I never meant to stay in Blackthorn Hollow. I was just passing through, thumb out, backpack sagging with dirty shirts and half-finished sketches of cathedrals I’d never afford to enter. The coach dropped me at the crossroads at dusk, fog so thick it felt like breathing wet wool. That’s when I saw the mansion—gables stabbing the sky, windows blind with grime, and a weathervane shaped like a crow frozen mid-scream. I should’ve walked on, but my feet had other plans, like they owed the house something.
The gate groaned open before I touched it. I swear that’s true. Hinges rusty as old bones, yet they swung wide like the place had been holding its breath, waiting for me. Inside, the garden was a graveyard of roses—black petals clinging to thorns like burnt paper. The front door stood ajar, candlelight flickering inside, although the town’s power had died three nights running. I called out, polite as you please, “Hello? Anyone home?” My voice came back wrapped in echo, colder, like it had gone somewhere and returned without its soul.
She stepped from the shadows—tall, veil blacker than the fog, dress trailing cobwebs instead of lace. “You’re late,” she said, voice soft as dust settling. I laughed, nervous. “Late for what?” She didn’t answer, just glided down the hallway, boots silent on the cracked tiles. I followed, because that’s what you do in dreams, and this felt like a dream stitched from chimney soot and church bells.
The parlor smelled of pine and formaldehyde. Clocks covered every wall—grandfather, cuckoo, maritime, skeletal—each ticking, but not together. It was like listening to a heart attack in surround sound. On a marble slab lay a man in a tailcoat, skin wax-pale, lips sewn shut with gold thread. His chest rose and fell, barely. “My husband,” the widow said, “needs winding.” I figured she meant the clocks, but she pointed to the man’s breastbone where a tiny keyhole glinted beneath the skin. “Every dusk, someone must turn it, or he’ll wake… wrong.”
I backed away. “Lady, I just wanted a place to crash.” She tilted her head, veil shifting, revealing eyes like cracked porcelain. “Crash, stay, serve—same difference here.” She placed a brass key in my palm. It was warm, pulsing, as if it had a pulse of its own. “One full rotation, clockwise. No more, no less. Then you may sleep.” She swept out, dress hissing across the floorboards, leaving me alone with the half-dead man and a thousand clocks arguing about time.
I approached the slab. Up close, the husband smelled of rain on tombstones. The key slid into the hole with a slick click. I turned—once, steady. Inside his chest something machinery-like sighed, gears catching, heart restarting on schedule. His eyelids fluttered, revealing pupils shaped like tiny hourglasses. He whispered, “Thank you,” voice metallic, then lay still. The clocks synced for one perfect second, a thunderous beat, before falling back into chaos.
The widow returned with a silver goblet of wine. “Payment,” she said. I drank, though it tasted of iron and lullabies. My limbs grew heavy; the room tilted like a ship in a bottle. She guided me up a staircase that twisted into darkness, each step a different wood—oak, ash, yew, bone. At the landing, doors breathed, expanding and contracting as if the house itself inhaled me.
My room was small, papered with maps of places that no longer exist—Atlantis, Lemuria, the town of Blackthorn Hollow circa 1892. The bed was a coffin with the lid removed, lined in velvet the color of dried blood. I crawled in, too tired to protest. The widow tucked me under, fingers icy. “Dream of gears,” she whispered. “Dream of me.” The candle snuffed itself, and I sank into blackness stitched with ticking.
I woke—or thought I woke—at midnight. The house was silent, no clocks, no wind, not even my own heartbeat. I crept downstairs, guided by moonlight the color of spoiled milk. The parlor doors stood open. Inside, the husband sat upright on the slab, seams ripped, gold thread dangling like party streamers. His chest cavity yawned wide, gears spilled across the floor, still spinning. He looked at me, eyes reflecting nothing. “She lied,” he rasped. “There is no winding, only stealing. Each turn takes a day from you and gives it to her.” He pointed to the wall where a new clock had appeared—its face my face, hands circling frantically, shaving seconds like a mad barber.
I ran. Hallways stretched, warped, laughed. Doors slammed on wrists of mist. The front door was gone, replaced by mirror showing me older, grayer, beard sprouting like mold. The widow stepped from the glass, veil lifted at last. Beneath, no face—just a hollow, gears grinding where cheeks should be. “Almost finished,” she said, voice echoing inside my skull. “One more rotation and you’ll stay forever, a lovely little cog in my forever.”
I clutched the brass key, now freezing, burning. Instead of running, I lunged, jammed it straight into her gear-heart. Metal screeched, sparks flew, lighting up the parlor like a dying star. She shrieked, a sound of broken watches and widows’ prayers. The house convulsed; floorboards snapped; clocks exploded, showering me with springs and numerals. I felt days rush back into me, youth flooding my veins like cold fire.
I don’t remember getting out. Next thing, I’m at the crossroads, dawn bleeding over the hills, mansion gone, only ashes and melted weathervane. My backpack lighter—sketches missing, replaced by a single brass gear. I hitch a ride, thumb out, heart ticking louder than the truck engine. Drivers glance sideways, hearing something they can’t place. I smile, tell them it’s just the road. But nights, when headlights carve the dark, I feel her veil brush my neck, hear gears whisper: “Time’s a circle, darling. Circles always roll back home.”
I keep the gear in my pocket, ticking against my thigh, counting days I’ve stolen back, days maybe I never deserved. Sometimes I wind it out of habit, half-turn, before I catch myself. And sometimes, when fog gathers, I see mansions on every horizon, doors ajar, widows waiting. I walk faster, but the ticking keeps pace. You can’t outrun a clock when you’re part of the mechanism. All you can do is listen, pray, and keep moving—one second at a time, clockwise, always clockwise, hoping the next winding isn’t yours.