The Time of the Clockmaker

by Anna Caltabiano

  ELEVEN

  THE NEXT MORNING, having overslept, I ran into the chapel.

  “I saw you had quite the night yesterday.” The countess was sitting alone in the first pew in front of the altar. “You had such a busy evening that I thought I had better tell Joan to let you sleep.”

  I walked down the aisle toward the countess. My shoes tapped against the tiled floor, but the countess did not raise her head.

  Last night had been magical for me.

  “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long,” I said as I took a seat by the countess.

  “I’ve been here a few hours. But no, not waiting. Never waiting.” The countess lifted her head but still did not turn toward me. “Prayer does so much for the soul, does it not?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  The countess studied my face. I didn’t know what she would find there.

  “I like that you’re honest with me. But do be careful with your words. This isn’t like your home in Lithuania,” she whispered. “You may have a sympathizer in me, but not in everyone. One must do the things one must to survive—including putting on acts.” The countess turned to me, tipping her head to the side. “Now tell me: Lithuania is still very much Catholic and loyal to his holiness, unlike this country, is it not?”

  “Yes.” I remembered that this was one of the first things Lord Empson had asked me.

  There was a pause.

  “What do you think about prayer?”

  The directness of her question caught me off guard. “About prayer? Well, I think religion—”

  “No, not about religion,” she said. “About prayer.”

  “I pray,” I began. “I pray in the only way I know how.”

  “And how is that?”

  “I talk and hope that someone, somewhere is listening.”

  “And is he listening?”

  “I-I don’t know.” I felt embarrassed as my voice broke.

  For a while, neither of us said anything. I was worried that I had offended the countess, and I felt she was unsure how to respond to my lack of faith. “I know.” The countess’s voice was soft. “Even though I still consider myself a Catholic, at times I think that he has abandoned me. Left me to nothingness. That maybe a life is just a life. Nothing more. And then I feel empty. For what is a life without meaning, and what is meaning without him?”

  I watched her glare at the altar as if she thought that if she stared hard enough, it would speak to her.

  “But I simply cannot think that there is nothing after all of this.”

  “All this?”

  “Life,” she said. “It can’t just start and end without any reason. Yet we’re all thrown into life and snatched out of it. I know such thoughts are unchristian, and that the Bible tells us there is more, but sometimes still the thought rises. I pray to keep it down. Piety is virtuous, and I admire those who have it.”

  “Sometimes it scares me that no one’s watching over me,” I found myself saying. Though my voice was small, it still managed to echo in the chapel.

  “There has to be someone . . . something there. We have to believe in that.” The countess’s knuckles were white as she gripped the ledge of the pew. “There has to be—I shouldn’t be saying this. We shouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  I knew that need. It was a need to believe in something greater than yourself. A need to know that your life wasn’t insignificant. That though at times it felt random and meaningless, you were living according to some bigger plan. That someone was watching over you. And when it all ended, something else would begin.

  I knew that need because I had once had it. I had once believed in someone on the other side, listening to my pleas and hearing my hopes and wishes as I whispered them on my knees before I went to bed. I still had that need, but I knew no one was listening for me anymore.

  When Miss Hatfield died, she disappeared into dust. And to the world, it was as if she had never lived, for I had taken her place. When I became an immortal, it was as if I had turned to dust in God’s eyes. Without dying, the promise of heaven and hell became meaningless. There was only an endless existence on earth for me until I turned to dust and someone else took over as Miss Hatfield. No one was watching me. There was no meaning for me.

  “Eleanor,” the countess said.

  I was taken aback by the countess addressing me without any title. It wasn’t like her, but then again, I was beginning to learn that the countess was full of surprises and contradictions. I wasn’t sure if she was opening up to me due to me being a foreigner, a Catholic, or if she simply needed someone.

  “Yesterday, when we talked. I couldn’t help but feel that you’ve lost someone too,” she said.

  I thought of Miss Hatfield and what she would have said had she had the chance of meeting the countess.

  “You’re young,” the countess continued, “but you’ve suffered great loss. I recognize that in you because I have those shadows in myself. He meant a great deal to you, didn’t he?”

  I was surprised that the countess picked up on my loss of Henley instead of my loss of Miss Hatfield. I had lost Henley once when I had to leave him in his time, but he had found his way back to me. He was here again, and that was much more than the countess could say of her husband.

  “Let the church be your sanctuary, as I have tried to make it mine,” the countess said. “Do not let the seeds of doubt be sown into your mind the way they have in mine. Though we may pluck the weeds with all our might, their roots remain an everlasting labyrinth just below the surface.”

  It was far too late for that, but I pretended to absorb her advice.

  “In an ever-changing world, faith is all we really have. So cling to it.” The countess stood. “Remember, you’re always welcome to run away here.” She looked to the confessional, sitting empty and ajar. “You never know, someone just might be listening.”

  The countess made her way back up the aisle, leaving me in the pew. She threw open the doors. The blinding light from outside engulfed her, and all of a sudden, I was alone.

