Page 110 of Once a Villain
“You asked how I recognized you,” Mum said. “I used to take the train to Milton Keynes and make windows like this one. I don’t know how many times I watched you walk home from school. Watched you and your dad make dinner. Watched your birthday parties....”
“You came to see me?” Joan said. A familiar pressure of emotion rose, trying to be felt. Ever since she’d learned that Mum was a time traveler, she’d had questions:Why didn’t you ever try to meet me? Why didn’t you come and find me after you died?Nowit seemed her mother—one version of her, at least—hadcome to her. And maybe Joan would never know why her own mother had never tried to meet her, but this seemed to hint that she would have if she could.
“It was as close to you as I could get,” Mum said. Her voice cracked. “I was so glad to see youandyour dad—alive and free, far away from monster rule.”
Joan closed her eyes, trying to take it all in. “I thought something was wrong with my power.” Deep down, Joan had been wondering if there was something wrong withher. If shewasan abomination, as Edmund Oliver had once called her. She hesitated, and then confessed in a rush, “We saw tears in the sky here—hundreds of them. I thoughtImight have made them.”
“Oh, Joan...” Mum reached across the table, and Joan took her hand. “Those holes were here from this world’s conception. Eleanor stretched the timeline too far from its original form. It couldn’t hold its shape. That’s why she needed to lock the timeline. To makethisits true shape.”
“I haven’t been damaging the timeline?”
Mum squeezed Joan’s hand. “No. If you were trained in your power, you’d be able to open and close windows at will. As it is, any windows that you’ve made and left open will just shrink and close on their own, in time. They cause no harm to the timeline.”
Joan took a deep breath, a thread of relief seeping in. Jamie’s father had been right—the Grave powerwasbenign.
“If anything,” Mum said, “your untrained power could be causing harm toyou. People with a strong, untrained Grave power sometimes have terrible fade-outs.”
Joan looked at Aaron.
Mum saw Joan’s face and squeezed her hand. “There’s something I want to show you.Allof you.” She released Joan’s hand gently and made the peeling motion again. And then one more time.
At that final gesture, Joan stared. The house was visible again through the new window, but it had changed. The walls were cream, and the rugs were the soft green of olive leaves.
“This is the original timeline,” Mum said.
Inside the tear Mum had made, two figures emerged from the staircase. It took Joan a second to recognize herself with Nick. Their haircuts were different—Joan’s a shoulder-length bob, and Nick’s long enough to curl. They were holding hands, smiling at each other, excitement and nerves exuding from them, as if something important was about to happen.
Beside Joan now, Nick’s breath hitched. The love between their original selves was undeniable. They were looking at each other as if there was no one else in the world.
And the thing was, Joan realized, Nickstilllooked at her like that. He still loved her. And she still loved him. She still turned toward him when he entered a room like he was the sun itself.
“The happy couple,” Aaron said roughly, and Joan felt again like her heart was being wrenched apart. Because she loved Aaron too, desperately, helplessly.
Joan jumped at the sound of her own voice. Somehow, she hadn’t expected to hear it.
I know my family’s on board, she was saying to Nick.
All we have to do is persuade everyone else, Nick replied.
Outside the tear, Nick frowned. “What exactly are we watching?”
“This is the day of the peace talks,” Mum said softly. “The last day before the King erased my family from existence.”
“The peace talks... ,” Joan echoed. She stared with new eyes. This was the moment it had all begun. Joan and Nick had sought peace between humans and monsters, and Eleanor had informed on them to the King.
Later, Eleanor would blame Joan and Nick for the Graves’ erasure. She’d punish them by turning them against each other. They’d tried to seek peace, so she’d turned Nick into a monster slayer.Someone who’d hurt you—who you’d hurt, she’d told Joan.Until neither of you could bear it anymore.She’d seen it as poetic justice.
Inside the tear, Joan said,We have the Hunts,and the Olivers too.
The wordOliversseemed to echo.
“TheOlivers?” Aaron said, shock in his voice. Joan was surprised too. “The Olivers were part of the peace talks?”
“They were involved even before the Graves,” Mum said. “They were the first family to agree to stop taking time.”
Aaron shook his head. “No.” It was flat, like that wasn’t possible. “My fatherhateshumans. He always has. He’d never agree to that.”
As he spoke, though, a third person entered the room, back visible first, as if they’d come in from the balcony.
