“It’s w-w-working!” Lucy shouted, voice shaky and body trembling. “The sunstone is w-w-working!”
“I-c-c-can’t hold-d-d on,” Torsten cried. “The c-c-current is too strong!”
Oliver gazed down at the little dog. His face was twisted in agony, as were the faces of the other animals, and in the next moment, the chain broke apart and the animals collapsed to the floor. The mechanical room was engulfed in darkness, but Oliver’s eyes were full of floaters. He braced himself on the conductor sphere. His legs felt weak; and his ears, his tongue, his entire body was still buzzing.
And yet, the clock was eerily quiet.
“The pendulum!” Lucy cried. “It’s stopped!”
The animals cheered, and then Oliver’s only thought was of his father.
Oliver staggered out onto the landing. The railing was smashed, the foyer was dark, and as his floaters dissolved, Oliver caught sight of Edgar Blackford crawling for the open door in a shaft of moonlight. Gold coins were scattered everywhere, and Mr. Tinker sat slumped over at the bottom of the stairs.
Oliver cried out and flew down to him, dropping to his knees and cradling his father in his arms.
“Please don’t die, Pop!” Oliver whimpered, the tears beginning to flow. His father was bleeding from the side of his head. Oliver shook him and then, out of the corner of his eye, spied Edgar Blackford rising to his feet within the moonlit doorway. His eyes flashed and began to glow red.
“That’s it, yes,” Edgar moaned, stepping closer, and through Oliver’s tears, he could see that Edgar was turning into the tree man again. “Give me your fear—the delicious fear of losing someone you love!”
Edgar’s arms, which had become branches, began extending toward Mr. Tinker. Oliver cried out and shielded him with his body as Edgar’s twig-like fingers uncurled only inches away—when out of nowhere, Tempus Crow swooped down from the landing and latched onto Edgar’s face.
“My EYES—caw!” he cried, wings beating and claws scratching. “Tricked ME—caw-caw!”
Oliver caught a fleeting glimpse of the bird’s eyes, which looked black and empty in the moonlight, but then Edgar roared and swatted Tempus Crow away, sending him careening through the air and into the darkened dining room, where he slammed into something with a terrible crash!
Edgar howled with rage, shaking the walls and rattling the gold coins at his feet, then swelled to twice his size.
“NOW ALL OF YOU SHALL DIE!” he bellowed—when suddenly, Lucy leaped off the landing and onto Edgar Blackford’s back.
“Get out of our house!” she cried. Yellow sparkles exploded everywhere, Edgar wailed in pain and began to shrink, and in the next moment, the two of them whirled together out onto the porch.
Oliver shrieked and dashed outside after them.
Edgar was stumbling down the steps now, screaming and flailing his tree arms awkwardly as Lucy rode him piggyback. Plumes of smoke billowed out from them and mixed with the sparkles, and the air grew thick with the smell of garbage and burning wood. Lucy choked and coughed but held on, and all at once Oliver understood.
The sunstone. If Edgar Blackford was one with the Shadow Woods, then the sunstone magic still present in the children’s bodies—from both the cream and the clock—was just as deadly to him as it was to the branches in the house!
Oliver flew at Edgar, threw his arms around his waist, and, in an explosion of smoke and sparkles, the three of them fell together in the driveway—Oliver holding Edgar from the front, Lucy holding him from the back.
Edgar screamed in agony and began pummeling Oliver’s head, but the blows were weak. Oliver held his breath and squeezed tighter as Edgar’s screams turned to moans. The blows tapered off, and then all at once, Oliver felt the monster dissolve into a pile of ashes beneath him.
Oliver hitched in his breath, and as the children rolled over onto their bottoms, the sparkles evaporated all around them. An icy blast of wind whipped across the yard, sweeping the ashes into the darkness, and then the world was silent.
“The Shadow Woods,” Lucy said, pointing at the house. “They’ve backed away—look!”
Oliver rose unsteadily to his feet. The Shadow Woods had retreated somewhat—he could see the patch of long grass now on the library side of the house—but he was too worried about their father to care.
