent.

All of a sudden the garage door beside me magically opens, making me jump a foot. A moment later, a car comes around the corner and pulls into the driveway. It is a red minivan, like the kind we had when I was younger. A woman gets out of the driver’s seat, carrying a bag of groceries. “Hi,” she says. “Can I help you?”

I know it’s Jessamyn Jacobs because I recognize the red hair and the features from her author photo on the book. Except this version of Jessamyn Jacobs doesn’t look nearly as glamorous. She’s dressed, well, like a mom.

“I, um, I’m Delilah McPhee. I’m a student,” I stammer. “I’m doing an author project, and I was wondering if I could interview you.”

She smiles a little sadly. “I haven’t been an author in a very long time,” she says. “You probably want to talk to someone else.”

“No!” I cry. “It has to be you!”

She looks at me, a little alarmed by my outburst. “I’m afraid I can’t help you, Delilah. That part of my life is over.” Careful to put a good amount of distance between us, she opens her front door and walks inside.

I can’t let it end like this. Not when I’m so close.

“Please,” I beg. “Your book meant a lot to me.” I reach into my backpack and pull out the fairy tale, and to my surprise, Jessamyn Jacobs stops in her tracks.

She reaches one hand toward the cover, stroking it the way you’d touch something precious. “It meant a lot to me too,” she murmurs. Then she smiles at me. “Would you like to come inside?”

“Most people who still write me fan mail are much older than you, and collect chain saws and instruments of torture,” Jessamyn says, setting down a plate of cookies. “If I’m remembered for anything, it’s my murder mysteries. Very few of my readers even know I wrote a fairy tale.”

She is staring at the book, which sits on the coffee table between us. “It’s my favorite story,” I tell her. “I’ve memorized every single word.”

Jessamyn smiles. “It was a one-of-a-kind book,” she says. “And it inadvertently got placed in a box of toys and clothes that were being donated to a charity’s yard sale. I always wondered what had become of it.”

Behind her are the bookshelves and the fireplace that Oliver saw in the vision of his future in Orville’s cottage. It is strange, seeing them again-seeing them for real-and knowing Oliver still isn’t here.

My gaze settles on the view from the big picture window that overlooks the ocean. I am almost 100 percent sure I have seen this view before, but that doesn’t make sense-I’ve never been here in my life. Then it hits me-page 59. When Oliver fights with Rapscullio and pushes him out the tower window. This is the illustration we see as the villain falls to the rocks below.

Jessamyn follows my glance. “Page fifty-nine,” she confirms. “When I was painting the illustrations, I used all sorts of familiar places. The castle dining room is an exact image of the estate where I got married. Everafter Beach looks like the island where I went on my honeymoon.” She gazes down at her lap. “I wrote the story after my husband died of cancer. He fought so hard for a year, but ultimately, he lost the battle. The fairy tale was my way of getting through that. And helping my son get through it too.”

Suddenly I feel uncomfortable. Whatever the book has meant to me, it’s meant so much more to Jessamyn. “I’m really sorry,” I say.

“Don’t be. It was a long time ago. It’s why, in a way, having the book out of my house was a relief. As if it meant that part of my life-the sad part-was finished.” She reaches for the book. “It’s been a while since I read this,” she says, and opens to page 43.

Oliver looks up, expecting me as the Reader. But then he notices Jessamyn. I see his eyes widen-he recognizes her as the woman in the vision.

Jessamyn touches her finger to the crown of Oliver’s head. I feel an actual ache in my gut, remembering what his hair felt like-the texture, the thickness. “Amazing,” she breathes. “He looks exactly the way I imagined he would.”

This doesn’t make sense to me-since she was the one who drew Oliver in the first place. Obviously he’d look the way she imagined.

Jessamyn glances up at me. “You’re not really here to do an interview for school, are you.” It is not a question, but a statement.

“No,” I admit. I take a deep breath. “I came to ask you if you’d ever consider rewriting the ending.”

She smiles faintly. “Are you a writer, Delilah?” she asks.

“I’m more of a reader.”

“Ah,” Jessamyn replies. “Then I can see why you wouldn’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That the story isn’t mine to change anymore. Maybe it belonged to me at first, but now it belongs to you. And to everyone else who’s ever read it. The act of reading is a partnership. The author builds a house, but the reader makes it a home.”

