by Anna Day
I return to my phone, hoping to hunt Danny down on social media. I want to tell him thank you, and in all honesty, I want to speak to him again. There’s something about him that felt familiar, something that made me feel calm. But thoughts of Danny quickly vanish when I see just how many alerts I’ve got. There’s a load of tweets and Facebook messages. Instagram has gone mad. The world has clearly heard about the curse of Comic-Con. I know I should probably read them when I’m feeling stronger, but curiosity wins the day. I perch on the edge of my bed and submerge myself in the world of social media. It sometimes feels like jumping into a bottomless river, like I’ll never surface if I’m not careful.
They’re mostly condolences. Love and wishes to be passed on to Violet from fans of The Gallows Song. Some of the messages are checking if I’m OK. I think about quickly tweeting that (yep, you’ve guessed it) I’m fine. But a tweet from someone called @eternalrose catches my eye.
You’ve got some competition, @animealice
#fandalism #fanboy #Gemuprising
Gem uprising. Two words which, when combined, make my heart stop.
I click on the fanboy hashtag. He’s a Gallows Dance fanfic writer who calls himself simply ‘Fanboy’. He’s got a fan fiction website: Fandalism. Talk about puntastic. And it turns out, whoever @eternalrose is, they were right. I really have got some competition. The tweets about his new site seem to go on for ever. And according to the Fandom, Fanboy is not afraid to write a true dystopia.
I click on the heart-stopping link. Fandalism. It takes me to a fanfic site with some of the best graphics I’ve seen. Cartoons of Nate, Ash and Thorn, each with large eyes and pointed chins. And, wrapping the text in a sense of danger, is an angular frame of barbed wire. I haven’t written any fanfic for a while, but when I did, it never looked like this. I’m a bit worried about reading it now. If the writing’s anything like the graphics, then Anime Alice is about to look like a massive sack of shit. I swallow and remind myself that I’m the one with the international bestseller. Not him.
I scan the site. He’s been posting for about two weeks. There seems to be a new post every day, so that he’s matching real time to the passage of time in the world of The Gallows Dance. Clever. I scan the latest entry. It’s written well, there’s no arguing, but it isn’t stunning like the graphics. Still, within minutes, I’m hooked. He certainly knows how to keep the tension going.
It’s set after The Gallows Song took place. It’s kind of like a fanfic sequel, told in daily instalments.
‘Alice, lunch is ready,’ Mum shouts up the stairs. ‘It’s OK, Mum, I’ll warm it up,’ I shout back. I’m going to have to read this from the beginning, because I have a horrible feeling it has something to do with Violet and Katie being in comas.
I click on the first post.
Nate paused beside the group of rebels. They looked at him and laughed. ‘What? Not doing maths in your head just to impress Thorn?’ one of them sneered.
Nate walked away.
He’d show them, he thought to himself. One day, he’d show them all.
I scan through the next couple of weeks, transfixed by how seamlessly Fanboy shows Nate’s steady spiral downwards. He starts out as our Nate, the Nate we wrote in The Gallows Song, the Nate we know and love, but gradually he transforms into a bitter, lonely shell. It’s so skilful how Fanboy uses Nate’s sense of isolation, of being different, to drive him to eventually contact Howard Stoneback – the old President’s nephew – and betray his own. It makes me shiver, because I can really relate.
As I move through the posts, the likes and shares increase dramatically. They start off in the tens, quickly jump to the hundreds, and move into the tens of thousands. He’s been busy, this Fanboy.
Then, a post a few days ago makes me gasp. Or, more precisely, the graphic makes me gasp. It’s the rat from Violet’s phone.
I read the text beside it:
Howard removed the stamp from Nate’s arm. The smallest of dots rested on his skin.
‘This is the symbol of the Taleter, Nate,’ Howard said, handing Nate a magnifying glass. ‘It’s a rat swallowing its own tail.’
‘Why a rat?’ Nate asked. ‘A snake would make more sense. The ouroboros symbolizes infinity and growth.’
Howard smiled. ‘The President, my uncle, designed it himself. When he was a boy, he loved to catch vermin so he could torture them. He’s always been fascinated by basic biology and the mechanisms of pain.’
