Between the pages

“What do you think, how long will it take her to acknowledge us?”

Romy watched Adele chew on a pencil. She clearly hadn’t moved a bit forward in her writing. What a shame. Romy had more than enough ideas for her to use.

“She knows very well that we don’t stand on the ground,” George said from his rocking chair.

Romy somersaulted. “I’m glad she does, but I wouldn’t mind if she hurried to help us.”

“Let her think. Maybe she needs more time.”

“C’mon, why doesn’t she just listen to me?”

Adele typed in a sentence but deleted it immediately. Then wrote something again. The words were projected before them like on a white canvas.

“Hm, I think this is quite a solid idea.”

Romy, George and other Adele’s literary characters were all excited to see what their creator had in mind for them. Only that it didn’t always go as planned. This time, they’d waited a while until she finally sat down to write. And during the two hours she’d attempted to fix the plot hole they were hanging over, nothing seemed to sit well with her. Romy had already gotten used to the gaping darkness underneath her. Still, she was looking forward to the solid ground of her house under her feet.

The thing about a plot hole was that whatever characters were doing when the writer detected it, they were swept into the air and hung over a gaping black hole with the objects they either held or sat on. That’s why George was now swinging in a rocking chair. For a while, Romy contemplated whether this was how the astronauts felt in the universe. So light with no gravity to hinder them.

“Wait, wait, that’s great! And I could actually help her to get on that car, and thus, she would be safe,” George called, swinging his hands around him as he nearly fell from the chair. “Phew, she left it, thankfully. I would very much like to see Charlotte again.”

“Of course you would,” Romy hummed.

At the beginning of Adele’s book, Light through the Clouds, a war took over the land and led Romy’s brother to the dangerous maw of falling bombs and flying bullets. George returned home half a year later after being shot, and surgeons fighting for his life. Now, he wished for nothing else than seeing his Charlotte again, who served as a nurse near the frontline. And Adele hoped they would meet again soon, but that wish carried the plot hole they were stuck over.

Romy received a letter to serve as a nurse, too, but how to find out where Charlotte was at that moment? And what’s more, she could plead to be assigned to a certain region, but when she and George finally reached the place, Charlotte could be gone.

It wasn’t the first time a plot hole appeared, but it usually took Adele only a day or two, and they would go on. Now, they had been hanging like that for a week. Or were it two weeks?

Besides all of these problems they were facing, Romy wondered what her story would be like. Even though she was a side character and spent much of her time out of the spotlight, her life didn’t stop when she vanished from the pages for a while or after the last sentence in the book. No, Adele had in mind an entire storyline for everyone. The thing was to write it correctly. Romy’s part in the story was basically defined, but Adele still had to polish the details.

The unknown hung before her. Adele struggled sometimes to find the correct blueprint for Romy, which led to alterations. Occasionally, the changes caught both her and George off guard. When she started writing her book, Romy lived with her brother in a nice house nestled in a town near the sea, but soon, she moved them to a sad, cold house in the middle of nowhere.

Something shifted.

“Do you think the plot hole is getting smaller, or is it just me?” Romy asked her brother suddenly, eyeing the shrinking edges.

George looked around. “It’s actually pretty possible. But let me see…” He squinted at the words unfolding before him. “Eh, this might need a bit of further work, but overall, it doesn’t look like a lost cause.”

Romy sighed, rolling in the air from one side to another. Couldn’t Adele find a plot hole when I was on the couch? But instead, it “kidnapped” her on her way from the kitchen, so her only companion was a cup of tea, from which she was leisurely sipping. One good thing about being frozen in a story—the tea never gets cold and is always refilled.

“But she will solve it, right?” Romy asked, a doubt tugging at her.

George looked at her with a reassuring smile. “Of course. She always does. Just let us trust her and enjoy this time in between,” he advised her and leaned back with his hands folded behind his head. “Though it’s woven through with fear for our beloved ones and how the things will unfold,” he added with misery in his voice.

“Don’t worry, brother. No harm will come near her,” Romy said with a comforting smile, squeezing George’s hand, and turned back to Adele.

Her creator went through ups and downs sometimes, but she always returned to them, and their story was becoming better with every written word. Looking back at the journey she had already overcome, Romy trusted that whatever her creator would write for her, it would be worth the wait.

“How much more do you think she needs to write?” George asked, reading the new words appearing in front of him.

“Well, we’re stuck in the east because the frontline crosses our road to the western front. And then there’s your meeting and my service in the field hospital.” Romy shrugged. “Maybe if you deleted this part, it would make more sense. No?” Romy suggested to Adele, who surveyed a quite unimportant line.

“Or change the direction of the road. We would reach Charlotte much sooner,” George said, rocking back and forth.

Adele stared at her computer in concentration.

And then…there it was. That spark.

Her eyes sparkled with an idea that neither Romy nor George had seen coming.

Adele’s fingers flew over the keyboard at such a speed that they weren’t able to keep up with the sentences. But when she was finished, it seemed so simple. How did they not see it? It was right under their nose!

“I told you she w—” George’s speech was cut off with a whoosh as they both landed on a wooden floor, George in the living room and Romy on the stairs.

She stood up on her wobbly legs and stretched. “Thankfully, it’s done. My back was hurting from so much lying.” She ran down the steps and entered the living room.

George slowed down the rocking of the chair and rose. “You were hovering. That’s not the same.”

“Whatever.”

“Thank you!” George shouted at Adele, who finally seemed content with where her story was heading. “And now, dear sister, pack your things, we’re going to face the war.”