Young Writers Society

I had taken more than a little bit of a joy in watching Queenie and Carter become smaller and smaller through the van's windows as we pulled away.

What I didn't like as much was the party itself. I had been to a very limited number of dances before, and it definitely hadn't been like this. The few I had seen back before all of this had been through the glass of my jar, and all of those dances had involved relatively more rich people in a slightly different time period.

Kirux seemed similarly confused and out-of-place. He kept looking at everything with wide-eyed fascination, but he didn't seem to have any interest in actually joining in. If anything, he clung to my side - gripping my arm so tightly that it started to hurt. Without his notebook, I had no way of knowing what was running through his head right now - but I had a feeling that he wished he was somewhere else, too.

"Okay," I said, trying to shake my arm free a little bit but failing miserably, "I think we need to figure out what we're supposed to do here."

Kirux looked over at me and gave a big nod.

Maybe it was because Kirux was clinging to me so much, or maybe it was because neither one of us was all that good at fitting in here, but no one was thankfully approaching us at the moment. I had all the time I needed to figure out what exactly the librarian wanted us to do in order to get Esther back - and how quickly I could do it.

I glanced around the party.

Mary was off dancing with Louis. Louis's features looked familiar. Once I stared at him long enough, the similarities finally clicked - I was looking at Jay's dad. Since the clothes were just around the same style as they had been when we had been to Jay's childhood, this was probably when his parents had met.

...But Anna had been young.

And if Jay was a few years old....

I didn't like the feeling I was getting, but I knew there was nothing I could do about it. Maybe this was punishment for Jay getting killed - I doubted we really needed to give that relationship a spark. Scanning the crowd one more time, I spotted Alex and Bo. Alex was sitting by the fire, and Bo was standing around looking as nervous as I was secretly starting to feel.

Alex was technically a murderer and a member of a cult in another life, but this current Alex didn't seem all that dangerous. And if Bo had even an inkling of the idea I had, I needed to talk to him - alone. I didn't want Kirux overhearing the conversation.

"Hey, Kirux," I said. "You should go keep Alex company - I'll go find Bo while you do."

I shifted where I was standing so Kirux couldn't see where Bo very clearly was. Kirux hesitated for a moment - almost as if he had caught sight of Bo - but then gave a big nod and rushed off to Alex's side.

I let out a sigh I hadn't realized I had been holding and went over to Bo's side. I walked over to him from behind and tapped Bo on his arm to catch his attention. Just as I did so, I caught a glimpse of a familiar face - the face part of me had been hoping not to see.

"I have a sneaking suspicion that I know why we're here," I said, looking at Anna from a distance, "and I don't think you're going to like it."

Carter raised his eyebrows. "Ask you a question? I asked you two, and you didn't answer either," he retorted. "And I didn't burn my bridges. The Librarian did. Now everyone knows I was complicit in Jay's murder, and you shot the gun, so there's no hiding it. Don't act like you're any better."



Bo spun around to face Skull. He frowned.

"I already know," he said quietly. "And you're right. I don't. I hate it. I wish we -"

Bo stopped when he felt someone bump into his back. He glanced behind him, looking down at a young teenage girl who backed away apologetically.

"Oh! Sorry!" she said, before running off again with a friend who looked around the same age close behind.

I watched Anna run off to her friends.

"That's the reason," I said, the pit in my stomach growing.

Bo froze, staring at Skull, then at the girl who'd just bumped into him. He didn't need to ask to know what Skull meant. That girl was Jay's mom.

Bo's eyebrows pinched together, and his anxiety spiked.

"She's just a kid..." he whispered.

Alex saw that the mute had joined her at the fire.

"It's nice here by the fire?" She said. "I've never been big at parties."

Just then, Alex looked up at the sky and noticed the perfect full moon and the stars in the sky.

These people may have been suffering, but the joy they were experienced was genuine. Alex realized her father was seven years old. He would still be in North Dakota now. This must have been what he talked about when he said Alex's generation didn't understand sacrifices.

But maybe it wasn't so bad here. It couldn't be any worse than the world in 1977. Maybe it was even better.

She sighed. Just then, the music changed. The bandleader got out a ukulele and began to sing.

It's only a paper moon, sailing under a cardboard sea....

The song was beautiful. Perfect for a night like tonight.

*

Mary decided to take a break when the music turned slow. She waved to Louis and sat down next to Alex by the fire. That was when she saw Louis look at a blonde girl who looked like she was barely in high school. The girl was with her friend, but Louis was clearly focused on the blonde girl, and she on him.

She swore, it was like Romeo and Juliet, the rest of the world melted away. After a moment, Anna's friend whispered something in her ear and disappeared.

"She doth teach the torches to burn bright," Louis said to Anna.

If any guy tried to pull that with Mary, she would have kicked him in the nuts. But it was smooth, and judging from the look on Anna's face, she thought so too.

