Only a Monster (15 page)

Ruth's watch said it was nearly four a.m. Joan didn't know what time it was according to her own body clock.

Without much discussion, they'd agreed that Joan and Ruth would share the bed. Aaron would have the sofa. Now Joan lay awake in the dark. She wasn't tired at all. Outside the room, the building creaked and settled. Footsteps sounded occasionally on the landing. Joan listened to Ruth's regular, reassuring breaths. Ruth was here. She was alive. Joan almost didn't dare believe it.

“Can't sleep?” Ruth whispered.

Joan shook her head and then remembered that Ruth wouldn't be able to see her in the dark. “I thought you were asleep,” she whispered back.

“I couldn't sleep after,” Ruth said, soft. “For a long, long
time. You keep seeing them, don't you?”

Joan rolled to face her. “I keep walking into that room,” she whispered. “Where I found you . . . All that blood leading to the sofa. You pressing down on Gran's wound.” She hadn't seen the others, but her mind kept conjuring horrors. Bertie with his throat slit, all alone. Uncle Gus and Aunt Ada bleeding out.

Ruth pushed Joan's hair from her face. “It's not as fresh for me,” she whispered, “but I remember how I felt.”

“You don't feel it now?”

“I do. It's just . . . different. Like a scar compared with a fresh wound.”

Joan didn't know what to say. She felt hollowed out and so terribly lonely suddenly. For her, it had been last night. For Ruth, it had been years ago.

“I miss them,” Ruth whispered. “God.
So
much. I missed you.”

Joan had assumed that Ruth had found Gran, at least, in this time. Apparently not. She shifted closer so that she could hug Ruth, a little clumsily. Joan had barely even begun to miss them yet, she realized. It had only been one night for her. But there'd been so much pain in Ruth's voice. This was the same loss, two years apart.

“We'll undo it,” she whispered into Ruth's shoulder. “We'll get them back.”

“Did that Oliver boy promise you that?” Ruth whispered. “Because if he did—”

“No. He said it couldn't be done. Is that true?”

Ruth was silent. “Try to rest even if you can't sleep,” she said finally. “Close your eyes, at least.”

The evasion made Joan's stomach twist. “
Is
it possible to save them?” she said. “Is it?”

Ruth's arms squeezed tighter for a moment and then she pushed Joan away gently. “Close your eyes,” she said. “You don't have to sleep. Just close your eyes and breathe.”

Outside, the rain had finally stopped. Joan breathed in and out. She lay awake, listening to raindrops fall from the roof in long, slow strikes.

Joan jerked awake, half caught inside her childhood nightmare—the old, old one, of the prison with the cold stone floor and the guard outside with heavy shoulders like a mastiff. She lay awake, shivering with it. She could still feel the scratch of straw under her shoulders. The smell of sickness and filth seemed to linger in the air.

It was just a dream, she reminded herself. Just the one she'd always had. It wasn't real. She was okay. She was here in bed. . . .

She opened her eyes and the memory of what
was
real hit her like a shock wave.

Aaron's voice cut through it, snide and posh. “Could I trouble you to pass me a pen?” His voice was weirdly grounding.

Through the bookshelf partition, Joan glimpsed the surreal image of Ruth and Aaron at the breakfast table, eating toast and drinking tea. There was a frosty tension between them, but evidently they'd formed enough of a truce to eat breakfast together.

“Identification,” Aaron said, writing. Someone—probably Ruth—had stolen stationery from the post office. Joan
recognized the logo: a tree, half in bare winter branches, half in summer leaves. “Money, clothes . . .” Aaron made an irritated noise and scribbled his pen onto the corner of the paper. “I can't work like this. I need a spreadsheet.”

“You've only said three things,” Ruth said. “Surely you can hold three things in your head.”

“I cannot
believe
I'm here with you,” Aaron told her. “I wish I were anywhere but here. I wish I were at home with a good book.”

Joan dragged herself out of bed. She rubbed her eyes and stumbled around the bookshelf. “Hey,” she mumbled.

They both looked up at her. “You look like death,” Aaron said.

“Yeah, well, you look . . .” Joan waved her hand sleepily. “You haven't combed your hair.”

Aaron pressed his hand to his chest, feigning a wound, and then went back to writing his list.

In the bathroom mirror, Joan
did
look like death—gray-skinned and glassy-eyed. She splashed cold water on her face and came up looking like death with a wet face.

