We wait for about half an hour until the bus is full with Imps. The engine starts and we roll through huge metal gates into the Pastures. The world of the Gems.
It’s like entering Disneyland – that sudden injection of colour. I swear the sun shines brighter and the birds sing louder on the Gem side of the wall. The green stretches around us in all directions – trees, grass, hedgerows dotted with yarrow and clover and the deep purple of brambles. I was raised in the suburbs and I’m used to green – I’ve missed it, even after two days.
The Imp-bus trundles along the roads, far noisier than any vehicle I’ve ever travelled in. The Imps nap, including Nate, his head resting on my shoulder. I study his face. Normally, he looks like Dad, so animated and full of life, his face all pointed and excited, his sandy hair sticking up like he’s stuffed his finger in a power socket. But now he’s completely relaxed, he looks more like Mum – the same softness around his mouth. My stomach twists and that mass in my throat grows. I miss my parents, really miss them. The safety, the belonging, the way they always make everything OK.
The rhythm of the bus and the warmth of the sleeping bodies lull me into sleep. I know this because I dream – the seat has been replaced by something soft, a mattress perhaps, and my eyelids flicker, the walls of a darkened room throbbing in and out of focus. I see the outline of a man, feel the warmth of a hand wrap around mine. I smell this tinny, hospital smell that reminds me of the dentist and, weaving beneath, coffee and stale tobacco – the smell Dad gets when he’s stressed. He squeezes my hand. Wake up, Violet. Please, darling. Just open your eyes and wake up. But the silhouette loses form, blurring around the edges and growing dimmer by the second.
And suddenly, I see Rose, standing on the wooden stage, rope around her neck. A voice soars above the crowd. I love you. Her hair falls from her face, and I see that it isn’t Rose any more. It’s me. The hangman pulls the lever and I hear the crack of the trapdoor flying open, see the sudden jerk of my body as it pulls against the rope, watch my feet pirouette as they frantically search for solid ground. I hear Baba’s voice: A story is like a life cycle, Violet. You will be released only when the story concludes. Birth to death.
But it doesn’t release me. I feel the air choking from my lungs, the lines of the Coliseum dissolving, the sounds of the crowd fading. And yet still, it doesn’t release me.
‘Violet! Wake up,’ Nate says.
I wake gasping for air, like someone is squatting on my chest, crushing my lungs to the size of pockets. My skin feels raw – so raw I can’t place the sensation. I could be on fire, or trapped beneath a frozen lake, or covered in hundreds of tiny contusions. I know that I’m crying because I can hear my sobs, feel the tears dampening my cheeks.
‘It’s OK,’ Nate says. ‘Look, we’ve reached the Harper estate.’
‘What’s going on back there?’ a guard shouts.
I fall silent, biting my tongue with the effort of keeping quiet.
We enter the Harper estate the back way. We see no sweeping vistas of the manor, proud and watchful, nestled in acres of meadows. There’s just a load of privet hedges and the outline of an orchard against the evening sky. I can’t help feeling a little disappointed. The bus pulls to a halt and we file off.
Saskia leads us down a path. ‘We’re heading to the Imp-hut.’
Nate’s whisper is barely audible over the crunch of gravel. ‘Don’t worry, we’re only here for a few days.’
‘That’s what I’m worried about.’
‘What? Returning to the city?’
I sigh, insecurities eating away at my insides. ‘No – getting Willow to fall for me in a few days.’
‘Rose managed.’
‘Katie’s right, nobody falls in love that fast.’
Nate stops in his tracks. My gaze follows his and we stare at the Imp-hut.
‘Grim,’ he whispers.
I remember it so fondly from canon. A haven where Rose, Saskia and Matthew sat in their bunks, playing cards and plotting. It looked a little like a gingerbread house, nestled in greenery and sheltered by oaks. But the reality is a wonky shack, built from corrugated iron and rotting beams. And things only deteriorate inside. It smells of wet dog and human excrement, and the fine layer of hay dusting the floor barely hides the mud beneath. The quirky furniture and bohemian curtains from the film have been replaced by a few upturned crates and a rotting pine table.
‘Where’s the bathroom?’ I ask in a small voice.
Saskia laughs. ‘There’s a couple of lean-tos out back with toilets and a communal shower.’
‘The shower’s bloody freezing,’ Matthew says. ‘It’s better just to smell.’
‘Grab a bunk,’ Saskia says.
The bunks look more like shelves covered in straw. They line the back of the hut, divided by plain, threadbare sheets hung like curtains, offering little in the way of privacy. I take Nate’s hand and we wander towards the bunks, slightly shell-shocked.
The other slaves mill around us, making cups of tea, gathering up tools and heading out into the evening. They seem to take it in turns to scowl at us, and I figure there’ll be no card games. I find myself searching for Ash, for the palest blue eyes in existence. But he’s nowhere to be seen. He must be arriving on the next bus. I can’t help but feel a little disappointed.
Saskia plonks herself on one of the shelf-bunks. ‘We’ll sleep here instead of returning to the city in the day. It’s safer to stay put for a while, avoid the searches at the border.’
Nate yawns. ‘I’m so ready for a sleep.’
‘You’ll be lucky,’ Saskia says. ‘You’re Night-Imps now. You don’t get to sleep until morning.’ She turns to me, a malicious smile crossing her face. ‘And you’ll be taking that freezing cold shower tonight, girlie – I don’t want you stinking of the decontamination block.’
‘Why not?’ I ask, my brain still numb from it all.
She gawps at me like I’m an idiot. ‘Because when that sun sets, you’ll be meeting Willow Harper for the first time.’
The shower is beyond cold. I feel it in my bones, the skin on my chest mottled and blue. But at least it momentarily distracts me from my nerves. I’m about to meet Willow for the first time. I wait for that lovely feeling of anticipation, but instead I just feel like I’m competing with Rose’s ghost – and coming up short.
Rose and Willow. An epic love story. Their first meeting was just fizzing with electricity. They had this instant attraction, a connection. She waited for him in the orchard beneath a plum tree, knowing he would take this path on his midnight walk. She then attracted his attention by cutting her own hand and yelping – and I don’t mean high-pitched dog yelp, I mean stunning-damsel-in-distress yelp. Willow ran to see what was wrong, took one look into those big, brown eyes, and everything he knew about the world began to unravel. He had fallen for an Imp.