I never meant to nick anything, swear on my cracked harmonica. I just wanted dry socks. Ravenshollow rain ain’t water—it’s like melted church candles, sticks to your skin and whispers Latin. So when I saw the crooked little shop with “T. Blackwood Horologist” peeling off the window, I shoulder-checked the door till the lock yawned. Figured any place selling time must have plenty to spare.
Inside smelled of iron filings and lavender rot. Hundreds of clocks covered the walls, but none agreed. One said 3:17, another 11:59, a third spun backward like a dog chasing its butt. I tiptoed between them, dripping, when I heard it: a heartbeat, only metallic. Tick-tick, but also thud-thud, like someone trapped a pulse inside tin.
Then the front door slammed shut behind me. No wind, just mood. I tried the handle—locked tighter than my ex’s apology. Great, Moth, you’ve broken into a haunted Rolex.
A grandfather clock in the corner coughed. Seriously, it cleared its throat, glass rattling. The pendulum swung, revealing a sliver of darkness behind it, wide enough for a person-shaped secret. I should’ve bolted, but curiosity’s my dumbest superpower. I slipped inside the gap.
Beyond lay a corridor of cog wallpaper and oil-stained carpet. The walls breathed, expanding like bellows. At the end stood a lady in black crinoline, veil so thick it could filter sins. She held a silver key the length of my forearm. Her face? Just more fog, like someone forgot to finish drawing her.
“You’re early,” she said, voice chiming. “Or late. Hard to tell when you’re widowed by time.”
I backed up. “Look, I’ll pay for the B&E with a song, yeah?” I raised my harmonica, but the lady lifted her veil a fraction. Beneath was nothing—no skull, no rot—just swirling numbers, 1 through 12, orbiting a center that kept flicking to 13. Made my eyeballs itch.
She gestured to a workbench littered with pocket watches cracked open like oysters. “My husband believed every second leaves a scar. He tried stitching them shut. Failed. Now the shop bleeds minutes. You hear it.”
The ticking grew frantic, like a thousand moths throwing themselves at a bulb. Gears peeled off the walls, rolling toward me, sharp as pizza cutters. I jumped on the bench, knocking over jars of minute-hand dust. “What do you want?” I yelled over the clatter.
“A replacement heart. His stopped at the stroke of never. Wind the Master Clock, girl, and I’ll let you leave with your own still ticking.” She pointed the silver key at a towering mechanism in the back—its face a mirror, hands made of bones. 12:66 glowed red. Impossible o’clock.
I’m no hero; I once sold my last subway token for half a cigarette. But the idea of my heart ripped out and used as AA battery made me selfishly brave. I grabbed a brass pendulum like a baseball bat and swung at the orbiting numbers. They shattered into harmless 0:00s. The lady shrieked, veil whipping into a vortex that sucked the gears back into her dress.
I sprinted, leaping over floorboards that turned into hourglass sand. The mirror-clock loomed, reflecting me older, younger, then not at all. I jammed the silver key she dropped into its chest. It fought, bone-hands clawing, but I twisted with every crappy birthday wish I’d wasted. The hands snapped to 12:00—normal, boring, beautiful noon.
Silence dropped like a curtain. The corridor folded like a paper toy, dumping me into the original shop. Sunlight—actual yellow stuff—streamed through the window. All clocks showed 12:00, steady as sleeping cats. No lady, no heartbeat. Just a note on the counter in drying ink: “Time is a widow who remarries the moment you leave. Keep it kind.”
I pocketed a small alarm clock that looked like it smiled, then walked out. Door opened easy, polite. Outside, Ravenshollow smelled of bread instead of rust. Folks on the street checked their wrists, surprised to find them in sync.
Me? I still play harmonica on corners, but every time I wind that little clock, I swear I hear the lady humming, content. And when strangers complain the city feels shorter, I just wink. Time’s got a new missus now, and she’s learned to let scars breathe.
Sometimes at night my mirror shows 12:66, but I tap the glass and it flips back. Because some locks stay picked if you remember the song that opened them. And I remember hers—tick, tock, forgive.