The Fandom

by Anna Day

  I kneel before her, just like Rose should have done, and once again, I feel that sense of loss. But something more toxic runs beneath—guilt. It should be her, not me, resting her knees on these stone slabs, her dark hair falling forward as she offers her brow. I close my eyes to prevent a giant tear splashing on the ground.

  Baba lays her palms on my head like she’s checking an infant’s fever. The anticipated bolt of pain shoots through me, swelling my tissue, cracking my bones. It’s so much worse than the description in the book. I want to scream but it’s like there’s no air in my lungs. I see a knife slicing a peach, the palest blue eyes I’ve ever seen, a minidress torn by grabbing hands, Saskia’s hair fanning around her face as Matthew weeps, a stage set hurtling toward me, a girl in a mirror dressed in a tunic.

  The pain migrates toward my frontal lobes, intensifying to a single spot between my eyes.

  I see Mum … Dad …

  Home.

  The pain grows and grows until I teeter on the edge of consciousness. And just when I think I will surely die, when I start to long for the peace of death, it begins to fade. The colors, the feelings, the pain, all leak from my temples, drawn through my skin into the warmth of her palms.

  I open my eyes and see only white. I blink several times and realize I’m standing in a snowstorm. I’m about to shout for help, to reach blindly for Baba, suddenly united by our lack of sight, when the snow thins. Only it isn’t snow. It’s thistledown. Swirling, dancing, spiraling through the air like a flock of tiny white birds. The air continues to clear and I see Baba standing beside me. Same doughy skin, same toothless smile, but her back is straight, her legs strong, and her eyes finally open to reveal two apple-green irises. She inhales deeply through her brand-new nostrils. “That’s better,” she whispers to the air.

  I slowly spin, taking in my surroundings. We stand in the Coliseum. High stone walls dotted with gun towers. To the front, a wooden stage displays nine hungry ropes. I know that on one side rests London, broken and gray, and on the other stretches the Pastures, fresh and green. Just like in canon. Just like earlier today. Yet it seems so different—empty and still, like a playing field at night. And I feel strangely calm. The sky looks clear and the air tastes delicious, fresh—lemony perhaps.

  I find myself inhaling, too. “How did we get here?”

  “We’re in your mind, dear. I thought it apt to visit the Coliseum, the place where it all started.” She laughs and catches a piece of thistledown. “Bet you feel like Dorothy right now?”

  I nod.

  She releases the thistledown back into the air as though freeing a dragonfly. “There’s no place like home … There’s no place like home.”

  The word home brings tears to my eyes, hot and fast.

  She cups my face and dries my cheeks with her thumbs. “But the thing is, your arrival rather knocked our story off-track. Rose wasn’t meant to die, she was meant to infiltrate the manor and fall in love with Willow. A love so strong and pure it transcended the Imp-Gem divide, and eventually reunited mankind as one. But you know this, don’t you?”

  I try to nod but she holds my face stationary.

  “And some stories simply need to unfold,” she says. “They need to reach their beautiful climax, existing almost like a life cycle, an entity in their own right.”

  “I—I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t you feel it, Violet? Our story—the canon, you call it—pulling you back in, dragging you along. It’s almost impossible to resist, is it not?”

  I think of the two pieces of thread, running in parallel, twisting together, and I nod.

  She drops her hands to my shoulders and spins me so I face the stage. I see each noose, waiting for another neck to choke.

  Her voice heats my ear. “You must save the Imps, Violet. Through self-sacrifice and love, you must complete the story. Only then will our world release you.”

  I laugh—a nervous trill—and my breath disrupts the path of a lazy seed. “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “You take Rose’s place. An insert. You put right what you made wrong. Then you can go home.”

  Nausea rises in my stomach.

  I turn to face her, the green of her eyes knocking me off balance. “This isn’t Quantum Leap!” My voice sounds a little petulant, completely out of place in the grandness of the Coliseum.

  She closes her eyes for a moment. “Quantum Leap … the fictional man who jumps between realities … your dad’s favorite show.”

