by Anna Day
I scrabble with the rope while Ash and Matthew lean into the stern. The ground whips away and the vessel bobs free. Ash and Matthew clamber in, spraying cold water onto my hands and face. Ash leans forward and offers me his hand. I hear the dull, oceanic roar of the Gem helicopters. They’re early. No, not early—any time gained navigating the sewers was lost when Thorn tried to kill me and the Humvee exploded.
I ignore Ash’s hand and keep on pushing the boat. The water reaches mid-thigh.
“Come on, Violet,” Ash says.
The helicopters grow louder, the water reaches my waist, and I just keep on pushing.
“That’s deep enough,” Saskia says.
The current decentralizes my balance. But I don’t stop pushing.
“Good luck, Vi,” Katie says, her voice shaky and small beneath the night sky.
“Just stay alive, OK?” I reply.
She nods.
Ash reaches for me, almost toppling the boat with his weight. I grasp his hands and gaze into his face, taking one last look into the palest blue eyes I’ll ever see. “That secret I’ve been keeping?”
Confusion touches his features. “Yes?”
I smile. “It’s always been you.” And with one final push, I watch them drift away.
VIOLET, VIOLET.” I hear them call my name. The scratch of wood against metal as oars click into the oarlocks, the frantic splashing of water as they attempt to turn the boat and follow me. “Violet, wait.” I ignore them and turn and wade toward the shore. The helicopters have nearly arrived, and I pick up my pace, pumping my arms like mad. The river glistens like a pool of tar—I can just make out the reflection of the stars, cragged and blurred by my motion. “Please, Violet, they’ll kill you.”
Large hoops of light appear around me. I raise my head to see shafts of white carving up the black. The helicopters. Until I saw them, I wasn’t entirely sure they’d arrive. Perhaps Alice disclosed this location, too, or perhaps it’s the canon again, haunting me, dragging me to the gallows.
I just need to get arrested, then hopefully the soldiers won’t bother with the little wooden boat floating in the background—it’s me they want, thanks to the fact Howard Stoneback’s dead. I take some comfort in that the hovercrafts haven’t yet arrived. I’ll never forget them in the film. Black, glossy disks hanging in the sky like stones, generating this low whirring noise that traveled through the sofa and into the backs of my legs. They snatched Rose and Willow from their little boat with long, metal tentacles—scared the life out of me. But I shove them from my mind and repeat the words again and again, hugging them to my body like a life vest: I won’t let them die, too. I won’t let them die, too. I won’t let them die, too.
I reach the shore. I think I’ve made it. But the joy of saving my friends is completely overshadowed by the fear of facing the Gem soldiers. I begin to run along the bank, waving my arms, trying to attract the Gems’ attention. “Don’t shoot,” I shout. “I surrender.” They want me alive, at least for now, but the sight of the guns still makes me want to puke.
I hear a shot. I don’t know who fired first; the Gem soldiers or my friends in the boat. It doesn’t matter. Once the bullets start flying, I lose control of the situation. I turn to see Matthew, caught by a bullet. He falls over the side like a bag of sand, tipping the boat. Every one of the passengers falls into the water, pulled beneath the surface. I forget about the soldiers—I only know I must reach Matthew. Shot and sinking. But then another thought finds me, even more terrifying, even more paralyzing. Imps can’t swim. Which means Ash is likely drowning at this very moment.
I run toward the upturned boat, flinging my body into the water. I take a large breath and squeeze my eyes closed, just before a thousand nails drive into my skull. The river may look like tar, but it is undeniably water—ice-cold, endless. I kick my legs and force my hips to twist, propelling me upward. The surface breaks over my head and I take one enormous gasp of air. For a moment, I feel disoriented. I can’t see anything—the stars, the flashlights, the soldiers. But I can hear. Muffled gunshots, the echo of my own breath, lapping water. My hands paddle and bash against something solid. I realize I’ve emerged beneath the upturned boat.
“Violet?” I hear Katie beside me, panting and treading water.