Nate resisted the urge to call the President a sadist.
‘Anyway,’ Howard continued, ‘he liked them alive, as torturing corpses had little appeal. So he devised a trap which rocked shut when the rat walked inside, locking it away, unharmed. One day, Uncle went on holiday for a few weeks, and when he returned, the traps were filled with rats.’ He paused. ‘They’d all died, of course.’
‘And they’d eaten their own tails,’ Nate said. He had an annoying habit of finishing off everyone else’s stories, but Howard didn’t seem to mind. Nate always noticed that Gems were less threatened by intelligence than Imps.
‘Very good, Nate,’ Howard said. ‘Driven by hunger, panic, who knows. But every one of them died with their tail clamped between their teeth, or chewed clean away.’
‘Let me guess, the Imps are the rats?’
‘Absolutely. If you keep a rat alive, it will gnaw its own tail and die anyway. A swift kill is far kinder. And that is our ultimate aim, Nate. The swift elimination of vermin. For ever.’
‘But they only eat their tails when they’re trapped,’ Nate said.
Howard smirked. ‘I think you know as well as me, the Imps are not trapped by the Gems, they are not trapped by a city wall – they are trapped by their own flesh and blood.’ He looked at Nate, long and hard. ‘No offence.’
Nate smiled. It didn’t offend him at all. ‘So now that I’m a Taleter, am I one of you?’
Howard nodded. ‘As close as you can be, genetics allowing.’
The mark Adam mentioned. The tattoo on Violet’s phone. I bet it’s on Nate’s arm in the hospital. Balls. Balls. Balls. Big. Fat. Hairy ones. We need never have worried about a third book. It’s fanfic which is the issue.
Fanboy is unknowingly changing the universe of The Gallows Dance.
12
VIOLET
The river comes into view, glinting like a thousand metal blades in the afternoon light. We slide down a hill and come to an outcrop of rock which shields a silty bank. Beneath us, a crowd of Imps stand in a circle, spitting out those three hateful words.
KILL THE TRAITORS.
And that’s when I see the centrepiece of this sick show: three posts reaching towards the sky. Every muscle in my body solidifies and I turn to stone – heavy and cold and about to crack. I’d anticipated the gallows, of course I had. I’d pictured a rope slung from an overhead bridge or swaying from a lamp post like the pendulum of a grandfather clock, marking each second before death. But what meets my eye is even more horrific. The posts jut from a giant nest of wood; a blanket of kindling topped with bundles of sticks, logs and broken pieces of furniture.
I think I’m going to puke.
Because tied to those posts are people.
I see their feet first, three sets – dirty and completely bare, shards of wood digging into the flesh, puncturing the skin and drawing blood. They’ll be the first thing to burn, I think. My eyes follow the path which I know the flames will take, sweeping up the bodies to the terrified faces.
Nate isn’t there.
My whole body seems to shut down with relief. Sweet Jesus, my brother isn’t about to burn.
But any reprieve is short-lived.
I know those faces. Saskia and Matthew. The rebels who helped us last time we were here.
And slightly elevated, displayed in the middle like a prize . . .
Baba.
ALICE
I lie back on my bed, phone clamped in my hand. I’m barely aware of Mum’s voice drifting up the stairs harping on about
the bastard salmon.
I ignore her and read yesterday’s post.
Nate stopped dead in his tracks. He could hear a soft, metallic whir from behind a wall. It could have been the scratch of a cat, or a hungry mouse, but his brain was on high alert. Partly because he’d just returned from No-man’s-land, quite literally the hinterland between the Imps and extinction, and partly because he’d just met with Howard Stoneback. If Thorn found out, he’d kill him without hesitation. Nate decided to peer around the brick wall.
He was right to check. Because it wasn’t a cat or a mouse. It was Baba, slumped in her hoverchair, her face unusually hard. ‘Oh Nate, how could you?’ she whispered.
‘How did you know?’ Nate asked. ‘Howard said that your powers have been obsolete of late.’
She smiled. ‘I can no longer see the future, that is true. But I can still hear you, Nate. We have a connection which cannot be severed.’