  “Putting right what once went wrong—how do you do that? And come to think of it, how do you know about The Wizard of Oz?”

  “It’s in your head. If it’s in your head, it’s in my head.” She smiles. “And did Sam Beckett squash a main character when he entered those realities?”

  I see something in my peripheral vision, a streak of black falling from the top of the wall and thumping into the ground. My hand sails to my mouth as I whisper the word no. I manage to focus and see the ruby butterfly wings opening across the slabs. Rose. My head reels and I stumble forward.

  Baba catches me. “Well, I’m afraid that you rather squashed our main character.” She glances at the broken girl behind her. “And you didn’t squash the Wicked Witch of the West, you squashed the plucky heroine, the one person our reality simply can’t do without.”

  I shake my head, heavy with guilt and disbelief.

  “I’m not plucky, and I’m not a heroine.” My voice crumbles at the edges as though proving my point.

  She shrugs. “Then you and your friends can stay in our reality forever.”

  My parents’ faces appear in my mind’s eye, the grief etched into their skin, still waiting for me and Nate to return from Comic-Con. My legs go weak and I find myself slowly crumpling to the ground, only yards from Rose’s body. And the loss just keeps on growing, expanding in all directions until it loses all boundaries and edges and fills my whole brain: hot showers and TV shows and Instagram and Ben & Jerry’s and makeup and comfy beds and Google and camping and Kindles and Nando’s and parties and university entrance exams and then going to university and getting a job … raising my future children in a world that values them and treats them justly …

  I shove my hands into my scalp and feel this scream building inside.

  Baba kneels before me and gently teases my fingers from my hair. “This may only be a story, Violet. It may be generated by your world, from a book or a film.” She points to the crest of the wall, and I see another figure. A female—Sally King. The late author of The Gallows Dance. I recognize her from the book cover; her long, mousy hair pulled taut from her face, the heavy frame of her glasses swamping her childlike face. And I remember the news reports when she died. Up-and-coming author of bestselling dystopian novel throws herself from high-rise after long struggle with mental illness. She looks straight at me, smiles, and then steps forward as though she’s stepping onto an escalator. Her body twists through the air and lands next to Rose.

  Baba strokes my hair. “Our reality may be generated by a single author’s vision or an audience’s collective conscious … Who knows? But it is our reality. It matters to us just as your reality—your home—matters to you.” She uses a finger to raise my chin so my gaze meets hers, but her green eyes only heighten my loss, reminding me of forests and meadows and Christmas wreaths, all things I will never see if I remain in this God-awful city. She blinks like she knows I need some kind of respite. Her words, however, offer none. “A story is like a life cycle, Violet. You will be released only when the story concludes. Birth to death.”

  Birth to death. A burst of adrenaline travels through me. Birth to death.

  Again, she turns me to face the stage, her fingers curling through my tunic like talons. “The place where it started, and the place where it must end.”

  I look at the nine loops of rope and gain a sudden clarity. I fill my lungs with the lemony air.

  “I’m going to hang in Rose’s place,” I whisper.

  “Yes
.”

  “Next week, at the Gallows Dance?”

  “Yes. For your friends, your family, and, above all else, love.”

  The justice is almost poetic—we killed Rose, after all. I laugh, but it quickly morphs into a sob. “Exactly one week from today, I will hang.” And upon speaking these words, I finally pass out.

  EXACTLY ONE WEEK from today, I will hang.

  I will hang for my friends, my family, and, above all else, love. A thought that offers surprisingly little comfort when I think about the noose closing around my neck, my feet searching for solid ground, my legs flailing … dancing in midair.

  This morning I was clueless. This morning I was at Comic-Con, inhaling the scent of hot dogs and sweat and perfume, taking in the brightly colored costumes, the flash of the cameras, the bass drums and the violins. And yesterday I was in school, stressing over some stupid English presentation and wishing I were in another world.

  Be careful what you wish for, because sometimes the reality truly blows.

  “Violet?” I hear Nate’s voice. “Violet, are you OK?”

