by Anna Day
The car pulls up behind the ambulance.
‘I’ll come into the hospital with you then,’ Timothy says. He sounds a bit like a dad . . . not my dad, obviously. A normal dad. This makes me well up and I’m scared to reply in case I just snot everywhere.
‘No . . . no . . . thank you. I’ll be fine,’ I manage to say.
‘Well, somebody needs to come with you,’ Russell says.
Christ, no. The last thing I need is Russell talking shit at me all afternoon. ‘Thanks, but Violet’s parents will be there, we’re pretty close. I’ll be fine.’
Russell helps me from the car and Timothy leans over the seat so he can look me in the eyes. ‘Keep me updated, Alice. You can call me any time, I mean it. Any time.’
The car drives away and I stand outside the hospital all alone.
Finally, I burst into tears.
10
ALICE
Violet and Katie lie next to each other. Only a partition curtain and a selection of monitoring equipment comes between them. I can’t help feeling left out. Christ, I’m such a jealous cowbag. I sit on the edge of Violet’s bed and let a lock of her beyond-soft hair slip through my fingers. I touch a finger to her split-heart necklace, and then press the same finger against my own half. Tears well in my eyes. At least now I understand why she was so desperate we never wrote a third book. She wanted Nate to keep his happy ending. I should have listened to her at the café. I shouldn’t have been such a coward.
I duck beneath the curtain and sit beside Katie for a moment. She agreed to go to Comic-Con immediately, no questions asked. Saint Katie. That’s why I’m a bit off with her sometimes; she makes me look bad. And the worst thing . . . I love that annoying ginger Scouser. Even though she gets on my nips, even though she’s always sucking up to Violet, I still love her. I just wish she’d piss off back to Liverpool sometimes. I stroke her cheek and sigh. ‘You better be looking after her, Weasley.’
Well, I may have been too late to go with them, but there’s still one thing I can do to help. I can make sure nobody writes that third book. The last thing Violet needs is someone putting the diss back into dystopia (I bloody hate that pun) while she’s stuck in that world.
I ring Timothy’s number, convinced I can persuade him not to get some other author on board. It goes straight to voicemail. So much for ‘any time’. I suppress another wave of tears, because I actually thought he was being kind, then I switch off my phone in anger.
I swing by Nate’s room. He looks so peaceful, stretched out in his bed like that. I sit beside him and take his hand. He really needs a shave, and with Violet in a coma, I wonder if the nurses will let me do it instead. Violet said in her text that she was going to get Nate. Just about the last thing she ever said to me as I left the café was: We wrote in a new character. Did we really write Nate into life in another universe? It sounds so ridiculous, and yet I remember arriving at the Coliseum so clearly . . . I swallow hard. I have to think about it, I have to let my mind return there. If not for me, for my friends. Because there may still be a way I can help them.
I close my eyes and let that strange, terrifying, beautiful week play out in my head almost like a film. I still can’t believe I shagged Willow. I mean, firstly, I shagged Willow. But secondly, it was a totally sucky thing to do to my friends. Violet was right; it was a betrayal. It could easily have thrown canon off track and stopped us all going home. But I don’t think I cared at that point – it was so good fitting in, not being silently resented for the size of my tits or the length of my skirt. It was so good to belong.
And Willow was so kind and warm.
I cover my face with my hands and begin to weep.
There are some things I’m just not ready to remember quite yet.
A voice makes me jump. ‘Oh, I know, it’s such a shame.’ I look up and see a nurse. I didn’t even hear him come into the ward. I wipe my eyes, embarrassed I’ve had yet another public display of tears, but the nurse doesn’t seem to mind and watches me with compassionate eyes. ‘Did you know him well?’ he asks.
I nod.
‘Are you going to be there?’
I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I play along. ‘Yeah, course.’
‘Ah, that’s nice. Seeing as his sister can’t be.’
‘It’s what Violet would want,’ I say.
A smile of sad acceptance touches his lips. ‘I thought they may postpone it, what with the older one being back in a coma now. But they’re insistent.’
I nod as if I know what he’s getting at.
He leans down and strokes Nate’s hand. ‘Breaks my heart, it does. But at least you’ll all be free to grieve.’