“But if you created it, you have to be the one to change it.”

“Why should it be changed?”

“Because,” I say, “it’s not a happy ending. I can’t explain why.”

“Try me.”

“One of the characters told me.” I shut my eyes, certain that Jessamyn Jacobs officially thinks I’ve gone crazy. But to my surprise, when I open my eyes again, she just nods.

“The characters used to talk to me too,” Jessamyn agrees. “I think any writer would say the same thing. But Delilah, even if I changed the ending, the story already exists in the world in the memories of all of its readers. Once a story is told to someone, it can’t be erased.”

What she’s telling me is that I’ve hit a dead end. And I can’t let that be true. “But you have to try!” I burst out.

She hesitates. “How would you have ended the book?”

Embarrassed, I mumble, “Oliver gets to leave the story.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Ah. I think I’m starting to understand. He is quite good-looking. I used to develop crushes on characters. There was one detective in my murder series who had the dreamiest smile-”

Tears fill my eyes. “It’s not a crush,” I tell her. “He’s alive, to me.”

“And he always will be,” Jessamyn says kindly. “Every time you open the book. That’s the beauty of reading, isn’t it?”

If I can’t make the author understand, then surely I have run out of options. I’m certain she thinks I’m nuts-some delusional girl who shows up unannounced, talking about a fictional character as if he might be sitting in the room sipping tea.

But how will I break this news to Oliver?

Suddenly, it’s just too much. I thought if anyone was ever going to understand the things I felt for this story, it would be the author herself, and yet here she is telling me-like everyone else-that I’m wrong. That what’s between me and Oliver is impossible.

I start sobbing. I get to my feet, embarrassed, suddenly intent on leaving as quickly as possible. I’ve been an idiot to think that real life could have a happy ending.

“Delilah! Are you all right?” Concerned (and who wouldn’t be if a crazy girl was hysterical in the living room?), Jessamyn puts her hand on my arm. “Is there someone I can call for you? Your mother, maybe?”

This makes me cry even harder, as I think about how frantic my mom must be by now. During our car ride I had checked the messages on my cell phone; I stopped listening at number twenty-three.

Jessamyn leads me to a couch. “I’m going to go get a glass of water for you,” she says. “And then we’ll figure out what to do next.”

She leaves the room, and I take deep breaths, trying to calm myself down enough to at least be capable of opening the book and telling Oliver it’s over.

I hear footsteps and look up, but it’s not Jessamyn returning from the kitchen. Instead, standing in the doorway that leads to the front hall, is Oliver.

At first I think I am hallucinating. But then he glances at me. I would know those eyes anywhere. “Hey,” he says.

Leaping up, I throw my arms around him. “Oliver! How did you get here?”

He shoves me backward, looking at me as if he’s never seen me in his life. “I walked downstairs,” he says. “And the name’s Edgar.”

My jaw drops just as Jessamyn enters, carrying a tall glass of water. She glances from Oliver to me. “Delilah,” she says, “I see you’ve met my son.”

And at that moment, everything goes black.

I’m not a fainter. I’m unfazed by the sight of blood, and I can watch horror movies without wincing. And granted, I apparently took a massive conk to my head when I fell yesterday-and then traveled 230 miles without eating anything but Cheetos. But all the same, I’m pretty embarrassed to find myself lying on a stranger’s couch with a cold, wet washcloth on my head and a boy who looks just like Oliver but isn’t, staring down at me with absolute revulsion. “You’re drooling,” he says.

Mortified, I wipe my hand across my mouth.

“She’s awake,” Not-Oliver says. “Can I go now?”

He is speaking to Jessamyn, who carries a bowl of soup from the kitchen. Why does everyone keep feeding me soup?

“Thanks for watching her, Edgar,” Jessamyn says.

“Whatever,” Edgar replies. He rolls his eyes and trudges out of the room.

“All right.” Jessamyn sits on the edge of the couch. “It’s time to tell me the truth. Are you in trouble, Delilah? Did you run away from home?”

“No!” I answer. “I mean, I did run away, but only temporarily. Only to find you.” I take the bowl she offers me. Broccoli cheddar. It smells delicious.

“And I’m guessing you have a mother somewhere who has no idea where you are right now?”

I can feel my cell phone vibrate in my pocket with yet another message. “Um,” I say. “Yeah.”

