No Ordinary Thing

by G. Z. Schmidt

  By now, many of the houses had turned on their lights, and Adam could see the activities going on behind the windows. In one house, a woman spoke on the telephone while a teenage boy and toddler sat in front of a thick TV, their eyes glued to a black-and-white cartoon show. In the adjacent house, an elderly woman chopped vegetables in the kitchen. One street over, two boys were playing basketball in their driveway. Somewhere, a dog barked.

  None of these houses attracted Adam. No, what specifically caught his attention was the fifth house on Oak Street. Soft, eerie music floated through an open window on the first floor of the square, redbrick house. It was the kind of melody that made Adam think of graveyards and starless nights.

  The music drew Adam closer to the window. Inside, he saw a boy in an aviator helmet fiddling with a wooden music box on his bed, looking frustrated. When the last note faded, the boy in the room looked up. Straight at Adam.

  “Who are you?”

  Adam stumbled backward.

  The boy came to the window. He looked to be about Adam’s age, athletic with skeptical blue eyes. “Who are you?” the boy repeated. “Why are you spying on me?”

  “I-I wasn’t,” Adam stammered. But he was caught red-handed. He confessed, “I was just listening to your music box.”

  He quickly turned to leave, but the boy in the aviator helmet shouted, “Wait!”

  The boy opened the window wider and motioned for Adam to return. “Don’t go yet,” he said with a glance down the street. “Stay for a while, I won’t bite. Are you new in town? My name’s Jack, by the way.” The boy offered a smile.

  Adam could tell Jack was one of those popular boys in school, the kind who had no trouble making friends.

  “I’m Adam,” he said hesitantly. “I’m from New York City.”

  “Really? My dad and I go there sometimes on the train, so we can see movies. The theaters there are fantastic. Did your family just move out here?”

  “No. I’m only visiting.”

  “Who are you visiting? I know pretty much everyone in town.”

  Adam hid the snow globe behind his back, along with the bag of pastries. Francine had to be around somewhere. “Just—a friend. I should go.”

  “Come on, what are you in a hurry for?” said Jack. “You were practically spying on me a minute ago. It’s not my aviator helmet that’s scaring you, is it?”

  Nobody had ever warmed up to Adam so quickly, much less joked with him. He flushed and didn’t know how to respond. He changed the subject. “Can I see your music box?”

  Jack pressed his lips into a tight line. “I don’t know.…”

  But the boy must’ve thought Adam would leave otherwise, because he went to retrieve it. He returned, holding the music box stiffly, with his arms outstretched, like the box was a bomb that might go off any second. “There, see it?”

  It was a nice music box—handsome chestnut wood with a golden crest. Strangely, it didn’t seem to have a windup key anywhere. Adam reached across the windowsill for the device to take a closer look, but Jack jerked it away.

  “Where’d you get it?” asked Adam, thinking again of the haunting music it made.

  “My dad gave it to me a few months ago for my eleventh birthday. It used to belong to his dad. My grandpa.”

  “Oh,” said Adam. That must be why Jack was being so careful with it. “Its music is…interesting.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said shortly. He carefully placed the music box on his desk. Next to the box lay a half-finished model airplane and an empty pewter candlestick.

  The rest of Jack’s room was simple but neat. Along the wall near the window stood a bookshelf filled with rows of aviation magazines and completed model airplanes. The same magazines were piled on the dresser and on the nightstand in the corner. Above the nightstand was a calendar, open to August 1967.

  Adam had traveled thirty-two years into the past.

  Jack saw Adam eyeing the airplanes. “My dad got those for me,” Jack said. “The Boeing 707 is my favorite. Only took us two hours to put together.” He let slip a proud smile. “I want to be a pilot one day. What about you? Do you like airplanes?”

  “No,” Adam answered immediately, a bit too loudly.

  Jack’s smile flickered. “Not everyone has to like the same things,” he said, sounding slightly hurt.

