Jodi Picoult - Between the lines

Bending toward the keyboard, I begin to type.

Rapscullio’s footsteps thundered up the stone stairs of the tower. As he strode inside the room, a wind blew through the wide arched window. Beside it, Seraphima stood with her back to him, staring out at the ocean below.

“The pensive bride,” Rapscullio said drily, coming closer. “If you’re thinking of jumping… don’t.”

She didn’t respond, just continued to stare at the crashing waves.

Rapscullio put his hands on her shoulders, squeezing. She shuddered. His breath was at her neck. “You will learn to love me,” he commanded.

Seraphima turned in Rapscullio’s embrace. He lifted the veil that obscured her features.

But it wasn’t her face at all. “Don’t count on it,” Oliver said, and he rammed his head into Rapscullio’s belly, knocking him backward.

The villain drew his sword. “What did you do with her?”

“She’s safe,” Oliver said. “And she’s mine.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Your Highness. This is just payback, and it’s been a long time coming.”

Oliver stared at the pitted scars on Rapscullio’s face. He had never met this man before; how could Rapscullio possibly hold a grudge against him?

“I won’t let you get away with this,” Oliver said.

Rapscullio’s lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. “Why, that’s exactly what Maurice said, just before I released the dragon on him. Like father, like son.”

Oliver fell back a step. “You… you knew my father?”

“Correction,” Rapscullio said. “I killed your father.”

Suddenly Oliver’s vision swam in a red tide. He couldn’t think, he could only feel. He understood, in that crystalline instant, that courage wasn’t something you were bequeathed at birth, and it wasn’t a lack of fright. It was overcoming your fear, because the ones you love mattered more.

He drove forward, moving with pure adrenaline, and threw himself at the villain.

The skirts of Seraphima’s gown were suddenly a hindrance to his speed and agility; what had seemed like a fantastic plan to trap Rapscullio suddenly wasn’t so splendid anymore. Rapscullio swung his sword, cutting through the layers of tulle and nicking Oliver’s shoulder. “Your father took from me the one I loved most in this world,” he panted. “So now I’ll return the favor.”

Oliver dodged the next blow. The sword struck the wall, sending sparks flying. He rolled, tangling in this unfamiliar dress, and then tripped Rapscullio so that he fell facedown on the stone floor. Rapscullio grabbed Oliver’s boot and pulled him down.

Oliver wrapped the veil around Rapscullio’s wrist, trying to draw his sword arm back so that the weapon would fall. But in a match of sheer strength, Rapscullio had the upper hand. He slammed Oliver’s elbow against the floor, forcing his release.

Free again, Rapscullio swung at Oliver, landing blows to his face and chest. Oliver rolled away, dazed and reeling, and staggered to his feet. It was enough of a pause for Rapscullio to leap up and point his sword at the prince’s neck. “So, boy,” he said, sneering. “Now what?”

Oliver took one tiny step back. The sword point bit into his neck, drawing blood. Rapscullio forced Oliver to take another step in retreat, and another, approaching the wall. In a moment, Oliver would have nowhere left to go.

Promise me you won’t fight, his mother had said. Anyone or anything.

It was one thing to outsmart a dragon or trick a troll, to bargain with a pirate captain or compromise with mermaids… but how could he win a sword battle, when he didn’t even carry a sword?

Rapscullio drew back his blade, his eyes wild. “Goodbye, Prince Oliver.” He lunged forward, intent on driving his sword through Oliver’s heart.

Call it coward’s instinct, call it brilliant, call it whatever you like: Oliver ducked.

With no body to plunge his sword into, and an open window in front of him, Rapscullio fell forward, scrabbling for a moment on the slick granite of the sill before falling out.

Oliver sank to his knees, gasping. But before he could even feel relief, he sensed a tug on the skirt of Seraphima’s wedding gown and realized that the last thing Rapscullio had grabbed on to for purchase was his clothing. Oliver found himself tumbling out the window too, hurtling down a sixty-foot drop to the jagged rocks below.

MY ARM IS ACHING. AS DELILAH HAS BEEN TYPING,I’ve written the entire story by hand with a small lump of coal on the rock wall, committing it to memory. Not that this is very difficult. After all, I’ve been living it.

When at last we’re finished, Delilah leans in to the page. “Good luck,” she whispers. “See you on the outside.”

We’ve talked about it, and I know I’m on my own for this part: she has to stop reading the book and close it, so that I can gather all the characters together and tell them the new story. I see the sky spread and darken as Delilah shuts the cover. Then I take a deep breath and run a finger along the sentences I’ve scratched into the rock.

I climb down from the ledge on page 43 and start hopping the gaps between the edges of the pages, crossing through the Enchanted Forest and the unicorn meadow. I will find Frump and ask him for his help. He’s the only one who can rally the masses as quickly as I need it to be done, and I know I can count on him for his support.

But first, there’s one more person I need to see. I find Queen Maureen in the rose garden behind the castle, pruning her beloved bushes. For a moment I hang back, watching the way she gently lifts the heavy head of a rose and strokes the petals. She was never really my mother, but she was the closest thing I had to one, and I’ll miss that tenderness that comes so easily to her.

Taking a deep breath-it’s now or never-I untuck my shirt, let it hang from beneath my tunic, and muss up my hair. Then I stumble into the queen’s line of sight.

“Oliver?” she says. “What happened to you?”

I collapse in front of her, pretending to catch my breath. “The Creator,” I gasp. “The one who made our world? She summoned me.”

Her eyes widen. “She summoned you?”

“Yes.”

“Goodness.”

“I know.”

She hesitates. “Is that why you started to disappear on the beach?”

“Exactly,” I say. “She sent me back here with a message for everyone in the kingdom. Apparently the story we’ve been living-it’s not the real story. Just part of a larger one.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Queen Maureen says.

“I have to leave,” I tell her.

“But you just got here!”

“No-I mean, I have to leave the book. It’s the way the ending goes, in the bigger story.”

She thinks about this. “But you’ll come back again, every time the book is opened?”

God, I hope not. Did Delilah even consider that? “It’s complicated. I’m going to explain it to everyone, on the beach. Frump is going to round them up for me.”

“Then why did you come to talk to me privately?”

“Because,” I confess, “you’re one of the people I’m going to miss the most.”

Her eyes shine with tears, and she opens her arms so that I can step into her embrace. I hold her tight, finding it hard to imagine that this might be the last time I ever do so.