Matthew pulls the door shut behind him.
‘We’re in The Gallows Dance,’ Nate says, his voice trembling.
‘Not any more you’re not,’ Saskia says. ‘We just got you out of there.’
He shakes his head, like Saskia doesn’t quite get it. ‘No, no, we’re in the world of The Gallows Dance.’
Saskia doesn’t even acknowledge he’s spoken. ‘Hurry, before the guards follow.’
I work out why she looks different. She has a port wine stain the shape of Africa just above her left eye. Come to think of it, Rose didn’t look quite like Julia Starling, and I don’t just mean because of the blood pool and the broken limbs – her hair was curlier, her physique more childlike. It’s as though these characters have stepped directly from the author’s imagination. But I don’t have time to figure it out, not with the guards so close. I follow Saskia and Matthew down an alley, my legs struggling to keep up, my friends panting in my ear.
I know the Imp city from the book, and then again from the film – ‘atmospheric and disturbing’, as one critic said. London, centuries in the future, bombed to its foundations and robbed of all colour and grace. The camera showed a sweeping panorama of the collapsed roof tops, the toppled lamp posts, mist snaking around rubbish heaps like smoke. And Nate and I shouted out when we saw the dilapidated landmarks: the remnants of Tower Bridge; the fallen London Eye, rusted and cracked like a giant hamster wheel; half of Big Ben, the clock face long gone. I recall watching it on my squishy sofa, cushion hugged to my chest, and thinking: God, future London really sucks, I’m glad I don’t live in future London. But as I follow the two Imps through a maze of alleyways, my feet burning, it’s the stench which hits me above all.
It reminds me of the time Nate and I found an injured thrush. Rolling eyes, broken wing, crumpled feathers, blood smudged across the kitchen window where it had smashed into the pane. Nate was only four and he just wouldn’t stop crying. So I scooped it up and laid it in an old shoebox, placed cotton wool under its head, a handkerchief over its body, and a strip of berries at its feet for when it woke hungry. We punched holes in the lid with a pencil and hid it in my wardrobe so Mum wouldn’t find it. Of course, we forgot about it. A week or so later, I noticed this smell coming from my wardrobe, a strange smell like pickle and burnt toast. Only when I removed the lid did the full stench hit me.
Rotting bird. Just like the city.
‘Keep up,’ Saskia shouts over her shoulder. ‘Unless you want them bastard soldiers to catch you.’
We tear around the corner into a maze of alleyways, and eventually we enter a narrow lane. A line of washing hangs above us and quivers like neglected bunting in the wind. I briefly wonder why anyone would bother washing clothes just to hang them in such foul air. Saskia pauses to catch her breath, and we all stop. I put my hands on my knees, a stitch gathering in my side.
Out of nowhere, Saskia spins around and slams Katie into the wall. I hear her spine crack against the brickwork, followed by a sharp expulsion of breath.
‘What the hell were you playing at, you little bitch?’ Saskia spits the words into Katie’s face.
I move to try and pull Saskia away, but Matthew steps between us. ‘She got Rose killed,’ he says, holding out his hands and turning them like he’s seeing her blood for the first time, already transformed from vivid scarlet to a layer of brown flakes.
I look from Matthew to Saskia. They both look wrecked, damaged, but in a different way; Matthew looks like he may buckle with grief, and I can almost see the cracks of rage forming across Saskia’s skin. In canon, they had this long backstory with Rose, having met her a few months prior to the thistle-bomb mission. Thorn had asked them to find a beautiful Imp girl, capable of infiltrating the Harper estate, capable of seducing a beautiful Gem boy. When Saskia and Matthew pulled Rose from a street fight, they immediately recognized her irresistible mix of fragility and courage, and she became the obvious choice for the Harper mission. And they really took her under their wing, training her night and day. They grew to think of her as a friend, a daughter, as much as a fellow rebel. It’s not surprising her death has hit them hard.
A great tear rolls down Matthew’s face and hangs from his chin. He pulls his hands in to his chest like he holds her ghost to his body.