I suddenly realize what he means, and it’s like I’ve been kicked in the windpipe. They’re turning off Nate’s life support.
‘When’s it scheduled for again?’ I ask.
‘Wednesday.’
Violet’s parents arrive.
Her dad, Adam, embraces me. ‘Alice, love, thanks for coming.’ He smells of gravy and old spice. I think that’s how a real dad is supposed to smell.
Next, Violet’s mum falls on me in an embrace that feels almost angry. She probably is pissed off. Why should her children lie in hospital beds while I stroll around unharmed?
‘Mrs Miller, I’m so sorry,’ I manage to say.
I haven’t called her Mrs Miller since I was four. She likes me to call her Jane. But it’s easy to slip back into child mode when a lovely, jersey-clad mum gives you a hug.
‘Oh Alice, sweetheart, what happened?’ she asks.
I swallow down my guilt. ‘I don’t know, I wasn’t there.’
She stands by Violet’s bed, tears coursing down her face.
‘She text me and said she was going to Comic-Con,’ I offer. ‘I did go, but I was too late.’
‘Why would she go to Comic-Con?’ Jane asks me. ‘After what happened last time, what was she thinking?’
I want to tell her about The Gallows Dance being real, about Nate being stuck over there, about the third book Timothy wants us to write. I think I’m about to, but a doctor enters the room. She speaks to Jane and Adam in a low voice and clearly doesn’t want me to hear, so I head to the family room. It’s empty except for me. I stick the kettle on and sit at the table.
The tick of the clock bounces off the hard surfaces until it sounds like a hammer. Alone is a dangerous place to be when you’re terrified of your own thoughts. I close my eyes, and again let my time in The Gallows Dance play out in my head. Willow and I slept together and Violet found us. God knows how she climbed that tree; she pulled a muscle lifting her rucksack back in Year 7. But find us she did, and God was she upset.
And the next morning – my throat aches with the thought of it – the next morning, Willow sat me down and told me he didn’t love me. He couldn’t love me, because he was in love with someone else. I knew who he meant of course. Rose. Violet. My best friend. Even in a world where I fitted in, I was still just a pretty shell.
Jane walks in, her face all puffy and tear-stained. ‘Katie’s parents have arrived,’ she says. ‘They’re in a right state, not surprising really. I said I’d make them a cuppa.’
I wipe my eyes. ‘I’ll do it.’
But she flaps me away with her hand. ‘You’ve been through enough today. And besides, I need to be a mum right now.’
That’s the thing Jane doesn’t realize; she’s always a mum, she couldn’t stop being a mum even if she tried, it’s sewn into the fabric of her being. Unlike my mum, who tries it on every so often, like one of her outfits.
Jane sticks on some toast. ‘You’re in luck, they’ve got granary.’
She knows it’s my favourite. We listen to the hum of the toaster, the tick of the clock, and again, I consider telling her about The Gallows Dance, about Nate being alive and stuck over there. But the toast popping up breaks my flow.
Jane grabs the toast and starts buttering like a woman possessed. She stops buttering long enough to say, �
�I just can’t believe the same thing would happen again.’ She looks a little wild. ‘There’s something crazy going on, Alice. Maybe there really is some kind of curse.’
She hands me the toast, and then pulls a note from her pocket. It’s Violet’s writing, and the sight of it makes me want to cry again.
Mum and Dad,
Whatever happens, please keep your promise to me. The cake recipe is in my silver folder in the cupboard above the kettle.
All my love,Violet.
Jane sits at the table opposite me and leans forwards, dropping her voice to a whisper. ‘It’s like she knew she was going to fall into a coma.’ She straightens up and laughs a frantic laugh. ‘But that’s just mad, isn’t it?’
I pause, not sure how to respond. Eventually, I say, ‘What promise?’
‘Oh, Alice. I can’t bring myself to tell you. You’ll think I’m awful.’
I reach across the table and squeeze her hand. ‘You mean about Nate. They just told me now.’
She looks at me, her face crinkling around the edges with shame. ‘And you’re not mad?’
I begin to eat the toast. Because actually, I am mad. I’m fuming. How could they even think of turning off Nate’s life support? But Jane looks so sad, and I can’t bear to kick her when she’s down.