"Dance with me," he said.

"Okay," she replied, and took his hand. They were dancing to the music and there was clearly something happening between the two of them. Was this Jay's mother? It couldn't have been. That would be too easy.

"What's your name?" Louis said.

"I'm Anna," she replied.

"Louis. It's very nice to meet you."

"And you as well."

Her smile was wider than anything Mary had seen anyone smile in a long time.

She huffed a laugh. The music from the party could just barely be heard on the wind as they got steadily closer. "For someone who likes to play the puppet master, you sure are awful with people."

Not completely true, sure. He could spin a good lie, put up a good persona, but basic empathy? He hadn't the faintest hint of it.

She didn't give him the chance to answer as the party came into view, and she joined the crowd.

It wasn't all that nice. It was pathetic, really, as far as parties went, but maybe that was the spoiled rich kid everyone accused her or being talking. To an extent, they were probably right. She was used to the parties she went to involving much, much better alcohol that she wasn't supposed to drink.

Julian was hanging on the outskirts, looking award and blushing about something. Some poor girl probably tried to flirt with him and was then subjected to the absolute horror show that was Julian attempting to flirt back.

She snickered at that thought and joined the dance. A smile and a gesture toward the dance floor got her a partner in a pretty boy a little older than herself.

Whatever they were doing here, she'd let the others deal with it. They hated her, mistrusted her, and thus, they would probably all try to get in her way if she tried to deal with anything herself.

I watched Anna dance with Louis, trying to fight the urge to intervene. It felt wrong standing by when Anna looked like she could have been Nikko's age - but I knew it was my only shot at getting Esther back. If Anna and Louis didn't have Jay, Jay and Alex would never have Esther.

Of course, it didn't mean I thought this was the best way to fix the whole murdering kid Jay thing - the only solution to that I could come up with was stopping past Queenie and past Carter from murdering Jay.

But the librarian hadn't given us that option.

I just hoped Kirux wasn't paying too much attention right now.


Kirux gave a big nod at Alex's question, his gaze turning up to the sky when she looked up. He hadn't ever seen the stars look like that before, but they were really pretty. He wondered if Riku had seen them sometime, too - if he had ever been to a world like this one. Thinking about what Riku had done and was doing right now made Kirux feel a lot better about Alex not knowing who he was - it reminded him that she was a different Alex, just like he was a different Riku.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye.

Mary had sat down next to Alex. Kirux didn't really know her well yet, but she seemed nice! He turned away from the stars - and thoughts of Riku - and gave her a big wave, even when it was clear she was watching someone else.

He sat down next to Mary and pulled out his notepad, grateful he still had it.

"What are you watching?" he wrote before showing it to her.

"Them," Mary said quietly, pointing to Louis and Anna. "I can't describe it, but I know they're our chance at getting home."

Carter didn't dignify Queenie's comment with a response. He could be good with people if he wanted to, but he didn't care anymore. The Librarian made everyone think he was terrible, and at this point, he didn't feel like proving anyone wrong anymore. Skull had the other's trust more than he did, and he didn't expect his word to count for anything anymore.

That, and it was nice to not pretend for once, even if it made him unpopular. Until then, he was just waiting until he got sent home.

He watched as Queenie departed onto the dance floor and quickly found herself a partner, blending in with ease. She was still putting on an act, and it was probably because that was all she really knew. It wasn't like the others trusted her either. It seemed that she and Carter had something of the same conclusion - they were just living it out differently.

His eyes drifted across the crowd. Skull was beside the big man, and the mute was with Alex and Mary. That only left Louis to be accounted for, and when Carter found him in the crowd of dancers, he saw he was dancing with a young blond girl who looked like she had barely begun her teen years. A closer look told him it was Anna. Jay's mom. Carter narrowed his eyes. The age gap was disturbingly obvious, and all of the others were just standing by.

His mouth curled up in disgust. The others pretended to be so morally superior, and they were just going to stand by and let this happen when they'd been so against murder earlier? How was this not just as bad? What was the Librarian even trying to prove?

Carter marched through the crowd, weaving through the flow of the dancers without touching any of them. Sometimes (sometimes) his size came in handy.

He landed beside the "couple," behind Anna and in Louis's line of sight.

"Oh, so Alex was too old for you, then? What, do you always go for the younger ones? You like them fresh out of the womb? Or do you just flirt with anything that has legs?"


Bo felt like he was dying on the inside - and not in the dramatic way people said that about everyday trivial things that inevitably blew over. He felt like a part of him was dying by letting this happen. But what else could he even do? If he intervened now, would that even change things? They weren't going to be here forever. Anna would probably end up having Jay anyway, right? And she was supposed to. He wasn't supposed to intervene, because Anna meant Jay, and Jay meant all the kids he inevitably had, and so on, and so on.

