Or in other words, I’m right back where I never wanted to be.
***
Before Delilah and I can talk about what went wrong, her mother calls her. I hear Delilah say she’ll be back as soon as she can, but I don’t acknowledge her. Instead I accept the congratulations of the pirates and offer pecks of consolation to the mermaids, who are in tears, and all the while I am praying that Delilah will close the book and free me from this recurring nightmare.
The minute she does, Frump yells,“Cut!”
I grab him by the collar. “Where’d you go? And why did you come back?”
“Go?” Frump shakes his head. “Buddy, I think you’ve got sunstroke. No one’s gone anywhere. We’ve been watching the wedding like always,” he says with a grimace.
“But I saw you vanish… and… and… everything went white…”
This must be how Delilah feels, when nobody believes a word she’s saying. How could no one remember the beach evaporating? And where did they all disappear to?
Their memories have been wiped clean, I realize. Just like always, the book’s reset itself. It is as if that last scene I was trying to rewrite never happened.
And that’s probably for the best, because otherwise, they’d want to lynch me.
Frump looks at me strangely. “You might want to go to Orville and get that checked out.”
Before I can respond, a tree smacks into me from behind. Or so I think, until I turn around to find Snort—the shortest troll—clapping me on the shoulder. He pushes me aside so he can talk to Frump. “Boss,” the troll says, “I’m having a little trouble giving my character credibility in the last scene. Am I still holding a grudge against the prince, or do I just plain want to kill him?”
“It’s a happy ending, Snort.”
The troll furrows his brow. “So, then I want to kill him?”
Frump sighs. “I don’t care what you’re thinking. Just look happy while you’re thinking it!”
To my right, Socks and Pyro are locked in deep discussion. “You know the illustration puts on ten pounds,” Socks says.
“So true, so true,” Pyro replies.
“That’s why I’m on a no-carb hay diet,” Socks admits. “It’s doing wonders for my waistline.”
Ducking my head so that I won’t have to field any invitations for a game of chess or a swim with the mermaids, I slip away from Everafter Beach.
What happened back there?
Everything seemed to be working. Why did it stop?
I have walked halfway to the wizard’s cottage before I even realize where I’m headed. Perhaps Frump is right—maybe all I need is one of Orville’s potions to set my head straight again.
He lives in a rickety old cottage that looks, now that I think about it, something like Delilah’s fortress. Outside, hanging from the beams of the porch, are bundles of drying herbs and wind chimes made of rusty spoons. I knock on the door and hear an explosion and a crash inside.
“Orville?” I yell.
“Everything’s fine!” the wizard responds. “Just a slight backfire!”
A moment later he opens the door. His skin is blackened with ash, in stark contrast to his snowy beard and wild cloud of white hair. “Ah, my dear boy. Don’t tell me the queen sent you. IpromiseI’ll get around to the Fountain of Youth potion by the end of the month….”
“The queen didn’t send me,” I say. “I need your help, Orville.”
“What can I do for you?” the wizard asks, stepping aside to invite me in.
It’s hard to believe that he can see well enough in the dim light to concoct his potions. There are books upon books, old tomes so dusty that I find myself coughing uncontrollably. A table sits in the center of theroom, missing one of its legs—which has been replaced by a stack of grimoires. On its surface are several large cast-iron cauldrons, each with a spoon that is stirring itself. “Orville,” I say, “I think that one’s boiling over.”
The wizard turns to see a thick, glowing green ooze bubbling over the edge of one pot. He gasps, sticks his hand in a jar of eyeballs, and tosses three into the mix. Immediately, the liquid hisses at him.