My eyes adjust, and I can just pick out Saskia, clinging to the upturned seat, holding the boat as though it’s a giant shield. Her head bobs under the water until Katie pulls her up again, looping an arm beneath her chin.
“Imps can’t swim.” I spray river from my mouth. “Stay with Saskia.”
I dive back into the cold and power through the black, not entirely sure which way is up or down, manically swimming in circles, my arms reaching for imaginary shapes. But there is no Ash. No Matthew. Only gray, watery phantoms. My lungs feel ready to burst, and I know I desperately need more air, but panic drives me on, reeling, spinning, groping through the dark.
An intense light pushes its way into every corner of the black, like angels have ripped a hole in the clouds, letting the heavens burst through. The underwater world can no longer hide. I see every piece of driftwood, every murky stone, every strip of seaweed carried in by the tide, my own hands, pale and hopeless before me.
My eyes find Matthew first. He lies motionless. His mahogany skin already part of the riverbed, his lifeless eyes like two freshwater pearls. A dark cloud billows from a hole in his chest. And although this is not what I wanted, the last thing I wanted, I feel thankful. Because I only have one pair of arms, and now I don’t have to choose who to save.
Next, I see Ash, suspended and flailing, wrestling an invisible sea beast. Bubbles spiral from his hands, and his black hair fans around his pale, bruised face. I’ve never seen him look so scared, and for a shard of a moment, I feel completely flooded with love. Within seconds, I reach him, slip my hands beneath his armpits, and drive us toward the surface.
We break into the heavenly light, coughing and spluttering. I flip him over so he looks skyward, hook my elbow under his chin, and begin to swim toward the boat. I hear a strange noise, a low, whirring hiss combined with Ash’s spluttering. As far as the eye can see, the surface of the river begins to wrinkle, the water almost vibrating, droplets sucked upward like it’s raining in reverse.
“Violet,” Ash manages to say.
I think he’s trying to warn me, because he’s already seen what I can’t.
The light doesn’t belong to angels.
It belongs to the four glossy stones hanging above us.
Next come the tentacles—scary when I read the book, even scarier on TV, horrifying in real life. A motorized arm snakes through the sky with strong, sinewy movements. There’s no point even trying to escape, it moves with such speed. A large metal cuff girdles Ash’s middle and rips him from the water, so quick and brutal I don’t get the chance to look into his face one last time. He floats high above me now—a tiny version of himself—and disappears into the belly of a hovercraft.
I bob for a moment, completely alone, just water and panic and brilliant lights. It comes from nowhere, the second arm, winding through the river like a metal sea serpent. A shot of adrenaline, a burst of horror. It clamps around me, forcing the air from my lungs, and yanks me upward with such speed my neck cracks. The wind rushes through my wet clothes, and I watch the boat below shrink to the size of a child’s toy. Saskia and Katie remain concealed from sight. At least they are safe for now.
The arm sucks me into the craft and dumps me on the floor. Before I can catch my breath, a team of soldiers descend, jerking my arms behind my back, cuffing my wrists and ankles. I don’t bother fighting. I just search frantically for Ash—my eyes find him; a mound leaking river across the floor.
This is just like the scene from canon, only it isn’t Rose and Willow coughing up silt onto the metal floor—it’s me and Ash. I hear the buzz of a walkie-talkie. “We got her, sir. Her and another gutter monkey to throw in the mix.”
I’ve done it. The canon is back on tr
ack. Tomorrow, I will hang. But I feel no relief, no sense of achievement. Because just before I feel the bite of a hypodermic needle sinking into my neck, just before I lose consciousness, I hear the walkie-talkie spew out its response. “Good work. A double act for the Gallows Dance.”
It won’t just be me dangling from a rope tomorrow.
Not Ash, I try to say. Not Ash. But my tongue just flops hopelessly around my mouth.