‘Why now?’ is all I manage.
‘We’re setting him free.’
I don’t know what to say so I keep eating toast. I suddenly wish it had jam or chocolate spread on it, just to get rid of that bitter taste.
‘You’re not mad?’ she repeats.
I shake my head and she seems to relax a tiny bit.
‘Violet was so mad,’ she says. ‘Devastated. I keep thinking maybe the shock of it put her back into a coma.’ Her voice breaks up. ‘But that doesn’t explain about Katie, I suppose.’
‘What did Violet say?’ I ask.
‘She started saying she could bring Nate back. She was begging us to give her more time. We agreed to give her a few days, because it’s his birthday soon. She wanted to bake his favourite cake. That was the promise she meant in the note.’
‘Are you going to give it more time now? You could wait until Violet wakes up?’
‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘I just can’t. I don’t expect you to understand, but we need to do this. Seeing him like that every day, it’s killing me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say robotically.
She doesn’t acknowledge my apology, perhaps because it sounded so flat. Instead, she slumps in the chair next to me. ‘What did she mean, she could bring him back?’
‘I don’t know,’ I reply.
She pulls out Violet’s iPhone from her pocket. ‘The doctors gave me this. Do you know the code?’ she asks. ‘Perhaps if I could read her messages . . .’
‘Sorry, I don’t.’
She exhales, long and slow. ‘I’ll let Katie’s parents know there’s tea and toast.’
She leaves the kitchen. More importantly, she leaves the phone.
I lied when I said I didn’t know Violet’s code. Like I said, sometimes lies are a good thing. She’s my bestie. Of course I know her code. I quickly tap the number in: 050710. It’s the date that Nate won his first science prize. Random to everyone else, but to Violet, it was one of her proudest moments. She said it was the first time she realized her little brother was a genius. She’d offered to help, and ended up just passing him the glue gun all night. I get a stab of something in my heart. Regret? Guilt? Jealousy? I don’t know what it is, but it really sodding hurts.
I skim through her old texts. Boring. Her phone remembers her password, so I quickly check her emails. Boring. I move to her web history. Christ, she really is boring. Not a single dodgy site. I can hear steps coming down the corridor. I open up her photo albums. The last photo she took was a strange picture . . . I squint . . . a loop of some description. I can see sandy hairs and the texture of skin running beneath the ink, so I’m guessing it’s a close-up of a tattoo. I bring the screen closer to my face. A rat eating its own tail. Not quite so boring.
I replace the phone on the table just before Jane and Adam appear.
Adam puts a cup of tea in front of me. It’s gone a bit cold, but I drink it anyway. We pretty much repeat the same conversation again. Talking about Comic-Con, about Nate, about how they simply have to turn off his life support. I begin to feel numb again.
It’s only as I’m leaving Adam says something of interest.
‘Violet mentioned a mark on Nate’s arm. We had a quick look and couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Do you know what she was on about? I think she was just so upset.’
I shake my head. And this time, I’m not lying.
But I’m going to find out.
11
VIOLET
The fire door swings shut behind us. At first, I notice only the absence of things: noise, the scent of medicine, that crushing sensation. Then all at once the stench of rotting bird finds me, the cold air hits my skin, and an expanse of colourless sky hangs above, merging into the grey of stone and concrete.
We’ve arrived in Imp London.
‘It worked,’ I whisper.
I hear Katie in the background, high-pitched and disorientated, firing question after question as if I have the answers. I block her out and stumble forwards, trying to take it all in. Jagged rooflines, crumbling bricks peeking through a mass of thistles, concrete pushing through the soles of my shoes. But something isn’t right. Above the sound of my own pulse, the ringing in my ears, I can hear cheering, braying – the sound of an angry crowd.
It makes my insides reel.
‘Can you hear that?’ I ask Katie.
She nods. ‘But I can smell the river. Surely we’re miles from the Coliseum.’ She turns in a circle, then gasps, clutching my arm so hard it hurts. ‘Look.’
I follow her line of sight. The church stands proud and tall, risen from the ashes like some bizarre, stone phoenix.