Jessamyn hands me the phone. “Call her.”

Reluctantly, I dial the numbers. It hasn’t even rung once when my mother picks up.

“Hi, Mom!” I say, as cheerful as possible.

I have to hold the phone away from my ear as she shouts at me in reply. Wincing, I wait till there’s a break in the wall of sound and speak again. “I’m really sorry-”

“Delilah Eve, do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? Where are you? What were you thinking?!”

“I just had to do something and I knew you wouldn’t let me leave if I asked first.”

“Tell me where you are. I’m going to come get you. And then I’m going to ground you for life.”

“I’m kind of in Massachusetts. On Cape Cod.”

There is another torrent of angry sound as my mother yells her response. Again, I hold the phone away from my ear.

“Maybe I can help,” Jessamyn says, and she reaches out her hand for the phone. “Hello? Is this Delilah’s mother? I’m Jessamyn Jacobs.” She hesitates. “Yes. Well, I used to be an author, anyway. Oh, that’s very kind. I’m so glad you were a fan.” Another pause. “Believe me, it was quite a surprise for me too… No, no. It’s far too late for you to make that kind of trip. Why don’t you just let me host Delilah overnight, and you can be here bright and early in the morning. She can stay in our guest room.”

I hear the buzzy warble of my mother’s voice in return, and then Jessamyn gives her an address. She holds the phone out to me when she’s through. “She’d like to speak to you again.”

“Just so we’re on the same page, you are still grounded until you hit menopause,” my mother repeats. “But at least I know you’re not wandering around on a street somewhere at night. You’ve caused this woman a great deal of disruption, so you’d better be the best guest she’s ever had in her home. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Mom,” I mutter. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Delilah?” my mother says.

“Yeah?”

“I love you, you know.”

I look down into my lap. I’ve created so much trouble-for my mother and for Jessamyn Jacobs, all in the hope that I can make the impossible possible and turn a fictional character real. Suddenly, I’m ashamed for being so selfish. “I love you too,” I whisper.

I hang up the phone and hand it back to Jessamyn. “Thank you. For letting me stay here.”

“It’s no problem. It’s nice for Edgar to have someone his age around. He doesn’t make friends very easily.”

I sit up. “Can I ask you a question? How come Oliver looks just like your son?”

“Because he is my son.” Jessamyn looks up at me. “After Edgar’s father died, he was so afraid of everything. I wanted to create a role model for him-someone who maybe wasn’t the bravest or strongest boy in the kingdom but who managed to always triumph by using his brain. Edgar was younger then-I had to imagine the boy I thought he’d grow up to look like-and that was how I painted Oliver.”

“Well, they’re identical.”

“Not really,” Jessamyn says. “Edgar never became the Oliver I hoped he would.” She smiles, a little sadly. “I wasn’t very good at helping Edgar with his grief. I didn’t know how to do that, but I knew how to write books. So I figured I’d try to help him, through what I do best. But when that wasn’t enough, I stopped writing. Instead, I concentrated on learning how to be a better mother.” She shakes her head, as if she’s clearing it, and then pats my shoulder. “Why don’t we get you settled upstairs?”

The guest room is painted the color of a sunset. There is a small wooden bureau and a double bed. Jessamyn leaves me with a stack of fresh towels and a promise to check in on me after I’ve rested for a while.

It’s weird, having no luggage to unpack. I sit on the edge of the bed and look around the room. There are framed photos on the walls of a baby who keeps getting progressively older. This, I realize, is Edgar-but I find myself drawn to the walls, touching the glass on the photos, thinking that this is what Oliver would have looked like when he was two, when he was four, when he rode his first horse, when he learned how to swim.

Suddenly, I really miss Oliver. I unzip my backpack and pull out the book. It falls open to page 43.

“It’s her, it’s really her! Delilah, you amazing girl, you did it!” He is so happy that it hurts me to look at him.

“Oliver,” I whisper. “She won’t change the ending.”

His face falls. “Maybe there’s a way for me to talk to her.”

“Even if she could hear you, she wouldn’t do it. She wrote this book for her son. She’s not going to make any changes. It means too much to her personally.”

“She has a son?” Oliver says. “Have you met him? Maybe he can convince her.”

“Yeah, I’ve met him.”

“Well, what’s he like?”

“He could be your twin,” I say.