  I wake somewhere warm and soft—on my sofa back home or snuggled in bed. The fragrance of burning wood mingles with pollen, and candlelight pools on the walls. I hear low, pulsing voices and wonder if Mum and Dad are talking in the kitchen. But I quickly realize the voices belong to Baba and Thorn.

  Nate leans over me. For a fleeting second, I recall my dream, but I see no chasm opening across his chest.

  “What happened?” I whisper. It feels like I’ve been screaming, the lining of my throat cracked.

  “Baba did her weird thought-sucking thing and then you passed out. Are you OK?”

  I shake my head. The vast, empty space of the Coliseum, Rose’s body hitting the floor, the empty noose … Memories fill my mind until my skull feels like a sieve, incapable of containing them all.

  “Violet? What is it?” Nate asks.

  I open my mouth to explain, but Thorn raises his voice at that same moment.

  “I refuse to believe it,” he says.

  Baba—once again bent in her chair, her apple-green irises sealed firmly behind her lids—clasps his hand. “She’s the one, Thorn.” The same words Baba spoke to Thorn in canon, right after her mind blend with Rose.

  Nate turns to me, his face full of wonder. “They’re talking about you,” he mouths.

  “She will save the Imps,” Baba says. “Through self-sacrifice and love.”

  Nate’s eyes widen, his face all apexes and points in the firelight. “You’re going to take Rose’s place?”

  I nod.

  The concentration nips at his face as he bites his bottom lip. “But if you take her place …” His features twist in alarm as he follows the concept to its natural end point. It amazes me how clever he is sometimes.

  “It’s OK.” I try to smile, though it feels more like a grimace. “Soon as I hang we’ll all get transported home. All of us. I won’t feel a thing.”

  “But …”

  “Baba promised, I won’t even know it’s happening.” I’m not sure for whose sake I’m lying—mine or his.

  “But, Violet …”

  “Let’s not dwell on it, OK, bro. It is what it is.”

  And I bury those terrifying, bleak words in some distant part of my brain—Exactly one week from today, I will hang.

  Thorn crosses the floor in three long strides and pulls me to my feet like I weigh no more than a doll. “Come then, Little Flower, I’ll brief you on your assignment.”

  I follow him from the chamber, my arm linked through Nate’s for stability. I forget to say bye to Baba, too focused on the ache in my head and the weakness in my limbs. Only when I hear her voice following us up the corridor do I remember her. “You don’t need to brief her,” she shouts. “She already knows what to do.”

  Nate and I wait on a pew near the front of the church. All the other pews have been removed to make room for desks and chairs, so this one stands alone, making it seem more like a random park bench. It’s the exact same pew Rose and Thorn sat on after their meeting with Baba. But current-Thorn stands, statuesque, glowering once again at the plaque beneath the bombed-out window. He hasn’t bothered to rebind our hands, and I find myself just staring at Nate’s fingers as they spread over his thighs. They look so delicate, the skin unblemished by time.

  A muffled shriek pulls our attention to the back of the church. Matthew half drags, half carries a gagged Alice toward Thorn. She arches her back and digs her heels into the ground, but Matthew easily overpowers her. Saskia follows with Katie, who also puts up a fight, but her petite frame makes little impact against Saskia’s viselike grip.

  “Sit them all together,” Thorn says, not even bothering to turn.

  Alice and Katie slide along the pew so they sit beside us. My thigh presses into Katie’s—I can feel her shaking.

  I try and still her knee with my hand. “It’s going to be OK,” I whisper, mistaking her tremors for fear, but when she replies, the gag absorbing her words, she sounds pissed off, not afraid. Thank goodness she’s gagged, I think. Katie has no idea just how violent, how brutal, Thorn can be. She’d probably call him a toasted knob-cheese sandwich or something.

  Saskia and Matthew stand behind us, their shadows fragmenting across our laps as a draft stirs the candle flames.

  “God knows how you’re still alive,” Saskia whispers into my ear.

  Thorn circles the desks and stops when he reaches the pulpit at the front of the church. He has this look of self-importance, like he’s going to climb the wooden steps and start preaching, but he settles on clearing his throat. “Turns out we may have a use for our visitors.”