I WAKE ALONE, THE taste of dirt in my mouth. The remnants of several nightmares swim in my head: blood reaching across concrete, two freshwater pearls staring from the riverbed, metal snakes moving through water. My eyelids flicker and the walls of a white, sterile room throb in and out of focus. A cell, similar to the one Rose woke in. I try to sit, but my arms bow under my weight. Not nightmares—memories. The images continue to hover in my line of sight, transparent and ethereal, like they’re printed on the finest of silk sheets.
The door opens and a couple of foot soldiers enter. They set various things beside me—a towel, a hot drink, a white robe, a tray of food. They leave the room and the lock clicks into place. Soon, I will meet President Stoneback. The man who makes Thorn seem like Santa Claus. Whose nephew’s death I witnessed back at the safe house. I close my eyes and take deep, steady breaths.
The food smells amazing, like Christmas dinner and birthday cake rolled into one—proper food. I realize I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday’s bread, and although I shouldn’t be able to touch a crumb, the juices in my stomach begin to swirl. So I kneel before the tray and shovel the food into my mouth like I’m back in Ma’s house.
I look around the cell, not used to the feeling of fullness in my stomach. A small bathroom sits in the corner. Clean and sparkling and floral-scented. I stumble toward it, and for a while I just sit on the floor, waiting for the food to reappear, finding some comfort in the hardness of the tiles. But after a while, the nausea recedes. I notice for the first time since I woke that my clothes cling to my skin like a thin layer of ice, and even though I can’t stop trembling, even though my thoughts are muddled and my breathing jagged—the early stages of hypothermia setting in—I delay the inevitable moment when I undress. Because I know I’m hurtling toward the climax, the end of the canon. And maybe I will return home, maybe I will incite a revolution and become that little flower who brings hope to the Imps, but Ash is going to hang, too. He won’t return home. He will just die. Tears pool in the corners of my eyes, but I know I need to think clearly if I want to ensure his survival. So I command myself to unpeel my clothes and place them in the drying pod.
I step into the shower. At first, the water scalds, like a hundred little irons branding my skin. But the pain subsides, and I feel the warmth penetrate my flesh, gradually reaching my bones. Slowly, my brain starts working again. I take some time trying to unravel the confusion. The ambush, the safe house … Alice’s betrayal.
My thoughts turn to the noose and the flying trapdoor. I wonder how much it will hurt. Whether I’ll be aware of Ash, his legs whirling beside mine as life escapes him. And I don’t really know if Baba was right, if hanging will even work—one moment, the life choking out of me, and the next, lying in a heap of rubble back at Comic-Con or maybe in a hospital bed. It all seems a little far-fetched now that I’m standing in the shower in a military bunker, preparing to hang.
The questions multiply along with the panic, spiraling out of control. Will Katie and Alice wake beside me? And what if Alice tries to turn Willow against me again? What if Willow doesn’t profess his love and the canon doesn’t complete? Will I just die for real, and will Katie and Alice live in this world forever? And what about Nate? My funny, clever, quirky little brother. Will he wake up, too? The questions build inside till my skin starts to feel tight and ready to split. I shut off the shower and towel myself until every bruise stings—a welcome distraction.
I know I should probably put that white, clean robe on, but I wrinkle up my nose and slip on my overalls. They stink of the city, itch to high heaven, and feel rigid with grime and dried blood—my own, Ash’s, Thorn’s, Nate’s. But they make me feel safer. I don’t know how long I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the white ceiling, wishing it were a sky full of bubbles and Nate were beside me shouting, More bubbles, Violet, more bubbles, please.
I begin to wonder what the president will say to me. I remember his conversation with Rose. He was so condescending, I wanted to slap him. Well, well. If it isn’t Rose. The beautiful, fearless Imp rebel. The girl who stole Willow Harper’s heart, only to lose hers in return. Please, come sit with me. But I can forget about the script now. It would make no sense, seeing as I was pulled from the river with Ash and not Willow.
Eventually, the soldiers return. They escort me down a long, sterile corridor, perfumed with lilies and cleaning products. I see a large, wooden door, heavily guarded and boasting the colors of the Gem flag. I wipe my eyes out of habit, but I have no tears. Every last drop of moisture has been squeezed from me. I take small, shaky steps toward the door, half expecting my joints to creak, hoping my body will crumble on impact.
