The Fandom

by Anna Day

  I try to nod.

  He holds my gaze with his glassy eyes. “Well, that’s what this is. A never-ending cycle. A perpetual loop … I know because I’m stuck in it.” He dips his finger in his tea again and draws a series of lines around the circle so that it resembles a scant clock face.

  This makes me think of the markings in the sewers and Nate’s face, lit up with excitement as he traced the yellow paint. I get this throbbing in my chest that makes it difficult to breathe. But the president continues. He points to the top line—the twelve o’clock line. “The beginning of the loop. Here. I’m sitting in my office. I hear the news about a thistle-bomb at the Gallows Dance. Some rebels freed the condemned Imps, they said, nothing to worry about, sir, they said.” He moves to the three o’clock line. “Here. They tell me that Willow Harper has gone missing. The rebels are involved, nothing to worry about, sir. We launch a search party.” He moves his finger to the bottom of the circle. Six o’clock. “Here. They arrest some jumped-up little rebel ape called Rose.” His finger hits nine o’clock. His voice rising with urgency. “I meet her in my office, she shows no remorse. I think how lovely she’ll look dancing on a rope.” He moves his finger close to the first line—the twelve o’clock line. “I watch the ape hang, the crowd turns and rips the gallows to the ground, then … bam.” He jabs his finger to the top of the circle again. “I’m back in my office, hearing of the thistle-bomb like it’s just happened.”

  He dips his finger in his tea again and refreshes the fading loop. “At first, I doubt my mental health. I’m the president, I’m under a lot of pressure. I take some pills and I go through the motions again.” His finger continues to circle the table, gathering speed. “I meet the ape, I watch her hang, the gallows fall, and then, bam.” He pushes so hard, I swear I see some blood mingling with the tea. “Office. Thistle-bomb. The ape hangs. The gallows fall. Bam.” His finger gets faster and faster, until the circle is entirely red. “Office. Thistle-bomb. The ape hangs. The gallows fall. Bam.”

  He screams in frustration and knocks the table over. The sound of bouncing wood and shattering porcelain fills the room. I freeze. Only my chest moves—a series of shallow gasps. He turns to me, his features arranged into such a banal smile I struggle to imagine he was capable of such an outburst.

  He then speaks in a soft, low voice. “Trapped in a loop, in a cycle, unable to break free. It’s a nightmare, Violet.”

  The lieutenant silently replaces the table while the president straightens his jacket. And just before Stoneback pulls his sleeves into place, I notice the tiniest of marks on the inside of his wrist: a black mole with the middle missing, kind of like a small hoop.

  “So each time the story completes, it resets?” I ask.

  He nods. I feel the ghost of hope, heavy in my chest. It makes me feel a little brave. I lick my finger and darken the twelve o’clock mark, smudging his blood. “So when the story resets, what happens to the people who died?”

  “They are reborn.”

  A shaky laugh escapes from my mouth. Ash will be reborn. Matthew will be reborn. The hope grows suddenly, bursting through me like something tangible and warm. “My brother?”

  He places a finger on my own and slides it toward me. A mixture of his blood and my saliva forms a thin line. “Your universe is not cyclical. It is linear. If your brother died in this reality, The Gallows Dance, he will never be reborn, not in this universe or your own.”

  The clasp of grief tightens on my throat.

  He lifts his finger and sits again, his posture straight and proper. “I suppose you’re wondering how I remember this loop while everyone else in my world is blissfully ignorant?”

  I’d been thinking only of Nate, his sparkling eyes and pixie grin, but I nod regardless.

  “Some of us Gems are a little too enhanced. Just like the old precog you were so fond of. Whereas she ended up with psychic abilities, a few of us ended up with enhanced memories. The best scientists, the best engineers, the top politicians. We remember the echoes, the reflections, everything—every damned loop. And we’re tired of it. Life is supposed to move, to progress.” He stares sadly at the circle of blood. “And we can’t change the story, we can’t do a goddamned thing, because the consequences of the loop failing to complete may be dire. It’s a risk we’re not yet willing to take.”

