by Anna Day
* * *
Leaving the Pastures proves a lot easier than entering. There’s no decontamination process, because you can’t contaminate a city already filled with disease and raw sewage. Just a quick pat-down from some apathetic soldiers, who throw my bread in the trash and laugh when my stomach snarls.
We trail through the city gates with the rest of the slaves, and I brace myself for that rotting-bird smell. But this time, rather than overwhelm me, it seems strangely reassuring. At least it knows it stinks. And being surrounded by the misshapen, badly proportioned physiques of the Imps, not a Gem in sight, I get this strange feeling like I’ve returned home from the zoo.
Regardless, the trudge through the city is soul-destroying. I spend half of the journey recalling how, at this point in canon, Willow was secretly following Rose across the city—dressed in a pair of gray overalls, hair mussed up and dirt rubbed into his face—and the other half preparing for my future conversation with Thorn. I knew you wouldn’t be able to replace Rose. It’s a good job I sent Alice, too. Now you will all have to stay in this place for the rest of your lives.
At least I’ll see Katie again. I’ve missed her soft Liverpudlian accent, her grounded approach to life, the way she always makes me laugh. I want to tell her about Ash, about the Dupes, about what a bitch Alice has been. Katie will call her a spunkbucket, and I’ll momentarily forget how crappy everything is.
Katie, I suddenly think. Thorn will kill Katie. I begin to unravel—my hands begin to shake, my joints seize up, my gut clenches. I’ve always known this was true, but only as we near headquarters does the reality sink in. Maybe, just maybe, Alice was right and he fancies Katie too much to hurt her.
“Violet? What is it?” Matthew asks.
“Katie,” I say. “I failed the mission.”
“We’ll try and talk to him,” Saskia says.
Matthew nods. “He listens to Saskia.”
“He doesn’t listen to anyone, arrogant jerk.” Saskia glances at my tense face and tries to smile. “But he won’t kill your mate, promise. He likes her, I reckon, as much as Thorn can like anyone.”
I hold on to these words, and just hope Katie managed to befriend him, at least enough to stop him from killing her, but not so much that he tried to get it on. I shudder when I think of what a difficult position Katie’s been in, the role she may have had to play. And I just can’t lose Katie. These past few days, I’ve realized just how much she means to me. Not just because of Alice’s betrayal, but because it’s always Katie I’ve longed to tell when something’s gone wrong. It’s her voice, punctuated with hilarious swear words, that I’ve imagined telling me it will all turn out well. Alice has been my best friend since I was four, a history that can’t be ignored, a history that practically elevates her to sister status. But if I were to walk into a room completely oblivious to the past thirteen years, my friendship slate wiped clean, it would be Katie I’d choose to slam tequila with, not Alice.
I let my eyes skim over the forgotten, ghostly street signs, the monotony of the gray and the thwack of my step eventually stilling my mind. The sun slowly moves across the sky, its rays barely penetrating my skin. That’s when I first notice it, a flash of gray fabric in my peripheral vision. The tiny hairs on my arms stiffen and I have this overwhelming sense that somebody’s watching me, following me. I get a soft flicker of hope in my chest. Maybe, just maybe … but I can’t bring myself to even think it, because if I’m wrong, I will experience that crushing disappointment all over again.
Nate fishes some undiscovered bread from inside his overalls and hands it out. Saskia grabs a piece and gives half to Matthew. “We can eat as we walk,” she says.
A few crumbs fall from Nate’s mouth. He looks at me and grins. “Hansel and Gretel made it home, didn’t they?”
“Yeah, but the birds ate the crumbs,” I reply.
Saskia jabs me in the back. “Who said you could speak?” It sounds aggressive even for her—she’s worried about seeing Thorn, too.
“So how did they get home?” Nate whispers, after a tokenistic pause.
“They killed the witch,” I whisper back.
“Shhh.” Saskia jabs me in the back again.
“Tempting,” Nate says.
We both giggle.