  “I know, I…” Embarrassed, Adam’s voice trailed off. There was a moment of silence, before it was broken by Jack again.

  “I have a question,” Jack said, studying Adam for a moment. “Are you from Asia?”

  Adam was used to questions about his appearance. “I was born here,” he answered. “My mom was originally from China and my dad was American, though his ancestors came from Germany. My parents met doing charity work in Europe. Opposite sides of the world—I contain half the world in me,” he added jokingly, hoping to impress Jack.

  Jack gawked at Adam. “That’s neat. You know the Supreme Court’s only just overturned that marriage law, don’t you?”

  “What marriage law?”

  “The law that bans people with different skin colors from marrying each other.”

  Adam bit his lip. It was definitely a weird thought that if his parents had lived thirty years earlier, they might not have been allowed to marry.

  “I think the rule was silly,” Jack went on. “It’s like saying people with yellow hair can only marry other blonds. Or people with freckles can only marry other freckled folks. That’s what it boils down to, really.”

  “Yes,” Adam agreed. “So…where are your parents?”

  “I live with my dad. He’s at work.” Jack nodded down the street.

  Adam glanced in the direction Jack was looking. He saw the gray building again, much closer now, with its large smokestacks still blowing out great clouds of smoke.

  “What is that place?”

  Jack snorted, though not unkindly. “You don’t know what that is? You really aren’t from around here, are you? That’s the candle factory—the so-called jewel of Candlewick. Candlewick’s Candles Corporation.”

  So Candlewick was the name of the town. Adam cracked a smile at the unusual name. He made a mental note to look up the town once he got home. He had no idea where he was on a map, but he couldn’t risk giving himself away by asking Jack for specifics.

  Instead, he asked, “Why is it the jewel of Candlewick?”

  “Well, the whole town is crazy about candles,” Jack said. “That’s how we make our living. My dad even named me after that nursery rhyme about candles. The one that goes,

  “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,

  Jack jump over the candlestick.”

  “Is that why you have a candlestick on your desk?” Adam asked.

  Jack laughed and said, “Good one,” even though Adam hadn’t been joking.

  “You can’t find candles like the ones made here anywhere else in the world,” continued Jack. “Everyone in town works there. It makes a ton of money, so people think the factory’s the jewel of Candlewick. But it’s not, not really, since most of that money ends up going to the Gold Mold.”

  “What’s the Gold Mold?”

  “Not what—who,” corrected Jack. “The Gold Mold is the owner of Candlewick’s Candles. Richest and nastiest guy in town. He overworks everyone and yells at them all the time. He even keeps part of the money he’s supposed to pay them.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  Jack nodded. “He wears this stupid gold pendulum around his neck wherever he goes, like he needs to flaunt how much money he has with dumb jewelry. That’s why I call him the Gold Mold. Shiny on the outside, full of mold and ugly stuff on the inside. Well, maybe some actual gold on the inside. Did you know he eats gold flakes with his dinner?”

  Adam grimaced. He knew lots of bakeries in New York that used gold to give their pastries extra sparkle, but to him, eating gold seemed about as appealing as eating paint or toilet paper, not to mention an extravagant waste.

  “He’s the meanest, greediest man
there ever was.” Jack frowned. “This was before I was born, but when he first took over the factory, he found out his little sister had been giving away candles to poor kids to sell. They had a big fight about it. People say he was always jealous of his sister—she aimed to be successful without relying on the family business, and that made them rivals, I guess.”

  Something about this story sounded awfully familiar to Adam. “What happened next?”

  “His sister made desserts—sweets and chocolates and stuff. A few years later, he bought up all the sweet shops in town, to prove he was good at things other than candles. But he wasn’t. Once he became the shops’ new owner, he sold the candy at five hundred times their original price. Now no one can afford it. I only get candy when I go to New York City with my dad.”

  “What does the Gold Mold do with all the unsold candy?”

