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