Only a Monster (11 page)

Joan was impressed in spite of herself. “
Friends
?” she said. In the back of her mind, though, she was doing the sums.

“The Rachel haircut is a time marker,” Aaron said. “Like St. Paul's or the new Globe. Why are you making that face?” He scrunched his mouth. Joan could only assume he was mimicking her own expression.

“You overshot!” she said. “We were only supposed to travel back twenty years!”

“So what if I did.” Aaron folded his arms loftily. “You're lucky we got out at all. You were an utter deadweight.”

“But—”

“My point,” he said, “is that you don't need to rummage through other people's crisp packets as if you were a rabid squirrel.”

Joan could hardly hear him. She stared at their surroundings. Across the grass, the lake barely rippled. A woman walked by with a pram. The baby would be an adult in Joan's time. Older than Joan herself. That elderly man might be dead.

And the strangest thing about it all was the absolute solidity of the world. The air smelled of cars and tar; the ground was hard under her feet. This was real. She was undeniably here—in
a time before her own birth.

“What are we going to do?” she said. “We have to stop Nick.” She felt a strange mix of urgency and helplessness. They were so far away from what had happened. “We need to warn everyone about what's coming.”

And Nick wasn't here at all, she realized then. Not anywhere in the world in this time. She was surprised by her hollow feeling of loss. He hadn't been born yet. She could look for him everywhere, and he'd be nowhere.

“Before we do anything, we need to eat,” Aaron said. “You almost traveled without taking time first. You almost died. Do you understand that? I always knew the Hunts were irresponsible, but failing to educate you in basic safety—”

“Don't talk about my family.” Joan had meant to snap it, but it came out low and dangerous. The secrets that had been kept from her felt like a raw place inside her. Just being with Aaron—seeing how easily he negotiated this world—made her feel even more raw. “You of all people.”

“Yes, me of all people indeed,” Aaron said. “Your family taught you a lot about the monster world, did they?”

“I know a bit,” Joan said defensively.

“Like what? Who can you trust in this time? You have no ID. Where are you going to get it? You have nowhere to sleep tonight, no money. No friends. And the Hunts are impossible to find.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Which family's territory are we standing in right now?
What does that mean? What are the King's Laws? What happens if you break them?”

Joan pushed down a wave of helplessness. She didn't want to have to rely on Aaron bloody Oliver. His father had tried to kill her. Aaron would have let it happen. He'd just walked away.

“You traveled in time,” Aaron said. “You're not in the human world anymore. If you want to survive, then you'll need to learn about the monster world
very
fast.”

“I wish it were from anyone but you.” She hadn't meant to say it out loud, but it was true.

“Oh, believe me, I know.” Aaron turned and started walking again.

Signs of the nineties were everywhere: brick walls papered with
Jurassic Park
posters and the fluttering rags of older ones.
Groundhog Day.
Nirvana. The cars, the clothes, even the traffic lights looked different. It was like—and yet so unlike—the London that Joan knew. The police were fancy-dress versions of themselves, all in bobby hats and smart jackets. People's clothes were baggy and strange.

Aaron led Joan through Covent Garden, head raised as though he owned the whole city. At some point he'd transformed himself from a dowdy tourist back to a wealthy schoolboy.

As he had last night, he avoided the main roads, taking shortcuts Joan hadn't known existed—through hidden courtyards and walled parks. By the time he stopped, she was thoroughly lost. They could have been in Covent Garden or Temple or farther out.

Aaron had brought them to a passage between buildings, narrow enough that Joan could touch the stone walls on both sides when she stretched. The sky was a thin strip of gray above. It was as cool as a cellar here. This part of London felt very old. Chimneys blew out woody smoke.

There was a door in the wall—small and squat and black—with a brass plaque beside it, a sea serpent engulfing a sailing ship. The kind of image you might see on a medieval map to mark uncharted territory.

“This is one of our inns,” Aaron said.

Joan touched the plaque. “Here be dragons?” she said.

Aaron's smile was amused, almost soft, as though he'd forgotten for a second that he didn't like her. Joan's stomach twisted strangely. She was nervous, she thought.

“Is this your first time in a monster place?” he said.

Joan wet her dry lips. She nodded.

“Dragons need not fear other dragons,” Aaron said, and Joan's stomach did that strange twist again. She knew that wasn't true. Aaron's own family had shown her that.

But she took a deep breath and opened the door.

Her first impression was of an old-fashioned pub: glossy wood and stained glass. There were tables in every nook, crammed with people in the clothes of a dozen eras. Laughter and conversation filled the room.