For a moment, Oliver gets very quiet. “So you’re in a house,” he sums up, “with a guy who looks just like me, but who’s real?”

I think of what Jessamyn said about Edgar. “He’s not you,” I state simply.

Whatever Oliver says in reply is drowned out by the strangest sounds coming from the room next door to mine. There are high-pitched screams and whistles and weird sirens.

“Well?” Oliver says. “What do you think?”

“I didn’t hear what you said…” Now, in addition to all the crazy noises, I hear a voice: “I’m going to get you, you bloodsucking, boneheaded monster!”

“What the-?” I look down at the book, careful this time not to slam it shut. “Wait here,” I tell Oliver. I get up and walk into the hall, then knock on the door beside mine.

There’s no answer. This isn’t a surprise, because who could hear with that racket going on? So I turn the doorknob and peek inside.

Edgar is sitting in a strange reclining chair at floor level, holding a game controller in his hand. On a computer screen in front of him, there’s an asteroid explosion in a galaxy. “Take that, Zorg!” Edgar hollers, and he punches a fist in the air. Letters roll over the screen:

HIGH SCORES

EDGAR… 349,880

EDGAR… 310,900

EDGAR… 298,700

EDGAR… 233,100

I wonder if Edgar’s ever even played his video game against another person.

I remember what Jessamyn said about him being a loner. “Hey,” I say. “You want company?”

He whirls in his seat. “Who told you I was in here?”

“I could pretty much hear everything through the wall…”

Edgar narrows his eyes. “Have you ever played Battle Zorg 2000 before?”

“I can’t say that I have.”

He digs around in his desk for a second controller. “Then I suppose I’ll have to teach you.”

He fumbles through the opening screens of the game to set it up for two players instead of one. “I usually play solo,” he says casually. “I’m actually sort of legendary, in terms of scoring.”

I let Edgar explain to me about the Galactoids from Planet Zugon who are coming to take over Earth. “Our job,” he says, “is to kill them before they plant a mind-control ozone bomb in the San Andreas Fault, or create a force field of incineration that burns everyone to ash the minute they come in contact with it.”

It makes me think of the Pandemonium.

“If you can get past the foot soldier Galactoids,” Edgar continues, “you can be admitted into the Astrochamber, where you have to complete fourteen tasks in order to face Zorg.”

“Who’s Zorg?” I ask.

He snorts. “Only the biggest, baddest robot-android hybrid in the Aphelion galaxy!”

I gingerly take the controller and press a button. “No!” he shouts. “Not until we’ve set up your avatar!”

With a few clicks, I become Aurora Axis, a geophysicist from Washington, DC. I follow Edgar’s avatar through the levels of the game, getting knocked out almost immediately by a low-flying asteroid. “Shoot!” I say, angry at myself. “I should have been able to see that.”

Edgar grins. “It takes a little bit of practice.”

For three-quarters of an hour, we battle aliens with an array of weapons. I get killed more times than I can count. Finally, just when I think it’s virtually impossible, Edgar and I double-team an Amazon made of starlight who is shooting electromagnetic radiation from her fingers, and we manage to drown her in a micrometeorite lake. Just like that, we are admitted into the Astrochamber.

“Yes!” we both scream as the door to Edgar’s bedroom opens.

“Edgar!” Jessamyn cries, “have you seen-Oh!” She looks at me, and then at Edgar, and then back at me. “You’re here.”

Edgar pivots in his chair. “She wanted to learn how to play.”

I grin. “Turns out I’m a natural with a neutrino ray.”

Jessamyn seems surprised-by my comment, and maybe by the fact that her son has made a friend. “Good!” she says. “Can I get you two anything? Cookies? Milk?”

“Privacy?” Edgar suggests.

Jessamyn backs out of the room, and Edgar lifts his controller again. “Awkward,” he says. “Now, where were we…”

“About to kick some Zorgian butt,” I reply.

Edgar lifts his controller and points to the screen, but the computer blinks a steady neon green. “Shoot,” he mutters. “Not again.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Stupid old computer. It freezes up all the time. I just hope our game saved…” He starts pushing buttons and rebooting the system. “My mom won’t let me load my games on her new computer because she says they take up too much of the memory, so I have to work on this total dinosaur.”