If my heart wasn’t burning so hard in my chest, I would laugh. Hinterland? Your powers have been obsolete of late? Whoever this Fanboy is, he’s clearly ancient. No self-respecting teenager would speak like that.
I reach the final blog post on Fandalism, posted this morning. My breath catches. If my theory’s correct, if Fanboy really is influencing the world of The Gallows Dance, then Violet and Katie have landed right in the middle of this. I skim-read to the drama. And boy, is there drama.
‘There is a traitor in the fold, and I will find them.’ Thorn’s voice was low and quiet. A warning perhaps.
Nate had begun to worry that Thorn had sent Ash and Willow away for a reason. Maybe Thorn wanted free rein.
Nate took some deep breaths. He has no way of linking it to me, he told himself. Just stay calm.
But Thorn stared at him with demons in his eyes. ‘Water pipes don’t just blow themselves up. Who knew? Who knew about the laying of the new water system in the city this morning, who could have leaked the information?’
‘It could have come from the other side?’ Baba replied. ‘From the Gem side.’
Thorn ignored the old lady and smiled at Nate. ‘You forget how keen a Gem’s sense of smell is, Nate. You have dried your clothes well, but the stink of the river hangs on them like death. Which makes me wonder, why would you cross the river? What could possibly be at No-man’s-land?’
Nate’s mouth hung open, his heart beating faster than he ever thought possible.
‘He was following me,’ Baba said.
Thorn laughed. ‘You expect me to believe you made it across the river in your chair, old woman?’
‘Of course not,’ Baba said. ‘I paid a couple of Imps to row me across.’
‘And why are you telling me this?’ Thorn asked.
‘Because I don’t want Nate to die,’ she replied. She knew he was guilty. And she was lying for him. ‘I don’t want him to die.’
And this was the only true thing she had said, and she said it without a moment’s hesitation, a moment’s doubt, even though it meant her execution.
VIOLET
My eyes hover on Baba’s face longer than I can bear. She looks how I remember her. Her skin soft and doughy, her mouth kind. But something is very wrong. I can see her eyes. Apple green. Her eyelids are missing.
They’ve been sliced clean away.
My hands fly to my face in horror.
‘Baba,’ I whisper.
Saskia begins to scream, her words barely audible above the crowd. ‘Please, we’ve done nothing wrong.’ The wind changes direction, dragging her grey-streaked hair from her face. Her port wine stain looks like a smudge of soot, as if the fire has already started. ‘You have to believe us,’ Matthew shouts, blood smeared across his kind features.
I feel a surge of love for them both, remembering how they saved me last time we were here. I’m about to move, about to slide down the bank, when I get a stabbing sensation in my eyes. I think I may have dropped to my knees; Katie’s concerned hands flutter around my face. I blink. Push my fingers against my eyelids. The light seems to increase tenfold so that it blinds me.
Even through the agony, I know that it is Baba. I hear her voice in my head.
Little Flower, you came. Thank you.
The sound of her voice nearly breaks me. But I dry-swallow and wipe at my eyes, the pain receding to a dull ache. Shakily, I stand. I can hear Katie asking if I’m OK, but I zone her out. I need to focus on the mind blend. I fix my gaze on Baba, settle my breathing, and concentrate on forming silent words. What’s happening, Baba?
I swear the corners of her mouth twitch into the faintest of smiles at the sound of my voice. I fear my story ends here, she says, when yours, it seems, has just begun.
Tears moisten my cheeks. Why are the Imps about to kill you?
It’s Thorn. He doesn’t trust anyone any more, especially an old precog who’s technically a Gem.
I scan the crowd for the other members of the London Imp–Gem alliance. Where’s Ash? Where’s Willow? They would never allow this to happen.
Thorn made sure they were out of the way. She must sense my panic, because she quickly adds, Don’t worry, my child. They are safe.
A loud gasp escapes Katie’s lips, breaking my concentration and my link with Baba. Thorn appears from behind a line of Imps. He also looks just as I remembered him: dark, glossy skin, blacker than black hair. The eyepatch is long gone though. Alice and I wrote it out – there remained no reason to hide his genetic enhancement once the Imp–Gem treaty was signed in The Gallows Song.