  “Firewood?” Saskia mutters. “Bet they’d spit and sizzle like pork chops.”

  Thorn pulls the gags from Katie’s and Alice’s mouths, taking more time over Katie’s, letting his fingers brush up against her freckles. She turns her face away and he inhales sharply, as though her gesture wounds him. But whatever Katie stirs inside him leaves as quickly as it arrived—his face hardens and he wipes his hand against his blazer. He addresses Saskia and Matthew, speaking over our heads. “Violet has agreed to take Rose’s place in the Harper mission.”

  Saskia and Matthew begin to laugh.

  “I’m serious,” Thorn says.

  The laughter stops abruptly.

  “But—but—she can’t possibly take Rose’s place.” Saskia raps on the pew with her knuckles, as though trying to drum all the frustration out of her.

  “What choice do we have?” Thorn says. “Rose is dead. And we still need a pretty young Imp to infiltrate the manor house and befriend Willow Harper. Little Flower here is the best hope we have.”

  I hate the way he calls me Little Flower; he never called Rose that.

  Saskia’s knocking increases in volume. “But we don’t know anything about this girl. How do we know if we can even trust her? She and her idiot friends killed Rose, for Christ’s sake.”

  Thorn looks a little unsettled, but he papers over it with a stern expression. “They didn’t kill Rose, the Gems did. The day we start blaming one another for the sins of the Gems is the day we fall apart. But I share some of your concerns, Saskia, which is why you and Matthew won’t let them out of your sight. You will make sure they’re onside and on-task every second of every day.”

  Dammit, I think. Saskia and Matthew worked at the Harper manor for almost a year before they pulled Rose from that street fight—that’s how they identified Willow as a target. They helped Rose blend in at the estate, told her about Willow’s routine, and just generally supported her. But they’re coming with us to criticize and kick us if we fall.

  And it seems Saskia isn’t too happy about it, either. Her knocking crescendos and then cuts out. “Who the hell are these weirdos?” She hurls the words like weapons. “At least tell us that. They turn up in the Coliseum claiming to be spies, dressed up as … God knows what.”

  Katie turns to me and whispers, “Was she t
his much of a spunk rocket in the book?”

  I risk a little shake of the head, wishing I could replace that gag.

  Thorn arranges his features into a controlled expression. “I don’t have to explain myself, Saskia. I want them on that Imp-bus tomorrow night. Got it? They aren’t from this city and they’ve never worked in the Pastures, so make sure they pass for slaves. OK? If they get shot for trying to cross the border illegally, I will hold you personally responsible.”

  Silence.

  “All of them?” Matthew finally asks.

  “No, only Little Flower and the boy.”

  “Don’t send the lad,” Matthew says. “It could be really dangerous, and he’s only young.”

  “I’m fourteen,” Nate says.

  Thorn smiles. “And Violet’s obviously very protective of him. His presence will serve as a constant reminder of what’s at stake if she fails in her mission.”

  I think about that knife pushed into Nate’s throat, and the words I’m about to say fade to a whisper in my mouth. “What about Alice and Katie?”

  Thorn studies Katie. “So, the one in black, Katie is it?”

  “That’s right,” she replies.

  He lets his gaze linger on her a little too long. “Well, Katie, you’re my insurance, my leverage. If Violet is successful in her mission, if she gets those secrets, then you will live. But if Violet does a runner, or betrays me, or simply fails in her mission, then I’ll kill you myself.”

  Katie’s tremble becomes more pronounced, sending rhythmic waves up my forearm. “You can’t be serious?” She gives him that look, narrowing her eyes and pressing her lips together like she’s back in class dealing with Ryan Bell.

  “Katie, don’t.” I squeeze her thigh.

  “No,” she says, her voice rising with indignation. “If this dicksplat thinks he can intimidate us, then—” She never gets to finish. Saskia whacks her around the back of the head, pretty hard judging by the sound of it. Her red hair whirls forward and she nearly falls from the pew.

  “Katie, don’t,” I say to her again.

  She must see the panic in my eyes, because she falls silent.