Why did they have to be assigned to meddle with history? Why were they even here?

Bo wanted to rip his hair out. This was agonizing. But instead, he just stayed stoic at the edges of the fire, trying not to lose his mind.

That was, until Carter - of all people - started slipping into the dancing crowd, heading for Louis. Oh no. He didn't know what Carter was going to do, but from all the things Skull and the Librarian said, he didn't think it would be good.

"Hey, buzz off," Louis snapped. When Carter didn't, he got in his face. "Jealous because you're the kind of guy who parents tell their daughters to stay away from?"

Anna stared at the two men with a blank look on her face. She felt increasingly uncomfortable standing there, but she didn't want to leave Louis. Not yet, anyway. They were having such a good time, and she hoped the fight could be broken up.

Carter still didn't leave, and Louis promptly kicked him in the nuts. Then, he started punching him in the face. He could have kept going all day.

That was it for Anna. It was scary how violent he was, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to be involved with someone like that. She promptly went to find Ruth. "Let's get out of here," she told her friend.

"What about..." She gestured back towards the crowd, towards Louis.

"Forget it, let's go."

And so they did.

Bo couldn’t hear what Carter said to Louis, but when he saw Louis lash out at Carter he started towards them, pushing through the crowd. By the time he got there, Anna was running off and Louis has Carter pinned to the ground.

He ripped Louis away and to his feet.

“That’s enough,” he said sternly, wedging himself between Carter and Louis. He looked down at Carter with a look of disappointment. Carter’s face was bloody and one of his eyes was starting to bruise and swell badly. Bo couldn’t quite read his expression. There was a strange smugness to his glare that confused him.

“Both of you need to cool off.”

Queenie and her partner - who hadn't given a name between his bouts of idle small talk - stopped dancing with most everyone else this close to the fight the moment it started. She painted an appropriately horrified look on her face to match that of her partner, who, stupidly, moved in front of her slightly in a protective gesture she most certainly did not appreciate.

She watched as Anna ran away and had to bite back her laughter.

Check, dear Librarian, your move.

It was hard not to gain a twisted kind of pleasure from screwing up that bitch's plans once again.

Queenie was starting to accept that she wasn't going home. The Librarian was too flustered, to frazzled in her attempt to change up history to place the pieces right. Over and over through sheer dumb luck and twisted morals, this little ragtag group was always going to knock over her king.

Queenie was curious as to whether she'd reset the board this time, or just keep trying to play the game like it wasn't already over.

They'd scared Anna away from Jay's father, and, frankly, there was no way Queenie could stomach even allowing someone else to talk that little girl back into sleeping with someone who was nearly a grown-ass adult.

I could see where this was going.

I'd have to play the bad guy again - I hadn't ever really had to do it during this, but it was a role I knew well enough. And I hated that I had to let something like this happen. I hated that a girl Nikko's age was supposed to end up with a guy a few years older, and I hated knowing that Anna was going to be raising Jay on her own a few years after this. It was wrong.

But I knew this was how history was supposed to play out. And the last time we had tried altering history, we had ended up wiping out any entire family of people from a timeline. We were stuck dealing with the uncomfortable situation of knowing that Alex was going to become a murderer the moment we made everything right, even though her life right now was arguably better since she wasn't behind bars.

The simple solution was to just pull us out of the equation. If we weren't present anymore - or if we had even stopped ourselves from interfering - it wouldn't be a question of how to fix things. Time would fix itself.

I waited for Louis and Carter to go their separate ways.

I saw the irony in going against the man who had plotted to kill a kid. And I knew that Bo and Kirux were going to hate me after I said what I was planning on saying - if Kirux actually understood what was going on right now. When I glanced over at him, he just looked confused.

I wished I had my powers. I wished the librarian would show up. I wish I wasn't so helpless, and didn't have to keep playing the morally compromised villain. I was supposed to have given that up when I left behind my jar; I had accepted that this was a new start.

I joined Bo at his side, a dark expression on my face.

I knew my morals weren't sound. I knew that sometimes I wasn't any better than Queenie or Carter. But it had been nice to pretend that they were, even if it was for just a fraction of the time I had been around.

Louis supposed he let himself get out of control.

But the man had been behaving weirdly at the diner, and he had no right to interfere just because he was jealous that Louis had found someone to dance with and he hadn't.

Anna was gone. He had to find her. He didn't even know her last name, nothing about her.

"Stay away from me, all of you," Louis snapped before he walked off into the crowd and went to find his friend Max. "Don't you dare think about coming back to the diner."

He'd find Anna. He'd make it right.

*

Mary saw Anna and Ruth leave and immediately knew she had to do something about the situation. So she went after them. They didn't notice her until they reached the parking lot.

"Hey," she said. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Anna said quietly.

"I saw you dancing with that guy," Mary said. "He was really cute."