By the time the church spire comes into view, hunger and tiredness have weakened my limbs, and I have to concentrate really hard not to cry. That flash of gray hasn’t reappeared and I left the flicker of hope behind with Nate’s bread crumbs.
We approach the church, the scent of fish thick in my nostrils. Just the sight of those porthole windows, the gothic spire, and I get this pain in my stomach, this tightness in my throat. Saskia and Matthew push through the wooden doors and I follow, Nate’s hand wrapped in mine. Thorn leans against the altar, just like in canon. I’d forgotten how beautiful he looks, his dark skin gleaming in the evening light.
“I hear you’ve arrived empty-handed, Violet,” he says.
He must have received word from Alice. All the fear and tiredness seem to lift, and that anger hardens in my rib cage again. He’s the one who sent her. If it wasn’t for him, the canon would be on track and the rebels would be about to discover Willow peering through the rusted keyhole in the church door. It was a heart-wrenching scene—Willow all roughed up and hauled into the church to face Thorn. The hurt expression on Willow’s face when he saw Rose with the rebels and finally realized her true identity.
My brow sets in a determined line. Because of Thorn, Willow is currently feeling up my bestie. “I take it you mean those Gem secrets?” I say. “He chose Alice, by the way.”
He laughs. “Ah, so the Gem look-alike won in the end. I thought she might.”
I weave through the desks and stride up to him, pushing myself onto my tiptoes so I can meet the glare of that single, lavender eye. “Do you remember your conversation with Baba?” I whisper so the others can’t hear. “This is bigger than just getting those Gem secrets. It had to be me that Willow fell for. You sabotaged me.”
Thorn places two heavy hands on my shoulders, forcing me to take a step away. “I see your stay in the manor has made you bold.”
I catch myself. He’s a brutal psycho, after all. “Sorry … I—I just thought Baba explained it all.”
“She spoke in riddles. She always does.”
“But she knows things—”
“I am the rebel leader, not Baba, and when a Gem look-alike fell into my lap, I chose to cover my bases. You failed this mission, not me, and certainly not Alice.”
It sometimes amazes me how quickly I can feel weak again—all the strength draining from my body, my arms dangling by my sides, my eyes itching with tears. I look at my boots and clutch my head, trying to think of what to say next. I need to see Baba. I swallow hard and open my mouth, but the sound of the door bursting open silences me.
A group of rebels haul someone into the building, muffling his shouts and steadying his blows. That soft flicker of hope returns ten, twenty, thirty times stronger, beating its wings like it’s going to burst from my chest. I look at Nate and can’t help but smile. In spite of Alice, in spite of everything, I did it. Willow chose me. The canon is back on track.
Thorn looks at me and begins to laugh. “I take it back, Violet. You aren’t empty-handed at all.”
The tussle ends and the rebels part. But it isn’t Willow bowed on his knees, a ribbon of blood streaming from his mouth. It’s Ash.
ASH, ASH.” I hear my voice shout his name. I lurch toward him, but Thorn pulls me back.
Ash looks up, his eyes vivid blue, staring from the pink of his beaten face. I gasp at the sight of his blood, and my hand touches my own cheek as though I can somehow feel his wounds.
“Do you know this Imp?” Thorn’s breath catches against my ear.
I nod. “He’s a friend.”
“And why is your friend sneaking around my church?”
Ash raises his voice. “Violet? What is this?” He looks at me and then at the
rebels. He wears the exact same look Willow wore in canon—hurt, betrayed.
A rebel whacks him in the temple with the butt of a gun. He splays on the floor.
“Stop it! Please!” I shout. I can’t believe I dragged him into this mess.
Saskia steps forward. “He’s just a kid from the Harper estate who’s sweet on Violet, that’s why he’s here.”
Thorn walks toward Ash with slow, purposeful steps, accentuating the rhythm of his speech. “And now he’s just a kid who knows where Rebel Headquarters is, and what we all look like.”
Ash manages to scrape himself off the floor, rocking back into a kneeling position. “Who am I going to tell?”
