Everyone looks around awkwardly, waiting for someone to fess up. Curiosity spreads like a fever. Could it have been Frump, hoping his friend could save him from falling back to a four-legged existence? Or Seraphima, missing her (fake) true love? Could this be Captain Crabbe’s reminder of an annual dental checkup? Queen Maureen, pining for her fictional son? Or Rapscullio himself, accidentally pouring out his secret wish on the wrong canvas?
If you want to get technical about it, everyone on this beach has a reason to want Oliver to return.
I round on the cast, stepping up. “Well? Who is it? Which one of you keeps sending these messages?”
I’m greeted by silence.
“Fine,” Oliver snaps. “If no one’s going to admit to this, I’m going to figure it out for myself. Edgar, Rapscullio? Meet me on page six.”
This time I get a running start, breaking through the pages like a ghost walking through walls, as Oliver and Delilah flip backward through the book. Breathless, I land heavily in Rapscullio’s lair, knocking over a stack of canvases. Every single one is painted with Queen Maureen’s face. I look at Rapscullio. “Dude, that’s creepy.”
Rapscullio shrugs. “Don’t blame me. I was written that way.”
The lair is a dark, narrow cave lit by tallow candles. Spiders hide in the crevices of the walls, and rats scatter across the floor like moving shadows. Everything seems a little bit damp, and there’s a faint, incessant dripping sound coming from the stalactites.
While we wait for Rapscullio to locate the easel, I look up at Oliver. “So how’s my mom?” I ask.
“She’s an excellent cook,” Oliver says brightly.
“No,” I repeat. “I mean . . .how’s my mom?”
“She seems to get tired often.”
I shrug. “She’s always tired. If she doesn’t have five cups of coffee a day, you’re living with an imposter.”
Suddenly Rapscullio interrupts, placing the magic easel front and center. It’s painted with a background that matches Delilah’s bedroom. The same message Oliver showed us is scrawled in its center.
Rapscullio lifts the canvas off its frame. He shakes it likeit’s an Etch A Sketch he’s trying to clear, but nothing happens. “Hmm,” he muses. “Something’s not quite right.”
He settles the canvas back on the easel, takes a paintbrush, dips it in turpentine, and traces over the letters. One at a time, each loop and line vanishes.
“Is it gone?” I ask, looking up at Oliver.
He looks away from the book, his chin raised. “Yes,” he says, sighing with relief. “But that doesn’t answer the question of who wrote it in the first place. Someone in the book needs help, and I can’t be expected to live with one foot in each world. These are your people now, Edgar. You’re supposed to be keeping track of them.”
My face flushes with anger. When Frump asked for my help, I thought I was finally getting somewhere . . . that I was becoming a real part of this community. But the fact that Oliver has found another message means I may have taken one step forward but three steps back. I mean, he of all people should know how hard it is to be inside this book. I don’t really need him giving me lectures on responsibility, after all I’ve done for him.
“Really? These aremypeople? Why don’t you tell them that? Then maybe they’ll stop writing toyoufor help.”
Oliver leans into the book, shouting. “Don’t blame me just because you don’t have the skill it takes to be a main character—”
“Stop it, you two,” Delilah scolds. “You can both stop measuring your egos.”
“Erm.” Rapscullio clears his throat. “I think you need to see this.”
I follow his gaze to the easel. Without a paintbrush or a pen,or any visible artist, the letters are tracing themselves onto the canvas: I NEED YOU.
I turn to Rapscullio. “Are you doing that? Is it magic?”
“I’m not doing a thing,” he vows.
As we all watch, the letters soak into the canvas, disappearing like invisible ink. A moment later, they rewrite themselves, sinking in again, the process repeating over and over.
“Oliver!” Delilah cries. “Help!”
Rapscullio and I tear our gazes away from the canvas to see Delilah’s room flooding with the black loops and curls of letters. They may be disappearing in our world, but they keep rising in hers, swarming like bats. The dog in her bedroom is barking and trying to bite the duplicating words. They tangle in Delilah’s hair, pecking at her. Oliver tries to wrestle them away, but they wrap around his wrists and pull his arms down to his sides, trapping him. And still the words keep coming, floating in the space between them, turning the air black and drowning them in language.
Beside me, Rapscullio grabs the canvas and smashes it against the rock wall of the cave, breaking the frame in half. He punches his boot through the center.