But there were oddities too: rushes and herbs were strewn underfoot, and the air was smoky, almost barnyard. Joan could smell hay, crushed fennel, and lemon balm, as well as rosemary and rich roasting meat. A hearth in the corner held a bubbling cauldron of stew. Joan's stomach rumbled.

Her next impression was almost cathedral. The far wall was a series of stained-glass windows. In them, map monsters swam in an ocean of blue glass: a bearded fish, a spiny dragon, a great beast with scales and tusks. Blue light spilled from the
windows, turning the wooden floor into rippling shallows.

As Joan stood there, a man emerged from a back room. He was Black with graying hair and a handsome, unlined face. He scanned the room with an air of authority, and then strode over to two men, sandy-haired and muscular, sitting near the hearth. “Did I see money change hands in my inn?” His tone was calm; Joan was reminded of a school principal. She guessed he was the owner of this place.

The two big men ducked their heads, seeming as chastened as scolded children. “Sorry, Innkeeper. Just off-loading my phone,” one of them said.

“Does this look like a market?” The innkeeper gestured to the door. “Out.” He didn't bother to watch the men go, although they did—scurrying obediently away. He turned his attention to Joan and Aaron, taking in their hairstyles, their shoes, the cut of their clothes. “Just arrived?” he said.

Aaron nodded. “Are there any rooms available?”

“We'll find you something,” the innkeeper said. “Rooms come with food,” he added briskly. “Help yourselves to bowls. Someone will bring you a key.”

Aaron led Joan to the hearth and took two bowls from the mantelpiece above it. He ladled stew from the cauldron. It smelled delicious: savory and rich. Joan could see carrots and onions and maybe duck.

They found a table in an out-of-the-way corner. When Joan pulled the chair, it dragged against the floor, the sound
momentarily rising above the chatter in the room. Aaron raised an eyebrow and shifted his own chair. Silently, of course. He had the graceful precision of a cat.

“Do we really need a room?” Joan said. She'd imagined they'd just tell someone about the massacre, and that would be that.

“Food first,” Aaron said. “You don't know how to ground yourself on your own yet. Eating food from a new time is an easy shortcut.” He blew on his own spoon and ate a bite. “This is good,” he said grudgingly.

“So how will this work, then?” Joan said. She ate her own stew. The flavors were unexpectedly Christmassy: orange peel and cinnamon and cloves. She kind of liked the combination. “Once we warn someone, will it just be like—” She snapped her fingers. “Like last night never happened? Like you and I won't even remember any of this happening?” It was a strange thought. She and Aaron might never know that they'd once sat here alone at a table, eating a meal together. That they'd once helped each other.

There was plate of fresh bread on the table. Aaron took a roll and scored a cross in the crust. He pushed a pat of butter into the scoring, and then passed the roll to Joan. He took another for himself. “Eat that too.”

The bread was dense and very dark, and warm enough that the butter had already melted into it. Joan looked around as she chewed.

Just like the city outside, the inn was familiar and strange
at the same time. People stepped in and out of the air with casual ease—as if they were merely stepping from one room to another.

At the closest table, two women were playing a game that looked like chess—but when Joan peered more closely, the pieces seemed wrong: an elephant, a medieval cannon.

It was all so disorienting. And yet . . .

Some things were familiar. Joan licked butter from her thumb. It was heavily salted and as sour as yogurt. She'd only ever tasted butter like that at Gran's house. She bent to breathe in the familiar scent of it.

“We call it whole-milk butter,” Aaron said.

She could have been eating Gran's food. “My gran makes butter like this. I thought it was a family thing.”

Aaron shrugged. “It's a monster thing.”

A monster thing.
When all this was over—when the events of last night were undone—maybe this taste would become a family thing again. And that was a strange thought too. Maybe Joan would never learn that there was a greater context to these parts of her life. A culture.

Laughter erupted at one of the tables. “Hathaways,” Aaron said, sounding annoyed. The laughter was coming from a rowdy table in the center of the room. There were a dozen people there. Like all the groups in the inn, the Hathaways seemed to be a mix of races; their only real similarity was their muscular build—men and women both. Most of them seemed to have pets: Joan spotted a gray cat on a man's lap; a sleepy pug
curled under a chair. As she watched, a black cat jumped onto the Hathaway table and stalked between cups and bowls. Joan opened her mouth to ask Aaron another question, but right then a woman stepped out of the air near the Hathaway table. Her hairstyle was distinctive: curls at her forehead and coiled plaits at the back of her head.

“That woman's hair,” Joan said slowly. Where had she seen hairstyles like that before?

Aaron glanced over and shrugged. “We really should eat before we talk.”

Joan answered her own question. “Statues.”

“Joan,” Aaron said. “Keep eating.”

“Ancient Roman statues.”