The guards open the door and I see him. The man from canon. Rose’s nemesis. The Gem president. He lounges in a velvet tub chair, sipping from a porcelain teacup.
He smiles his plastic smile and says, “Well, well. If it isn’t Rose. The beautiful, fearless Imp rebel. The girl who stole Willow Harper’s heart, only to lose hers in return. Please, come sit with me.”
My lips part, but I feel too confused to speak. These are the lines from canon. The exact lines he spoke to Rose when he met her. How does the president even know about Willow? I don’t know what to do, what to say. So, blindly, I follow canon, forcing out my lines: “Willow. Where is he now?”
“Back at the manor. Licking his wounds. Don’t worry. You will see him again. He will of course attend your hanging tomorrow.”
Again, the president follows the script. Somehow, he must have found out that Willow helped me escape the ambush. I say my next line, unsure of what else to do. “Please, no.”
The president smiles. “Come now, Violet, you can deliver your lines with more pizzazz than that.”
At first, I think I must have misheard. The fatigue and the anxiety and the remnants of the sedative. “Pardon?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Have I gone off-script?” He turns to the soldier. “Lieutenant, please pour our guest some tea. She has, after all, traveled a long way to be with us.”
The world seems to shrink. Everything around me—the coffee table, the picture frames, the vases of lilies—reduced to a series of knickknacks. The lieutenant passes me some tea and I set the saucer on my lap. The dark liquid begins to tremble. “I don’t know what you mean,” I finally say.
“You don’t need to play dumb with me, Violet. You’re the new protagonist, isn’t that right? The dashing heroine of your favorite tale.” He looks me up and down. “And a pretty convincing one at that.”
I stare at him, my mouth hanging open.
He smiles his strange, plastic smile. “I know the lady with no face, too.”
“Baba.” I say her name and it all clicks into place.
He nods. “Amazing precognitive abilities, she knows where you’re going to be before you do, Violet. And what psychic powers—a mole who can visit me in my dreams. She may look a sight, but she is Gem through and through.”
A black, ugly mess of emotions surges up my throat. Baba told the Gems about the raid, the safe house, the escape across the river. Baba betrayed us. Baba killed Nate. My teacup begins to clink in its saucer. “But, in canon …”
“She was on the side of the Imps?”
“Yes.”
“Haven’t you noticed? The ‘canon,’ as you call it, is just a framework, the bare bones over which we have draped our rich and detailed universe.”
I screw my eyes up. Thinking really hurts now, like I’m peeling thoughts off the inside of my brain. “She told you about our universe, about the book?”
He n
ods. “I’ve known for a long, long time.”
All my questions begin to expand. I can practically see the rips appearing across the backs of my hands, my wrists, my skin straining against the pressure. “But Baba only found out a week or so back, when she first met me at the church.”
He chuckles to himself and sips his tea. “She played dumb. She’s known for years. Since The Gallows Dance was first published.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“No. I imagine you don’t. Your small ape brain will struggle to take it all on board.” He stands and walks to a small window, veiled by an emerald curtain. He pulls a cord and the curtain is drawn back. It isn’t a window, but a portrait. Sally King. “I painted her from memory. Baba introduced us in a dream. You know who it is, of course?”
I nod.
“I thought it fitting she should watch over me. She did, after all, create me.” He stares at the painting, an unfamiliar softness in his voice. “I know that somehow her universe, your universe, created ours—the power of the collective conscious, Baba called it.”
“The collective conscious?”
“Yes. When a group of people share the same beliefs, the same ideas—”
“You’re talking about the Fandom?”
“You could call it that. In fact, let’s call it that. The Fandom—it has a better ring to it. Well, the energy from the Fandom created something … something real.” He circles his hand, a dramatic flourish. “This!”
He leans over the table and dips his finger in his tea. It still steams, but he doesn’t flinch. He draws a circle on the coffee table with the moisture. “Baba told you about a story being a life cycle. Birth to death.”
