Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(35)

It had started to rain while Joan had been inside. Now big splotches fell onto the cobblestones, darkening them. The sky had greyed. Here and there, people popped in and out of existence. The ones appearing ducked their heads from the rain and scrambled into buildings.

Joan stopped one woman as she hurried toward the inn. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Do you know where I can find the Hunt family?’

The woman’s eyebrows drew together. ‘What do you want with those thieves?’ She pushed past Joan roughly and went inside.

Joan stared after her, shaken. The Olivers hated her family. Had the woman been an Oliver? Or did lots of people hate the Hunts? It was an unsettling thought.

Around the square, there were all kinds of shops, selling cakes, tea, jewellery. One seemed to specialise in hats, apparently of every era: top hats, floral hats, straw bonnets, baseball caps. Another sold confectionary, its window display a cornucopia of whole glacé pineapples and oranges. Interspersed among the fruit, there were sugar sculptures—a translucent tiger, a brightly coloured parrot. They were lit from within by what looked like real, shifting flames. Joan had never seen anything like them.

She walked on. About half the new arrivals were hurrying out of the rain and into the inn.

Many of the others headed in another direction, running down one of the streets. The rain started to properly pelt down. Joan jogged across the cobblestones, following them. Water splashed up from puddles, soaking her ankles.

The trail of people led her to a covered market with a grand Victorian facade. Above the open entrance, the name Ravencroft Market was carved in stone along with three-dimensional birds and leaves. Joan walked in. The floor inside was a continuation of the cobbled street. An ornate glass ceiling arched above, the colour of a summer sky. Here and there, leadwork ravens soared among the glass.

Joan’s hair dripped as she passed racks and racks of clothes. She could have walked out of the market as a Roman centurion or a lady of the Regency or in nineties grunge.

There was food too—an eel-and-pie stall, a curry stall. Joan’s stomach rumbled again. She wished she’d taken the bread roll with her. She continued past tables of spices and herbs. Homemade bottles labelled garum. Bunches of spiky banana-like fruit. Dried yellowish leaves labelled silphium. Unfamiliar chocolate bars. It reminded Joan of the Chinese grocer she and Dad went to: a place to get things that weren’t on the high street.

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 centre: 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 recognisable 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?