Hope starts as a little flower.
This line really gets under my skin. I follow Darren through the stone corridors and up some stairs, but I still can’t shake that line from my mind.
Hope starts as a little flower.
It seems to be about . . . me. Could I be the little flower? The little flower who left spring back home, missed summer, and arrived here in autumn. The little flower who’s supposed to bring hope? It can’t be about Rose. After all, roses are large if anything. And I remember Baba’s words when I first met her: That’s the thing about the viola flower, it’s little, but it’s rather special.
This rhyme wasn’t in canon, which makes sense if it’s about me – I wasn’t in canon. But it sounds more like a prophecy than a children’s rhyme, like I was always destined to save the Imps, which makes no sense. I understand how my clumsy butterfly wings can affect the present, the future, but this rhyme existed long before Ash’s birth. Surely I can’t change the past and create a prophecy? And more importantly, if it is a prophecy, it’s an unbelievably crap one. I’ve screwed up big style – there’s no way I’ll be inciting a revolution anytime soon.
It’s just a rhyme, I tell myself. A dumb kids’ rhyme. At the moment, my very own personal prophecy is more likely to be Humpty-bloody-Dumpty.
I’ve been so buried in my thoughts, I barely notice that we’ve climbed the stairs and reached the wooden door which leads to the ochre room – to Katie. A sense of calm spreads through me, just thinking about her soft Scouse accent.
Darren unlocks the door. ‘The boss said you get one last reward.’
I push through into that musty, dank smell. The door slams behind me.
Katie lounges on a tatty grey sofa, pushed up against the back wall. Her delicate features spring into a smile. ‘Violet!’ She throws her arms around me.
I hug her back.
‘I can’t believe it’s you,’ she says. ‘It’s just a massive pile of pants here.’
It can’t be much fun for her, still stuck in this poky room, but at least there’s some daylight now, the window cleared of grime just like she said in her letter. I visualize Katie and Thorn, working side by side, and can’t help feeling a little curious about their conversations.
She no longer wears her catsuit, but a blue linen dress and a brown woollen cardigan. And judging from her slightly floral smell, Thorn’s been allowing her to bathe frequently. She looks even more Jane Austen than Sally King right now – her cheeks all rosy like she’s just come in from a stroll across the hills.
I hold her at arm’s length. ‘I’ve been so worried about you.’
‘You’ve been worried. I’m not the one who’s been gallivanting around this horrible place for days. I’m just so glad you’re back.’
‘Not for long.’
Her face falls.
I give her a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m still trying to sort it all out.’
She slumps on to the sofa, clouds of dust billowing around her. ‘So how’s it all going?’
I sit by her side, unable to look her in the eye. ‘I messed up, Katie, big style. Alice ended up sleeping with Willow, so he never followed me into the city like he was supposed to. The canon’s way off-track and I don’t know what to do.’
Her body stiffens. ‘Alice did what?’
‘Don’t make me say it again.’
She slams her fists into the cushions, sending more dust eddying into the air. ‘That filthy little slagbag. I thought she looked a little too happy waltzing off to Gem-land, you know, considering you’re going to hang . . . Sorry, I know you hate the H word.’
‘That’s the thing. I hate it, but I hate the thought of staying here more.’
I can’t quite pinpoint the emotion which crosses her face. Sorrow, anger, denial. ‘It’s not over yet, Vi,’ she says. ‘There’s still one day left.’
‘One day . . . and Willow loves Alice, not me. It doesn’t look good for Team Violet right now.’
‘Love?’ She narrows her eyes and tightens her mouth. ‘More like lust. You know what Alice is like, dirty little slutmuppet – she probably jumped the poor lad and flashed her knockers. He’ll soon realize what a skankosaurus she is and want you.’
‘By tomorrow?’
She sighs. ‘So what happens if you don’t hang? Do we really just stay here?’
‘I guess.’