“We’ve got to help Pop,” he said, choking back sobs. “Edgar hurt him bad.”
“There might be a way if you hurry,” Meridian called, and the children turned to find the clock animals watching them from the porch. Torsten was the closest—he stood about halfway down the steps.
And between his teeth was a large leather book.
Sixteen
Goodbye & Good Morning
“Don’t strain yourself, Pop,” Lucy said, holding the lantern closer, and her father smiled down at her from atop the ladder.
“Never felt better, kid,” he said with a wink, and then finished ratcheting the last of the clock’s pipe couplings. “That should do it.”
Oliver and the animals moved aside out onto the landing, their shadows shifting and swelling on the walls as Lucy helped her father drag the ladder out from the mechanical room. Sunrise was almost upon them, and everyone had been working feverishly to get to this moment.
Thanks to Torsten, the children had found a formula for an elixir in Roger Blackford’s journal that healed their father almost instantly. And while Lucy tended to him in the library, Oliver and the animals set about dismantling the pipes from the shadow wood and reconnecting the old ones to the clock face.
Luckily, Mr. Quigley had stored the original pipes in the cellar—the door to which magically opened while Lucy and Meridian were searching the pantry for ingredients for the elixir. It was the house speaking to them again, they understood—the damage done by Edgar Blackford and the Shadow Woods still threatened to destroy its magic forever. They needed to repair the clock before it was too late!
“Let’s get moving,” Oliver said, checking his watch. “It’s almost dawn.”
With the pipes now in place, the only thing left was to get the animals back into their holes before sunrise so they could fit themselves perfectly inside. Oliver had theorized that, once the balance of magnetic—er, magical—energies was restored, all that it would take to get the clock ticking again was a simple push on the pendulum. That was the plan anyway, and everyone understood that it was now or never.
“Let’s GO—caw!” cried Tempus Crow, fluttering up through the cuckoo door, and Lucy gazed down fondly at Fennish. If not for him, they would’ve never gotten their cuckoo bird back.
Lucy had seen the whole thing just seconds before the pendulum stopped and the mechanical room was engulfed in darkness. Fennish quickly got the better of Tempus during their fight and, with a single swipe of his paw, knocked out the big bird’s acorn eyes. Tempus then flew out of the clock and blindly attacked Edgar, distracting him long enough for Lucy to jump on him from behind. Fortunately, Tempus had only been knocked unconscious; and after a sip of the magical elixir and a new pair of sunstone eyes (Lucy found them in a jar in the library) the old crow was as good as new.
“Does this mean we’re alchemists now, Pop?” Lucy asked as the animals gathered around the ladder, and her father chuckled.
“What gave you that idea?”
“Well, you know, because we used magical formulas and stuff to cure you and Tempus.”
“Alchemy is not just about formulas and magic,” Meridian said. “It’s about transformation—about making things better. The moment you Tinkers arrived here you began to make things better. So, I suppose one could say you’ve been alchemists all along.”
“Well, then you animals are alchemists, too,” Lucy said. “We couldn’t have saved Blackford House without you.”
“Forgive the pun,” Fennish said, “but we’re not out of the woods yet. You heard the lad, it’s almost dawn.”
The animals tittered excitedly, and the Tinkers began assisting them back i
nto their holes. Lucy gently inserted Frederick into his five, while Oliver climbed up the ladder and placed the fawn (whose name was Dorothy) into the eleven. Then he helped Duck into her two and Gretchen the skunk into her one. Samson the squirrel scurried up the big hand into his ten, while Erwin the raccoon pulled himself up onto the little hand and slipped into his four. Nessie hopped up the ladder and jumped into her three, Mr. Tinker placed Cecily the beaver on the opposite side in her nine, and then Oliver climbed down the ladder and helped Lucy lift Reginald into his eight. That left only Meridian, Fennish, and Torsten, who sat watching from the stairs leading up to the second floor.
“All right, guys,” Lucy said, gesturing for them to get into their holes, but instead, Torsten threw his paws around Lucy’s leg and hugged her.