“Some Gems work for the Imps,” Thorn says, “and some Imps work for the Gems. Not everyone is true to their own.”
I follow Thorn, nausea rising in my stomach. “Please, Thorn. He’s no threat to you.”
“His nickname’s Squirrel, for God’s sake,” Nate says.
Thorn squats down before Ash and seems to study his face for a moment. “Lesson number one, boy—never think with your dick.”
Ash smiles his lopsided smile. “I was thinking with my heart.”
“Lock him in a cell,” Thorn says.
The exact same line Thorn said in canon. It’s like the story wants to unfold—Baba was right.
I watch as the rebels pull Ash to his feet, stomach acid burning the lining of my throat. He glances over his shoulder at me—his long eyelashes shielding his expression—and a cocktail of guilt and longing swirls in my stomach.
“I’m sorry,” I mouth at him.
But they cart him away before he can respond.
The church suddenly feels very cold. I squeeze my arms around my body, wishing I could disappear into myself, sucked into a vacuum of my own guilt. If it weren’t for me, Ash would be stirring Ma’s pot, or sitting on an Imp-bus, or lying on a bunk, or climbing a tree. I should never have deviated from the script and taken all those risks. My lips tingle as I recall last night’s kiss, and his words loop in my head. I was thinking with my heart.
Matthew breaks the silence. “Honestly, Thorn. He’s a good lad.”
Thorn ignores him and steers me away from the others to the front of the church. I hear Nate mutter something about being left out again, followed by a sharp smack, probably Saskia clipping him around the ear. But it all seems a little unreal. My knees feel like they won’t bend anymore, and my steps become jerky and small. Thorn leads me to the pulpit and gestures for me to sit beside him on the stone lip. The chill of the stone pushes through my overalls.
He sits beside me and stares at the ceiling. “Before you ask if you can see him, the answer’s no.”
“I was going to ask if I can see Baba.”
“Why?”
I lean forward, letting my hair form a screen so he can’t see my tears. “Because I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t do anything. You just hope Alice comes up with the goods—it isn’t just Katherine I’ve got locked in a cell anymore.”
“Katie,” I say, almost to myself. The guilt multiplies as I realize she hasn’t entered my head since I arrived back at headquarters. But something about the way he used her full name, the way he rolled it around his mouth like he was exploring its contours with his tongue, makes me fear less for her safety.
“You can’t see her,” he says.
“Is she OK?”
He nods. “For now.”
I take a deep breath and push my hair behind my ears. I need to convince him to let me see Baba. I steady my voice. “What if Alice doesn’t deliver the goods?”
“She’s doing OK so far.” His single eye flits between my own.
“Last time I saw her, she was enjoying being a Gem a little too much. It’s a lot to give up.”
“I managed it.” He raises his eye patch to remind me of his origins. This close, I can see his pupil shrink to a dot, unaccustomed to the light.
“Yes, but the Gems haven’t killed the man she loves.”
“Speaking of love, it seems your mission may have been compromised by a certain Night-Imp.”
My cheeks flush. “Ash is just a friend.”
He laughs like he doesn’t believe me and pulls a silver flask from his jacket. “Go on, then, what makes you think Alice loves the Gem brat?”
“Back in my world, Alice is a fanfic writer, a really good one. She gets thousands of hits every day.”
He hands me the flask, his features controlled and still. “A fanfic writer?”
“Alice didn’t write the original book, but she expanded on it, twisted it, wrote new bits.” Tentatively, I take a sip. It tastes pungent, gouging a path of fire from my tongue to my belly.
“She makes shit up.”
I laugh softly. “Yeah.”
He plucks the flask from my hand. “I trusted Baba when she said you were the one. But she got it wrong. And I’m not about to believe her bizarre idea that you’re from a different dimension and our world is just a …” He tails off and takes several hungry slurps. I notice his hand tremble slightly, a sheen of moisture on his brow.