  There was a draft that made its way through the entire room. I shivered. The chapel seemed colder than any other building or room I had come across in this time. Light tinted from stained glass windows entered the room. The colors played on the altar, casting hues on the golden decor, but the light was harsh and cold.

  I stood to leave the chapel but stopped in my tracks. I knew this wasn’t a place for me. Of all places, this was where I least belonged, yet for some reason, I was drawn to the confessional.

  There were so many things I could never dare tell another person. They would think I was insane, or worse, they would be repelled and think me a monstrosity—something that was never meant to be. There were things that I couldn’t even tell Henley, like how I was scared—for our relationship, our future together . . . Did we even have a future together with him being in his current state? Of all people, I couldn’t bear to isolate him. So I chose not to bring it up instead. Being half-immortal, Henley saw everything in all times, but he couldn’t see my thoughts. He didn’t know that I was frightened.

  I opened the intricate wooden door to the confessional and stepped into the cramped space. There probably wasn’t a priest in the confessional, but I just wanted to feel as though someone might be listening. Maybe what I needed was to voice all of my fears aloud.

  I kneeled down on the built-in wooden bench. It had a thin cushion, but it wasn’t very comfortable. But then again, I suppose kneelers weren’t meant to be comfortable.

  I took a deep breath. How did this work? Did I just begin talking? What was it that they always said in the movies at the beginning of a confession?

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my last confession since . . .” I paused. “. . . Well, for a long time.”

  “What would you like to confess, my child?”

  I froze. I hadn’t thought there would be a priest listening. I wondered if I should really continue, or whether I sh
ould step out.

  I steadied myself on the kneeler. It was too late to step out.

  “My child?”

  “I-I feel as if God has turned away from me,” I began. “He’s not up there watching over me anymore.”

  “And why not?” the priest asked. “Our Lord loves everyone.”

  “Because I’ve done something . . . and it’s changed me.”

  “Changed you how, my child?”

  “It’s made me unlovable.”

  My words hung in the stale air of the confessional. Finally, the priest spoke again.

  “How have you changed yourself?”

  I felt his eyes on me as I struggled to respond.

  “I . . . It wasn’t me,” I said, thinking about the day Miss Hatfield mixed a drop of the fountain’s waters into my lemonade, forever changing me and turning me immortal. I had never wanted it.

  “What did you do to change yourself?” The priest’s voice was more insistent now, and there was something else in it. Something I didn’t recognize, and it scared me. “What did you do?” I felt his stare bore into me.

  “I can’t say.”

  There was another pause, and the priest seemed to have composed himself.

  “My child, to be forgiven, you must confess your sins.”

  I knew what he said made sense, but this was something I couldn’t tell anyone. God knew. He saw enough to turn his back.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t say.”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath near my ear.

  “Man must not try to imitate the divine, for life cannot mimic God without ending in failure.” The priest’s voice started to raise and shake. “You must confess! I’ve watched over you, child, since the beginning, and this is not natural. You are not natural, and God does not keep the unnatural. Heretics may burn in hell, but you will fall farther.”

  I turned, peering through the intricate dividing screen, but I could not see a thing. I heard the click of a latch as the door opened and closed on the priest’s side. I opened my door and got out, but it was too late. He was gone.

  TWELVE

  THE BALLS OF my feet thudded against the stone steps. I grew dizzy as they kept spiraling up, but I didn’t want to pause to catch my breath or look behind me. I wouldn’t know what I would find if I looked back.

  My encounter with the priest had terrified me.

  Calm down, Henley kept saying. You’re acting unreasonably. That was a comment that anyone could have made.

  But I ignored him. It was easy for him to say that I was “acting unreasonably” when he wasn’t the one who had come face-to-face with the accusing voice of the priest. Henley was there, but he wasn’t really there—there in flesh and body. He hadn’t really felt what I felt in the confessional.

  I felt my body pitch forward as the stairs ended. I threw my arms out to steady myself, but it was too late, and I hit the stone pavement with a thud. It felt as though the bones in my body clanged together, and I let out a groan through gritted teeth.

  “My, my . . . ,” a voice said above me. “What an entrance!”

  A strong arm picked me up, but I snatched my hand away as soon as I saw who it belonged to. It was the man from the banquet.

  “I was about to ask if you were all right, but I see you’re all right enough to have that fire again.” When he threw his head back to laugh, a lock of his hair fell into his eyes, and I fought a strong urge to brush it away.

  “Thank you, but I had best be on my way now.”

  “Always so serious,” the man said. “But what’s the rush?”

  “The Countess Grenville wishes to see me.” I made to curtsey and leave, but his hand gripped my wrist.

  “We both know that’s a lie.”

  I froze. His grip on me seemed tighter than before.

  “You don’t have to tell me everything, but never feel that you have to lie to me.” His voice was fierce, but it grew softer. His hard amber eyes melted into their usual honey color.

  I tugged my wrist away. “I need to go now.”

  The man let go and his usual laid-back drawl of a smile appeared again. “Where’s that fiery pride of yours? Did you lose it when you fell?”

