We pause for a moment, round the back of some terraced houses, gulping the air and wiping the sweat from our eyes.
‘She went that way.’
The boot must have damaged my ear because the words kind of slosh together, but I recognize the controller’s nasal tone all the same. We start to run, ducking beneath washing lines, jumping over mounds of rubbish. Alice’s long legs carry her further ahead, and for a moment I think she may leave us behind.
‘Alice,’ I manage to say.
She slows and we reach her side.
‘We can’t get too far from Nate,’ I say.
‘We won’t, don’t worry, Vi,’ Katie says. ‘We’ll go back for him in a sec.’
I hear the controller’s voice again. ‘Come on, lads, let’s flush ’em out.’ He’s louder, closer.
I frantically scan the alleyway for a hiding place. That’s when I see it – the bricked-up doorway from canon, the one Rose, Saskia and Matthew hid in, a mess of crumbling bricks and pitted mortar. I catch Alice’s eye and we share an unspoken moment of understanding. We begin to pull away the bricks, disturbing a nest of woodlice. Katie drops to her knees and begins to help.
‘They came down here,’ someone shouts.
I hear Alice gasp, but we don’t stop, panic driving us on.
Terry’s voice sails over the rising stamp of boots. ‘Come on, you useless bunch of cretins.’
We cram our bodies into the hole, pulling back the bricks with frantic, urgent movements.
I hold my breath and pull my knees towards my body with trembling, sticky hands. The ground vibrates as the Imps pass. The air stirs against my cheek, and I watch my hands turn pink to black to pink as their shadows block out the light. Only when my hands stay pink for a while do I start to breathe again.
‘They’ve gone,’ Alice whispers. ‘Just like in canon.’
‘What do you mean?’ Katie asks.
‘Rose, Saskia and Matthew hid in this very doorway to avoid the same lynch mob,’ I say.
‘That’s weird,’ Katie says.
I nod. ‘You’re right. It’s like the original plot seems to be . . .’ I pause, searching for the right words, ‘haunting us.’
Alice lets her head slump back against the wall. ‘How the hell did we end up in this place?’ In the shadow of the bricked-up doorway, I can just make out the tears glistening on her cheeks.
‘It’s insane.’ I shift my weight so our knees knock together.
‘I want to go home,’ Alice says.
‘Me too,’ Katie says.
I wish we could just stay in this doorway for ever, huddled and warm and safe.
Alice wipes her nose with the back of her hand, something I’ve never seen her do. ‘It’s funny, you know,’ she says. ‘I used to wish and wish I could be inside The Gallows Dance . . . but now we’re actually here and –’ her voice breaks from the weight of the emotion – ‘it really sucks.’ She makes this soft, rhythmic noise, halfway between a laugh and a sob.
‘At least you’ve read the book and seen the film,’ Katie says. ‘Why couldn’t we be in Narnia or Neverland or . . . or . . . or A Midsummer Night’s Dream? At least then I’d know what was going on.’
I don’t reply. I focus instead on the pain – my head, my ear, my back. It kind of distracts me. We listen to something drip nearby, a distant sound of chatter, the mew of a cat.
‘We need to find Nate,’ I finally say. I know we probably lured every angry Imp away from the tavern, but all the same, I won’t feel happy until I’ve seen him alive and well.
Alice nods. ‘Give it a second longer though, yeah? Make sure those bastards have definitely gone. I think Rose waited for an hour or so.’
I shake my head. ‘He’s only fourteen . . .’
Katie squeezes my leg. ‘But he’s super smart, he can think his way out of anything.’
We share a sad smile and begin to push the bricks away. We emerge from the doorway, stubbing our toes on the rubble, upsetting the brick dust. It catches in my throat and I stifle a cough.
Maybe we didn’t wait long enough, maybe it was the cough, but somebody spots us.
‘There they are,’ an Imp shouts. ‘I told you they came this way.’
My stomach flips. But we don’t pause, we don’t even turn to look, we just start running again. We skid around the corner to see more Imps; an angry, ugly wall. They close in on us, pinning us in, rounding us up, and I spin faster and faster as I realize walls surround us, of both flesh and brick. I grab Alice and Katie by the hands and balance my weight on my toes, ready to move at any opportunity.
The freckly controller smiles – long and slow – like he knows how scared we must be. ‘Well, look what we have here.’
