‘Oh my God,’ Katie shrieks, ‘don’t tell me you’ve finished it.’
The lift arrives and we step into the little metal box. It lurches upwards and I realize I no longer think about the mechanism whirring above us, pulling us higher and higher, further from the safety of the ground. Precoma, I would have sung Abba in my head to block out the panic. But something about that coma changed me. Guilt aside, it’s made me more confident, more self-assured. You’d think it would do the opposite, having dragged me so close to oblivion. I don’t pretend to understand, but it’s kind of nice, not shitting my pants every time I do a presentation.
Alice pulls her Kindle from her handbag. ‘Well, we’ve finished the first draft, haven’t we, Violet?’
I nod. ‘Yeah, but I’m sure our editor will want to make changes.’
‘Oh yes, darling, our editor.’ Katie forces her voice into an over-the-top plummy squeak, so she sounds more like the Queen than a Scouser.
‘Piss off,’ Alice says, laughing.
‘No really, it’s great,’ Katie says. ‘I’m so pleased for you both. A proper book deal. And not just any book – the sequel to The Gallows Dance.’
Alice looks coy for a moment. ‘Well, we had a little help.’ She means Russell Jones. After he posted that photo back in May, Alice’s popularity as a fanfic writer soared. Getting a book deal, even with her unknown bestie as co-author, was pretty easy. But it was my idea to write the sequel, not Alice’s. An idea which the old lady with apple-green eyes gave me soon after I regained consciousness, though I remember that dream as though it were last night.
I was standing in this orchard filled with birdsong and sunshine and the scent of fruit.
Then the old lady appeared and pushed something into my fist. Her barely-there lips parted and she spoke in a familiar voice. ‘It was no accident you came to our world with Alice. I brought you. The President had his plan, and I had mine.’
I didn’t really know what she meant, but I felt I should ask anyway. ‘What was your plan?’
‘Saving the Imps does not end with the falling of the gallows, my child.’
‘What does it end with?’
She smiled. ‘There’s no place like home, Little Flower.’
I uncurled my palm and saw the tiniest viola flower nestled between the cracks in my skin. And suddenly, it all made sense. ‘You brought me into your world so I would become a true Imp. You want me to write the sequel?’
She nodded. ‘You and Alice. You write a pro-Imp sequel for the fandom to read. Break this loop, Little Flower. Set us free.’
I woke that morning filled with an overwhelming urge to write a sequel with Alice. It felt like a matter of life or death – like the very future of the Imps depended on it. It took a jug of orange juice and several rounds of toast to remind myself the Imps are no more than characters from my favourite novel.
At first I was nervous suggesting to Alice we write a sequel together; she’s always been a bit protective of her writing. OK, I’ll say it, a bit precious. But I think maybe the coma changed her too. She’s still Alice, but she just seems a bit . . . softer. She leaves the house without make-up, she blushes when you compliment her, and the other day, she actually went to one of Katie’s cello recitals with me, and the accompanying pianist wasn’t even hot. Anyway, she threw her arms around me and said, ‘That’s the best idea ever.’
The process wasn’t entirely smooth, but with Alice softening and me gaining confidence, we kind of met in the middle. There were a few spats. For example, she still has this ridiculous fangirl crush on Willow and wanted him to take centre stage, whereas I was inclined to write him out completely. I don’t know why, but his character really annoys me now; he seems so weak and selfish – I guess recent experiences have made me grow up and prioritize personality over abs. We eventually agreed that the protagonist would be a different character from The Gallows Dance. Someone with the potential for real growth. I knew immediately it had to be the puppy – Ash. Because a puppy can only get bigger.
But there was one character we agreed on one hundred per cent from the get-go.
The lift doors open and the scent of medicine intensifies, causing my heart to flip. We walk down the corridor, reading the signs even though we’ve read them a thousand times, upping our pace as we approach the ward.
We reach the white doors and I pause so I can pump some alcohol rub on my hands. I take a moment to peer through the porthole windows. Nate lies on a bed, stretched out, his head elevated, so that at a glance he could be watching TV or listening to his iPod. This is my favourite bit of the hospital visit, watching him from behind a pane of glass, framed by a circular piece of wood. It’s like he’s in a whole other world, captured in a photo or a television screen. Floating in a bubble. Something about the surrealness, the distance, makes it feel like anything could happen – like he could just wake up.
‘You ready?’ Katie asks.
I respond by pushing through the doors into the ward. The tinny hospital sounds fill my head, the pips of the monitors, the wheeze of the ventilators, the smell of antiseptic and urine, and that sense of something magical, other-worldly, vanishes completely. Reality kicks in. Nate is in a coma. He hasn’t woken up for six months. And with every day, every hour, every minute which passes, it becomes less likely he ever will. My vision clouds with tears and that black aura of guilt seems to cast the ward in shadow.
Alice sits in the chair beside him and rubs his hand. ‘Hey, squirt,’ she says.
I imagine him opening his eyes and telling her to feck off. He’s fourteen. Then I remember he turned fifteen a few weeks back – I held his favourite homemade chocolate cake beneath his nose so he could smell it – and the tears begin to fall down my face.
Katie drags a comfy seat over so I can sit beside him, across the bed from Alice. ‘Twunting hospital furniture,’ she mutters, battling it into position. I smile to myself; good old reliable Katie. No coma could change her.
Before I sit, I lean forward and kiss him on the forehead. He smells faintly of sweat and baby wipes, and I swear his golden eyelashes quiver slightly, stirring beneath my breath.
I still remember the first time I saw him like this. I’d only been awake for a short while, and even though the doctors assured me he was alive, was lying in the bed next to me in fact, I could only make out the sandy spikes of his hair, and I just wouldn’t believe it was him. I knew with such certainty he was dead, it was as if I’d watched him die.