  I shove my fingers into my head as if I can somehow reach into my brain and untangle all the information. “But if the Fandom created you, how do you have a childhood, a past? It makes no sense. Your existence could only have begun when the story started.”

  “There are many paradoxes involved in transdimensional quantum resonance, which I do not expect your monkey brain to understand. Perhaps an analogy will help. Another perpetual loop—the chicken and the egg.”

  “Which came first,” I whisper. Baba used this same analogy; she was taunting me even then.

  “Yes. Well done. I’ll get you a banana. Did the Fandom create us, or did we create the Fandom? Did the book create us, or did we create the book? It matters not. It’s a question that cannot be resolved. Both are true—our universes are symbiotic—the Gems have childhoods, we have a history, we even share a history with your universe. But time flows differently in our universe.”

  “I don’t get it.” I feel so stupid. I wish Nate were here; he would do his Sheldon Cooper thing and he would understand. I feel his loss intensely, a hollowing-out of where my heart should be.

  “No, I don’t suppose you do.”

  I swallow back the tears, try and slow my breathing. “So, why am I here?” I finally ask.

  “That’s the thing with a genetic super-race. We can solve most problems, given enough time. We devised a way to breach the layer between our universes. A way to reach her.” He points to the portrait of Sally King.

  “But … Sally King is dead.”

  “She is now. But she wasn’t. You remember how she died?”

  “She killed herself.”

  “Because of the voices in her head?” He taps his temple with a long, elegant finger. “Sometimes the mad aren’t really mad.”

  “The voice was you?”

  He nods. “I tried to convince Miss King to write a sequel and break the loop.”

  I look at Sally’s face, the sadness behind those oversize glasses. “You killed her?” I feel such anger, such hatred, toward this man. For Sally, for Nate, for Matthew, for all the Imps he’s killed. I lift my teacup to my lips to avoid speaking, afraid I might shout or scream or curse.

  “Not intentionally. She was our only hope. The problem was, when she started The Gallows Dance sequel, we had artistic differences.” He smiles to himself. “She wanted the Imps to prevail. I did not. I’m afraid I may have pushed her too far.”

  “She died protecting the future of the Imps?” I recall the pelican again—giving life with its own blood—and a brief smile touches my lips.

  He ignores me. “But then a new hope emerged. A rising fanfic writer.”

  A clear image forms in my mind’s eye. Bronzed legs wrapped around bronzed legs, almost like two stems twisted together, opening out into two separate blooms. The sleeping lovers—the two blooms—almost form the shape of a heart. I reach for my necklace, then remember I broke it. My best friend, the fanfic writer, the beautiful Imp who loves a Gem. It almost hurts to say her name. “Alice.”

  The president nods. “Anime Alice. Thanks to her, a new Fandom grew, holding the promise of a new story, an existence beyond this eternal loop. We could feel their presence, this new Fandom. We began noticing tiny changes in canon, new characters appearing, little glitches here and there. Alas, nothing dramatic enough to change our future, to break the loop. But imagine if this Alice returned to your world and wrote a sequel, a published story that reached a whole new audience. We would have a Fandom powerful enough to break the loop. We would have a future.”

  “You would have another book—another loop.”

  He claps, long and slow. “You must be one of thos
e clever monkeys that can sign and do tricks for peanuts. No. What we will have is an opportunity. Who knows what will occur once we are freed. Your A-plus-B-equals-C logic is rather antiquated.”

  I feel my brow knot together, hear the rattle of porcelain against porcelain as my legs continue to shake. “So why am I here?”

  “We realized our mistake when Sally King died. Sally was pro-Imp, of course. She is an Imp, you all are in your universe. And telling her to be pro-Gem, it just didn’t work. We needed Alice to live like a Gem, to become a Gem, to learn what animals the Imps truly are. So now, when she returns to your world and writes us our sequel, she won’t remember her little adventure, but she will be Gem through and through. She will create a future in which we Gems would like to live.”

  I begin to feel sick. “It was you? You brought us here from Comic-Con?” The trill of the teacup crescendos and abruptly stops as the cup topples. Hot tea soaks into my thighs, but I barely register the pain.