  “He eats it all! His own son doesn’t even get any. Although,” Jack said with a shrug, “I’ve never met the Gold Mold’s son in person. People say he’s sort of a recluse.” He clasped his hands and glanced down the street again.

  Even though Adam knew it was none of his business, he asked timidly, “Why doesn’t your dad and everyone else find another job if the Gold Mold is so awful?”

  Jack scrunched his eyebrows under his aviator helmet. “I don’t know. My dad says he wants to leave Candlewick, but he never does. It’s like he suddenly forgets about the things the Gold Mold does. Like one day, he accidentally did an order wrong and got smacked by the Gold Mold’s cane. My dad had a huge bruise on his arm. He swore he was quitting that night. But when the next day came, he couldn’t even remember how he got the bruise. He didn’t believe me when I told him.”

  Adam suggested quietly that a bad memory was likely at play there. But Jack shook his head.

  “My dad’s as sharp as they come,” he argued. “He’s brilliant—look at all the model planes we’ve built. Anyway, this is one of the only jobs around, and there aren’t many options for veterans like him. My grandpa wasn’t happy when he found out my dad was working at Candlewick’s Candles. Said he could forgive but never forget what the owners did. Grandpa was a bit of an odd duck, but he told me the best stories. He never approved of the factory—”

  A loud whistle pierced the air. Jack bolted upright and craned his neck to look out the window.

  “Shift’s over,” he said nervously. “My dad’ll be home soon. Do you think…” He glanced at Adam. “Could you stay with me just a bit longer? Just until my dad comes back for sure?”

  “Sure, okay.”

  Adam understood. He used to wait for his parents to come home too when he was little. He’d count down the days on the calendar. Five more days until they finished delivering medical supplies here; four more days until they returned from building houses there; three more days, two until they were done exploring the mountains of Switzerland.

  The last countdown had been two hours, forty-three minutes. Then had come the untimely accident.

  Adam waited silently alongside Jack, who watched the street with the intensity of a hawk. After a while, figures slowly appeared at the slope of the hill. Adults in crinkled shirts and grubby khakis shuffled up the street, their faces vacant and drained. Each adult continued walking past and paid no attention to the two boys. A few cars drove past, old-style vehicles that Uncle Henry would’ve called vintage.

  With each passing person, Jack craned his neck farther. His knuckles grew white as he pressed them into the windowsill.

  “No sign of him yet?” Adam asked after the eleventh worker had passed.

  Jack shook his head without speaking.

  Adam felt bad for Jack. If his own father had ever worked for someone like the Gold Mold, or had come home with bruises from work, he’d be worried, too. He also noticed that Jack’s eyes kept darting surreptitiously to the music box.

  Suddenly, Jack’s face lit up, and his shoulders collapsed in relief. “Dad!” he called.

  Down the street, a middle-aged man was trudging up the slope. He had gray hair and smile lines underneath his tired eyes. When he heard Jack call, he waved.

  Jack disappeared from the window and emerged from the front door of the house. He ran down to greet his father. As he did, he called over his shoulder to Adam, “Thanks for waiting with me!”

  Adam raised his hand. “You’re welcome,” he faltered, but Jack had already sprinted down the street out of earshot. Adam stood still and watched as father and son embraced on the sidewalk. The father swung Jack onto his shoulders. Jack spread out his arms as if he were a bird or, more likely, an airplane. Something tugged inside Adam’s chest.

  He stepped back to look at the front door: 18 Oak Street. Adam memorized the address.

  It was perhaps good he did, because when he turned to look at Jack and his father again, they were gone. The town was gone. He was back in his own room. The snow globe sat lopsided in his hand, the swirling snowflake confetti just beginning to settle inside the empty glass.

