“Then stay with me.” Oliver grips my arms. “Forever. Would that be so bad?”
“I’d never see my mom again,” I say, tears springing to my eyes. “She’d wonder what happened to me, and she’d never know the truth. And I’d never be able to tell Jules I’m sorry—” I break off, thinking of the fight we had. “It takes two people to make a friendship work, Oliver,” I say, repeating Jules’s words to me. Now I get it. Now I understand how devastating it is when one of the partiesis thinking only about himself or herself. “Did you ever consider how I’d feel, being dragged here, to a place you’re dying to escape? Did you ever consider asking me for permission? Did you even think about me once before you went to Rapscullio?”
Oliver’s eyes are fierce, locked on mine. A muscle works in his throat. “You wereallI was thinking about.”
I have never felt so alone, even with Oliver standing in front of me. “Youwanted to leaveyourlife,” I say. “I never wanted to leavemine.”
Tears stream down my face as I blindly run through the maze. I don’t know where I’m going, but it doesn’t really matter. Nothing does, if I can’t get back home.
I don’t let myself turn around to see if Oliver’s following me. I’m afraid he will be.
But I’m even more afraid he won’t.
***
My exit from the castle is much less eventful than my entrance. Several ladies-in-waiting nod at me as I pass through the courtyard, and the same guard who was sitting on my butt to restrain me wishes me a nice day as I leave. I find myself in a kingdom that’s not mine, in a world that’s not meant for me.
As soon as I am outside the castle walls, I start to run. I pass scenery that I recognize, but I don’t stop to take a second look. All I can think about is my mother,who is waiting for me downstairs with a bowl of popcorn. I wonder how long it will take her to figure out that I’ve gone missing. If she’ll call the police, what sort of explanation they will make for my disappearance. I wonder who’ll be there for her when she is devastated. Without me, my mom has nobody. It’s always been just the two of us.
The one ally I have in this place is someone who betrayed me. And if I can’t trust Oliver, then there’s no reason to be here. I suppose it’s stupid to think that anyone could be as incredible as I’ve made Oliver out to be in my mind. Clearly, that’s just been a figment of my imagination.
Here’s what no one ever tells you about love: it hurts, having your heart broken.
I find myself sitting on a rock at the edge of the water, where other jagged rocks stick up like sharks’ teeth. In the distance, Captain Crabbe’s boat bobs along the horizon. Timble Tower looms on the cliff overhead.
I hug my knees to my chest. What seemed exciting—trying to get Oliver out of the book—is absolutely terrifying now that I’m stuck inside it myself.
I reach beside me and pluck a dandelion, then close my eyes to make the wish:I just want to get out of here.
A little voice inside me says,That’s all Oliver ever wanted too.
This makes me cry harder.
The only person who understands how I’m feeling right now is the very same person I yelled at and ran away from.
“I’ve got to go back and talk to him,” I say out loud. But just as I am about to stand up, something grasps my arm at the wrist and yanks me headfirst into the ocean.
Panicked, I start splashing and striking out, trying to get to the surface, but I am wearing clothes and sneakers and sinking fast. I cry out and swallow water. What if I drown? What if I die here? I thrash even harder, desperate to get free.
A shark is swimming toward me. I go very still as I see its silver body cut through the water like a knife through butter. Its black eyes fix on me as I try to remember everything I learned from watching the Discovery Channel. Am I supposed to punch it in the nose or poke it in the eye?
The shark snaps its jaws so close to me that the water is sucked in like a vacuum, stirring the hairs on my arm. Before it can swim past me again, something wraps around my wrists and waist, restraining me. I struggle, only to hear a voice in my ear. “Don’t fight it,” a woman hisses. I realize that my bonds are tendrils of her hair, long and silver. Her face, close to mine, is sunken and terrifying, pocked with scales. Gills ripple on her neck and her ribs. Her entire lower half is a thick, muscular tail.
Right now I should be watching Ariel and Flounderdance happily across a television screen. I open my mouth to scream, but the mermaid grabs my face and plants a kiss square on my lips.
“What wasthatfor?” I sputter, pushing away from her. I realize two things at that moment: The shark has drifted away. And I can breathe.
It is as if I have an astronaut’s helmet surrounding me. I take a few tentative breaths and then a bigger gulp. “How did you… I mean…”
As my vision clears beneath the water, I realize that all three mermaids are swimming nearby. Among the most unsettling parts of the fairy tale, when I first read it, were these women, with their tangled seaweed hair and emaciated bodies, the spiny fins on their forearms, the bloodred ridges of their gills flaring with each breath. Little girls dream of being mermaids, but not ones like these. They are, I realize, even more terrifying up close and personal than in an illustration. I have to keep reminding myself of what Oliver has told me: the characters in the story are nothing like the people they are when the book is closed. Maybe this means that the mermaidsdon’tintend to kill me.
“Where did you come from?” asks Kyrie, the mermaid who saved me from the shark.
“That’s a very long story,” I say.
“Oh, tell it,” cries Ondine, clapping her hands. “We haven’t had a new story in the longest time.”
“Sisters,” Marina murmurs, swimming closer to me. “Don’t pressure the boy. Can’t you see he’s scared?”