  The president just laughs. “Yes. Like I said, we have brilliant scientists. If you like I can bring one of them in. He will explain the quantum physics of transdimensional tunneling, but I fear your primate brain may explode, and I’m wearing my favorite suit.”

  I look at my cup, broken on the floor. Two perfect halves. “And does Alice know about this?”

  “No. Alice knows nothing. As far as she’s concerned, she’s having a lovely time living with the Gems. She still thinks so long as you don’t complete the canon, she gets to continue living here. If she knew the truth she would feel … manipulated.”

  “But why bring me? Katie?” I have to swallow before I can say his name. “Nate.”

  “We only meant to transport Alice. But things never go quite as planned. And when you all arrived, my word, did it get interesting. Baba’s been keeping me posted.”

  “Rose wasn’t meant to die?”

  He scoops up my teacup and pushes the halves together so the cup becomes whole. “Not then, no. She was supposed to hang at the Gallows Dance tomorrow, inciting a revolution, completing the cycle, and sending Alice home.” A glimmer of pride offsets his usual look of disdain. “I must admit, Violet, you surpassed my expectations as an understudy. Baba told me you would.”

  “So, I will hang in Rose’s place.”

  He grins—his teeth remind me of that foam candy I used to love as a kid. “That is correct. It is the only way the four of you will awaken in your world.”

  “So we are unconscious?”

  He smiles his patronizing smile. “In your world, yes. And if you and your friends ever want to wake up, you will dance on those gallows as I ask.” He laughs.

  “What a pickle you’ve found yourself in. To fear the thing you need the most—the hangman’s noose. Don’t worry, all good heroines find themselves in a double bind. It adds to the tension.”

  I recall the paper chain, the grabbing hands, the Dupes, the crescent scythe, the Imps at the Meat House. Nate’s body dead on the concrete. I feel such fury. And then I think of Mum and Dad, Maltesers and Netflix and university entrance exams and sleepovers. The president was right; I am in a double bind, he just got the wrong one.

  “I won’t do it,” I hiss.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I won’t do it. I won’t play along. When Willow shouts out he loves me at the Gallows Dance, I’ll shout back that I hate him, that I used him. I won’t complete the canon and then Alice won’t be able to wake up to write her pro-Gem sequel. The Gems will never prevail.”

  “How interesting. Just as Alice has identified with the Gems, you’ve identified with the Imps.”

  “I am an Imp.”

  He sneers. “As I said earlier, failing to complete the loop has consequences that we can’t determine. They may be dire. Not only will you fail to cross over, but this universe may just cease to be.”

  “Maybe that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

  “We’re talking oblivion, Violet. Oblivion for you and that gutter-monkey boyfriend and all the Imps you love so much. You may gamble with your own life, but I seriously doubt you’ll gamble with theirs.”

  He’s got me. I know it and he knows it. Deflated, beaten, I shake my head.

  “So when Willow Harper bursts forward at the Gallows Dance and shouts”—he leaps from his chair and clasps his heart in a melodramatic pose—“ ‘I love you, Rose,’ you will say?”

  “I love you, too.”

  “The Gems tear down the gallows, a revolution begins, the story is completed, and you can go home.” He glances down at me, a sneer fixed across his plastic face. “Good little monkey.”

  I LIE ON THE bed in my cell, staring at the door, knowing that the next time it opens, I will be taken to the Gallows Dance. My brain aches, struggling to process all the new information. The fairy tales, the pips, the flatline. Back in my world, the real world, I am unconscious. And yet I’m also here. Two universes. Two Violets. It just makes no sense. I think perhaps Stoneback was right—I have the brain of a monkey. Tears leak down my face, spilling over the bridge of my nose, leaching into the pillow. After everything I have done, all that I have lost, I simply can’t win this one. The Gems win. Baba wins.

  I reach into my pocket and find my split-heart necklace. I must have stuffed it there after our argument, too sentimental to chuck it in the dirt. It coils through my fingers like a delicate pewter thread, and when I open my hand, the split heart swings before my eyes.

