Only a Monster (12 page)

Garum
, she thought idly. That had been a condiment in ancient Rome, a little like fish sauce. Joan had read about it. And just like that, the muzzy feeling was back.
Focus
, Joan told herself, pushing down fluttering panic.
Focus on details.
But everywhere she looked, there were objects from other times. A centurion shield, slung over someone's back. A rough wooden bow, unstrung.

“
Oi
,” someone called out. Joan jumped, startled out of the muzziness.

A stall owner was looking at her—a man in his early twenties. He had sandy hair and the muscular build of a boxer. “You selling that contraband?” he said.

“Contraband?” Joan said. The man's card table was covered with bulky nineties phones and watches, cameras, and other electronics.

The man gestured at the phone poking out of Joan's jeans pocket. “You're in the nineties, love. Drop that thing outside these walls, and you'll hear about it from the Court. But I'll take it off your hands.”

It was the phone Joan had found in the Yellow Drawing Room. She'd almost forgotten about it.

“You have the pass code?” the man asked.

Joan shook her head.

“I'll give you a hundred for it.”

A flash of memory came to Joan of Gran buying a sausage roll at Greggs one day. Gran had winked at Joan and then offered the man half the asking price for it. At the time, Joan had squirmed with embarrassment. Who
did
that? Now she just wished Gran were here.

“Five hundred,” Joan said for the hell of it, because the audacity of it would have made Gran laugh.

“Oh, fuck off,” the guy said. “You think I'm running a charity?”

“Two hundred,” Joan said. “Screen's not even cracked.”

The guy grimaced. “One seventy,” he said. “No more than that.” He jerked his chin. “I'd give you more for that necklace, though.”

Joan reached instinctively to touch the chain. Gran had given her the necklace last night before she'd died. Joan swallowed and shook her head.

“Go on,” the man said, “name a price.”

It was the only connection Joan still had to Gran. Gran had touched this chain. Gran's blood had been on this chain. Joan shook her head again.

The man shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He handed Joan some strange notes, and Joan gave him the phone in return.

She examined the notes curiously. They were clear plastic with golden images at their center: a crown, a winged lion. Laid over each other, they seemed to form part of an unfamiliar coat of arms. Was this monster money? “Can I have some of this in
local cash?” she asked, partly to gauge the exchange rate.

“What am I—a currency exchange?” the guy grumbled. But he took back a twenty and gave Joan forty pounds in more recognizable money.

Joan pocketed the cash. As she turned, a familiar voice drawled: “Well, look at you. Selling stolen goods like a true Hunt.”

Aaron was standing by the table, arms folded casually. But his hair was wet and dark like it had been last night after his shower. Had he run out here looking for her?

Aaron surveyed the man's watches and phones with clear disdain. “Hope you're not going to spend it here,” he said to Joan.

“I'm going to the post office down the street,” Joan said. “I saw the sign—it said they deliver to other times. I'm going to write myself a letter.”

“What on earth for?”

“To stop Nick, of course,” Joan said. “To warn myself so I can save my family.”

Aaron barked a laugh, spontaneous and harsh.

“Why is that funny?” Joan demanded, even though Aaron hadn't sounded amused, exactly. If anything, the laugh had sounded pained. She had an uneasy feeling suddenly—like the feeling she'd had when she'd taken time at the Pit.

“Oh, it's not funny at all.” Aaron gestured for Joan to lead the way. “By all means, write a letter and save us all from heroes.”

The uneasy feeling increased as Joan went back out into the rain. Aaron followed her in silence. The post office wasn't far, but by the time they got to it, water was falling from the eaves in sheets, spattering as it hit the ground.

“Ooh, you two got caught in it,” the woman at the post office said when Joan pushed open the door. She had a soft northern accent that reminded Joan of Nick. She was sorting what looked like wedding invitations, popping them into different drawers, labeled with fifty-year ranges: 1900–1949; 1950–1999; 2000–2049. She gestured: “Postcards over there,” she said. “Lovely one of Steffi Graf winning Wimbledon this year.”

