Out of Time

"What if we could travel back in time and stop Martin from becoming the Beast?" said Quentin.

"You mean kill him Terminator style?" asked Josh. "Oh, I like it. Hasta la vista, Beastie."

"Well, we don't necessarily have to kill him," said Quentin. "We just need to alter his life path."

"Right, good point. Like destroy the clock he used to enter Fillory. Or maybe we could—"

"Josh, I'm glad you're buying into Quentin's story," said Janet, "but the rest of us need a moment to process it. Q, let me know if I have it all straight, okay?"

"Sure."

"So, you claim that this woman Liza—"

"Eliza."

"Right, Eliza, whom you and Julia first met when she was pretending to be a paramedic, told you she is Jane Chatwin and that she has put all of us in some sort of time loop spell until we find a way to kill the Beast."

"Correct. Which we've already attempted numerous times and failed horribly each time."

"Uh-huh. But this time, rather than letting us fumble about which always leads to us dying in a gruesome fashion, she decided to try something different by actually telling you the truth for once. Who she is, the part about the time loop and that her brother Martin is the Beast. Oh and that he became the Beast sometime after he disappeared in Fillory. Which is a real place."

"Yup."

"I love you and all Q, but that sounds batshit crazy. You realize that, right?"

"I do. But it's not. I swear. Jane's telling the truth. Well at least as much as I can prove. She showed me her watch that Ember gave her that controls the time loop. And she had a magic button on her that she used to take me to Fillory. Well not directly. First, we had to go through the Neitherlands, this sort of half-way world that links all the universes together through a series of fountains. That's why I was missing for a few days. Because time works differently there."

"And just when I thought your story couldn't get any crazier...," said Eliot before he took a long sip from his Martini. "Whatever drugs you are on right now, or were on, can I have some of them? They sound amaze-balls."

"I'm not high. And I'm not making any of this up. I swear. You guys know how serious I am about Fillory. I don't joke around. That's Josh's job."

"Damn straight it is."

"So Quentin," said Alice, "say we actually believe what you are telling us, and I'm not saying that we do because like your girlfriend said, it sounds crazy. But if we did, and we wanted to stop Martin from becoming the Beast, how do we get back in time to carry it out? I can't believe I'm about to say this out loud, but would Jane use her magic watch?"

"No, she said she can't do that. I asked. She said using that kind of power would alert the Beast to her presence here. But Julia knows a way we can do it."

"I do?"

"Yeah. Remember how at the beginning of the semester you told me that you came across a thesis by some previous students? They were putting together a spell to go back in time to kill Hitler. We can use that. It will take us to a point in Martin's life before he became the Beast."

"Time travel magic? Oh I'm totally in," said Josh.

"Two problems with that idea," said Julia. "One, the spell can only transport two people, so the whole group can't go. Which is probably a good thing because the second problem, and the main reason that the students never killed Hitler, is because success means it's a one-way trip. They realized that killing Hitler would create this crazy time paradox. If you killed Hitler, then there would never be any reason for you to go back in time to do it because he wouldn't have existed in the first place. They theorized that you'd create this alternate timeline with an alternate version of you, and the you that time traveled would either cease to exist at that point, or you'd be ripped out of time to exist someplace outside the time stream. In either case, it didn't end well for you."

"That's just their theory, though," retorted Quentin.

"Theory or not, that sounds too risky to me," said Josh. "I'm not in anymore. Sorry, bud."

"It's alright. It's my idea so I volunteer to go back. And Janet, you should come with me."

"And why the hell should I do that?"

"Because out of all of us here you are the only one that could kill a child if it came down to that."

"That's fucked up that you would think me capable of something like that."

"Am I wrong?"

"Well, no. If I had to strangle baby Martin in his crib to save all our lives, I'd gladly do it. But it's still fucked up that you knew that."

"You say a lot of strange stuff in your sleep."

"Fine. You're right. The rest of you are too soft to be Bad Cop. If you want to do this Q, then I'll go with you. If you're right, then it beats sitting around here waiting to get slaughtered. But you could have just asked me to go because you loved me and you wanted to do this together."

"Would that have worked?"

"No, but it would have been nice to hear."

"I just want to point out that if Quentin's story isn't bullshit," said Penny, "and they fail, we'll get killed, and they'll be safe and sound back in the 40's."

"No cell phones. No color TV. No Internet porn. They'll wish the Beast had killed them," said Eliot just before he finished off his glass and poured himself another drink.

———————

Saying their goodbyes and casting the spell had been relatively easy. Finding and getting to the Chatwin place had been slightly more difficult. Breaking into the house and sneaking upstairs had been the easiest task so far since the Chatwin's Aunt was having one of her famous parties. They didn't even have to use magic for that part. But now they were upstairs standing in a bedroom with three children staring at them. Quentin wanted to say something so profound to Martin that it would change the whole course of his life, but the words would not come to him.

"A little help here," said Quentin.

"Don't worry, I've got this." said Janet.

She proceeded to do a flurry of hand motions that Quentin didn't recognize as Battle Magic until it was too late. With a quick flick of her wrist, Martin's neck snapped like a dried twig, and he dropped to the ground, dead.

"Jesus, Janet!"

"What? Deep down you already knew this was the only way to make sure he never became the Beast. That's why you wanted me to come along."

"But we didn't have to do it here. Not right in front of his siblings."

"Keep your panties on. We can just do Jorgenson's short term memory wiping spell, and they'll never even remember what happened. It will be like we were never—"

There was a moment of darkness and nothingness, and then Janet and Quentin suddenly found themselves back in the Physical Kid's cottage. The windows were shattered. Furniture was flipped over and blown into pieces. And their friends laid dead or dying all around them. Among the casualties were duplicates of themselves.

"What the fuck?" was what Quentin tried to say but he found he could not speak, nor could he move either. He recognized the feeling from the beginning of the semester and beads of sweat began to form on his brow. From out of the shadows stepped a figure dressed in a neat gray English suit. His face was blocked by a small leafy branch that seemed to come from nowhere. He crossed into their bubble of personal space with a gait not quite human and lowered the branch to reveal his face. It was no one they recognized. Or was it? The Beast cleared his throat and then spoke.

"I've finally found you. It took me decades to figure out who you were and where to find the real you. And ripping you out of the time stream has severely depleted the power I drained from this place. But it finally ends tonight. I'm practically giddy."

"Who. Are. You?" Quentin managed to say through sheer force of will.

"Oh, how rude of me. Hello. My name is Rupert Chatwin. You killed my brother. Prepare to die."

And with a maniacal laugh and a quick flick of his wrist, they did.