by Anna Day
He lies in bed. I can see the satin bedding crumpled around his perfect, muscular body. The shape of his hips, the line of his torso, the faint scars encircling his upper thighs. He sleeps, his chest rising and falling rhythmically.
And he isn’t the only person naked in that bed—my own personal midway twist.
She lies beside him, her golden hair strewn across the pillow, her long, bronzed legs entwined with his.
And all the men and women merely players.
Alice.
ALICE’S EYES SNAP open. She looks straight at me. At first, she must see only what I see, reflected back at her from the panes, a world of soft light and bronzed shapes. But I see her focus change, her expression move from contentedness to shock as she looks through her own image and meets my gaze. Slowly, her expression shifts to acceptance, like she always knew I would find her here.
I have only one instinct: to flee. I shuffle back down the branch, tears landing on the wood before me, and begin the mad scramble down the tree. I forget all of Ash’s advice—tumbling, scrabbling, bouncing through the boughs, a haze of twigs and leaves biting at my hands and my scalp. I lose my footing on the final branch and the ground seems to rise up from nowhere, smacking my back and knocking the wind from my lungs. I just lie there, glaring up at that bastard tree, gulping down empty, air-free mouthfuls, feeling like I’m going to suffocate, trying to get that hateful image from my brain.
I hear her before I see her. The crunch of her feet on the gravel, the soft yet frantic cry of my name. “Violet. Violet.”
She skids into a kneeling position beside me. “Did you fall badly?”
“Yes,” I manage to squeak.
“Did you hit your head?”
My hand travels to my brow. “No.”
She helps me into a sitting position. The zingy sweetness of her perfume calms me, but then I just feel angry with myself. I study her for a moment. She wears no makeup, her hair extensions curl freely around her shoulders, and she’s wrapped a white satin sheet around her body, probably to hide her nakedness rather than protect her from the cold. She looks so natural, and for a moment, she’s just Alice again.
“What’s going on?” The vulnerability in my voice surprises me as much as her.
“I’m … I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Don’t you want to go home?”
“I thought I did. But then this happened.”
“What? Willow?”
“I guess … and more.” She sweeps her hand in a dramatic circle. “Wonderland.”
“Shit, Alice. You’re not doing this for love. You just want to be one of them.” I bumble to my feet. My lungs still ache, my body’s still oxygen-starved, but the anger gains strength and I’m able to pull myself upright.
“Why not?” She stands, too, the sheet folding around her like a carefully sculptured piece of royal icing. “The Gems are kind to me. The Imps treated me like a leper, they cut off my hair, tried to hang me, locked me in a tower.”
“Yeah, they tried to hang me, too, remember?”
“So you get it, then?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. If you’d seen what I’ve seen, the way the Gems really treat the Imps, you’d soon change your tune.”
“And maybe, if you were in my shoes, you’d change yours.”
My fists clench in frustration. “For God’s sake, Alice. The Gems only treat you like that because they think you’re one of them.”
“So?”
“So … what happens when you catch a cold, or you start to age like a normal person, or you, I don’t know, you go to a pub quiz and can’t answer all the questions ’cause your IQ isn’t stupidly high?”
I clearly hit a nerve. She takes a step back. “Are you saying I’m stupid?”
“Well, you must be if you want to stay here.” I sidestep her and walk toward the trees, my boots slapping the grass, my body rigid and prickling with rage.
But she runs after me, catching me by the arm. “Violet, please try and understand, I’ve never fit in, not anywhere. This is the first place I haven’t felt different.”
“Poor Alice. It must be hard being so beautiful.” I wrench my arm from her grasp.
“That’s not what I mean.” She circles in front of me, blocking my path. “I’m happy here.”
“Oh, and it’s all about you, isn’t it? Have you even thought about Katie? About what Thorn will do to her when he realizes you’re only here to get naked with Willow?”
Something crosses her face, an expression I can’t quite read. Guilt? Regret? And that’s when I notice for the first time that she no longer wears her split-heart necklace.
The treachery deepens in my gut. “You’re not just sabotaging our chances of getting home. You’re risking our lives.”
