The Fandom(11)

My trembling, ghostly hands reach before me, scratching at the wood surrounding the door knob. And just as my fingers encompass the globe, I hear the rounded vowels of a Gem guard. Don’t let them escape. I imagine I can feel the red spots of the lasers tremoring just above my neck, a swarm of angry fireflies. A fresh wave of panic surges through me.

But I don’t look. I just focus on the metal grating beneath my hands. I rattle the handle – nearly dislodging my arms from their sockets – but the door remains firmly shut. Saskia pushes me to one side and manoeuvers the knob with deft fingers, her hands surprisingly steady. Finally, the doors open and we tumble into the city.





Matthew pulls the door shut behind him.

‘We’re in The Gallows Dance,’ Nate says, his voice trembling.

‘Not any more you’re not,’ Saskia says. ‘We just got you out of there.’

He shakes his head, like Saskia doesn’t quite get it. ‘No, no, we’re in the world of The Gallows Dance.’

Saskia doesn’t even acknowledge he’s spoken. ‘Hurry, before the guards follow.’

I work out why she looks different. She has a port wine stain the shape of Africa just above her left eye. Come to think of it, Rose didn’t look quite like Julia Starling, and I don’t just mean because of the blood pool and the broken limbs – her hair was curlier, her physique more childlike. It’s as though these characters have stepped directly from the author’s imagination. But I don’t have time to figure it out, not with the guards so close. I follow Saskia and Matthew down an alley, my legs struggling to keep up, my friends panting in my ear.

I know the Imp city from the book, and then again from the film – ‘atmospheric and disturbing’, as one critic said. London, centuries in the future, bombed to its foundations and robbed of all colour and grace. The camera showed a sweeping panorama of the collapsed roof tops, the toppled lamp posts, mist snaking around rubbish heaps like smoke. And Nate and I shouted out when we saw the dilapidated landmarks: the remnants of Tower Bridge; the fallen London Eye, rusted and cracked like a giant hamster wheel; half of Big Ben, the clock face long gone. I recall watching it on my squishy sofa, cushion hugged to my chest, and thinking: God, future London really sucks, I’m glad I don’t live in future London. But as I follow the two Imps through a maze of alleyways, my feet burning, it’s the stench which hits me above all.

It reminds me of the time Nate and I found an injured thrush. Rolling eyes, broken wing, crumpled feathers, blood smudged across the kitchen window where it had smashed into the pane. Nate was only four and he just wouldn’t stop crying. So I scooped it up and laid it in an old shoebox, placed cotton wool under its head, a handkerchief over its body, and a strip of berries at its feet for when it woke hungry. We punched holes in the lid with a pencil and hid it in my wardrobe so Mum wouldn’t find it. Of course, we forgot about it. A week or so later, I noticed this smell coming from my wardrobe, a strange smell like pickle and burnt toast. Only when I removed the lid did the full stench hit me.

Rotting bird. Just like the city.

‘Keep up,’ Saskia shouts over her shoulder. ‘Unless you want them bastard soldiers to catch you.’

We tear around the corner into a maze of alleyways, and eventually we enter a narrow lane. A line of washing hangs above us and quivers like neglected bunting in the wind. I briefly wonder why anyone would bother washing clothes just to hang them in such foul air. Saskia pauses to catch her breath, and we all stop. I put my hands on my knees, a stitch gathering in my side.

Out of nowhere, Saskia spins around and slams Katie into the wall. I hear her spine crack against the brickwork, followed by a sharp expulsion of breath.

‘What the hell were you playing at, you little bitch?’ Saskia spits the words into Katie’s face.

I move to try and pull Saskia away, but Matthew steps between us. ‘She got Rose killed,’ he says, holding out his hands and turning them like he’s seeing her blood for the first time, already transformed from vivid scarlet to a layer of brown flakes.

I look from Matthew to Saskia. They both look wrecked, damaged, but in a different way; Matthew looks like he may buckle with grief, and I can almost see the cracks of rage forming across Saskia’s skin. In canon, they had this long backstory with Rose, having met her a few months prior to the thistle-bomb mission. Thorn had asked them to find a beautiful Imp girl, capable of infiltrating the Harper estate, capable of seducing a beautiful Gem boy. When Saskia and Matthew pulled Rose from a street fight, they immediately recognized her irresistible mix of fragility and courage, and she became the obvious choice for the Harper mission. And they really took her under their wing, training her night and day. They grew to think of her as a friend, a daughter, as much as a fellow rebel. It’s not surprising her death has hit them hard.

A great tear rolls down Matthew’s face and hangs from his chin. He pulls his hands in to his chest like he holds her ghost to his body.

‘For God’s sake, Matthew, stop crying, will you?’ Saskia throws the words over her shoulder without loosening her grip on Katie. ‘Rose wouldn’t want us to fall apart. She would want us to figure out who the hell these Imps are.’

Alice looks at me, her eyes wide as if to say, Now what?

‘I’m so sorry,’ Katie says. ‘I don’t know what happened, really I don’t. I thought she was Julia . . .’