‘For God’s sake, Matthew, stop crying, will you?’ Saskia throws the words over her shoulder without loosening her grip on Katie. ‘Rose wouldn’t want us to fall apart. She would want us to figure out who the hell these Imps are.’
Alice looks at me, her eyes wide as if to say, Now what?
‘I’m so sorry,’ Katie says. ‘I don’t know what happened, really I don’t. I thought she was Julia . . .’
‘That wasn’t Julia,’ I say. ‘That was Rose. The Rose.’
She’s never seen the film – no wonder she’s so confused.
‘Julia? Who the hell is Julia?’ Saskia shoves Katie into the wall again.
‘Get off me.’ Katie bucks and rears, but she’s no match for Saskia.
‘What she means is, she looked like a friend of ours,’ I say. ‘Katie was just trying to warn her.’
‘Warn her!’ Saskia shouts. ‘She didn’t need warning. She would have been fine if it weren’t for you. And all of them condemned Imps, we could have saved ’em. We were meant to save ’em.’ Her voice wavers. ‘They all hanged cos of you.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Alice says, her face struggling to hide the lie.
Saskia looks at Alice as if seeing her for the first time. She releases Katie and sidles over to her, lifting a piece of her golden hair. Slowly, she turns it in her fingers. ‘You look like one of them.’ She says the word them like it tastes bad.
Alice stands, statue-like and rigid. Only her nostrils move, flaring slightly as she takes a trembling breath.
‘I said . . . you look like one of them.’ Saskia yanks the lock of hair and I hear it tear from Alice’s scalp.
Alice yelps, her hand flying to the sight of pain. ‘One of who?’ she says, her voice indignant, pretending like she doesn’t know. But she just looks foolish, leaning against the crumbling wall in her minidress like a model in an urban photoshoot. We watch the strands of golden hair drift through the air and settle on the paving slabs.
‘Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you. Right now.’ Saskia taps her belt, and for the first time, I notice the rusted handle of a knife protruding from beneath the leather. ‘Just stick you in the belly and watch the Gem blood drain out of you.’
Alice turns this chalky, white colour.
I try to speak, try to intervene, but my mouth feels like it’s gummed up and my legs won’t move.
‘I think there’s been enough blood today.’ Matthew lays a hand on Saskia’s arm.
She flinches as though unused to touch. ‘Gem blood don’t count.’
‘I’m not a Gem,’ Alice says.
‘Oh yeah?’ Saskia grabs Alice’s silver bag and empties the contents on the floor. A lip gloss, a stick of gum, a Radley purse, a compact with a picture of a dragonfly on the back, and an iPhone. Saskia scoops up the phone and turns it in her fingers. The screen illuminates as she catches it with her thumb. ‘What the hell is this, then? You think Imps have shit like this?’
‘It’s just a phone.’ Alice raises her hand like she may try to grab it, but changes her mind at the last minute.
Saskia frowns. ‘Any more shit like this? Or do I need to strip search the lot of you?’
Reluctantly, we dig into our pockets and hand over our possessions. Wallets, phones, lip balms. I didn’t think I could feel any more vulnerable, but without my phone, my emergency taxi money and my family photograph, I feel completely naked. I think we all do, our arms folding across our chests, protecting our organs – our hearts.
But Saskia doesn’t seem to care. She rams them into Alice’s bag, the stitches pulled tight at the seams. ‘This looks like Gem stuff to me.’
‘I’m not a Gem,’ Alice repeats.
‘She’s not,’ Nate says. He uses his I’ve just had an idea voice, and it comes out strong. His arms unfold and his chest seems to rise.
Saskia turns to him, raising her knife so quickly that I barely register the movement. ‘Shut it, young ’un.’
Nate watches the blade, but his voice stays strong. ‘She’s a spy, for the Imps. We use her cos she looks like a Gem.’
I can’t help feeling a little put out. I’m the older sibling, I should have the ideas and the strong voice. Alice was right, I am lacking in the imagination department.
Saskia starts to laugh. ‘Bollocks!’
Matthew looks at Nate, his eyes large with sympathy. ‘There ain’t no spies we don’t know about.’
