Page 51 of Only a Monster

In the bathroom mirror, Joan did look like death—grey-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 travelling.’

‘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 rumour?’ 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 realise 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.’

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