The Fandom(35)

The shadow of something more youthful, mischievous, crosses his face. ‘And then you would know everything, and where would the fun be in that?’





We’re back in the ochre room again, the four of us curled into each other, our breath misting in the cold. I spend a few minutes telling Katie and Alice about the recent encounter with Baba. They listen intently; the red marks left by the gags reach towards their ears like some bizarre tribal makeup. Matthew pulled the cords from their wrists when Saskia wasn’t looking. He also smuggled in some bread, which we devoured in seconds.

‘So our universe created this universe?’ Nate asks.

I nod. ‘That’s what Baba said: that this universe, the Gallows Dance universe, was created by Sally King . . . or the readers. She was kind of vague.’

Alice laughs. ‘Kind of vague. Whopping understatement.’

We pause, torn between denial, confusion and shock.

Finally, Katie speaks. ‘Since when was Thorn such a twatbag?’ she rubs each finger in turn, stimulating the blood flow.

‘He’s like a super-mean version of himself,’ I say. ‘Saskia too. I suppose we did balls up the thistle-bomb mission.’

‘And as a result, the Harper mission,’ Nate adds.

Katie looks a little awkward. ‘Has anyone else noticed the way he looks at me?’ The paleness of her skin fails to hide her blush.

Alice nods. ‘Yep. He clearly fancies you.’

‘Gross,’ Katie says, but a shy smile reshapes her mouth – like me, she’s unused to male attention, having lived in Alice’s streamlined shadow for the past year or so.

Alice makes a noise which sounds a bit like humph. ‘He only fancies you cos you’re so clearly an Imp.’

Katie does her eye-narrowing trick, her pink lips whitening as she pinches them together. For a split second, I fear a full-on cat fight will break out, but Nate speaks before the fur starts to fly.

‘It’s because you remind him of Ruth,’ he says simply.

We look at him. He shrugs like it’s completely normal for one fourteen-year-old boy to have more romantic awareness than three seventeen-year-old girls. ‘It’s a no-brainer,’ he says. ‘Remember? Thorn’s flashback in the film? Ruth had red hair and green eyes.’

I laugh, amazed I hadn’t thought of this before. ‘He’s right.’

‘Great,’ Katie says, examining a lock of her copycat hair. ‘The most gorgeous man ever to fancy me is a raving psycho who’ll probably murder me on our first date.’

‘In a nutshell,’ Nate says.

‘It could work to your advantage, Ringo,’ Alice says. ‘There’s no harm in flirting a little.’

Katie raises an eyebrow. ‘Surely that’s your domain.’ She hates it when Alice calls her Ringo. It’s normally followed by a cry of, ‘I play the cello, not the drums’ – I never know if Katie’s missed the Beatles/Liverpool connection, or if she’s just acting dumb.

‘For real,’ Alice says. ‘It could keep you alive. He’s a scary man, and it would really help if you could keep him onside.’

Katie pulls her hair from her face like she can somehow become less Ruth-like. ‘There’s no way I’ll ever flirt with that spermpiper. He’s evil personified.’

‘You felt sorry for him when we told you about Ruth,’ Alice says.

‘Yeah well, that was before he bashed Vi over the head and treated us like cockroaches and threatened to kill me and locked us in a cell.’ She stares at the floorboards, tears darkening her eyelashes as though she suddenly appreciates the reality of the situation.

I touch her hand. ‘Are you OK?’

She looks up and squeezes out a smile. ‘Yeah, course. So, what happens when you reach the Harper estate?’ Her voice clicks into a more practical gear, like she’s trying to deny the tears moistening her eyes.

Alice stretches out her long body, her feet poking out from the bottom of a threadbare blanket. She still has this air of serenity, like she’s lounging on a beach somewhere. ‘So Violet gets to the Harper estate, she meets Willow, acts all mysterious and sexy, and ta dah . . . he’s got a raging Gem horn.’

‘Alice,’ I hiss, ‘Nate’s here.’

But Nate just grins. ‘Should be easy enough, Violet, you look a bit like Rose and you know all the right things to say.’

‘No pressure then,’ I grumble.

Alice continues. ‘Then Willow declares his undying love to Violet, but Violet has a major attack of conscience and realizes she can’t betray the man she loves. So she purposefully bodges the Harper mission by telling Willow that she loves him, but she belongs in the city. It’s a mercy dump.’

‘Is that even a thing?’ Nate asks.

‘It is now,’ Alice says.

Nate grins. ‘Sounds like she ate a curry and took too many laxatives. Get it? A mercy dump.’

‘That’s not what I meant and you know it,’ she says.

‘Can you tell the story with Rose in it, not me?’ I ask, fidgeting with my hands. ‘I just don’t think I’m quite ready to, you know, think of myself as her.’

‘Well you’re going to have to be ready pretty soon,’ Alice says.