__ The Clock Shop
He'd already been away from the shop for seven and half minutes. Which was too long by far. People had no idea the things that could happen in seven and half minutes. Bombs could explode, ships could sink, buttons could be pushed. Seven and half minutes was an eternity.
Gus glanced at his pocket watch, a small thing that nearly disappeared in the palm of his big, hoary hand. It was heavy, ageless, forged from a now scuffed to dullness metal of an origin Gus had never been able to determine, with a plain yellowing face made of what Gus told himself was ivory, but which he suspected was human bone. No numbers marked the quarter hours, nor the halves, nor the wholes. There was nothing but a small, black "x" at the midnight mark. There was no way to wind the watch, no way to open it that he had ever been able to find. Yet it continued to tick steadily, just as it had since the day he unearthed it in what had then been his father's shop.
The shop. Had his father ever suspected? It didn’t matter. It belonged to Gus now, and he spent all of his time there. Like everything else in Smokeglass Ridge, it sat just a few blocks away from the town square. He never locked the door, though he supposed he should, but it would make folks suspicious, and the ones who knew, or even suspected, what his shop really was would be able to get past locks anyway. She had chastised him years ago about that very thing, way back when no one locked their doors, anywhere.
"What if someone stumbled in here and stole something valuable? Something dangerous?" she had asked.
He had grinned, a handsome grin then, a young, devil-may-care and let-them-come grin.
"Ain't that the way it always happens? Some fool strolls up, takes, or finds, something he's got no business messing with, and screws up the whole works? That's what happened to me, anyway. Otherwise, why are you here?"
He remembered her, her long black hair, the amber eyes that seemed to drip honey (at least they had been amber that day; later, he could remember them as black as her hair and dripping nothing but fate) her skin the same color as the pale bone of his watch face. The name she had given him was Renita, though Pandora would have been telling the truth, and he had fallen in love with her the second the bell ringing over the door had caused him to look up and see her, no matter his wife and two children. It had been she who had told him about the Mysteries, she who had warned him that there were those who meant harm.
"Stop that!" she hissed. "This is not a joke, not something to be taken lightly. What if someone wandered in and stole the Clock of the Galaxy, or the Universe, or even something so utterly inconsequential as the Clock of Asia? Even that, and millions of people could die. Do you understand that?"
He hadn't then, not really, but he did now. Still, he never locked his door. He had that much of the old let-them-come left in him. Besides, he had found the Clock, him, Gus Zeitnehmer from Smokeglass Ridge, Tennessee. He had done a damn fine job of guarding it, too, and he didn’t mind saying so. Not that there was anyone to say it to.
Well, he had slipped up that one time. The Incident. But that had been a long time ago, and nothing of that nature had happened again. At least nothing that was his fault.
Gus had all sorts of Clocks. Clocks of This and Those Dimensions, Clocks of the Moon and Stars, Clocks of Things He Had Yet to Determine. He had one clock, no bigger than a dime, that he was convinced was the Clock of Faery, though he couldn’t have told you why. The face sparkled like dew dipped grass, and not a mark or a number or a sigil marred its expanse. In no pattern he had been able to yet determine, the face turned smoky grayish-black and a pinprick of light streaked across it, trailing a comet tail thinner than a hair. A feeling of joy had washed over him, the joy of birdsong and sunshine after a storm, the first time he saw it. He wasted nearly a year and a half watching for it to happen again, but to no avail. Even after all these years, he’d only seen it two other times. He kept it now underneath a crystal globe with a large hole cut into the top to let in fresh air. It was perched in the windowsill so that it caught the sunlight, or moonlight, or rainlight, or whatever light happened to be streaming in at any given time. It didn’t seem to like being shut away in drawers or pockets, and would make a horrible clanking noise, annoyingly loud, like a spoon banging on a pan.
