I begin to feel like I did when Nate died; strangely removed. I step out of the pain, the collar, the stars, like they’re no more than a bizarre costume. I hover above myself, watching the scene like it really is from a film.
I hear Alice’s voice, strong and loud. ‘Will we continue to allow this government-sanctioned murder of innocent Imps?’
I hear another voice, a familiar voice. Mum. That’s it, Violet. That’s it.
Not yet, Mum, I try to say. I move further away, up, up into the clouds, and far below me I see Alice and Katie, their faces craning upwards like they can see my spirit escaping towards the sun. The scent of rotting bird and pollen fades in my nostrils, replaced by something cleaner, something man-made.
That’s it, darling. That’s it. You can do it.
I watch the crowd begin to turn. Moved by Alice’s words, outraged by my death. The collective cry of indignation. The rising of fists in the air. Ash climbs on to the stage and carries my body into the crowd, his face soaked with tears.
‘Who are the animals now?’ Alice shouts at the top of her lungs. ‘Who are the animals now?’
And then I see the Imps swarming over the walls of the Coliseum, joining the Gems, united for the first time in centuries by my death.
That’s it, Violet, you can do it. Open your eyes.
That sterile smell of medicine and antiseptic and freshly washed linen fills my nose. I hear a series of pips, the clatter of metal on metal.
Not yet, Mum. I just need the cycle to complete.
Pip. Pip. Pip. I watch as the crowd engulfs the gallows, ripping at the supporting beams, lifting up the planks. The stage buckles and the gallows topple like the masts of a sinking ship. Everyone stands motionless, Gems and Imps alike. Shards of wood and clouds of dust launch into the sky, twirling and dancing and catching in the sun.
The cycle is complete.
Pip. Pip. Pip.
At last, I open my eyes.
Alice hugs her faux-fur jacket around her body. ‘It’s fecking freezing out here.’
She’s right. It’s that kind of cold that seems to come from the ground, travelling through the soles of your boots, spreading across your feet and crawling up your body until even your teeth feel raw and exposed. I pull my woolly hat down that little bit further and try to make my body smaller, as though I can somehow dodge the chill.
‘Stop with the whining, you southern softie,’ Katie says, ‘we’re only five minutes away.’
Alice frowns. ‘In five minutes my boobs will have dropped off.’
The stone face of the hospital seems to grow larger with every step, transforming from a solitary Duplo block into an imposing tower of bricks and windows, shimmering with glass and ice. I always wonder if I can see our window; the window of the room I woke up in about six months ago, clutching at my neck, gasping for air, flailing my legs, a haze of white sheets and nurses flapping around me. And I always wonder if my friends are thinking the exact same as me, silently hunting for clues, a familiar vase on a windowsill, perhaps.
Alice and Katie woke from their comas within minutes of me. The Comic-Con Four, that’s what the press dubbed us – a group of kids who lost consciousness at London Comic-Con and slipped into comas following a minor earth tremor. Not a single detectable injury between us. Medical mysteries. And when three of us regained consciousness exactly one week later, we became minor celebrities for at least a day, until one of the Kardashian sisters got another butt implant.
We cross the road and the wind picks up, lifting snow dust from the pavement, the tops of the cars, the ridges in the brickwork of the shop faces, sending it twirling, spiralling, dancing through the air. This teases a familiar image from my brain. Thistledown. Hundreds of seeds encasing us in our very own snow globe. Or maybe feathers, white and brown, bursting around me and drifting to the floor, accompanied by laughter and the shriek of birds.
These images come to me often. Sometimes they explode into my consciousness, other times they slowly burrow, revealing themselves in stages. Fragments of pictures and scents and noises. At first they were blurred, dreamlike; now the details are sharper in all of my senses. But they remain squares of an unfinished patchwork. No matter how hard I try, I can’t quite sew them into something meaningful. At least not yet. A strange old lady with apple-green eyes visits me in my dreams. She tries to help, whispering about journeys, a far-off land.
‘Are you OK, Vi?’ Katie asks.
‘Yeah,’ I say – an obvious lie. My friends take an arm each, their body warmth closing around me, and we half walk, half skid across the car park towards the main entrance of the hospital. I can’t help staring at the winter sky. It’s this amazing pale blue colour. It almost looks like a sheet of glass suspended above us, reflecting the soft, muted colours of frost-bitten London. For the briefest of moments, it really reminds me of something, or more precisely, someone. Though I can’t place who.
We jog up the steps, grateful for the warm blast of air awaiting us in the hospital foyer, and I wonder if that smell – medicinal and unnatural – leaves my friends feeling uneasy too. We break apart to pull off our hats and smooth down our hair. I smile at our collective vanity while nurses in shower caps and patients in brittle-with-starch NHS hospital gowns move around us.
The receptionist sees me and waves. I know all of the admin staff not by their names, but by soundbites of descriptions in my head – a sign that I am becoming a true writer, perhaps. So this one is The lady with eyes which always look tired, but with hair which never sleeps. I return her wave and she smiles, but it looks kind of forced – like she can see the crushing, invisible weight I carry but doesn’t know how to acknowledge it or take it away. Or perhaps she knows it should be me lying in that hospital bed instead of Nate, tubes snaking into my mouth. Perhaps she can see the black aura of guilt which surrounds me, entombs me – the crippling feeling I get from knowing Nate would have woken up too, if only I’d been smarter, stronger, faster . . . better. It makes no sense, I know.
I head down the main corridor, my rubber soles squeaking against the vinyl floor. Alice, Katie and I always walk this stretch fast, an unspoken agreement. Like me, they don’t like seeing the medical staff – nothing personal, it’s just easier to avoid eye contact with someone who may have changed your catheter.
‘So what did you bring him today?’ Katie asks as we finally reach the lift. ‘The usual selection of fairy tales?’
‘Not today.’ I punch the up button, my finger cast in a jade light. ‘Today we’ve brought him something a bit more personal.’
We watch the numbers flash sequentially above our head, the lift descending its concrete tube towards us.
‘Ooh, curious,’ Katie says.
Alice grins. ‘Something a bit more futuristic, something a bit more dystopian—’