I press on. “Alice’s favorite thing was to write stories about girls who could win Willow’s heart, made-up girls … and they were all tall and blonde, and called things like Abby and Ada and Amelia. She’s imagined being with him since she was fifteen.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“You still need me, because Alice isn’t on our side. She’s on Alice’s side. She always is.”
Thorn tucks the flask into his jacket and flips his patch back into position. “It seems you share a similar view to Katherine. Let me show you something, Little Flower.”
He leads me to the dark crucifix screen at the front of the church. A golden bird spreads its wings, trapped beneath a circle of angels.
“The bird is a pelican,” Thorn says. “In ancient Imp mythology, it fed its young with its own blood by plucking the feathers from its breast.”
I don’t know what he wants me to say, so I just mumble, “Gross.”
“There is nothing gross about self-sacrifice, Violet.”
He looks past the painted cherubs to the high vaulted ceiling for inspiration. “You get one minute with her.”
“Who?”
“Baba.”
I smile. “That’s all I need.”
* * *
Baba hunches in the corner of her cell, watching the fire and humming a tune. The scent of lilies and wood smoke transports me to my first meeting with her. I think of the gallows and the falling bodies and my mouth dries up.
She turns her head toward me, her eyes wavering beneath her sealed-up lids as though she’s dreaming. Her lipless mouth puckers at the corners. “Violet. You seem … different.”
“Hungrier and sleep deprived.”
“Stronger.” She offers her withered hands, and I cross the slabs to hold them. They feel surprisingly warm. “Where’s Thorn?” she asks.
“He gave us one minute.”
She laughs, causing her frame to rock slightly, the firelight moving across her skin. “He’s so mean when he’s stressed.” She gestures to the ground before her. “Come, kneel, my child.”
I kneel—letting the stone cool my shins—and bow my head. This time I want the pain. Something to numb the ache of guilt and failure. She cradles my temples and that bolt of pain shoots down my neck, glancing off my sternum and ricocheting around my body. Every part of me hurts. I inhale, but my lungs reject the air and my throat closes. I get the sense I’m drowning without any water. I see a paper chain of Imps crumpling to the ground, a floating, half-dead boy, a scythe-like blade raised high and glinting in the sun, a muddle of bronzed legs cushioned in satin sheets.
Then, just like before, the pain collects in that space between my eyes. I see Ash kneeling between the rebels, a ribbon of blood running down his chin. I was thinking with my heart, he says.
And as swiftly as it arrived, the pain vanishes.
&nbs
p; I know where I stand before I even open my eyes. I breathe in the scent of freshly mown grass, hear the chatter of the birds and the soft thud of falling apples. The orchard. I’ve never been here in the midday sun before. It’s so vibrant—bursting with color and perfume. The wind shakes the leaves, and my skin becomes a collection of strobe-like shadows. I smile to myself.
Baba stands before me, her back straight and her eyes open. She surveys her surroundings. “So, this is where the magic happened?”
“Yes. But Willow didn’t fall for me. The magic didn’t work—I’m Neville Longbottom, in the early books, before he gets good.”
Baba laughs, and I notice she now owns a set of teeth. “I wasn’t talking about Willow. I was talking about the other one—the one with the baby blues.”
Just the mention of Ash and tears sting my eyes. “It’s all gone wrong, Baba. What am I going to do?” I’m aware I sound like a small child, but I don’t care.
She ignores me and reaches into the boughs of a nearby tree, every strand of her gray hair alive in the sun.
“How could I have been so stupid?” My voice comes out high-pitched and whiny. “I knew Alice loved Willow. Did I really think she was just going to step aside?”
She plucks an apple from the branch and inhales its scent, her newly found nostrils sucking together from the force. “Alice gave you a poisoned apple, but that doesn’t make her a wicked hag. And just because you took it, doesn’t make you Snow White.”
“She betrayed me.”
Baba shrugs. “You were willing to betray Willow, to seduce him for your own gain. The end justified the means. Alice just has a different end in mind.” She sinks her teeth into the skin of the apple, juice dribbling down her chin. “Ash. That’s his name.” The pulp moves across her tongue. “I like him.”