The nightmare was still half there. As always, it felt more physical than a normal dream. Joan's stomach ached with remembered hunger. Her skin crawled with the desperate urge to escape. She squeezed the edges of the sink and took a deep breath. She wasn't there; she was here. Ruth was here. Aaron. They
had
escaped. They'd all survived. And as long as they'd survived, they could do more.

Back in the main room, there was a third cup of tea on the table and a slice of buttered toast.

“Thanks,” Joan said gratefully. She slid into the spare chair. “So I've been thinking,” she said. “About changing what happened.”

“We talked about this,” Aaron said. He wrote down
Travelcards
. He had old-fashioned, looping handwriting, like someone's great-grandmother.

“No, we didn't,” Joan said. “You said it couldn't be done. But I don't believe that.”

“Oh, you don't
believe
it,” Aaron said. “Wonderful. We're all saved.”

“I've been thinking about it all night,” Joan said. “Monsters must change things all the time—just by traveling.”

“Do you really not have a computer?” Aaron asked Ruth.

“Yesterday, we walked around in this time,” Joan said, undeterred. “We talked to people. We affected traffic. For all we know, we accidentally prevented someone from meeting their one true love.”

Aaron was disgusted enough to stop writing. “Their
one true love
?”

“Think about it,” Joan said. “We walked around a lot yesterday. What if one of the times we crossed the road, we held up a car? What if some guy in that car was supposed to meet his future partner that day? Only we pressed the button at the lights. Now he arrives two minutes later than he would have. He never crosses paths with the partner. They never meet.”

“You're talking about the small fluxes of the timeline,”
Ruth said. “Those changes are meaningless—the timeline smooths them over. It's like . . . It's like . . .” She leaned over and blew across her mug. The tea in it shivered and then stilled. “It's just like that. We change things, and the timeline restores itself. Whatever monsters do, the timeline keeps its basic shape. Important events stay the same.”

“In your
true love
scenario,” Aaron said, “the timeline would make sure that the partner was delayed too. They'd still meet. Nothing important would change.”

Joan couldn't deny that there was a resistance about the world. She remembered those two envelopes falling to the ground yesterday; she remembered the feeling of the timeline stirring in response to her attempts to change it. But if the timeline had to resist, then surely there were times when it failed. “Are you telling me you've never heard the smallest rumor?” she persisted. “You've never heard any stories about events being changed? Not ever?”

“Never,” Aaron said.

“I don't believe you,” Joan said.

“Do you know what infants do?” Aaron said. “They drop things over and over and over because they have to test the physical properties of the world to understand it.”

“You think I'm an infant?”

“No,” Aaron said. “I think you're in denial about your family's deaths. You don't want to believe they're dead. You're desperate for any possible way to bring them back.”

Joan couldn't understand him at all. “They're not even dead
yet!” she said. “They're not going to die for years and years! And I'm going to stop it.”

“No, you won't.”

“How do you know? You haven't even tried. What does it hurt to try?”

“
You!
When you realize that you can't, it's going to hurt
you
!” Aaron said. The words came out in a rush. Then he scowled as if he hadn't meant to say them out loud. He shoved his chair back. “Oh, do whatever you want. I'm going to get myself some proper nineties clothes.”

“He's hot.” Ruth leaned over and took the leftover slice of toast from Aaron's plate.

“Who, Aaron?” Joan said, startled. Ruth hated the Olivers. And Aaron wasn't Ruth's type at all.

“Is that why you're still with him?” Ruth said. “Do you like him?”

“
What?
” Joan felt herself starting to flush.

“Do you?” Ruth wasn't saying it in her usual teasing way. “Because I think he likes you.”

“
Likes
me?” Joan said. Why was Ruth talking about Joan liking anyone? The last time Joan had kissed a boy, he'd killed their family. “He despises me. He—” She brutally cut off the train of thought. “It doesn't matter what he thinks of me.”

Ruth's sharp expression reminded Joan of Gran's. “He's here. Olivers and Hunts can't stand each other. But he's still here, two days after you escaped.”

“I saved his life,” Joan said. “He thinks he owes me.”

“He owes you?” Ruth said thoughtfully. “Huh. Okay.” She bit into her toast and leaned back in her chair, chewing. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Joan echoed. “Now you're fine with it?”

Ruth shrugged. “You saved his life. He owes you.”

“Right,” Joan said. And when he didn't owe her anymore, he'd be gone. And that would be that. They'd be out of each other's lives for good.

Someone had opened the windows, and from the light outside she guessed it to be midmorning. There was a muggy heaviness to the air. The room smelled of burnt toast and the wet-stone aftermath of the storm.