  I gave him a cold look, but he seemed not to notice.

  “What’s your name, dear lady?”

  “Didn’t you say that I don’t have to tell you everything?”

  The man comically rolled his eyes. “Have it your way,” he said. “But in the meantime, your dashing white knight—who just rescued you—is named Richard Holdings.” He bowed.

  “My dashing white knight?” I laughed. “And here I thought knights were supposed to save damsels in distress . . . not distress them further.”

  “I try my best. I’m a bit new to the whole trying-to-catch-maidens-falling-out-of-thin-air concept,” Richard said. “Now, what is this pretty damsel’s name?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No? What do you mean ‘no’?”

  “Nice try, but no.”

  “My lady!” Joan seemed to appear out of nowhere, but I had never felt so grateful for her appearance. “My lady, the countess asked me to call for you. She wishes to see you straightaway.”

  I glanced at Richard and we both fell into a fit of giggles.

  “Till we meet again.” Richard swept into a mock bow and I laughed at how cheesy he sounded. “And don’t think we won’t meet again. I have ways of making fate work in my favor.” He winked and I could feel Joan turning red on my behalf next to me.

  “Don’t get too certain of that,” I called over my shoulder, as I followed Joan back to the countess’s quarters.

  I don’t like that man, I heard Henley mutter in my ear.

  “He’s harmless,” I said aloud.

  “You say that now, my lady,” I heard Joan say.

  “There you are.” The countess stood up from her place at the fire. “I was wondering where you had run off to when Joan didn’t find you in the chapel.”

  “I was enjoying the gardens,” I muttered.

  The countess waved my words away. “I just wanted to call you since I thought you’d like to see who finally made it to court.”

  As if on cue, the door behind me opened, and Lord Empson walked through with his arms outstretched. “Lady Eleanor!” he exclaimed.

  I saw his outstretched arms, but I thought it inappropriate to give him a hug, so I curtseyed instead, which seemed to please him.

  “How are you enjoying court?”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could get a single word in, Lord Empson continued.

  “I trust Countess Grenville has seen that you are well taken care of and are meeting the right people.”

  Lord Empson walked over to the countess as if he had only just noticed her. He took her hand and made a point of kissing it.

  “My dear Aunt Marian, I trust you’re doing well?”

  It was hard to remember that the countess was also his aunt.

  “Joan and I are keeping well.” The countess withdrew her hand. “Though we would be keeping better if you would increase my allowance. Even after we let the other girl go, the money is still stretched thin.”

  Lord Empson’s smile looked forced. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so thin if you would scale down your dress budget.”

  “My dress budget? I haven’t bought a single—”

  “We will discuss this later.”

  Lord Empson’s voice turned icy, shutting down the conversation, and the countess didn’t dare say another word.

  This was another side of Lord Empson, one that I had not seen before. It scared me. But as quickly as that side appeared, it was gone.

  “Lady Eleanor, I do hope you’ll do me the honor of dining with me tonight. My wife was telling me how much she was looking forward to meeting you. I’m afraid she was feeling slightly under the weather, so we will be eating in our rooms, but I still hope you’ll join us.”

  I glanced toward the countess.

  “Of course, Aunt Maria
n, you’re welcome to join us too,” Lord Empson said smoothly.

  The countess lowered her head in a slight nod.

  “I’d love to, my lord,” I said.

  “Very well. Eight o’clock, then? My wife will be pleased.”

  Lord Empson bowed out of the room, leaving me alone with the countess.

  “I’m convinced his wife is a saint,” I heard her say as she turned away from me. “I’ve already instructed Joan to ready a gown for you for supper. I’m afraid it won’t be much, but it’ll be the best we can do.”

  I thanked her, telling her that it would surely be more than enough.

  “Lord Empson also brought a few samplers, so you can practice your sewing. I had Joan put those in your room as well.”

  “Samplers?”

  “Yes, samplers. You can go work on them now before supper.” Seeing my face, she paused. “Or you can walk the gardens.”

  “I think I might take a walk,” I quickly said. I wondered if my distaste for sitting around in my room was that apparent.

  I excused myself and crept back out to the main corridor.

  “Do take Helen with you!” I heard the countess call out after me, but I pretended not to hear and ducked around a corner, lest she send Helen after me.

  Seeing that no one was around, I realized that this was my chance to talk to Henley.

  “Now that we know the countess doesn’t have the clock, what do we do?” I wished Henley had a simple answer.

  We obviously have to continue searching for it.

  “Of course, but how do you suppose we do that?” I was impatient, but I couldn’t have anyone questioning my identity or my background. “We need a way to get into more rooms.”

  You could gain entrance by befriending the servants. They’re always about.

  “That looks suspicious. As Lady Eleanor Shelton, I’m not expected to notice the help, much less befriend them,” I said. “But you are onto something. I can’t risk stealing into rooms—well, at least not all these rooms. I need to get myself invited, and to do that I do need to befriend more people.”

  At least then your chatting and loitering about would have a purpose.