“Thorn won’t hurt Katie, he fancies her too much … It was clearly just a threat.”
“You tell yourself that. And you tell Nate, next time some guard tries to hack off his hands, you tell him it was clearly just a threat.”
This unnerves her—her brow knots together. “Look, Violet. I know the guards were out of order, but Willow and his family, they’re actually really nice. They would never do anything like that.”
The anger fills every part of me. I think of that boy floating in a tank, hacked in two, and that promise I made Ash seems so very far away. “Is that right? So why don’t you ask Willow what he keeps in that bunker at the bottom of the estate?”
She doesn’t look confused, as I anticipated. Her eyebrows don’t pull together, her inky gaze doesn’t falter—she looks sheepish, ashamed.
“But you already know, don’t you?” I say.
She looks away, adjusts her sheet. “I saw the scars on Willow’s legs, and when I asked him what happened, he told me.”
“About his dismembered relatives?” My voice rises.
“The Duplicates? Yeah.”
I glower at her, daring her to meet my gaze. “Calling them Duplicates doesn’t stop them from being people.” I pause, momentarily thrown. “Wait. Willow told you? So Willow knows, too?”
“Yeah, ’course he does. They’re his legs.”
I could punch her right now. I clasp my hands together—a desperate prayer. “No. That’s the point, Alice. They’re not his legs.” I spit out every word to try and make her understand. “He. Stole. Them. From. His. Brother.”
“You’re being melodramatic.”
“Oh really?” I’m shrieking now, but I feel so full of rage, so incensed, I’ve lost all volume control. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t have stopped them from amputating Nate’s hands after all. You and your new mates could have had a spare-parts fundraiser.”
She steps toward me, her voice calm, like I’m the unreasonable one. “Look, Violet. It’s not as bad as it sounds. All of the Dupes are in comas, it’s not like they’re in pain, or even aware they exist.”
“Oh well, that’s OK, then, so long as they can’t look you in the eye when you carve out their vital organs.”
She ignores me, continuing in her balanced tone. “And the Harpers built their Dupes a special hiding place to keep them safe.”
“Yeah, I know. I found it. And believe me, they’re anything but safe.”
“Calm down, Vi.” Only Alice could look so collected, so poised, wearing a sheet from my pseudo-boyfriend’s bed, while discussing organ theft. “After they heard those rumors about the guards at the warehouses … you know … fiddling with the Dupes, they built them a special hiding place to keep them safe.”
“Fiddling … as in … ?” I slip over my words.
“God, you’re naive. As in sexual stuff.”
I shove my hands over my ears, unable to process this extra information, trying to hold my brain together. “Holy crap, Alice. This just gets worse and worse.” My voice sounds funny, like it’s inside my head. “I don’t want to hear anything else you have to say. I don’t know you anymore.” I drop my voice to a low snarl. “You disgust me.” I�
��ve never spoken to Alice like this, not even when she stuffed my favorite T-shirt down the toilet ’cause Alfie Peach asked me to the disco when we were twelve. Not even when she stole my algebra homework and pretended it was hers and I got detention. I expect her to crumple, to burst into tears.
But she just laughs. She actually laughs. “You’re just jealous.”
“Of what, exactly?”
“Of me. Of the Gems … we’re perfect.”
“Well, if being perfect means losing your humanity, you can bloody well keep it.” The silver heart rests in my fingers and I suddenly notice how sharp and cold it feels. I tighten my grip around the chain and yank it with all my might. Either the buckle warps and breaks, or the weakest link gives way, but it falls from my neck with disappointing ease. I hold it out for her to see.
Her fingers brush her naked throat. “Violet …” Her voice tails off and we stare at each other for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” she finally says.
“Don’t bother.” I jab an angry finger toward the manor house. “Better take the toga party back to lover boy.” I sound so bitter I hardly recognize myself.
She winces at my tone. “I’m doing this for both of us.”
“Bullshit.”
“I don’t want to watch you …” The word sticks in her throat.
“Say it.” My head feels swollen and about to pop. “Say it.”