I don’t respond, too scared to speak. Beneath my tunic, my skin bristles.
‘A Gem and her friends – two Imp traitors.’
I open my mouth, but only a whimper escapes.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Katie shouts, ‘she’s not a Gem.’
The controller ignores her. ‘You know what we do to Gems and traitors?’
Another Imp cries from the back of the group, ‘String ’em up.’
In the film and the book, the Imps are the goodies, the ones you root for, so it’s strange to be at the receiving end of their hatred. I wish I could explain this to them, sit them all down and show them the film, their film, make them see that this isn’t real. None of this is real.
And suddenly I don’t feel the heat in my ear or the pain in my back, I don’t think about my friends’ hands, slicked with sweat and cold in my own. I just feel my whole body melt on the spot. My legs cave, my lungs stop gasping, and my heart stops squeezing. I hit the ground like a dead weight.
‘She’s beaten us to it.’
‘Can you hang a traitor if they’re already dead?’
‘You can never kill a traitor too many times.’
I hear Alice’s voice, like she’s talking through cloth. ‘Violet, wake up, Violet.’
Colours dissipate, shapes fragment, sounds ebb to nothing.
I sail towards the clouds, toes pointed, legs stretched. I reach the peak of an invisible arc and glance down – the trampoline oscillates like a magenta sheet pulled between the trees. Mum laughs and Nate claps his hands. Jump, Violet, jump. We won’t let you fall. And then I hear a voice, muffled, like it’s moving through water. It belongs to Dad. That’s it, Violet, come on, baby girl. Wake up, wake up. My eyelids flicker, the effort of opening them feels like lifting a massive weight. And I can smell something clean, a lack of rotten bird, something crisp and medicinal. But the trees dissolve, the rotten bird returns, and Dad’s voice turns to a scream. Alice’s scream.
The grogginess lifts, and I realize I’m sailing towards the clouds not because of a trampoline, but because of the hands which have seized my limbs, heaving me upright. The earth vanishes, and I momentarily hang in the air like a doll. Then, my heels smack the ground and bounce off the cobbles as the Imps drag me down an alley. The strip of sky above opens into an expanse of washed-out blue. I’m back on a main street again.
I turn my head and catch a glimpse of Alice, hoisted high above the heads of several Imps, her face twisted with fear. I hear shouts and jeers. Judging from the increase in volume, quite a crowd is gathering. Hands grab at my skin. We’ve caught us a Gem. We’ve caught us a traitor. String ’em up. Make ’em pay. They flip me on to my stomach and I lose sight of her.
‘Alice!’ I scream to the cobbles.
The Imps ignore me and lug me towards a barrel. Alice has already been dumped on one; she stands tall, her chin stretched high, probably because she’s afraid of falling, but I can’t help thinking how she looks like the tiny fairy from my music box. I half expect her to start spinning. And then I realize, with a bolt of horror, that she stands so tall because of the noose around her neck.
Before I can shout or scream or cry, I feel a rope slip over my own head and tighten beneath my chin. I try to lift my hands – to pull, to claw, to break free – but at some point the Imps must have bound my wrists together. This sends another shot of panic through me, as though the use of my hands could somehow save me.
The Imps plant my feet on to a barrel next to Alice and pivot me into an upright position. The other end of the rope whistles passed my ear like a bullet, arcing over a battered streetlamp and whacking the ground. Then it’s Katie’s turn. I watch them jostle her on to another barrel, her rope sailing after mine. I look down on the hateful faces and lock my legs, trying desperately to stand – I know that slumping will be the death of me. But the rope tightens against my throat, cutting off my air supply, and can only get tighter. I close my eyes and wonder if the noose will prevent the vomit rising any further. I wish my hands weren’t bound, just so I could hold my friends’ hands once last time.
An Imp with a hooked nose steps forward and raises his voice. ‘Silence, fellow Gems, this is your president talking.’
The crowd laughs and claps.
The president slices his hands through the air. The crowd falls silent.
‘Welcome to the Gallows Dance.’ He purposefully rounds his vowels, inflating his chest like a cockerel ready to crow. ‘We are here to witness the hanging of these . . . Imps.’
‘What are their crimes?’ someone shouts.
He looks to the sky as though communicating with a higher power. ‘Their crimes are scraping an existence, feeding their families, contending with your disgust, your persecution, your sexual advances.’