She strengthens her grip. ‘I watched it burn to the ground. How is it still standing?’
Not only is it standing, it’s been restored, just like Alice and I wrote in The Gallows Song. The polythene in the windows has been replaced with glass and the holes in the roof have been tiled over; and the spire still reaches towards the sky, desperate to finally pierce the sun and release some colour. My mouth hangs open, the adrenalin of crossing over momentarily eclipsed by wonder. I knew The Gallows Song would change their world, but seeing it first-hand is astonishing.
‘Violet?’ Katie says.
‘The infinite loop,’ I finally reply.
‘What loop?’
I force my lips to move, even though they feel numb. ‘The Imps and Gems were stuck in a time loop, where the story of The Gallows Dance just circled from the end back to the beginning for ever and ever. Only a few Gems could remember it, the President, Baba. That’s why they brought us over in the first place, so we would return to our Earth and write the sequel.’
‘And break the infinite loop,’ she says.
I nod. ‘When we returned home, the loop reset. As far as everyone here is concerned, we never existed, Rose died on the gallows the way she was supposed to. And the church, this church –’ I gesture to it with a trembling hand – ‘never burnt to the ground.’
‘What about The Gallows Song? Did that happen?’
‘From what Baba said, it sounds like it did. So . . . this is afterwards. A new story.’
‘Unknown territory,’ Katie says, and we exchange a nervous glance.
Katie narrows her eyes, the way she does when she’s concentrating. ‘An infinite loop . . . Like the rat on Nate’s arm. I didn’t think of it before, I was too weirded out, but it’s like a version of the ouroboros – a snake eating its own tail. We studied it in Classics last year. It means infinity, a constant loop.’ She turns to me. ‘Do you think there’s a link?’
I’m about to respond, anxiety knotting up my chest, when the chaotic noise of the distant crowd converges into three,
hard words. A chant which builds and builds, striking terror into my core. ‘KILL THE TRAITORS . . . KILL THE TRAITORS . . . KILL THE TRAITORS . . .’
Katie’s features widen with fear. ‘Sounds like there’s an execution going on.’
Before I can answer, before I can even think, my legs are moving, pumping as fast as they can, hammering into the concrete and carrying me towards that terrible chant.
‘Violet, wait,’ Katie shrieks, her footsteps slapping behind me. ‘We’re supposed to run away from death.’
But I ignore her, sailing down the tarmac, hurdling stones and pieces of debris, the cold river air curdling in my lungs. The infinite loop. I suddenly know where I’ve seen that mark before, the one on Nate’s arm. I recall President Stoneback’s nasal voice: ‘A never-ending cycle. A perpetual loop.’ The mark was on the President’s arm.
‘Violet, please,’ Katie gasps. ‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s Nate,’ I say, even as my throat aches and that ever-increasing chant fills my head. ‘Nate’s the traitor.’
ALICE
I’m leaning against the yellow tube pole. And this time, I really need it. I don’t think I’d be able to stand otherwise. An older lady asks me if I’m OK. I smile and say, ‘Yes, thank you. I’m fine.’ And because I’m wearing Gucci and I’ve clearly exfoliated, she believes me.
Mum’s waiting for me when I get home. She must have heard the news from her friends at the gym. She’s missed her spinning class for me, which makes me smile. Dad’s nowhere to be seen. He must have heard the news too.
‘Are you OK?’ she asks.
I nod.
‘I tried to ring, but your phone was off.’
‘I didn’t fancy speaking to the press,’ I say.
She runs a chilly finger under my eyes. ‘Your mascara’s smudged. Go wash your face and we can have a late lunch.’
‘I had toast.’
‘Carbs!’ She says the word like it’s dirty. ‘I’m making salmon with asparagus.’
I don’t really feel like eating, but it’s so rare Mum cooks, I’m kind of curious. ‘OK. Thanks.’
I change my clothes and wash my face. The coldness of the water against my skin wakes me a little, and I suddenly get an urge to check my phone and see if Mum really did ring (Mum never rings). Turns out, she did, which makes me happy. Really happy. Orphan-Annie-gets-chosen-by-Daddy-Warbuck-happy. I reward her by pulling on a sundress. She loves it when I make an effort.