“Hang,” she shouts. “I don’t want to watch you hang.”
“Bullshit! You just don’t want to go home.”
I turn and run toward the trees, the chain hanging limply from my palm, and this time, she doesn’t follow.
THE DASH BACK to the Imp-hut feels strange and unprocessed, like a clip of a movie that’s been stretched in places and cut in others, dreamlike and fragmented. The wind numbs my cheeks and fills my ears, but it can’t drown out that one line: My best friend has betrayed me.
I throw open the door of the Imp-hut, my expression acting like a siren, drawing looks from every slave inside.
Saskia dashes toward me, her spiky facade momentarily dropped. “Violet? What is it?”
“Alice,” I say, almost to myself.
Matthew guides me to a chair.
“Alice,” I repeat, like saying it again can somehow make it hurt less.
Nate scoots across the room, pushing through the gathering crowd. “What about her?” he asks, his face a mixture of concern and pain.
Saskia snarls at the bystanders. “The next Imp to stare at stuff that don’t concern ’em will have to deal with me. Got it?”
They go about their business, pretending we don’t exist.
“Well?” Nate says.
I take a great, shaky breath, for once barely noticing the stink of damp. “I saw them, together. Willow and Alice. In bed, they were, you know … or at least they had been …”
“Bitch,” Nate says.
“Nate, mind your language,” I mumble out of habit.
Saskia leans into the table and exhales slowly. “OK, OK, this isn’t so bad. Alice is on our side, right? She’s working for Thorn? I’m guessing she’s his fallback in case you fail to seduce Willow.”
“It’s not just about seducing Willow.” I place my hand on hers, wishing I could somehow make her understand. She snatches it away, but I carry on regardless. “There are more important things than getting Jeremy Harper’s secrets.”
“Like what?” Saskia spits.
Like completing the canon and going home. The words remain heavy on my tongue, causing my mouth to hang open.
Saskia turns so I can’t see her expression, but she holds herself stiff and balls up her fists. “OK, well, if Alice is doing her job, we’re best off removing you from the equation. Let’s head back to headquarters and see what Thorn wants to do.”
I can’t bear the thought of letting Alice win. I can’t bear the thought of leaving Ash. And I just can’t bear the thought of never going home. I can feel the panic rising inside. “No. I want to stay.” My voice sounds stronger than I feel. “I want to win him back and put this right.”
“I ain’t asking you, I’m telling you.” Saskia turns to face me, a tic developing just below her right eye. “You think I’m happy about this? Months in the bloody making this plan was, and all me and Matthew’s own work, and then doll-face-bloody-long-legs comes swanning in and steals the show.” She turns and says to herself, “This would never have happened if Rose were here.”
If I thought I couldn’t feel any more inadequate, I was wrong. Her words wither my insides. And it just seems so unfair—I was so close. If only Alice hadn’t interfered. Nate rests his hand on my shoulder, which helps stem the tears for at least a moment.
Matthew finally speaks. “Come on now, Saskia. We don’t know that.”
She puts her hands on her hips and looks me up and down. This bitter laugh erupts from her mouth.
The panic hardens, turns to anger, my insides still raw from my run-in with Alice. “You think I wanted this? To come to this awful place and get strung up by that controller, and nearly assaulted by a foot soldier, and watch Nate almost get his hands cut off, and get called an ape and treated like I’m barely human and get no sleep and be permanently hungry and watch my best friend betray me.” I tug at my clothes. “And these God-awful overalls, how can you even bear them, it’s like having nits or something.”
The skin around her eyes tightens. “Steady now, princess. The way you’re talking, anyone would think you’re not really an Imp.”
“Of course I’m an Imp. I’m five foot bloody four!”
“We leave on the next bus. Now gather your things.” She storms from the hut, slamming the door so hard it groans on its hinges and dislodges the dust and muck from the beams.
“What things?” Nate gestures to our empty bunks, his voice sarcastic, full of bravado, but he leaves his hand on my shoulder like I’m some sort of crutch.
