He chuckles to himself and sips his tea. ‘She played dumb. She’s known for years. Since The Gallows Dance was first published.’
‘I – I don’t understand.’
‘No. I imagine you don’t. Your small, ape brain will struggle to take it all on board.’ He stands and walks to a small window, veiled by an emerald curtain. He pulls a cord and the curtain is drawn back. It isn’t a window, but a portrait. Sally King. ‘I painted her from memory. Baba introduced us in a dream. You know who it is, of course?’
I nod.
‘I thought it fitting she should watch over me. She did, after all, create me.’ He stares at the painting, an unfamiliar softness in his voice. ‘I know that somehow her universe, your universe, created ours – the power of the collective conscious, Baba called it.’
‘The collective conscious?’
‘Yes. When a group of people share the same beliefs, the same ideas—’
‘You’re talking about the Fandom?’
‘You could call it that. In fact, let’s call it that. The Fandom – it has a better ring to it. Well, the energy from the Fandom created something . . . Something real.’ He circles his hand, a dramatic flourish. ‘This!’
He leans over the table and dips his finger in his tea. It still steams, but he doesn’t flinch. He draws a circle on the coffee table with the moisture. ‘Baba told you about a story being a life cycle. Birth to death.’
I try to nod.
He holds my gaze with his glassy eyes. ‘Well that’s what this is. A never-ending cycle. A perpetual loop . . . I know because I’m stuck in it.’ He dips his finger in his tea again and draws a series of lines around the circle, so that it resembles a scant clock face.
This makes me think of the markings in the sewers and Nate’s face, lit up with excitement as he traced the yellow paint. I get this throbbing in my chest which makes it difficult to breathe. But the President continues. He points to the top line – the twelve o’clock line. ‘The beginning of the loop. Here. I’m sitting in my office. I hear the news about a thistle-bomb at the Gallows Dance. Some rebels freed the condemned Imps, they said, nothing to worry about, sir, they said.’ He moves to the three o’clock line. ‘Here. They tell me that Willow Harper has gone missing. The rebels are involved, nothing to worry about, sir. We launch a search party.’ He moves his finger to the bottom of the circle. Six o’clock. ‘Here. They arrest some jumped-up little rebel called Rose.’ His finger hits nine o’clock. His voice rising with urgency. ‘I meet her in my office, she shows no remorse. I think how lovely she’ll look dancing on a rope.’ He moves his finger close to the first line – the twelve o’clock line. ‘I watch the bitch hang, the crowd turns and rips the gallows to the ground, then . . . Bam.’ He jabs his finger to the top of the circle again. ‘I’m back in my office, hearing of the thistle-bomb like it’s just happened.’
He dips his finger in his tea again and refreshes the fading loop. ‘At first I doubt my mental health. I’m the President, I’m under a lot of pressure. I take some pills and I go through the motions again.’ His finger continues to circle the table, gathering speed. ‘I meet the bitch, I watch her hang, the gallows fall, and then, bam.’ He pushes so hard, I swear I see some blood mingling with the tea. ‘Office. Thistle-bomb. The bitch hangs. The gallows fall. Bam.’ His finger gets faster and faster, until the circle is entirely red. ‘Office. Thistle-bomb. The bitch hangs. The gallows fall. Bam.’
He screams in frustration and knocks the table over. The sound of bouncing wood and shattering porcelain fills the room. I freeze. Only my chest moves – a series of shallow gasps. He turns to me, his features arranged into such a banal smile I struggle to imagine he was capable of such an outburst.
He then speaks in a soft, low voice. ‘Trapped in a loop, in a cycle, unable to break free. It’s a nightmare, Violet.’
The lieutenant silently replaces the table while the President straightens his jacket. And just before Stoneback pulls his sleeves into place, I notice the tiniest of marks on the inside of his wrist: a black mole with the middle missing, kind of like a small hoop.
‘So each time the story completes, it resets?’ I ask.
He nods. I feel the ghost of hope, heavy in my chest. It makes me feel a little brave. I lick my finger and darken the twelve o’clock mark, smudging his blood. ‘So when the story resets, what happens to the people who died?’
‘They are reborn.’
A shaky laugh escapes from my mouth. Ash will be reborn. Matthew will be reborn. The hope grows suddenly, bursting through me like something tangible and warm. ‘My brother?’
He places a finger on my own and slides it towards me. A mixture of his blood and my saliva forms a thin line. ‘Your universe is not cyclical. It is linear. If your brother died in this reality, The Gallows Dance, he will never be reborn, not in this universe or your own.’
The clasp of grief tightens on my throat.
He lifts his finger and sits again, his posture straight and proper. ‘I suppose you’re wondering how I remember this loop while everyone else in my world is blissfully ignorant?’
I’d been thinking only of Nate, his sparkling eyes and pixie grin, but I nod regardless.
‘Some of us Gems are a little too enhanced. Just like the old precog you were so fond of. Whereas she ended up with psychic abilities, a few of us ended up with enhanced memories. The best scientists, the best engineers, the top politicians. We remember the echoes, the reflections, everything – every damned loop. And we’re tired of it. Life is supposed to move, to progress.’ He stares sadly at the circle of blood. ‘And we can’t change the story, we can’t do a goddamned thing, because the consequences of the loop failing to complete may be dire. It’s a risk we’re not yet willing to take.’
I shove my fingers into my head as if I can somehow reach into my brain and untangle all the information. ‘But if the Fandom created you, how do you have a childhood, a past? It makes no sense. Your existence could only have begun when the story started.’
‘There are many paradoxes involved in transdimensional quantum resonance, which I do not expect your monkey brain to understand. Perhaps an analogy will help. Another perpetual loop – the chicken and the egg.’
‘Which came first,’ I whisper. Baba used this same analogy; she was taunting me even then.
‘Yes. Well done. I’ll get you a banana. Did the Fandom create us, or did we create the Fandom? Did the book create us, or did we create the book? It matters not. It’s a question which cannot be resolved. Both are true – our universes are symbiotic – the Gems have childhoods, we have a history, we even share a history with your universe. But time flows differently in our universe.’
‘I don’t get it.’ I feel so stupid. I wish Nate were here; he would do his Sheldon Cooper thing and he would understand. I feel his loss intensely, a hollowing-out of where my heart should be.
‘No, I don’t suppose you do.’