“Could I send a letter, please?” Joan said.

“A letter?” the woman said. “Isn't that nice? Love a letter. More people should write letters.” She gestured at a shelf with sheets of paper and envelopes.

Joan could feel Aaron's eyes on her. The post office was set up like a little living room: there was a love seat and a low coffee table in a pink-painted alcove. Joan sat on the love seat, and, after a moment, Aaron's weight settled beside her.

Joan breathed out.
Dear Joan
, she wrote. It felt strange to address herself.

She hadn't realized how difficult it would be to write out the events of last night. Her hand shook as she told herself how the Olivers had arrived. How she'd sent a message to her family. How the Hunts had come to help her and how they'd died. She told herself about Nick. Aaron's gaze on her felt like a physical presence as she wrote.

It was going to be okay, she thought to herself. After this letter was delivered, last night wouldn't have happened. As soon as her past self got the letter, she'd prevent the massacre. She'd warn Gran and her family. They'd all stop Nick together.

“Do you think I need to say anything else?” she whispered to Aaron.

He hadn't spoken since they'd left the market, but he'd been reading over Joan's shoulder. Now he said heavily, “No.”

Joan signed her name. Then she took a deep breath and went back to the counter.

At what point would time reset itself? Would it be when she handed the letter to the woman at the counter? When it was delivered?

The woman took the letter and one of Joan's strange monster bank notes and handed over some change: more notes and coins.

Now
, Joan thought. She'd be back at home with Gran and everyone would be alive again
now
.

Outside, the rain continued to pelt down. Seconds ticked by. “Can I please send a copy to my gran as well?” Joan said.

The woman showed her how to use the copier. Joan wrote down Gran's address from last year and a date for last summer. The woman took back some of the coins.

Now
, Joan thought. It was all going to be undone
now
.

The woman put both letters into the 2000–2049 drawer.

“You're sure this will be delivered at the right time?” Joan said.

“Guaranteed, or your money back,” the woman said cheerfully.

Now. Now.
Now.

Nothing. The clock on the wall ticked off the passage of time. Nothing changed.

“Can I help you with anything else?” the woman said.

Joan startled when Aaron touched her elbow. “No, thank you,” Aaron said to the woman. To Joan he said: “Why don't we go back to the inn.” Joan almost imagined something gentle in his voice.

Joan's unease grew as she opened the door out into the rain again, until the feeling was thick and heavy in her stomach. Until it was so strong that she had to stop in the middle of that strange, hidden, trafficless street, with the rain pouring down on her.

“Joan,” Aaron said. To her surprise, he walked out from under the eave to join her. His white shirt turned sodden, sticking to his skin. She could see the edge of a dark tattoo just where his hip started.

“Is that post office a scam?” Joan said. “Is that why you laughed at me?”

“I didn't,” Aaron said. “I didn't laugh at you. And it's not a scam. The post office sends messages to different times.”

“Then . . . how long do we have to wait?”

“Let's go inside,” Aaron said. The gentleness was back in his voice. “We have a room upstairs. We can dry off up there.”

Joan's hair felt heavy and cold down her back. The bandage was a clear outline around her waist. She knew why she
was standing out here. The rain was soothingly relentless. She didn't know why Aaron was standing with her. He was thoroughly drenched now too. She hadn't known him long, but she knew that he liked to look ordered and in control.

“If I ask you a question, will you tell me the truth?” she said.

Water dripped from Aaron's darkened hair, his shirtsleeves, the cuffs of his trousers. “Yes.”

“Will those letters save our families?”

The tired pity in his eyes made Joan's throat close up. He shook his head. The sound of the rain drowned out his voice so that his answer was only a shape on his lips. “No.”

The unease inside her felt like a clawing animal. Her throat felt so tight she could barely speak. She forced out the next words. “Then how do we save them?”

The pity in Aaron's face deepened into something awful and weary and
old
. And Joan suddenly didn't want him to answer. She was already shaking her head when he did.