“It doesn’t look that old to me-”

“That’s because it was state-of-the-art when my mom was still using it to type her books. But believe me, I had to upgrade this puppy with major video cards and speakers just to get it compatible with Zorg 2000.”

I sit up, alert. “This used to be your mom’s computer?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Do you know if her old files are still on it?”

“They’re there,” Edgar says. “She won’t let me delete them.” He rolls his eyes. “Every time I go to start a new game, I see that dumb fairy tale. Between the Lines. It’s listed right below Battle Zorg 2000, alphabetically.”

I lean forward. “You don’t like that story?”

“Hate it,” Edgar says. “How would you feel if the whole world knew your mother thought you were a loser?”

“I’m sure she doesn’t think-”

“She wrote that idiotic prince character wishing I could be more like him. But me, I’m not going to catch a dragon and talk it into getting its teeth cleaned. I’m not quite the fairy-tale type.”

“The reason I came here is because your mom wrote that book,” I tell Edgar. Taking a deep breath, I blurt out, “Can I ask you something that’s going to sound a little strange?”

“Okay.”

“When you play Battle Zorg 2000, does it sometimes feel like you’re a part of it?”

Edgar nods. “Well, sure. Otherwise I couldn’t score as high as I do.”

“No… I mean, do you ever wish you were inside the game?”

At first I am afraid to look him in the eye, but when I do, I find Edgar staring at me intently. “Sometimes,” he admits quietly, “it’s like I can hear the commanders talking to me, telling me what to do next.”

I put my hand on his arm. “Edgar, can I show you something?”

I run to the room next door and crawl onto the guest bed. The book is still open to page 43, and Oliver is lying on his back, snoring. “Oliver,” I whisper, leaning close to the binding, and then I shout, “Get up!”

He startles, smacking his head on a low branch jutting out of the cliff. Rubbing it, he winces and looks up at me. “Just for clarification, when you say you’ll be right back, then you mean sometime in the next millennium?”

“I got distracted. But Oliver, listen, there’s someone I want you to meet.” I grab the book and carry it toward Edgar’s bedroom.

“What? Do you really think this is a good idea? No one ever sees me, and it just makes you look even more insane.”

“Thanks,” I say sarcastically. I turn the corner and enter Edgar’s room again. “I have a gut feeling about this.”

“About what?” Edgar asks.

I set the book on the desk. “I wasn’t talking to you,” I explain. “I was talking to him.” I point to Oliver, who smiles.

Edgar glances at the book, and then up at me. “Seriously? You think my mom’s fairy tale is talking to you?”

“Just wait a second,” I urge. “No one ever hears him talk-but that’s because no one ever listens hard enough. But based on what you told me about your video game, I think you might be different. Please? Can’t you try?”

“He’s not very attractive,” Oliver says, miffed.

“Oliver, he looks identical to you,” I murmur.

Edgar folds his arms. “Look, pretty boy, my mother drew you based off of me-”

I gasp. “You heard him? You heard Oliver speak?”

Edgar’s eyes widen, and he steps away from the book as if he doesn’t want to get too close to it. He hits the side of his head with the flat of his hand, as if he’s gotten water in his ear and is trying to shake it out. “No no no no no,” he says, under his breath. “That didn’t just happen.”

“It did,” I say, grasping his arm. “I know it seems crazy and impossible, but you have to believe me-it’s real. He’s real. And I promised I’d help him get out of this book.”

This is huge. If I’m not the only person who can hear Oliver, then there’s somebody else in this world who can help me save him. And yet, I feel the tiniest twinge in my chest, thinking that if I’m not the only person who hears Oliver, it makes the connection between us a little less special.

“What is that?” Oliver’s eyes gleam. I follow his gaze off the edge of the page to the computer screen, which has rebooted and shows a massive army of aliens attacking Earth.

“Battle Zorg 2000,” I reply. “It’s a computer game.”

“How did all those little people get inside the box?”

I’m not about to give Oliver a tutorial on electronics. “I’ll explain it later. All you need to know is that that little box is the machine Jessamyn Jacobs used when she wrote Between the Lines. The original story is still in there.”

“So what?” Edgar and Oliver speak simultaneously-and then look at each other.

“Oliver, you couldn’t change the ending of the book. And Jessamyn Jacobs may not be willing to change the ending of the book.” I wait for him to meet my gaze. “But I’m going to try.”