The crowd falls quiet at the sight of him.
Thorn raises his voice so that it seems as though ten men speak instead of one. ‘The precog Baba has been tried by a jury of her peers and found guilty of the crime of treason.’
‘Bollocks!’ Saskia screams. ‘Baba would never betray the Imps and you know it.’
Thorn smiles, long and slow. ‘She sold Imp secrets to the Gems. I have a confession . . . and a witness.’
I look to Baba. The green of her eyes causes my throat to constrict. A confession? I ask her.
It was me or Nate, she replies.
And with no warning or introduction, Nate appears, stepping from behind the other Imps. The bottom falls out of my stomach. He looks exactly the same as my little brother. Not my little brother from last time we were here. But Nate now. Nate as a young man on the brink of turning sixteen. And I realize that my internal representation of Nate is a boy frozen in time. It’s strange seeing this older version. He has the same angular cheekbones, the same shaggy, dark-blond hair, and that same look around his eyes like he’s either just stopped laughing, or he’s about to start. But he’s taller now, way taller than me; he looks less like a boy and more like a man. Joy surges up my throat, infecting my face and forcing my lips into a stupid grin.
‘Nate!’ I shriek. It’s out my mouth before I can stop it, and I begin skidding down the bank, thinking only of reaching my little brother, not caring he stands beside a sociopath in the midst of an execution. ‘Nate!’ I shriek again.
Violet, STOP! Baba shouts in my head.
Her words bring me to my senses. I slide to a halt just as I reach the crowd.
But Nate must have heard. He looks at me for a second. Nothing. Not even a flicker. I am a stranger to him. The joy falters, though only for a moment. At least he is safe, at least I have a chance of bringing him home. I can’t help glancing at his arm. It’s pulled close to him so I can’t see if the mark is there or not.
Baba looks at Thorn. ‘I take responsibility for my actions, Thorn, I do. But Saskia and Matthew had nothing to do with this. Release them, I implore you.’
Thorn grins, a flash of pink as his tongue whips across his lip. ‘Why would I believe anything you say, old woman?’
Nausea gathers in my stomach and sits there like a rock. I can barely catch my breath. You’re covering for Nate, I say in my head. You’re covering for Nate, and now you’re going to die.
Baba doesn’t look at me, but I hear her voice. Yes.
&nbs
p; Thorn reaches into a nearby barrel and pulls out a long cane, the end of which has been wrapped in cloth and soaked in liquid. It leaves a trail of dots on the mud, iridescent in the sun. The scent of accelerant catches in my nostrils and the rock in my belly expands. She’s innocent, I want to scream. She’s innocent. But it’s Baba or Nate, and my lips simply won’t move.
Then I hear her voice again, urgent and loud. Quickly, Little Flower, there is no time. I was not lying, my powers have dimmed, the future is no longer mine to see. But I can feel it. I can feel the changes happening in this universe. A dark presence is at work, twisting our minds, reshaping our destinies. I know you have come here to save your brother, Violet. But I think perhaps, you must save the boy in this world before you can save the boy who sleeps back home.
I study her face, the parchment of her skin, her eyes, swollen and green, unable to blink or protect themselves from the impending heat and terror. But how do I bring him home, Baba? I ask her. How do I bring him home and awaken him in our world?
I await Baba’s response, but I can’t hear her any more. I just feel so helpless. I wish I was stronger, braver . . . better. I wish I could stop the horror before me. But I learnt a long time ago, wishes are futile in this universe.
Thorn pulls a lighter from his pocket.
I swear I can hear the scratch of that metal wheel grinding against the flint, smell the earthy scent of freshly extinguished matches. The tiny flame sticks to the lighter in spite of the wind. And it occurs to me how something so very small can become something terrifying and all-consuming in only a matter of seconds. As if proving me right, Thorn tips the lighter so that it touches the end of the cane. Within a heartbeat, he holds a blazing medieval-style torch.
The crowd gasps. A few Imps begin to cry.
‘This ain’t right,’ somebody shouts. ‘It ain’t right.’