  On Monday morning, Adam woke up extra early. He trekked to the local library before school to research the town of Candlewick. He’d wanted to go sooner—the minute the snow globe brought him back home, in fact—but it had been late on Saturday when he returned, and then on Sunday the library had been closed. Moreover, it was Halloween. Business at the Biscuit Basket was booming, and Adam was kept busy helping Uncle Henry. As he’d handed out free candy corn to each customer, he thought back to the Gold Mold buying out every candy shop in Jack’s town. One thing was certain—his own uncle would never sell out to the Gold Mold, no matter how much he was offered.

  At the library, Adam breathlessly looked up the town of Candlewick. It was indeed a real place, located several dozen miles north of New York City near the Hudson Valley. According to the last U.S. census, the town had around three hundred people.

  Then Adam paused in the middle of his research. He did a double take.

  “No way,” he whispered, rereading the passage that had caught his attention. Shivers crawled up his spine.

  The town’s namesake candle factory had burned down in 1967, killing most of its workers.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IN WHICH BAD LUCK PREVAILS

  Not long after New Year’s Day in 1909, Santiago fell deathly ill. Shortly after, he passed away.

  It was a curious incident, though nobody was there to witness it. The clocks in the shop all stopped ticking at the time of the clockmaker’s death. Only when someone found him the next morning did the clocks start working again.

  The funeral that followed was small. Several neighbors and some of Santiago’s loyal customers were in attendance. Elbert delivered a heartfelt eulogy he had written in memory of the clockmaker.

  At the end of the funeral, Elbert lit two of Santiago’s homemade candles, one on each side of the clockmaker’s casket. The sweet scent of lavender filled the small room.

  That was the last time anyone would see Elbert for a while.

  His performances stopped for several months. The streets whispered and speculated about the magician’s sudden disappearance. Nobody knew where he had gone.

  Several months later, Elbert made a brief reappearance one spring evening when he at last felt ready to stop by the clockmaker’s familiar shop again. When he entered, he was aghast to find city officials clearing out Santiago’s possessions. Clocks, pocket watches, springs, tools, and various gears were piled inside crates.

  “Stop!” shouted Elbert. “What are you doing?”

  The city officials said they were reclaiming the shop. “Santiago didn’t leave an heir in his will,” one of them explained. “All his items belong to the city now.”

  With some light pleading—and a little hypnotic help from his golden pendulum—Elbert managed to secure the two valuables he’d promised Santiago he’d take care of. Then he disappeared once more, the music box and notebook under his arm.

  While the rest of the world puzzled over Elbert the Excellent’s retreat from the stage, the young
magician was undergoing a change. After Santiago’s death, he no longer found enjoyment in magic tricks and hypnotism. Instead, he became fixated on the mysteries of the time touch, just like his mentor.

  In his new studio apartment at the edge of the city, he immersed himself in Santiago’s scrawling notes. The pages were filled with scientific diagrams and personal anecdotes, theoretical ideas and half-finished sentences. Each night, with his pet dove perched on his shoulder, Elbert slowly and painstakingly rewrote the notes into a notebook of his own, filling in the blanks with his best guesses, until finally, weeks later, he had pieced together the nearly illegible diary.

  From this exercise, he gleaned some insight into Santiago’s past. The clockmaker had apparently had a rough childhood. There were bits and bobs about stowing away on a ship from Argentina with his sister as children, about life on the streets in London, about his emergence as a renowned clockmaker in the United States. There were recurring notes about a motherly figure he simply called “the Governess.” From what Elbert could tell, the Governess had adopted Santiago and his sister back in London, and for a few golden years, they’d all been happy. But then the Governess’s sudden death had led the clockmaker to an obsession with time and the story of the time touch—and ultimately, to his quest to track down its legendary pieces.

  Elbert also confirmed an amazing but not-so-startling fact in Santiago’s notes: the clockmaker had indeed been partially successful in his efforts.

  London—December 8, 1845

  I visited the hermit in the clock tower one last time. He agreed to hand over the enchanted music box, as he finally deemed me worthy of being its new owner. I believe he felt a bit sorry for me. That, or he was showing signs of having finally been driven mad by its magic, same as its previous owners were rumored to be.