I shove some tasteless gruel down my neck and grab another shower, almost enjoying the way the cold hammers into me – freezing the anxiety, transforming it into a shimmering block I can step away from and leave behind.
I walk to the manor with Saskia and Nate. I can feel the worry taking over – the next part of the story requires more than just reciting lines and avoiding farting. This is when I really fall short of Rose’s ghost, because the next part of the story requires physical activity. And there’s a reason I’m always the last one to get picked for the netball team.
‘So how are you going to get lover boy to notice you this time?’ Saskia asks me.
‘Last night, he asked me my name. Tonight, I’m going to show him.’
She raises an eyebrow so it meets the dark stain on her head. ‘What d’ya mean, show him?’
‘I’m going leave a rose on his windowsill,’ I reply.
Nate pulls a rose from his overalls and hands it to me. The plumpest, reddest one he could find in the rose garden earlier that evening. I take it from him and rotate it in my fingers. We both look at Saskia, awaiting her excited response, the one she gave Rose in canon: That’s a brilliant idea, lure him out of that bastard manor house. But instead she scrunches up her face like she’s just smelt something really bad. Maybe I did fart.
‘That’s effing ridiculous,’ she says. ‘Leaving a rose on his windowsill! Where do you two come up with this shit?’
Nate and I exchange a little smile.
‘It’ll work,’ Nate says. ‘Just you see.’
Saskia snorts. ‘Well, it’s wrong if you ask me, calling yourself Rose. It’s disrespectful of the dead.’
‘Thorn said I should keep her name,’ I reply. ‘To remind me of her bravery and to keep me on course.’ Thorn didn’t say this, but I hoped if I took on her name, I would somehow take on some of her beauty and daring. Besides, a mess of viola flowers sprawled across a windowsill wouldn’t look nearly so romantic, as Nate so keenly pointed out earlier in the day.
‘Thorn ain’t always right, you know,’ Saskia grumbles, brushing her fingers against the scar on her collarbone.
The manor falls into view. It looks similar to the building used in the movie; stately and grand, with two parallel towers puffed out like the breasts of a peacock, and so far removed from the Imp city it may as well be a painted backdrop. It always struck me as strange how the Gems, with all their technological advancement, should choose to live in such classical-looking environments. I know the exterior of the manor is merely an illusion and inside there exists every futuristic gadget imaginable: artificial intelligence; matter-transporting drains; simulation pods; I could go on. But I could never work out why the Gems chose to modernize original Imp buildings, why they didn’t just build from scratch. Now, living as an Imp, gazing at this beautiful Georgian hall, I finally get it. They did it to piss us off. To remind us that they won – they’re the superior race. They live upstairs, we live downstairs. They stole our beautiful Georgian halls.
Bastards.
I try and cleanse my brain of such thoughts. Anger towards the Gems won’t help me lure Willow. Instead, I focus on the grass yielding underfoot as we creep across the lawns, the grip of Nate’s fingers around mine, the taste of smoke and cold on my tongue. We circle towards the back gardens, nearer and nearer to Willow’s window. I notice the light in Willow’s room remains off – third floor, fourth from the left.
We huddle beneath a large oak, the one Rose shimmied effortlessly up, bloom poking from her cleavage. I swear this tree is bigger . . . meaner.
‘So you’re going to climb that huge tree?’ Saskia says.
I begin to tuck the rose down the front of my overalls imagining how awesome I’m about to look. But instead, my lack of cleavage lets the stem wilt to one side and the thorns stick into my chest like the little bastards that they are. I am so not Hollywood. But I force a little smile, pride getting the better of me. ‘How hard can it be?’ And if I say it, I might believe it.
She shakes her head and links her hands together to form a stirrup. I place my foot in it and grip the lowest branch. The bark scrapes my fingers and the bough flexes beneath my weight, yet somehow I manage to haul my body into a sitting position. I’m no higher than the top of Saskia’s head, but I still daren’t look down; it freaks me out that I could just lean back and topple to the ground.
I honestly don’t know what I thought would happen. I knew I wouldn’t magically transform into Rose and scoot up a giant oak with ease, I knew the spirit of Katniss wouldn’t suddenly possess me, allowing me to scuttle into the treetops while shooting a bow and arrow. But I didn’t think I would be quite so devoid of upper-body strength. I take a few deep breaths and let my head fill with images of Katie and Alice and Nate. I have to do this. I have to complete the story so we can go home.