Aaron had left his handwritten list on the table:
identification, money, clothes, Travelcards, housing, school
. That last one gave Joan pause.
School.
She couldn't imagine going to school in this time. She couldn't imagine actually living here.

“He wasn't quite telling you the truth, you know,” Ruth said into the silence.

“What do you mean?”

“There
are
rumors of events being changed. I'm sure he's heard them.”

Joan's breath caught. “You didn't tell me that last night.”

“They're only rumors. I've never heard of anyone doing it for real.”

“What rumors?”

Ruth hesitated. Long enough that Joan prompted her. “What rumors?”

“Nothing specific,” Ruth said. “But . . . people say things about the Liu family power.”

Joan thought of something Gran had always said. “The Lius remember.”

“Yes,” Ruth said, “but some people say that it goes beyond perfect memory. They say that some of the Lius remember things that never happened.”

The way she said it made Joan shiver. “So maybe . . . they're remembering changes in the timeline?”

“I don't know,” Ruth said. “It's possible.”

“We have to talk to them.”

“They might not be willing,” Ruth said. “Families don't like to talk about their powers with outsiders.”

“I want to talk to them.”

“All right, but . . .” Ruth looked Joan up and down. “If you're leaving this way station, you'll need a proper makeover.”

“What's wrong with this?” Joan said. She was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. Plenty of people on the street had been wearing T-shirts and jeans.

“Everything,” Ruth said.

Downstairs, at the market, Ruth pushed clothes along a rack:
flick, flick, flick
. Two aisles away, Aaron was doing the same thing with a small frown.

Ruth pulled out a tartan miniskirt. “This,” she said. She draped the skirt over Joan's arm.
Flick, flick.
“And this.” A baby-blue sweater that looked like it had been shrunk in the wash.

“Really?” Joan said.

“And these.” A pair of heavy black combat boots. Ruth added a new pair of black stockings to the pile.

The changing booth didn't have a mirror. Joan buttoned the skirt. It was high-waisted enough to hide her bandage. But the sweater floated above her navel, leaving a long stretch of bare skin. “I think this is a dog vest,” she said to Ruth through the curtain.

“It's supposed to look like that.” Ruth ducked in and pulled Joan out of the booth.

Joan stared at herself in the mirror. It was like she was wearing the sexy Halloween version of her normal clothes. Ruth uncapped an eyeliner pencil and defined Joan's eyes, heavy at the corners. When she was done, Joan hardly recognized herself.

“What was wrong with the T-shirt?” Joan asked.

“The cut was wrong.” The voice was Aaron's. He came out of his own booth, and his eyes widened as he took in Joan's outfit. “That's . . .” He seemed uncharacteristically lost for words. “Good.”

He himself had transformed into a member of a nineties boy band: ripped jeans, a bomber jacket, and a little gold earring. He should have looked ridiculous. He
did
look ridiculous, Joan told herself. Except . . . Aaron made the whole outfit look thought-out and expensive. For the first time in Joan's life, she kind of understood the appeal of a nineties boy band.

Aaron stepped closer to her—close enough that Joan could
feel the warmth of his body as he lowered himself to his knees in front of her. For a moment, she was weirdly tongue-tied. “What are you doing?” she managed. Aaron reached up and plucked a pair of scissors from a nearby table. Before Joan could protest, he sliced into her stockings. And then she wasn't tongue-tied anymore. “What the hell are you doing?” she said, outraged.

Aaron dropped the scissors and used his fingers to tear the slashes into bigger holes.

“That's not bad,” Ruth said grudgingly.

“What—what if you'd cut me?” Joan said.

Aaron had finished tearing the holes, but he was still kneeling, looking up at her with his cool gray eyes. “I wouldn't have cut you,” he said.

Joan wanted to accuse him of deliberately making her look as stupid as he did. But the Joan in the mirror looked unexpectedly good—almost as good as Aaron—like they could be in the same band.

It struck Joan suddenly that Aaron had saved her life too. He'd said that he owed her. That he couldn't leave her until he'd repaid her. But he'd saved her life at the Pit and again at St. James's Park. Surely, he'd paid her back twice over.

It took Joan a moment to remember what she'd wanted to say to him. “Do you know anything about the Liu family power?”

“Perfect memory,” Aaron said. “Everyone knows that.”

“Yes, but Ruth says that there are rumors of more. Rumors that some of them remember events that never happened.”

Aaron got to his feet slowly, and then Joan was looking up at him. “I've heard the rumors,” he said evenly.

“Maybe they're remembering events that have changed.”

“I understand the implication.”

“If events have been changed before, maybe they can be changed again.”