“
Joan
.” Aaron leaned in until all Joan could see was his face. “You're right,” he said. “From her hairstyle, I would say she arrived from circa 100 AD.” His voice took on an almost seductive quality. “I went there once, you know? To the Temple of Venus on Velian Hill. It was such a hot day that the flower offerings wilted in their vases. The perfume of roses and myrtle was like wine.”

“What?” Joan tried to focus on him. Her head felt muzzy.

“The stream of worshippers didn't stop,” Aaron said. “There were so many offerings that jewelry and flowers piled up on the floor.”

The smoky hearth was losing its scent. “Stop it,” Joan said thickly.

“Newlyweds brought in a bull with gilded horns,” Aaron
said. “I stayed for the sacrifice. Do you want to hear about that?”

“
No.
” She felt as though she were falling. What had Aaron told her at St. James's Park? Focus on the details. She put her palm shakily against the table. She could barely feel the wood. Her throat contracted in a terrified sound that she couldn't hear.
Details.
There were scratches in the gloss of the table. Beside one of the bowls, Aaron's fist was clenched tight enough to whiten his knuckles. There was a shallow cut on Joan's own hand—across her thumb. That must have happened in the sword fight.

The smell of the hearth returned slowly until the air was smoky enough to make Joan cough. “Why did you do that to me?” she demanded.

Aaron smiled slightly, but his eyes were flat. “Right now, anyone could do that to you. A Jane Austen book cover could do that to you.”

“What is
wrong
with you?”

“What is wrong with
me
?” Aaron had the gall to sound irritated. “I'm trying to help you.” He added, conceding, “You did well that time. You came back from it quickly.”

The problem was he looked so much like a human boy that Joan kept expecting him to act like one. But he wasn't a human boy. He was a monster, raised by monsters. “You know what?” She stood up. “I don't want your help.” He'd brought her here to this time. She didn't need anything more from him than that.

“Where are you going?” He frowned.

“Just don't,” she said. “Don't help. Don't do anything else for me.” She felt his eyes on her as she walked away.

Joan had noticed a flow of people coming and going near the back, even though the signs for the lavatory pointed the opposite way.

Sure enough, there was a back door. Joan opened it, expecting another nondescript laneway, but to her surprise, it opened onto a cobblestoned square with bow-fronted shops and tall brick buildings.
Front door
, she revised.

Streets led away from the square. Looking down one of them, Joan saw more buildings and what looked like a park that ended in a wall. Joan imagined that wall enclosing all of this.
A monster place
, she thought,
hidden away.

It had started to rain while Joan had been inside. Now big splotches fell onto the cobblestones, darkening them. The sky had grayed. Here and there, people popped in and out of existence. The ones appearing ducked their heads from the rain and scrambled into buildings.

Joan stopped one woman as she hurried toward the inn. “Excuse me,” she said. “Do you know where I can find the Hunt family?”

The woman's eyebrows drew together. “What do you want with those thieves?” She pushed past Joan roughly and went inside.

Joan stared after her, shaken. The Olivers hated her family. Had the woman been an Oliver? Or did lots of people hate the Hunts? It was an unsettling thought.

Around the square, there were all kinds of shops, selling
cakes, tea, jewelry. One seemed to specialize in hats, apparently of every era: top hats, floral hats, straw bonnets, baseball caps. Another sold confectionary, its window display a cornucopia of whole glacé pineapples and oranges. Interspersed among the fruit, there were sugar sculptures—a translucent tiger, a brightly colored parrot. They were lit from within by what looked like real, shifting flames. Joan had never seen anything like them.

She walked on. About half the new arrivals were hurrying out of the rain and into the inn.

Many of the others headed in another direction, running down one of the streets. The rain started to properly pelt down. Joan jogged across the cobblestones, following them. Water splashed up from puddles, soaking her ankles.

The trail of people led her to a covered market with a grand Victorian facade. Above the open entrance, the name Ravencroft Market was carved in stone along with three-dimensional birds and leaves. Joan walked in. The floor inside was a continuation of the cobbled street. An ornate glass ceiling arched above, the color of a summer sky. Here and there, leadwork ravens soared among the glass.

Joan's hair dripped as she passed racks and racks of clothes. She could have walked out of the market as a Roman centurion or a lady of the Regency or in nineties grunge.

There was food too—an eel-and-pie stall, a curry stall. Joan's stomach rumbled again. She wished she'd taken the bread roll with her. She continued past tables of spices and herbs.
Homemade bottles labeled
garum
. Bunches of spiky banana-like fruit. Dried yellowish leaves labeled
silphium
. Unfamiliar chocolate bars. It reminded Joan of the Chinese grocer she and Dad went to: a place to get things that weren't on the high street.