He had thought at one time to take all of the clocks home and just close the shop. It would have easier. But there were clocks, watches, and parts everywhere, big piles of junk that would have taken weeks to sort through, and then more weeks to move. Besides, something about the very shop itself seemed to make the clocks want to work. After all, they had found their way here, each one. Moving them might cause a serious disturbance in the natural order of things. And anyway, what if he found something he didn’t want to find by moving all this stuff around? What if, instead of a Clock of Cats and Dogs (which he’d found right off, nestled in a dark corner next to the heating vent), he found a different kind of Clock, one made of ebony, that leaked rivulets of blood instead of sand through its glass, one that creaked and groaned instead of ticked? No thank you, that. So, in a rare moment of cowardice, he had made room in the back where he used to keep the customer records, and put a cot there so he never had to leave the Clocks unless absolutely necessary.
He thought he had found nearly all of the important Clocks by now. He kept most of them on display in the big case out front, telling people they were simply oddities of the craft. Many of them were hard to identify as timepieces at all; many appeared not to work. He knew, of course, those were simply measuring a time too vast for human eyes to note as passing. He checked the case now, running his eyes over all their faces, a task he performed several times a day and always after being gone for any length of time. Everything seemed to be ticking along. The Clock of Horses was running free, the Clock of Fireflys lit then went dark, lit then went dark, and the Clock of Misery sat there, icy blue and hard, ticking ... ticking ... ticking. All was well. He shuffled behind the counter, giving the Faery Clock a glance as he passed. It was shiny and green.
His wife had died seventy years ago, his son, fifty. His daughter had held on for seven more, then she had passed, too. She guessed at her father’s occupation, there at the end. She begged him to make her a new Clock, to turn back her time and make her young again. He had considered it, considered letting the Clock of Gus wind down and passing it all along to her. But in the end, he had been unable to place that burden on the shoulders of one so loved. There had been The Incident, you see. And if he had learned anything in all his years, it was that time was the Great Mistress, and would put all things in their proper sequences. Renita had messed with her little box, a clock of its own sort, and things had gone to hell in a handbasket, but quick.
After his daughter’s death, he didn’t much care what happened. He had left Smokeglass, and the Clocks, for nearly two months, found Renita, and, together, they had stopped time in any way that matters while he healed from his grief. He had returned to Smokeglass a younger man, the nephew and namesake of old Gus the clockmaker. No one questioned him, no one noticed the similarities in habits between the two men. Time had her way.
Most of the clocks and watches and parts in his store were perfectly ordinary, of course. His was a legitimate business, trading primarily in watch repair. But there had been a time when he had built timepieces from scratch, piece by piece. During The Incident, he had worked non-stop, twenty-four hours a day, rebuilding the Clocks of England, of France, of Belgium, of Italy, of Poland, even as their arms and sands and pendulums had whirled outside of all rhyme or reason. The Clock of Prussia, a soccer ball sized snow globe with a mother of pearl clock face perched atop a shiny black wooden base, had filled with fire and ash and nearly boiled itself dry before he managed to fix the levers and pulleys in its guts.
The bell over the door jingled, catching his attention. A woman stood there, her black hair falling over her breasts, her waist no bigger than the pinch that divided an hourglass. Her eyes were dripping honey today. Her smile was well-loved.
“Renita,” he said, “I was wondering if I’d ever see you again. You look just the same.”
“Gus.” She extended both of her hands to him. He took them in his own, turned them palm up and placed soft kisses in each. “I need a different kind of watch,” she told him, saying it as if they had only just spoken yesterday instead of an age ago. “One that will travel.”
Gus lifted his eyes to her. They sparked with that old devil-may-care gleam. His hair was a bit darker, his face slightly less lined.
“Well, then, you’ve come to the right place, my dear. What exactly can I do you for?”
“I intend, dear Gus, to fix things. To put things back in their boxes. All those demons and evils and horrors I set free. I intend to track down each one, and force them back where they belong.”
Gus eyed her. “Why now, Renita? After all this time?”
The honey in her eyes glowed as if illuminated by the sun. The smell of frangipani wafted through the shop. Renita threw her head back and laughed. “Time, Gus? Time? Whatever does time have to do with anything?”
Gus’s face split with a grin. He joined Renita in her laughter.