“Nothing you do will save them,” he said.

“No,” Joan said.
No.
That didn't make sense. There were a thousand things she could do now that she was here in this time. She could warn Gran face-to-face. Or she could hire a law firm to deliver messages to herself and her family, to every one of Gran's addresses, every year. She had years and years to find ways to stop that night from happening.

Nick wouldn't catch anyone by surprise. No one would die.
That
made sense.

“Joan . . . ,” Aaron said.

But Joan suddenly couldn't bear his presence. “No!” she said. She turned and ran, skidding and slipping on the wet cobblestones.

She could hear him calling after her, but she didn't want to hear anything else he said. He was a liar. He'd left her to die last night. He was as cruel as his father.

She wrenched open the door to the inn, peripherally aware of everyone turning to stare at her. She supposed she must look a fright—soaked to the skin and wild. She scanned the room, searching for familiar eyes. For
the Hunt family look
. For silver-tongued fox charms and tattoos. For any sign of her own family. There were dozens and dozens of people in here. One of them had to be a Hunt.

All she needed was to find Gran's younger self in this time—to find
any
Hunt in this time. She just needed to tell them face-to-face. No letters, no middlemen.
That
would stop all this.

She headed to where the innkeeper was standing behind a glossy wooden bar. He was sipping coffee, eyes on his patrons. Joan had the impression of a benevolent mayor.

“I need to find someone from the Hunt family,” Joan said.

The innkeeper gave her a long look. “The Hunts don't like to be found.”

Joan fumbled for the cash in her pocket and put a transparent-and-gold note on the bar. The one that said 50. “Dorothy Hunt,” she said. That was Gran's name.

“Some people
shouldn't
be found.”

Joan put another 50 down. “Any Hunt will do,” she said, “but if Dorothy is in this time, then I want to talk to
her
.”

The innkeeper made a sound at the back of his throat that might have been disapproval, but when Joan looked down, the cash was gone.

Joan had hoped that the clawing feeling inside her would be eased by that, but if anything, it worsened it. She scanned the room yet again. She knew it was stupid to keep checking, but—

She saw the tattoo first—a delicate mermaid curled around a man's wrist. She lifted her eyes to his face.

She'd only seen him once before, but he was shockingly familiar. He'd been in his fifties when he'd died in the garden at Holland House. Now he was in his early twenties, and he had a round boyish face, a smirky mouth, and blond hair that was already thinning.

For a long moment, the overlaid image was more real than the inn. She could see it all. The dark garden at Holland House. The maze ahead of her. This man lying on his side, eyes open, one arm flung out, his mermaid tattoo stark against his pale wrist. The scent of crushed flowers seemed to fill the inn.

He'd
been
there. She could warn
him
.

There was a gust of cold wet spray as the door opened and closed.

Joan was distantly aware of Aaron saying her name urgently, but she was already moving.

The man looked up as Joan approached him, his curious expression turning to distaste as he took in Joan's bracelet: the
gold fox charm with its little silver tongue.

“I—I know.” Joan raised her hands placatingly. “I know I'm a Hunt. I know you're an Oliver. But listen to me. Please. Something terrible is going to happen. But we can stop it.”

The man pushed his chair away. Joan grabbed at his sleeve as he stood. “Wait,” she said. “
Listen
to me. Listen. A human is going to be born. He's going to kill
so
many people. He's going to kill you!”

Just like in the post office, she found herself thinking
now, now, last night will be undone now
as she told him the details of the date, the place, the time, all the people who would die.

And just like at the post office, nothing changed at the end of it.

She was doing this all wrong. She could feel it. She was saying the wrong things. She could feel herself breaking unspoken rules, conventions she didn't understand. But she couldn't stop. She was sure that if she just said the right thing in the right way—if she could make him understand—then everything would be fixed.

There was a change in the quality of the light. Joan knew without looking that Aaron had stepped into the space behind her. She had the feeling that he was blocking her from the view of other patrons.