The crowd makes leering noises. One Imp lunges forward and tugs at my tunic. The barrel wobbles and I feel my body lurch against the rope.
The president laughs. ‘Their crime is poverty.’
I try to breathe, but the air is thin. My legs weaken with every passing second.
‘Their crime is disease.’
It’s strange what goes through your mind when you’re about to die. But my final thought goes something like this: What a shame to come all this way and not meet Willow.
‘Their crime is starvation.’ The president sweeps his hands in a giant circle. ‘Their crime is . . . holding up a mirror to the ugliness within.’
The crowd bursts into life, laughing and braying.
The president raises his hands in surrender. ‘But wait. These are no Imps. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing.’ He points an accusatory finger at Alice. ‘This one is a stinking Gem.’ He turns his attention to me and Katie. ‘And these two . . . God knows what they are. Imp by birth, but Gem by allegiance. Traitors through and through.’
‘She’s not a Gem,’ Katie rasps. ‘She got a C in her maths GCSE and she had a cold last week.’
‘Shut it, traitor,’ the president says.
I stare into his eyes, searching for a morsel of compassion. The compassion which shines from the eyes of the Imps in the film. But I see only loathing.
He sneers. ‘So what should we do with our stinking Gem and her stinking sidekicks?’
A chant begins, soft at first, but gathering strength with every word. Make ’em dance. Make ’em dance. Make ’em dance.
The president bows and the chanting stops. This is it. We’re about to die. The Imps remove their hands from my body and I teeter on the edge of the barrel. Somehow, I manage to squeeze some words past the rope. ‘We just want to go home.’
The controller laughs. ‘Tell someone who cares.’ He looks at the barrel and pulls back his boot.
‘STOP!’ This voice doesn’t travel through water. It’s strong and clear and hangs in the air like thistledown.
I squint into the crowd and see an Imp pushing his way to the front, his strong face set with determination. A shock of black hair spills on to his porcelain skin, and even from afar, blurred by movement, I can tell he owns the palest blue eyes I’ve ever seen.
‘For God’s sake.’ He strides right up to us, his strong nose raised high. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? I know these girls, they’re Imps. All of ’em. You’re about to hang three Imps.’
The freckly controller runs an anxious hand across his brow. ‘The little ones are, but the tall one, she’s Gem for sure.’
‘She’s definitely Imp, I grew up across the street from her. She’s always been bloody gorgeous. I keep telling her, you need to break your nose or summit, or one day you’re gonna end up flipping on a barrel like a fish.’
There’s this awkward pause. A tense silence from the crowd.
Terry moves first, slapping the black-haired Imp on the back. ‘It’s OK. I know this kid – he’s all right, I tell you. He’s Ma’s boy, and if he says she’s an Imp, she’s an Imp.’
‘So where’s her tattoo, and why was she hiding a dress under her overalls?’ The freckly controller asks, his voice laced with disappointment.
Alice manages to croak a few key words. ‘I’m working for the rebels.’
‘Of course,’ the black-haired Imp says, catching on quickly. ‘She’s pretending to be a Gem so she can get us some secrets.’ His eyes flash an amazing pastel-blue. ‘She deserves a bleeding medal, risking her life to save you idiots, and what do you do? String her up like she’s a monster.’
The crowd begins to murmur, exchanging confused, sideways glances. The president circles his hands again, keen to watch the finale to his show. ‘Since when did innocence matter?’
But several hands have already sliced the ropes and helped us from the barrels. The black-haired Imp pushes his body under my arm and supports my weight, looping his spare arm around Alice’s waist. Katie’s fared better and manages to walk behind us, her hand resting on my shoulder like she’s lost her sight.
I can’t help notice how strong the black-haired Imp is, in spite of the knots of bone which push through his shirt and into my flesh. I can barely walk, yet he sweeps us along with ease. We begin to weave our way between the baffled spectators.
‘Just keep moving,’ he says.
Alice groans in response.
‘Nate. I need to go back.’ My words merge together, but the boy seems to understand.
He hoists me a little higher and shakes his head. ‘Do you have a death wish? Just keep moving before they change their mind.’
‘We’ll find him, Vi,’ Katie whispers from behind.
‘Who are you?’ I ask the black-haired Imp.
‘Your hero by the looks of it,’ he replies.