‘That’s not true,’ Nate says. ‘Ask Thorn.’
Saskia’s brow furrows. ‘Here, how do you know about Thorn?’
Nate doesn’t even pause. ‘I work for him. We all do.’
‘Nate,’ I hiss. But Katie silences me with a look which says, Trust him.
‘Why else would she run after us?’ he says. ‘She ain’t stupid you know, she knew running into the city were suicide, but she had to get back to Rebel Headquarters.’
I notice with a pang of pride that Nate has flattened his vowels to sound more Imp-like. And I’m ashamed to admit I never thought of using my knowledge of the canon to our advantage. We know many rebel secrets – we’ve watched them and read them and discussed them in detail for the past two years. I have to remind myself he’s only fourteen sometimes.
‘Yeah?’ Saskia looks unnerved now, her purple birthmark crinkling around the corners. ‘So where’s Rebel Headquarters then, smartarse?’
‘Don’t tell them.’ Katie cuts in, clearly enjoying the shift in power. ‘They may not be rebels, they may just be trying to find out.’
Saskia and Matthew throw their heads back and laugh, revealing their grimy throats and the brown of their molars. It’s the first time I’ve seen them smile, and it’s like only their mouths remember how.
‘Oh, now you’re just taking the mick,’ Matthew says, the smile gone as quick as it came.
I look at Alice, her fists clenched and trembling slightly. I take a deep breath. ‘I’ll tell you if you leave us alone. Deal?’
Saskia moves towards me, slow and almost seductive. ‘Go on.’
‘The headquarters are in the bombed-out church.’
Saskia’s features draw together. ‘OK.’ Her voice changes, suddenly guarded, like she’s scared of giving anything away. But she knows I’m right.
‘Saskia?’ Matthew says.
‘Shut up. I’m thinking.’ She pushes her fingers into her eyes like she can reach into her brain and arrange her thoughts. ‘OK, but that don’t mean your Gem friend ’ere is a spy. What can you tell us, princess?’
Alice looks nervous, her voice pinched. ‘It’s by the broken bridge. Down by the River Thames.’ She cringes as she realizes her mistake; they don’t call it that any more.
‘The river what?’ Saskia says.
‘The river, down by the river,’ Alice garbles.
Saskia raises her eyebrows. ‘OK, you know too much. We’re going to see Thorn. Then he can stick you all in the belly.’ Her fingers play with the fabric resting just above her collarbone. I remember this backstory – Thorn slashed her a few years ago when she bodged a mission. And it’s as though she’s remembering too, tracing the ridges of the scar through her overalls. She laughs, unexpectedly. ‘We was meant to be introducing him to Rose today, the newest member of our rebel family. But he gets to meet you instead. Lucky bastard.’
‘But you said you’d let us go,’ I say.
‘Never trust an Imp.’ Saskia smiles again, and this time it extends to the rest of her face. Her sapphire eyes flash.
Nate knocks me with his hand, low down so nobody sees. ‘It’s OK, Violet. We need to see him anyway. We can all go together.’
I don’t know why Nate wants to see Thorn. He would string us up in a second if he thought he couldn’t trust us. Maybe we can dupe Saskia and Matthew, but there’ll be no duping Thorn.
Matthew takes a sharp breath over his teeth, like he’s testing the air. ‘What we gonna do about . . . that?’ He gestures to Alice. I can’t tell if the cold or the anxiety makes her shiver.
‘He’s right,’ Saskia says. ‘Two minutes on the main street and the Gem lookalike will get lynched for sure. And you’ll be no good to Thorn if you’re dead.’
Alice’s tremor becomes more apparent. I want to wrap my arms around her, but I’m afraid I’ll make her look weak.
Saskia wriggles her arms into her overalls and somehow unzips the front from the inside. It drops to the floor and wrinkles around her feet like she’s a python shedding an extra skin. Beneath it, she wears grey hessian trousers and a cream shirt, stained with brown. I hadn’t realized how thin she is under all that material; the sharpness of her shoulders and hips jut from beneath the cloth. I can’t help wondering when she last ate.