“Thank you for everything, Miss Lucy,” he said. “Don’t forget to stop by now and then, will you? You know, just to say hello.”
“Well, it’s not goodbye just yet,” Lucy said. “We’re still staying for the summer. And hopefully—” Lucy met her father’s eyes. With everything that had happened, she hadn’t had time to ask him about maybe living in Watch Hollow for good. “Well, what with Mr. Quigley being gone now, who’s going to be the caretaker?”
“Lucy’s right, Pop,” Oliver said. “We can’t just leave now, can we?”
“Whoa, whoa, one thing at a time,” said Mr. Tinker, chuckling. “Let’s get the clock ticking again, and we can figure out all that other stuff later, okay?”
Lucy and Oliver exchanged a knowing smile—they could tell just by their father’s reaction that he was thinking about staying here for good, too.
“You see?” Lucy said, turning back to Torsten. “Either way, it’s not goodbye.”
“You don’t understand,” Meridian said, coming closer. “Once we’re back in the clock and it starts ticking, we will turn wooden again forever.”
Lucy gasped, and her heart began to beat very fast. “No!” she cried, scooping up Torsten into her arms. “Then I won’t let you!”
“And I won’t either,” said Mr. Tinker. “There must be some other way.”
“We were never meant to be alive, Mr. Tinker,” Fennish said. “Not like this. That was an accident, born out of Edgar Blackford’s return and a blast of evil from the Shadow Woods. We are as much to blame for the balance being lost here as he was.”
“That’s not true,” Oliver said, his voice cracking. “And even if it were, what difference does it make? You’re alive now, and that’s all that matters.”
“Please,” said Mr. Tinker. “There’s no need to sacrifice your lives. Let me try to figure out a way to get the clock ticking again without you.”
“There’s no time,” Torsten said. “And without us, Blackford House will die and its magic will be lost forever.”
“And we cannot let that happen,” said Fennish. “We clock animals bring the balance here; and in that balance, there is something greater—powerful magic that can transform the world far beyond the reaches of Watch Hollow. It is up to you then, Tinker family, to use that magic wisely.”
Fennish hopped up into his seven hole, and Lucy’s head began to spin. She knew deep down that what the animals were saying was true. She could somehow feel that the house had gotten even weaker—not to mention that nothing magical, not even a groan from the walls, had occurred since the cellar door opened. But was that such a bad thing? After all, what good was a magical house if the price for living in it was losing the ones you loved?
“You Tinkers are the caretakers,” Meridian said. “It is up to you to make sure the magic here is used for good. That is what the caretaker does.”
Lucy moaned. “But if you go back into the clock, you’ll die!”
“Nothing ever really dies,” Fennish said. “There is only transformation into something greater. Besides”—he pointed to his head—“we will always be alive in here.”
“And in here,” Torsten said, touching Lucy’s heart.
“Come now, it is time,” Fennish said. Meridian rubbed her body against Lucy’s leg, and for the first time ever, the cat began to purr. Then she bounded up the ladder and leaped into her twelve hole. Lucy hugged Torsten tight.
“I love you,” she said. “All of you—I love you.”
“And we love you,” Torsten said. “And therein lies the greatest magic of all.”
Torsten smiled and licked Lucy’s cheek, and then the little dog jumped from her arms and squeezed into his six hole.
“Goodbye!” the clock animals cried. They adjusted their positions to fit their holes and, in the blink of an eye, turned wooden again.
Lucy’s heart squeezed and she dragged her wrist across her nose.
“It’s not fair,” she said, sniffling, and her father held her close.
“Go ahead, Ollie,” he said, and Oliver reluctantly stepped into the mechanical room and gave the pendulum a push. It moved effortlessly. Springs boinged and gears clanked, the pendulum started swinging with a slow but steady tick—tock—tick—tock, and as the hands spun around to the proper time, lights all over the house flickered to life in halos of luminescent white.
Lucy heaved a heavy sigh. The clock was fixed, but she felt sadder than ever.