Matthew disappears behind a cloth divider. I hear him roll onto a bunk. “The next bus isn’t till dawn, better get some sleep. We’ve got some walking ahead.”
Even though I’ve hardly slept, I don’t feel tired. I can still feel the remnants of the adrenaline, and my body’s forgotten whether it’s night or day. Eventually, I move to the kitchenette. Nate follows, and we begin stuffing bread in our pockets, filling bottles with cloudy water.
“How could she do this?” I whisper over the rumble of the taps.
“What? Alice? Do something completely selfish? Screw the man of her dreams? It’s a mystery.”
“Nate, language.”
He laughs. “Screw doesn’t count.” He twists the lid onto one of the bottles, his knuckles blanching, and when he looks up, he looks serious. “She clearly wants to stay.”
“That’s what she said.”
“You talked to her?”
“More like yelled.”
He nods in approval. “Did you remind her about Katie?”
“Yeah. She’s hell-bent on ruining the canon so she can stay.” I think about the paper chain, the glinting scythe, the Dupes suspended in fluid. “How could she want to be one of them?”
Nate sighs. “It’s like those Zimbardo experiments Dad told us about.”
I shake my head, slightly irritated by the tangent.
“You know, they took a bunch of students and made half of them prisoners and half of them guards. Within days, they were acting like it was real.”
I smile. “How do you remember this crap? You’re only fourteen.”
“Because I clear my brain of all other clutter, like where I live and what my name is.”
For a moment, it feels normal again—just me and Nate carrying on. But it quickly fades. I sigh. “What are we going to do?”
“Baba will know.”
“She didn’t know this.”
He doesn’t reply.
We leave the estate on the first bus that morning, the four of us shivering in the dew-soaked air. I stare at the battered headrest in front of me, le
tting the fibers pixelate before my tired eyes, and I don’t risk glancing out the window until the Harper estate lies far behind—a world spun from sugar. Beautiful, sweet, and yet painfully brittle.
I’d tried to find Ash, but he’d done his vanishing act again. I never got the chance to tell him good-bye, or even part of the truth. Now he will always think I wanted Willow. I swallow back the tears.
The hypnotic rhythm of the bus eventually rocks me into a world of dreams. Alice, Katie, and I stand on the school stage—the one in the gym that never gets used because it’s too small and filthy. Alice wears this amazing Elizabethan gown, all silvers and greens, like she’s the queen of Slytherin. She really does look like an hourglass—the fullness of the skirt narrowing into her tiny waist, only to flare out into an elaborate, white-lace collar. Katie and I look more like wenches, dressed in dour black smocks and aprons, our dirty hair tucked into equally dirty mop hats.
“Come now, servants,” Alice says, addressing us in a regal tone. “Do not keep the audience waiting.”
I notice for the first time that spectators fill the hall, each one of them gawking at us. It’s my line. I know it’s my line, but I can’t for the life of me remember what I’m supposed to say.
“Vi,” Katie hisses. “Vi, come on, I’m depending on you.”
The crowd begins to whisper, but they’re quickly drowned out by the pounding of my heart. I prize open my jaw, force down some air, beg the words to form in my brain and migrate to my tongue. But it’s like my mind has been stripped down, left bare.
The crowd begins to laugh. That’s when I spot Mum, standing in the midst of the audience. She shakes her head like she’s disappointed, that same shake she did when I came home drunk and puked on the sofa. Then, her lips begin to move. And even though she’s thirty-odd feet away, it’s as if she whispers straight into my ear. Come on, sweetheart. Say something. For me. Please just say something and wake up.
I wake with a start, Nate beside me.
“You OK?” he asks.
“Yeah.” My hand settles on my overalls, just above the place where Katie’s letter should nestle. I left it at the Imp-hut, stuffed down the back of a crumbling sideboard. I was worried the guards would find it when we crossed the border. It would rouse suspicion and put us in the firing line, a supposedly illiterate Imp carrying a letter. But it seems those words sunk through my skin and into my veins, like my blood would flow ink-black if you cut me open. I feel like crying. All the world’s a stage, and I am the worst actor ever.