She uses the toe of her boot to flick the overalls across the floor to Alice. ‘’Ere, put these on, try and blend in a bit.’ She turns away and mumbles into the cold, ‘And you look like you’re freezing your tits off.’
I supress a little smile, it’s the first glimpse of kindness I’ve seen in her since we arrived. She was much nicer to Rose.
Katie and I help Alice into the overalls, and I notice her feet remain shoeless and slightly bloodied from the mad dash through the city.
‘Christ, Alice, your feet,’ I say.
‘Oh yeah, I hadn’t noticed.’ Her voice sounds a little numb, and she pokes at a sole like it belongs to someone else, a mannequin perhaps. The overalls are far too small for her, and the material pulls around her crotch as she tries to inch her shoulders in. ‘I think I’m too tall.’
Saskia kneels in front of her and rips the fabric between her legs. Alice looks slightly horrified at the indignity of the situation, but she keeps quiet and manages to wriggle her shoulders in. The fabric yawns a little between her legs, revealing a flash of electric blue.
Nate laughs. ‘You look like a giant baby, you know, with the opening so you can get to the nappy?’
Alice looks like she’s going to cry.
‘Shut it,’ Saskia snaps at Nate. ‘Or I’ll plonk you over my knee and smack your arse, then we’ll see who looks like the baby.’
Matthew nudges Saskia. ‘And what’s this all about?’ He gestures to Katie, who is still wearing her helix outfit.
They start to laugh again.
Katie wrinkles her nose. ‘It’s a long story.’
‘And you talk funny. Which city you from?’ Matthew asks.
Her eyes flick to mine, slightly panicked.
‘Liverpool,’ I say. I’m sure Liverpool is one of the Imp cities still standing in canon. I look to Nate, who nods a confirmation.
‘Figures.’ Matthew yanks on the tights twisted into the sort-of helix.
‘Hey,’ she says – a token objection at best. The safety pins buckle and give way, and the tights flop to the ground. She looks less conspicuous all in black.
Matthew grunts from the movement and lets his shoulder slump forwards. Blood drips from his fingers and spots the floor. He grimaces, clasping his hand to his shoulder. His shirt sleeve is sodden with blood, fresh blood – one of those bullets must have nicked him. He never even winced. ‘At least she’s clearly an Imp.’ His words slur a little from the pain.
‘We gotta get that shoulder looked at,’ Saskia says.
‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘Let’s just get to headquarters, they’ll look at it there.’
‘Nah, you’ll pass out before we get there. And you’re too heavy to carry. We can get it sorted on the way. Come on, I know who can fix it up.’ Saskia turns to us, her face dark. ‘You follow us, got it? You make a run for it and I’ll squeal that princess here is a Gem, top of me lungs, then let’s see how well you last.’
We all nod.
‘And try to blend in.’ Matthew shakes his head in despair. ‘Worst bloody spies I’ve ever seen.’
‘Spies my arse,’ Saskia grumbles.
We begin to walk down an old arterial road, completely pedestrianized simply due to the lack of vehicles. I recognize the large expanse of tarmac stretching before us from the film.
‘This place is truly grim,’ Katie whispers.
I nod. Skeletal beams peak through the carcasses of buildings. Polythene or rags are stretched across door frames, and dark stains left by abandoned fires mark the middle of the streets. But the lack of green strikes me above all, more so than in the film. Trees are emaciated and pale, and grass sits in faded, yellow clumps. I see no flowers, no colour. Just a world of grey.
‘Why’s it so quiet?’ Nate whispers.
He’s right. It’s eerily silent. In the film there was this hustle and bustle, malnourished Imps exchanging greetings and insults. I look around and see that all the Imps stand still, glowering at us. More specifically, at Alice.
‘Tuck your hair in your overalls,’ I whisper to her.
She does it quickly and without argument, her eyes locked on her bare feet as they slap the tarmac, like she can’t bring herself to look up and acknowledge the danger. Nate, Katie and I walk around her, surrounding her so the Imps have to see through us to get a proper look. Gradually, the noise picks up and the Imps lose interest. We watch Saskia and Matthew walking in front of us.