He'd already been away from the shop for seven and half minutes. Which was too long by far. People had no idea the things that could happen in seven and half minutes. Bombs could explode, ships could sink, buttons could be pushed. Seven and half minutes was an eternity.
Gus glanced at his pocket watch, a small thing that nearly disappeared in the palm of his big, hoary hand. It was heavy, ageless, forged from a now scuffed to dullness metal of an origin Gus had never been able to determine, with a plain yellowing face made of what Gus told himself was ivory, but which he suspected was human bone. No numbers marked the quarter hours, nor the halves, nor the wholes. There was nothing but a small, black "x" at the midnight mark. There was no way to wind the watch, no way to open it that he had ever been able to find. Yet it continued to tick steadily, just as it had since the day he unearthed it in what had then been his father's shop.
The shop. Had his father ever suspected? It didn’t matter. It belonged to Gus now, and he spent all of his time there. Like everything else in Smokeglass Ridge, it sat just a few blocks away from the town square. He never locked the door, though he supposed he should, but it would make folks suspicious, and the ones who knew, or even suspected, what his shop really was would be able to get past locks anyway. She had chastised him years ago about that very thing, way back when no one locked their doors, anywhere.
"What if someone stumbled in here and stole something valuable? Something dangerous?" she had asked.
He had grinned, a handsome grin then, a young, devil-may-care and let-them-come grin.
"Ain't that the way it always happens? Some fool strolls up, takes, or finds, something he's got no business messing with, and screws up the whole works? That's what happened to me, anyway. Otherwise, why are you here?"
He remembered her, her long black hair, the amber eyes that seemed to drip honey (at least they had been amber that day; later, he could remember them as black as her hair and dripping nothing but fate) her skin the same color as the pale bone of his watch face. The name she had given him was Renita, though Pandora would have been telling the truth, and he had fallen in love with her the second the bell ringing over the door had caused him to look up and see her, no matter his wife and two children. It had been she who had told him about the Mysteries, she who had warned him that there were those who meant harm.
"Stop that!" she hissed. "This is not a joke, not something to be taken lightly. What if someone wandered in and stole the Clock of the Galaxy, or the Universe, or even something so utterly inconsequential as the Clock of Asia? Even that, and millions of people could die. Do you understand that?"
He hadn't then, not really, but he did now. Still, he never locked his door. He had that much of the old let-them-come left in him. Besides, he had found the Clock, him, Gus Zeitnehmer from Smokeglass Ridge, Tennessee. He had done a damn fine job of guarding it, too, and he didn’t mind saying so. Not that there was anyone to say it to.
Well, he had slipped up that one time. The Incident. But that had been a long time ago, and nothing of that nature had happened again. At least nothing that was his fault.
Gus had all sorts of Clocks. Clocks of This and Those Dimensions, Clocks of the Moon and Stars, Clocks of Things He Had Yet to Determine. He had one clock, no bigger than a dime, that he was convinced was the Clock of Faery, though he couldn’t have told you why. The face sparkled like dew dipped grass, and not a mark or a number or a sigil marred its expanse. In no pattern he had been able to yet determine, the face turned smoky grayish-black and a pinprick of light streaked across it, trailing a comet tail thinner than a hair. A feeling of joy had washed over him, the joy of birdsong and sunshine after a storm, the first time he saw it. He wasted nearly a year and a half watching for it to happen again, but to no avail. Even after all these years, he’d only seen it two other times. He kept it now underneath a crystal globe with a large hole cut into the top to let in fresh air. It was perched in the windowsill so that it caught the sunlight, or moonlight, or rainlight, or whatever light happened to be streaming in at any given time. It didn’t seem to like being shut away in drawers or pockets, and would make a horrible clanking noise, annoyingly loud, like a spoon banging on a pan.