“Well, I suppose, that’s it then,” Mr. Tinker said blandly, and then something entirely unexpected happened there on the landing: the railing through which Edgar Blackford had fallen began repairing itself! Pieces of wood, big and small, flew up from the foyer and joined together, cracks sealed all by themselves, and soon, every splinter was back in place and the railing looked as good as new.
“But that’s—” Mr. Tinker stopped himself from saying impossible. He knew better by now—nothing, it seemed, was impossible here in Watch Hollow.
“It’s the love from the animals,” Oliver said, gazing around in wonder. “It’s more powerful than ever.”
Lucy watched in disbelief as the color oozed back into the wallpaper, the shadow wood began to shine as if freshly polished, and the sound of tinkling glass came from—
“My windows!” Lucy exclaimed.
The Tinkers hurried downstairs and arrived at the library just in time to see the shattered panes flying back into place as if they had never been shattered at all. Lucy’s heart soared. The sky was dull gray with the first light of dawn, but her windows seemed to gleam more brilliantly than ever.
“Look!” Oliver cried, pointing outside, and Lucy gasped. The Shadow Woods were dissolving backward into the gloom!
The Tinkers raced through the house and out onto the porch. Lucy could hardly believe her eyes. Where the Shadow Woods once stood at the end of the driveway, rolling lawns and flowering trees stretched out against a yellow-orange horizon. In the distance to her left, Lucy could make out part of the stone bridge and a smudge of the river, and to her right, about fifty yards away, a wide, fence-lined pasture.
The Tinkers hurried down to the bottom of the steps and turned back toward the house. The outside had repaired itself, too. The shingles looked brand-new and the shutters were back in place, flowers blossomed everywhere among the shrubbery, and the grass was freshly mown. The air was thick with the smell of it, along with the sweet fragrance of the violets and daffodils that bloomed along the flagstone paths.
And yet the Shadow Woods were not entirely gone, Lucy realized in the dim morning light—the trees had stopped dissolving behind the house, far off in the distance to her right. But that was okay. The Shadow Woods weren’t all bad. They were simply part of the balance here, an essential element to the magic in Watch Hollow—more of a mystery than anything, Lucy had come to realize. And as with any other mystery, one needed to tread carefully.
“You all right, Pop?” Oliver asked, and Mr. Tinker knuckled away a tear.
“I just wish your mother could see this,” he said, his voice tight with emotion.
“She can, Pop,” Lucy said, with an arm around his waist. “She can.”
The Tinkers just stood there for a long time, watchi
ng in silence as the world around them brightened—when from out of nowhere, the most beautiful white horse Lucy had ever seen pranced into the pasture. Everyone gasped.
“Come on, let’s go see!” Oliver said. But as her father and brother took off across the lawn, Lucy’s heart began to hammer. She had seen that horse before.
Lucy bounded back inside the house and into the dining room, where she gazed up at the painting over the buffet. The white horse in the painted pasture was the same as the white horse in the real pasture outside. But there was something else now, too—something Lucy never would have expected in a million years.
The faint outlines of the ghostlike figures had filled in, and there on the steps stood the perfect likenesses of Lucy and her family—only everyone was dressed in old-fashioned clothes, and they were waving to a man in the carriage.
Yes, the outline of that figure had filled in, too. The man was young and handsome, and wore a black coat and top hat.
Lucy’s skin prickled with excitement—or was it fear? She had no idea who the man was.
But just the same, Lucy Tinker knew that he was coming.
Acknowledgments
This book is the result of two false starts, three completely different drafts, and the hard work of lots of people besides me. First and foremost, I am eternally indebted to the brilliant Abby Ranger, who came up with the original idea for this story and trusted me to write it. Words simply cannot express how grateful I am to her for this opportunity. Next, boundless thanks to my superb and just all-around-awesome editor, David Linker, for his insight and guidance during the latter half of this process. My sincerest thanks also to Kate Jackson for her patience and understanding; Rose Pleuler for her work on the first draft; Carolina Ortiz, Jon Howard, and Andrea Curley for their work on this one; and to everyone else at HarperCollins involved with this project—thank you, thank you, thank you!
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