The Fandom(32)

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 favourite show.’

‘Putting right what once went wrong – how do you do that? And come to think about 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 for ever.’

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 metres 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 make-up and comfy beds and Google and camping and Kindles and Nando’s and parties and A levels and going to uni and getting a job . . . raising my future children in a world which 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 child-like face. And I remember the news reports when she died. Up-and-coming author of bestselling dystopian novel throws herself from a tower block after long struggle with mental illness. She looks straight at me, smiles, and then steps forwards as though she’s stepping on to 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 adrenalin 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 today, I will hang.’ And upon speaking these words, I finally pass out.





Exactly one week today, I will hang.

I will hang for my friends, my family, and above all else, love. A thought which 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 mid-air.

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 coloured 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.