He had thought at one time to take all of the clocks home and just close the shop. It would have easier. But there were clocks, watches, and parts everywhere, big piles of junk that would have taken weeks to sort through, and then more weeks to move. Besides, something about the very shop itself seemed to make the clocks want to work. After all, they had found their way here, each one. Moving them might cause a serious disturbance in the natural order of things. And anyway, what if he found something he didn’t want to find by moving all this stuff around? What if, instead of a Clock of Cats and Dogs (which he’d found right off, nestled in a dark corner next to the heating vent), he found a different kind of Clock, one made of ebony, that leaked rivulets of blood instead of sand through its glass, one that creaked and groaned instead of ticked? No thank you, that. So, in a rare moment of cowardice, he had made room in the back where he used to keep the customer records, and put a cot there so he never had to leave the Clocks unless absolutely necessary.
He thought he had found nearly all of the important Clocks by now. He kept most of them on display in the big case out front, telling people they were simply oddities of the craft. Many of them were hard to identify as timepieces at all; many appeared not to work. He knew, of course, those were simply measuring a time too vast for human eyes to note as passing. He checked the case now, running his eyes over all their faces, a task he performed several times a day and always after being gone for any length of time. Everything seemed to be ticking along. The Clock of Horses was running free, the Clock of Fireflys lit then went dark, lit then went dark, and the Clock of Misery sat there, icy blue and hard, ticking ... ticking ... ticking. All was well. He shuffled behind the counter, giving the Faery Clock a glance as he passed. It was shiny and green.
His wife had died seventy years ago, his son, fifty. His daughter had held on for seven more, then she had passed, too. She guessed at her father’s occupation, there at the end. She begged him to make her a new Clock, to turn back her time and make her young again. He had considered it, considered letting the Clock of Gus wind down and passing it all along to her. But in the end, he had been unable to place that burden on the shoulders of one so loved. There had been The Incident, you see. And if he had learned anything in all his years, it was that time was the Great Mistress, and would put all things in their proper sequences. Renita had messed with her little box, a clock of its own sort, and things had gone to hell in a handbasket, but quick.
After his daughter’s death, he didn’t much care what happened. He had left Smokeglass, and the Clocks, for nearly two months, found Renita, and, together, they had stopped time in any way that matters while he healed from his grief. He had returned to Smokeglass a younger man, the nephew and namesake of old Gus the clockmaker. No one questioned him, no one noticed the similarities in habits between the two men. Time had her way.
Most of the clocks and watches and parts in his store were perfectly ordinary, of course. His was a legitimate business, trading primarily in watch repair. But there had been a time when he had built timepieces from scratch, piece by piece. During The Incident, he had worked non-stop, twenty-four hours a day, rebuilding the Clocks of England, of France, of Belgium, of Italy, of Poland, even as their arms and sands and pendulums had whirled outside of all rhyme or reason. The Clock of Prussia, a soccer ball sized snow globe with a mother of pearl clock face perched atop a shiny black wooden base, had filled with fire and ash and nearly boiled itself dry before he managed to fix the levers and pulleys in its guts.
The bell over the door jingled, catching his attention. A woman stood there, her black hair falling over her breasts, her waist no bigger than the pinch that divided an hourglass. Her eyes were dripping honey today. Her smile was well-loved.
“Renita,” he said, “I was wondering if I’d ever see you again. You look just the same.”
“Gus.” She extended both of her hands to him. He took them in his own, turned them palm up and placed soft kisses in each. “I need a different kind of watch,” she told him, saying it as if they had only just spoken yesterday instead of an age ago. “One that will travel.”
Gus lifted his eyes to her. They sparked with that old devil-may-care gleam. His hair was a bit darker, his face slightly less lined.
“Well, then, you’ve come to the right place, my dear. What exactly can I do you for?”
“I intend, dear Gus, to fix things. To put things back in their boxes. All those demons and evils and horrors I set free. I intend to track down each one, and force them back where they belong.”
Gus eyed her. “Why now, Renita? After all this time?”
The honey in her eyes glowed as if illuminated by the sun. The smell of frangipani wafted through the shop. Renita threw her head back and laughed. “Time, Gus? Time? Whatever does time have to do with anything?”
Gus’s face split with a grin. He joined Renita in her laughter.
