Page 30 of Only a Monster

‘Stealing time is always a risk,’ Aaron continued. ‘You don’t know how long anyone has left. If you try to take more time from someone than they have, they’ll drop dead right there in front of you.’

‘Drop dead?’ Joan said numbly.

‘Yes, and we don’t want to draw that kind of attention.’ Aaron’s tone was utterly practical. He could have been talking about getting caught picking a neighbour’s flowers. ‘So we reduce the risk by taking a little bit of time from a lot of different people.’

It still didn’t explain why they’d come here to Buckingham Palace. A Tube station would have been just as crowded. And they’d stopped off at Primark on the way to buy Joan a T-shirt, jeans, and some shoes. For some reason, Aaron had also bought an ugly floppy hat and two bottles of water. Why hadn’t they taken time there?

Aaron seemed to know what she was thinking. ‘We can’t just pop over to the local grocery and steal time,’ he said. ‘If a monster did that—if they kept taking time from the same place, the same group of humans—those humans would die earlier than the general population. That would create a statistical anomaly that could draw the attention of human authorities. And our authorities—monster authorities—they don’t like that. That’s why you should always take time from visitors.’ He gestured at the crowd around them. ‘Tourists.’

Tourists. Joan looked at the crowd. Everyone here was dressed for a holiday—comfortable shoes and light jackets.

‘There are a lot of different techniques,’ Aaron said, ‘but to be honest, most of them are just for show. The important thing is to touch the back of the person’s neck. Any part of your hand will do—fingers, thumb, palm. Then concentrate on an amount of time. No other thoughts. Clear your mind of everything else. Just one touch, nice and fast, and move on. The ratio is one to one. Take a day, and you can travel a day.’

Joan’s stomach was really starting to hurt. ‘Okay, so. So, we go back two days. You warn your family, and I’ll warn mine.’

‘Days?’ Aaron frowned. ‘We can’t go back two days.’

‘What?’

‘You can’t be in the same time twice. The timeline doesn’t allow it. If we want to go back, we’ll have to go back to before you were born. And you’re, what—seventeen?’

‘What?’

‘How old are you?’ Aaron said slower, as if she were stupid.

‘Sixteen.’

‘I’m seventeen. So that’s seventeen years. But for safety, you should always add a few years. Let’s say twenty years.’

Joan stared at him. ‘But. But we only need to go back a couple of days. To before our families were killed.’

‘Well, we can’t.’

‘But.’ Joan couldn’t take it in. ‘We can’t go back twenty years! We can’t take that much time. That’d be like killing someone!’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Aaron said, and Joan realised that people were staring at them. Aaron tugged her farther into the crowd. ‘We’re not killing anyone,’ he murmured into her ear. ‘We’re not taking twenty years from a single person. That’s why we came here. We’re going to take a little time from a lot of people.’

Joan looked around at the crowd. These were all people. They’d come here for a bit of spectacle and a few photos. Maybe afterward they’d have a soft serve with a Flake. What kind of person would steal life from them? Only a monster would do that.

‘Can you do it or not?’ Aaron sounded impatient.

If she didn’t do it, then Gran and Ruth and Bertie and Aunt Ada and Uncle Gus were dead. They were really dead. They really would have died last night. Joan squeezed her hands into fists and nodded.

‘Then watch and learn,’ Aaron said.

With little effort, Aaron transformed himself into a tourist. He untucked his nice shirt, making it look almost comfortable. He put on the ugly floppy hat he’d bought. Then he pushed into the crowd, phone raised, taking photos of the palace. As he walked, the edge of his hand caught a woman’s neck—apparently accidentally. He walked a little farther and then stopped suddenly to take another photo, making people stumble into him from behind. Aaron stumbled in turn, hand flinging up for balance, brushing people’s necks. Joan saw him mouth sorry, sorry as he pushed his phone by people’s ears to get the right angle. It looked like an accident every time.

After a few minutes, he pushed his way back to Joan. It took him a while. The crowd was still growing.

‘Your turn,’ he said. ‘Ten days from each person. That’s two school weeks. Monday to Friday. Then Monday to Friday again.’

Joan’s stomach churned. ‘Two school weeks,’ she echoed. Back of the neck. It was difficult to summon the idea of school. It felt like something from a whole other world.

Aaron passed his water bottle over a man’s shoulder. The man gave Aaron an irritated look as the bottle went by his ear. Joan reached for it, her hand shaking. The man was around thirty years old and wearing a T-shirt with a dinosaur on it: a T-rex on a children’s slide, its little arms waving in delight.

Joan let the edge of her hand brush the man’s neck. It was awkward touching a stranger like this. He was sweating slightly. His hand came up to swat at the touch. Joan snatched her hand away.

It’s okay, Aaron mouthed. Around them, the rumble of the crowd was beginning to rise. The drums and trumpets were getting louder. Joan craned around people’s shoulders and heads and raised arms and phones. She glimpsed red coats on the long strip of the Mall. The new guards were coming.

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