Oliver #2
I watch Maureen roll out a square of dough and begin to slice through it with a sharp knife, cutting it into triangles. “Now it’s my turn to ask you something,” she says. “What was it like?”
I glance at her. “You mean out there? Imagine no boundaries. No walls.”
She holds her hand up to her throat. “It seems terrifying.”
“It is. But in the best way,” I say. “There are books with so many recipes you couldn’t count them all.
” I glance around the kitchen. “There are ingredients and spices from countries whose names you can barely pronounce. Pans in every shape and size. And so many people…so many people that you could bake all day and all night and still not feed everyone.”
Queen Maureen’s eyes widen in awe. “I can see why you might be struggling to be back here.”
I pick up the spatula and slop a layer of frosting onto the top of the first round of cake.
“It might not be ideal, in your situation, but we all must keep a stiff upper lip, you know. Make the best of things. It’s the lot we’ve been given.”
“But by whom?” I ask, jamming the second layer of cake onto the first. “Why should I have to be locked in here just because a woman decided to tell a story?”
“Why is the sky blue? Why does the sun rise?” Maureen says. “Can you honestly tell me that this girl of yours in the other world doesn’t have to play by rules as well?”
I think of school, of chores, of Allie McAndrews. Of all the walls that box Delilah in.
I suppose the difference isn’t that there is a box. It’s that I’m not inside it with her.
“What you need to do, dear, is find an avocation. Something to occupy yourself. Perhaps you could take up whittling. Or I hear Sparks has started a knitting circle.” She smiles. “Maybe you’ll even find that you have a knack for baking.”
We both look down at the creation between my hands. The confection lists to the left, frosting pooling on one side, with a large crack running down the center where I accidentally speared the cake with the spatula.
“Or maybe not,” Queen Maureen says kindly.
Rapscullio and I sit side by side in the unicorn meadow, in front of our respective easels. On each is a bare canvas. We both pick up a palette of paints, and I mimic his actions. One of the beasts munches moongrass just a few feet away from us, completely oblivious to the fact that he is a model.
“When we think about foreshortening,” Rapscullio instructs, “we really want to use our eyes. The horn facing us is going to be ten times larger than the back left hoof, simply because of perspective.”
He looks at me with so much hope for my understanding that I give him a toothy grin, even though he might as well be speaking ancient Greek.
“Now,” Rapscullio says, “pick up your brush, and feel the energy. Let the art flow from your mind through your fingertips. No sharp edges, just gentle movements of the hand.” He sketches with his paintbrush, and a reasonable facsimile of the unicorn appears on his canvas.
I take a deep breath and draw my first line.
“You know,” he muses, “of all the people in this book, I’m probably the only one who truly understands what you’re feeling right now.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Well, after all, I know what it’s like to not end up with the girl.”
I hesitate, my brush hovering over the canvas. “But that’s not you. That’s your character.”
“What is a man, if not his character?”
I shake my head. “It’s different. You didn’t choose to fall in love with Maureen. It was written to happen that way.”
“Did you really choose to love your Delilah? Do you remember the exact moment you made that decision? Or did it just…happen?” Rapscullio cocks his head. “Perhaps your romance was written too. By fate, by the stars. We all have authors, Oliver.”
Suddenly Pyro, flying overhead, dips low and startles the unicorn, which goes bolting into the Enchanted Forest. Rapscullio sighs. “I suppose we’ve lost our model. Let’s see how you’ve done.”
On my canvas, I haven’t drawn a unicorn. Just two stick figures, holding hands.
Rapscullio clears his throat. “Well,” he says politely, “I think you’ve really captured its essence.”
When I burst into Orville’s cottage, he is on a ladder, stirring a cauldron three times his size. “What are you—” I shake my head. “Never mind. I don’t even want to know.”
It is the first time since I’ve been back that I feel like I have a purpose.
I may not be able to live in Delilah’s world, but I know how to get a glimpse of it again.
If I can just see her, that might be enough to get me through the day.
After all, it’s unreasonable to expect me to give her up wholly and completely, instead of weaning myself from her bit by bit.
“Ollie, my boy! I’m so glad you dropped by! I can use some help with this—Pyro is suffering from heartburn, and it’s a challenge to stir a kilo of sodium bicarbonate into twenty gallons of yogurt, but that’s the only way to keep it from tasting like tar.”
“Orville,” I begin, “do you remember when you showed me my future?” Before I escaped the book, the wizard created a plume of smoke that illustrated what was yet to come.