Her hand finds mine. We stare into space, just watching the dust move back and forth, following the tide-like pattern of our breath.
‘Thanks for the letter,’ I finally say.
She grins. ‘Yeah, I had to be careful what I said because I knew Thorn would read it, but I knew you’d understand.’
‘So how’s it been?’ We’re both talking about the whole flirting with Thorn thing.
She smiles. ‘OK. He’s been kind of nice. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about Ruth. He’s still in love with her, even though it’s nearly twenty years since she hanged.’
‘Twenty years? I didn’t know it happened that long ago.’ The canon never specified, but it doesn’t surprise me; this universe has a habit of embellishing the backstory.
‘Yeah, he looks good for his age, doesn’t he? He must be pushing forty. I guess that’s the Gems for you.’
‘You haven’t forgotten he’s an evil spermpiper, have you, Katie?’
She laughs. ‘God no. I could never forget how mean he was when we first got here. But I’ve been bored, you know, and lonely. It’s been nice having someone to talk to. And I do feel kind of sorry for him . . . The way he looks at me sometimes.’
I study her face. ‘It’s creepy, you know that, yeah? He’s nearly forty and he’s sleazing on a seventeen-year-old.’
‘I guess. It never feels sleazy though, it feels, I don’t know, protective. And he’s never done anything, he’s been the perfect gentleman.’
‘Just be careful though.’ I sling my arm around her neck and pull her copper head on to my shoulder. ‘You’re playing with fire.’
‘Is Nate OK?’ she suddenly asks, changing the subject.
‘Yeah, he’s just Nate, you know.’
Her face relaxes and I notice how pretty she looks compared to the Gems. The slight irregularity of her eyebrows, the smattering of freckles across her nose, the interesting way her lips pull slightly to the left when she smiles.
‘So what happens next?’ she asks.
‘I really don’t know. If everything had gone according to plan, Willow would be here with me now. We’d be planning our escape from the rebels, tonight. Remember? They were meant to raid that brothel.’
She nods. ‘And if he was here, if you did escape, you’d get caught by the Gem authorities, yeah?’
I nod. ‘Yeah. Willow and Rose made it as far as the river. They were trying to reach the safety of No-man’s-land, but that’s hardly going to happen now – Willow’s probably banging Alice as we speak.’
Katie looks deep in thought. I notice her fingers tapping the fabric of the couch like she’s practising a cello piece. ‘What if you got caught? Without Willow, I mean. What if you still end up hanging at the Gallows Dance tomorrow?’
‘It wouldn’t work. Not without Willow announcing his love for me. That’s what captured the Gems’ sympathies and caused the revolution.’ Take up your guns, your stones and sticks, I think. But I force my attention back to Katie. ‘Without Willow, the story can’t complete. And I’ll . . .’
‘. . . just die on the gallows.’ She finishes the sentence so I don’t have to. We hold each other’s gaze, and I wonder if she’s wishing she never met me, never came to Comic-Con. But instead she says, ‘Well, we can’t have that. If I’m going to live in this shit-tip for the rest of my life, I at least need my favourite person here.’
I smile. ‘Thanks, Katie.’
‘Just try and stay alive. You and Nate, yeah.’
‘Yeah. You too.’
Thorn enters the room. He looks at Katie and smiles, an unfamiliar softness to his face, but when he looks at me, the hardness returns. ‘Time to go, Little Flower.’
I wish he’d stop calling me that. It just reminds me of that rhyme and how far away hope seems right now. ‘Just another minute?’ My voice sounds fragile. I want to tell Katie about Ash, about the Dupes, about the skipping rhyme, about Nate nearly getting his hands chopped off. I want to lighten some of my load. But Thorn shakes his head.
‘Can I come too?’ Katie asks.
‘No. I’m sorry, Katherine, but I need you here. You’re my insurance policy.’
And I can’t help wondering if Thorn keeps Katie locked away in this tower Rapunzel-style not for insurance, but because he wants her all for himself.