I stand carefully, hugging the trunk like a koala, my feet splayed across the bough. Another branch lies within reach on the other side of the trunk. I flail through the air and end up straddled between two branches, acutely aware of the fact only air and wood separate my body from the ground.
‘This is going to take all bloody night,’ Saskia says. I can hear the pleasure leaching into her words.
My fingers slip, scraping across the bark, and when I finally risk looking down, I get this giddy feeling. But when I look up, I see only branches and leaves and twigs – the window seems unreachable. So I finally utter the words I’d been secretly avoiding. ‘Can someone get Ash?’
‘Ash?’ Saskia says. ‘He’s not part of this, you know? He’ll start askin’ questions and if word gets out we’re, you know –’ she lowers her voice – ‘rebels, it won’t be safe. Not all Imps are trustworthy, that’s what I’m saying.’
‘Well it’s Ash or a broken arm,’ I say, hysteria rising in my voice.
I hear Nate pleading below. ‘Yeah, come on, Saskia, Ash isn’t going tell anyone. He fancies Violet way too much.’
I hear a reluctant sigh from Saskia, and I look down just long enough to see Nate dashing from view.
By the time Ash arrives, I’ve returned to the first branch and I’m back to hugging the trunk. I’m just so relieved he’s back from the city – if he’d got the later bus I’d be screwed. I glance down and see his massive grin. In the dusk, it’s pretty much all I can see.
‘You enjoying yourself up there?’ He’s unable to mask the laughter in his voice.
‘Yeah, it’s great up here . . . the views are stunning . . . lots of bark.’
I feel the tree shudder as he hauls himself on to the branch opposite. I can’t see him, but I feel the warmth of his hands as they cover mine. I suddenly feel very safe. He sticks his head around the trunk and smiles. The compassion in his face pushes away any doubts I had about requesting his help.
‘You OK?’ he asks.
I shake my head.
He smiles. ‘When you’re a beginner, you should only ever have one limb free from the tree at a time. Got it?’
I nod.
‘And always test a hold before you put your weight on it. Because if you commit to a weak branch, you’re only going one way.’
‘That’s really helpful, but I was kind of hoping . . .’
‘I’d climb it for you?’ he asks.
‘Yeah.’
‘So why exactly am I climbing this tree?’
I risk freeing a hand, and I pull the rose from my overalls. It looks more like a wilted strip of seaweed.
He takes it from me and frowns. ‘You want me to put a rose . . . where exactly?’ He looks up and must figure it out because he makes this ‘ah’ noise.
‘Third floor, fourth from the left.’
‘And why should I help you with this . . . whatever it is . . . daft idea.’
I don’t know what to say. I just stare into his face – the night robbing his eyes of any blue – and mouth the word please.
‘OK, OK, don’t use those big brown eyes on me,’ he says.
The next thing I know, his feet disappear up into the leaves like he’s being vacuumed towards the sky. Leaves and bark rain down on me, and I have to lower my head to stop my mouth and eyes filling with debris.
Several minutes later, he’s a bloom lighter and helping me back down to the ground.
Nate slaps him on the back like they’re best buddies. ‘Thanks, mate.’
Saskia just looks grumpy. ‘Well let’s just hope it works after all that.’ She stomps across the grass away from the manor, dragging Nate with her.
I turn to follow, but Ash grabs my arms and whispers into my ear, his breath like hot water. ‘You know Saskia’s got a bad reputation here? There are rumours that she and Matthew are . . . rebels.’
‘Would that be so bad?’
‘Not really, it’s just, if you’re caught up in some rebel plot, it will probably end with you dancing on the gallows. What is it with you and hanging? It’s like you want to hang.’
I daren’t tell him he’s spot on. I daren’t speak the words – they’re just too scary. Instead, I take his hand. It sits like a hot stone in my palm – all heavy and dusted with leaf fragments. ‘Thanks for helping me, Ash. You’re a real friend.’
‘I’m a bloody idiot.’ He looks kind of sad, his lashes hiding those night-bleached eyes, but he doesn’t move his hand. We stand for a moment beneath the oak canopy, all these words forming on our tongues but never leaving our lips.
A light flicks on in Willow’s room. It filters through the leaves and causes shadows to dapple our skin, pointing out how far we are from safety, a sharpening of reality. Our hands part. We sprint away from the manor, into the trees and the privets and dark. And I know that somewhere behind me, Willow has just figured out my pseudonym.