"And he just beat up a guy for no reason," Anna replied.

"Maybe he just got upset," Mary said. This felt wrong, because Mary remembered almost everything now. Marrying Adam. And meeting Anna only in 1985, a year before she died.

She had been sick, but her mind was still sharp. And one of the things she'd said was that she loved Jay desperately. He had been her whole life. That looking at Adam was like seeing her son again.

That wasn't wrong, was it? Even in spite of what Jay would become. Still, it felt wrong trying to convince a fifteen year old to sleep with a twenty year old, knowing she would pregnant, he would leave her, and she would end up raising the child by herself.

But it was what had to happen.

"I was watching you two dance and you really felt like you had a connection."
Anna simply nodded. Just then, Mary asked how they were getting home.

"Bus," Anna said. "We're neighbors."

"Listen," Mary said quietly. She had no idea if this was going to work, but she knew it was the Depression and a different time where people were more open to this sort of thing. "I don't have anywhere to sleep, and my boyfriend, he was the one who started the fight. Louis was just defending himself. And uh, I don't think I want him to be my boyfriend anymore. Can I stay with one of you while I figure this out? I'll work."

The lie felt icky, but she couldn't think of anything else. It also felt icky leaving the group behind, but she figured they would find each other eventually, and she was annoyed with the rest of them anyhow.

"Uh," Anna said quietly. "I can ask my mom. Come with us."

"My parents will probably let you if Anna's parents say no," Ruth added.

The bus ride was quiet and peaceful. For about fifteen minutes, they didn't speak much. Mary realized she'd never introduced herself and told the girls her name.

Soon, they got off and walked uphill on a dirt path. Anna's house wasn't extravagant by any means, but he saw that she was probably more well off than the rest of the town. By the time she saw the cross on the door, she knew what she was getting into.

Anna's parents were Louisa and Elijah. They seemed young, late thirties at most. Anna introduced her. Inside the house, Christian iconography was everywhere. She was started to put the pieces together.

"Hi, I'm Mary," Mary said. "I'm nineteen years old and I'm homeless. I would love a bed to sleep in and a hot meal in the morning. I will cook, clean, I will do whatever you need."

"We have a guest room upstairs," Louisa said. "Make yourself comfortable. We'll talk in the morning. You can borrow a few of my clothes if you like and I'll stick that outfit in the wash in the morning."

By the time Mary changed her clothes, was shown to her room and fell asleep on the bed, she wondered what she was doing. Fixing it, she thought. Then, she fell sound asleep.

*

At the park, Alex watched the scene from a distance. She stayed by the fire. She saw Queenie standing by and approached her.

"Hey. What's going on? The guys won't tell me anything."

Queenie gave her dance partner an apologetic smile, "Sorry, I'll see you around." He got the hint and vanished into the crowd.

She waited a beat before turning her attention fully to Alex. She considered her. How no one else had directed this girl to hate on Queenie for killing a pedophile was anyone's guess. Really, that act was the least morally corrupt thing she'd done with a gun in the last few months, not that the others knew that.

"Let's get out of the crowd for this," Queenie said to her, guiding her to a more secluded spot where they wouldn't be overheard. It wasn't hard to have a private conversation in a crowd - people didn't really pay that much attention, and by now the dancing had started back up - but there were certain buzzwords that could easily catch the attention of any given bystander, and Queenie expected many of those to come up.

Once they were mostly alone and seated on a makeshift bench away from the fire, Queenie sighed. "It's a bit of a long story, but I can give you the short version. That Louis guy is 'supposed' to impregnate that little girl, Anna. That's how Jay - that silver-tongued bastard you're 'supposed' to play concubine for in the timeline the Librarian prefers - is born. Carter kinda fucked that up, and I suspect that we're supposed to now make sure that things go back to 'normal'."

She rolled her eyes and pulled her thin sweater tighter around her shoulders. It was a bit chilly this far from the fire. Now was the part where she got ahead of the game. If Alex hadn't been told the full story yet, then it was better she hear it from Queenie. There was nothing worse than perceived dishonesty or secret-keeping when it came to poisoning a decent relationship.

"We - Carter, Skull, and I - were sent back to a few different times before, along with one other girl. Some stuff happened and it was thoroughly established that Jay is a horrible person, and a murderer, mind you. Then we were sent back to his childhood and given a gun. It was the 'baby Hitler' argument, basically, and Carter and I were the only two in favor. I won't lie, the fact that the Librarian heavily implied that we would all get to go home if we erased the pedophile and murderer from the history books. I pulled the trigger." She made herself look ashamed of it, like the very idea that she killed someone was a repulsive, horrifying thought.

"Everyone kinda hates me now," she added with a bitter laugh. That she didn't have to fake, and her gaze flicked to Julian, who stood, confused, on the outskirts of the party.