  My best friend. Sucked in by the Gems. At least the extent of her betrayal was limited to sleeping with Willow; at least she wasn’t responsible for Nate’s death. But she will destroy the Imps in the end, and I will inadvertently help her by completing the canon. I feel broken, like I’m made of eggshell and no amount of horses or king’s men could ever make me whole. I stuff the chain back into my pocket.

  “Self-sacrifice and love.” I whisper the words to the walls. But they just sound stupid. And for some reason, an image of Miss Thompson pops into my head, leaning on her Formica desk, telling us about the black moment in literature, the moment when all hope seems lost. Only one side of my mouth smiles—right now, things couldn’t look much blacker.

  The door opens. I expect to see another khaki uniform, but instead I see Baba. She moves forward, suspended in air, her feet completely still. At first, I think she’s a ghost, but then I notice the levers clutched in her shriveled hands, and realize she’s using some bizarre hoverchair. I study her old, closed-up face, so relaxed and still, and the image of Nate bleeding out on my lap fills my mind. She told the Gems about the safe house. The anger stretches around my body, filling my veins, contracting my muscles until they feel like a series of jack-in-the-boxes ready to pop. I think I may kill her. Only her frailty stops me.

  The chair pauses next to my bed. I don’t dare look at her, but I can smell lilies, hear her voice, warm and measured. “I sense your rage,” she says.

  I jump to my feet, my fists clenched and shaking. “How could you betray us like that?”

  Her eyes dart beneath her lids. “You’re forgetting that I am a Gem.”

  “But the Imps kept you safe for hundreds of years!”

  She pulls a little lever and the chair levitates so her face sits level with mine. I can see the soft hairs on her skin like silver down, a hint of green behind her lids, the tiny tooth buds straining against her gums when she speaks. “And that is why I would never betray them. Or you.”

  “But the president—”

  “Is a scumbag. No wait, he’s a wankstain, yes, that’s my favorite.” She pushes the lever back into position and the chair settles back on the floor. “Come, kneel with me, child.”

  I watch her suspiciously, unsure whether she speaks the truth, whether I should open my mind to her again.

  She chuckles. “What have you got to lose?”

  Slowly, I uncurl my fists. Curiosity, desperation, I don’t know what, but something pulls me to the ground. She places her palms on my temples and I feel that pain blossoming i
n my stomach, pushing through my body, and focusing between my eyes. It chases away the image of Nate, loosens the clasp of grief on my throat. I almost feel sad when the pain lifts—it’s all I have left of him. And when I open my eyes, I’m standing in my living room.

  “There’s no place like home,” Baba says.

  It looks so ordinary, so beige. I spin slowly, taking it all in. The tan leather sofa with the coffee smudge on the right arm; the photos of me and Nate slightly askew on the fawn walls; the battered coffee table Dad swiped from our previous, rented house. I feel the shag rug beneath my feet, smell the casserole in the oven, hear the familiar buzz of the TV behind me. My parents sit on the sofa, side by side, Mum balancing the remote control on her knee. I recognize the music from The Gallows Dance. This makes me smile—Dad always referred to it as “that dystopian drivel.” I study their faces, every line and curve of their features, my heart inflating in my rib cage.

  Baba sidles up to me, her hoverchair long gone. “They look happy.”

  I nod, but my heart suddenly deflates. “They mustn’t know about Nate yet?”

  “These people are not your real mum and dad, Violet. They are your projections.” She lays a doughy hand on my shoulder. “And they are the reason you’ve been striving to complete the canon. The Holy Grail, the light at the end of the tunnel, are they not?”

  “Yes.” I look at their fingers, gently woven together, their slippers bumping up against each other.

  “When you saved the girl with no hands, when you went to the Coliseum to stop Thorn from hanging those Gems, when you pushed the boat into the river and returned to shore, when you dived into that water to save your friends—did you do it so you could go home?”

  “I—I don’t understand.” My focus never leaves Mum and Dad, terrified they could just vanish.

  “After all that you have seen, all that you have become, are you really hanging at the Gallows Dance just so you can go home?”

  I shake my head.

  She spins me so I face the telly. The final scene of the film plays—Rose stands on the stage, noose around her neck. My hands automatically fly to my throat.