How to Stop Time

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Part 3, Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3: “Rose”

Part 3, Chapter 1 Summary: “Bow, Near London, 1599”

After his mother’s drowning, Tom flees Suffolk for London. He walks for three days. Tom notices the noise as he draws closer to the outskirts of London, where people gather in the streets selling their wares. He becomes delirious. Then, however, he sees Rose selling fruit from a basket. He approaches her and asks if he can have a plum. Images of his mother flood his mind, causing him to stumble. Rose says, “Steady thyself,” but tilted by grief, Tom falls. He comes to lying in a puddle surrounded by plums. Rose tries to rescue the plums and yells at him to pay for the damaged fruit. He confesses that he doesn’t have any money. Rose asks for the lute instead. He tells her it was his mother’s and he can’t part with it. Without giving away too much, Tom summarizes his circumstances. Rose offers to let him live with her and her sister while he earns money playing the lute to pay for the damaged basket of fruit and rent. He agrees.

Part 3, Chapter 2 Summary: “London, Now”

Leaning against the wall with Abraham, Tom doesn’t see give teen boys approach. Abraham growls. The boys stop and look at him. One moves closer, pulls a knife, and demands Tom’s phone and wallet. The youngest of the group mumbles to leave him alone. It’s Anton from Tom’s history class. The older boy continues to demand Tom’s phone and wallet. Tom comments on how small the knife is and asks if the boy has ever killed anyone. Tom confesses that he has killed before and it was horrible, noting, “their death inhabits you. It sends you insane. And you carry it, you carry them, inside you, for ever” (122). He stares at the boy. Abraham growls again. The knife shakes, and the boy lowers his weapon and walks quickly away. Anton follows, looking back at Tom for a brief second.

Part 3, Chapter 3 Summary: “Hackney, Near London, 1599”

Rose and her sister, Grace, live in a small house on Well Lane in Hackney, a more open-minded village than those in Suffolk. The villagers don’t have the same fear of outsiders that prevail in the country villages. Rose and Grace sell fruit for the local farmers and split the profits. Once at the cottage, Rose finally asks for Tom’s name and age. Tom half lies and tells her he is Tom Smith and that he is 16. Rose shares that she is 18 while Grace is 10. She tries to ask about his mother and what happened, but Tom refuses to talk of such painful things. They move past the tension and work out the details of his stay. Tom will sleep in their brothers’ old room. Their brothers and parents are dead. The sisters only have each other now. Tom goes to bed only to wake up screaming in the middle of the night. Rose comes to comfort him and kisses him lightly on the lips to distract him from his nightmares.

At breakfast, Rose reviews her conditions for renting to Tom. He is to pay what he owes to replace the basket of fruit and, after that, two shillings a week for as long as he stays. Tom wants to stay with them forever but knows it’s too dangerous. Once his slow aging is noticed, he will have to leave again. They plan their workday. Tom is eager to earn his keep.

Part 3, Chapters 1-3 Analysis

Having walked for three days without much food or sleep, Tom enters town delirious. The bustling noise overpowers his senses. Rose is the first person he focuses on. She anchors him, as exemplified by her first words to him: “Steady thyself.” These words foreshadow the security she brings him. Rose supports him by providing a place for him to stay and food to eat. She encourages him to work and advises him on best locations. She even comforts him when his nightmares wake him up. Rose is no stranger to heartache and loss. She and Grace lost both their parents and their brothers to illness. As such, Tom and the sisters share the grief of losing loved ones. This makes it easier for them to connect and develop their relationships.

Juxtaposing Tom’s moment of weakness is the present-day attempted mugging. The boys catch Tom off guard as he is remembering Rose. Tom stands his ground, refusing to give in to their demands, and tells the boys killing isn’t pleasant as the deed will haunt them forever. This is a turning point for Tom’s student Anton. He is tagging along with these older boys and doesn’t expect to encounter his history teacher, much less learn that his teacher is a murderer. Anton goes from a passive character to an active one.