‘What’s going on?’ Katie says. ‘Where the hell are we?’
‘We’re in The Gallows Dance,’ I say.
‘Well I kind of figured that out, eventually. What I mean is, how are we in a film or a book or whatever the hell it is?’
Nate snorts. ‘There must have been some sort of temporal shift in reality when the set collapsed at Comic-Con. We’ve entered an alternate universe, the Gallows Dance universe.’
‘In English?’ Katie replies.
‘I don’t chuffing know, do I?’ Nate replies. He laughs a little manically.
I rest a hand on his arm. ‘I think you’re right. It’s some sort of alternate universe – if we were in the film things wouldn’t look so different.’ I realize just how ridiculous it sounds saying it out loud, yet here we are, surrounded by Imps and broken-down buildings, breathing in eau de rotting bird.
‘I think I’m dreaming,’ Alice mumbles to her feet. ‘It’s just a bad dream, and when I wake up I’ll be in bed in my pyjamas.’
‘You’re so self-obsessed,’ Nate says. ‘This could be my dream. It’s not all about you.’
‘This isn’t helping,’ I say. ‘Let’s just keep quiet and try not to get killed.’
‘I don’t think it’s a dream,’ Katie says, her voice a little hollow.
Alice sighs. ‘Me neither. My feet hurt too much for it to be a dream.’
‘How’s Thorn going to help?’ I ask Nate. ‘I know he’s your hero, but in case you’ve forgotten, he’s kind of a psycho.’
He smiles. ‘Thorn isn’t going to help.’
‘Stop talking in bloody riddles,’ Alice says.
Katie nods. ‘Yeah, seriously, if you’ve got a plan you need to tell us.’
‘Not Thorn,’ Nate says. ‘Baba. She’ll tell us how to get home.’
‘Nate! That’s brilliant,’ I say.
‘Er, I’m almost afraid to ask,’ Katie says, ‘but who’s Baba?’
Nate glances at Saskia and Matthew to make sure they aren’t listening, but they’re too engrossed in their own conversation. They’re unaware of Baba’s existence – I know this from canon – and I guess Nate wants to keep it that way. Baba’s precognitive powers are Thorn’s greatest weapon in the fight against the Gems – the fewer people who know about her the better. And Thorn would be beyond pissed off if Nate spilled the beans.
Nate turns to Katie, his voice dipped but his face animated. ‘She’s a total gross-out. She looks like a granny-turned-zombie with all this long grey hair, and her skin covers up her eyes and nostrils, and she has a slit for a mouth and no teeth, and she’s all hunched over like this . . .’ He stoops and screws up his face in an attempt to look like Baba.
‘Yes, but who is she?’ Katie whispers, a little impatient.
I can’t help butting in. I love Baba, she’s one of my favourite characters; she looks terrifying, but she’s always so enigmatic. ‘She was one of the first ever Gems to exist, and the only Gem to survive the first wave of experiments, back when humans were refining the art of genetic enhancement. They over-enhanced her empathy and her immortality, so she can read minds and see the future and she’s survived for centuries. She remembers the world before all the city walls were built and the Gems dropped their bombs.’
Nate grins. ‘She does this really cool thing called a mind blend, where she places her hands on your head and sucks your thoughts from your brain, like a slushy.’
‘And this psychic zombie is at Rebel Headquarters?’ Katie asks.
I nod. ‘Thorn keeps her hidden in an underground chamber.’
‘But she’s a Gem,’ Katie says. ‘Is she a prisoner or something?’
Alice scoffs. ‘Keep up. She’s on team Imp. They created her, they looked after her – she hates the Gems.’
‘And this zombie will tell us how to get home?’ Katie asks.
‘That’s the plan,’ Nate says.
‘She’s our best shot?’ Katie says. ‘Our best shot at going home? A really, really old woman called Baby?’
I glance at Nate and Alice, who both offer stilted nods and mutter, ‘It’s Baba.’
Katie laughs – a sad titter. ‘We are so screwed.’