A seed, for example, morphed into a vision of a flower.
And a strand of my hair allowed me to witness a scene that now makes perfect sense: me, in an unfamiliar home, with an unfamiliar woman—Jessamyn Jacobs.
“Of course,” Orville says.
“Do you have something that can show me the present?”
Orville looks at me, confused. “You mean…your own eyes?”
“No,” I say. “I want to see the present somewhere else. I want to see someone else’s life.”
“Ah! Perhaps a telescope.”
“I don’t think that’s going to reach quite far enough.”
“This is an enchanted one,” Orville explains.
He climbs down from the ladder and rummages through a satchel that I’ve seen him wear numerous times around the book.
“Sometimes, when I’m being called by another character, I use this,” he confesses.
“If my knees are stiff or if I’m just feeling a tad lazy, I check to see if it’s an emergency before I expend the effort to hike all the way across the pages.
” He hands me the brass tube, and I extend it to its full length.
“How does it work?” I ask, peering into one end.
Orville snatches it away from me. “Not like that, naturally.” He chuckles. He sets the scope on the ground and, with a flick of his fingers, sets it spinning like a bottle. “Round and round and round it goes….Where it will stop, nobody knows!”
“Well, that’s rubbish!” I exclaim. “What good is that going to do me?”
“No, that’s the spell, Oliver. Say it, and it will show you what you wish to see.”
“Oh.” Feeling silly, I give the telescope a good spin and repeat the incantation. It stops spinning, and the end glows like the beam of a lantern.
I lift it to my eye and squint.
I’m staring at a place I’ve never seen before, but I know it’s Delilah’s world. There are cars and streetlights and billboards. Delilah is there, and Jules, and Chris, and Edgar. They are playing what seems to be a miniature form of croquet.
Jules starts to swing her mallet, and Chris ambles behind her, wrapping her arms with his own. He starts to count, and she releases the mallet.
All the breath leaves my body.
Edgar holds Delilah, kissing her the way I ought to be.
I drop the telescope as if it is burning my palm and run as fast as I can to page 43.
First I pace.
Who does she think she is?
She’s already found my replacement.
I take out my dagger and begin to hack away at the rock wall.
Every time I think of her, I picture Edgar’s mouth on hers, and I strike the rock until sparks shower.
By the time she finally gets around to opening the book, it is hours after I viewed that catastrophe through Orville’s telescope. She smiles down at me as if she hasn’t been snogging another fellow all afternoon.
I stand up, my fists balled at my sides. “You have quite some nerve!” I yell. “Tell me, will you take anyone, or is it just guys who look like me?”
Her jaw drops. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw you. Orville gave me an enchanted telescope, and I watched you kissing him.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’ve been spying on me?”
“You’ve been cheating on me!”
“I have not. I didn’t kiss Edgar; he kissed me. And it’s not like either of us wanted it, trust me.” She tilts her head. “How many times did I watch you kiss Seraphima?”
“You knew Seraphima meant nothing to me. It was a part I was playing.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing!”
“FINE!” I yell.
“FINE!” she shouts back.
We stare at each other for a long moment, furious. Then Delilah lifts her chin. “Is that all you have to say to me?”
My eyes flash. “Well. I imagine you’re tired from your…exertions this afternoon.”
A muscle tics in her jaw. “If all you’re going to do is insult me, I’m going to go.” She curls her hand around the edge of the book and starts to close it. It feels like the world closing in on me.
“Wait,” I say softly.
The book opens again, and she smooths the page flat.
“You have no idea how hard it was to see you doing that,” I confess.
“It’s just for a little while. Until we can come up with an excuse to stage a breakup.”
There is a voice at the door—Mrs. McPhee. “Delilah?” she calls. “Who are you talking to?”
Immediately the world goes dark as Delilah shoves the open book beneath the covers of her bed. “No one,” she says. “Jules.”
“Which is it? No one, or Jules?”
“Jules,” Delilah answers, flustered.
“Are you guys having a fight? I heard yelling.”
“We were arguing about something stupid. What movie to see this weekend. No big deal.”
There is a hesitation. “It sounded like a lot of shouting for just a movie.”
“We’re both PMSing,” Delilah says. “I’m totally exhausted, Mom. Can’t you see I want to sleep?”
There is a sound of the door closing, and suddenly Delilah’s face comes into view again.
“That was rather harsh,” I murmur. “What’s this ‘PMSing’?”