by Ann Charles
I didn’t see Addy. Unless she was hiding in my closet, some other female had whispered in my ear. But who? Maybe I’d dreamed it. Maybe I was dreaming this, too. I pinched my arm. Nope, awake.
I sat up, listening for the creak of a floorboard on the other side of the door, the swishing of a slipper or bare foot on hardwood, or any other clue that might explain that voice. I could hear Harvey’s snores rumbling up the stairs, but all else was silent.
Next to me, Doc slept quietly. His breathing was slow and steady. I debated on waking him, but we’d both been exhausted last night, so I hesitated.
Natalie had left shortly after Cooper, refusing to talk to me about that kiss. After putting the kids to bed for the night, I came back down to find that Aunt Zoe had sent Reid on his way. I joined Doc and my aunt on the couch, while Harvey kicked back in the recliner. White Christmas filled the television screen, a favorite of mine since childhood. Harvey fell asleep halfway through the film, and Aunt Zoe went to bed before the final song, leaving Doc and me to watch the end credits.
After she left, I had spread out on the couch, my cheek pillowed on Doc’s lap. The local news crew made promises about more snowy weather coming our way, just what we didn’t need. Doc trailed his fingers down my arm while we watched, his caresses making my eyelids heavy. Later, he’d helped me up the stairs, lowered me into bed, and crawled in next to me. I couldn’t remember anything after that.
It is time.
Easing out of bed, I grabbed my robe and slippers. A glance Doc’s way found him still sleeping. I stole out of the room into the hallway, pausing to slide into my slippers and tie on my robe before tiptoeing to Addy’s room. Inside, I found her curled up under the covers. She moaned and shifted when I straightened her comforter, settling back to sleep as I watched.
It definitely hadn’t been my daughter whispering in my ear.
I checked on Layne and Aunt Zoe next. Both were snoozing away, making me envious. My bed called to me, but I hesitated in the hallway, chewing on my lower lip. That voice had sounded so real. Could it have been my imagination? Some voice in my head screwing with me?
Truth be told, I’d rather it have been my imagination than a ghost … or worse.
I started toward my bedroom. Several steps from my door, I froze.
What was that?
I moved to the top of the stairs, listening.
In between Harvey’s snores, I heard recurring notes. They were faint but steady. I edged down the stairs. Christmas lights gave the living room a warm, blinking glow. My bodyguard slept like a snoring baby. I grabbed another blanket from the back of the couch and covered him to help ward off the early morning chill.
The tree lights hypnotized me, spurring memories of Christmases gone by when I’d played Santa for the kids. How many times had I sat alone late on Christmas Eve, eating the cookies they’d left on a plate for Ol’ Saint Nick? Or wished I had someone to snuggle up to in the morning while watching my kids tear open their gifts? This year would be different. This year, I had Doc … and Susan. Oh, nuts. I crossed my fingers that Christmas evening at my parents didn’t end in disaster.
The rhythmic notes grew louder, intruding on my holiday reverie.
Chimes. Something was chiming.
I looked toward the dining room. The clock in there was ticking, but not chiming.
Damn. There was only one other explanation.
I headed for the kitchen, opening the basement door. I stood at the top of the stairs, listening. The chiming was loud enough now to block out Harvey’s snores. I hit the light switch and stepped carefully down the stairs. My slippers were almost as worthless on the smooth concrete steps as my boots had been on snow.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead down in what I liked to think of as Layne’s mad scientist lab. An old dresser filled with his lab equipment sat in the opposite corner from Elvis’s pen. A row of crates lined the far wall, butting up against one of Aunt Zoe’s old workbenches.
Elvis clucked at me when I passed her cage, not bothering to climb out of her roost to greet me.
I crept over to the two clocks from Mr. Black that lay on the old workbench. I hadn’t bothered hanging them up, since they functioned on their own with or without batteries, or winding for that matter. The newest one depicting the Wild Hunt was as silent and unmoving as the day Mr. Black had given it to me. The other clock—the one I’d received weeks ago that had a large hellhound-like beast with a long snout and pointy ears with opened jaws and claws reaching toward the cuckoo door—was chiming repeatedly, but not cuckooing.
Why was it chiming? A couple of weeks ago, it had cuckooed and then started up, keeping time until this last weekend when Layne had noticed it’d stopped. Was chiming the same type of alert as cuckooing?
I leaned closer, trying to open the little door where the cuckoo bird hid. The wood wouldn’t budge, reminding me of the closet door in Jerry’s office. I needed a paper clip to pop it open. Better yet, Harvey’s handy screwdriver.
Running my fingers over the beast’s snout, I marveled at the craftsmanship. Who was the clockmaker? Dominick had refused to tell me when I’d asked, recently. Was it someone in town? In the Black Hills? There was so much I didn’t understand about this clock business. Hell, about all of this Timekeeper stuff.
Maybe the clock was chiming because I’d broken it somehow when I’d moved the arms, back before I realized messing with time was bad juju. Or had the kids fiddled with it? I’d laid down the law about touching these clocks, but my kids were curious like so many others, dangerously so at times.
“Hi,” a familiar voice said behind me.
I whirled, my hand on my chest. Addy stood next to Elvis’s cage, her hair mussed, her face puffy with sleep. She clutched a stuffed-animal version of Elvis that my mom had given her.
“Hey, baby,” I said, stepping sideways to block the chiming clock from her view.
She padded closer, her gaze on the workbench behind me. “What’s going on down here?”
“Nothing. I was just … uh … checking on Elvis.”
She stopped a couple of feet away from me. “Those clocks creep me out,” she whispered.
“Me, too. You want some breakfast?” I tried to distract her, adding a dose of sugar to sweeten the deal. “I can make you some French toast with powdered sugar on it.”
She moved closer, standing next to me. “How come these clocks hardly ever work? Are they broken?”
“They’re antiques. They kind of run on their own time.”
She put her stuffed chicken on the workbench next to the clock that was chiming. “I wonder what is hiding behind the cuckoo doors.”
“Just a little bird, like any other clock.” I wasn’t sure this was true of the newest clock, because it hadn’t woken up since Mr. Black handed it off to me. “Addy, you know not to touch these clocks, right?”
She didn’t answer me. My chest tightened. Something was off with my daughter. For one thing, she wouldn’t meet my eyes. For another, she hadn’t mentioned the constant chiming. “Sweetheart, do you hear any noises coming from these clocks?”
Elvis released a loud series of squawks that drowned out her answer, if she gave one. I glowered at the chicken, watching her fluttering about the cage, banging against the wire repeatedly. Chicken feathers floated around her. What was wrong with that dang bird? “Elvis, stop!”
When I turned back, Addy was pulling open the cuckoo door that had been stuck moments before.
I gasped. “Addy, no!” I reached for her, but my arm went right through her, like she was a ghost.
What the hell?
I tried again. The result was the same.
“Oh, look,” Addy whispered. “It’s a little girl.”
She was right. Instead of a cuckoo bird that I’d witnessed popping out of the clock before, a little blond girl crouched behind the door. I stepped closer, noticing her tiny hands were painted red, along with the neckline of her shirt. Was that supposed to be blood? Was she bitt
en in the neck by the beast? I needed a brighter light to see for sure.
Addy reached toward the little wooden girl. The air between Addy’s finger and the girl-cuckoo seemed to ripple. A tendril of black smoke snaked out from the clock, wrapping around Addy’s finger.
In the shadowed alcove behind the wooden girl, something moved.
“Addy, get back!” I tried to grab her wrist to no avail. Panic welled in my throat. The chiming started to clang so loud it rattled my teeth.
The little girl popped out from the clock, her mouth forming a teeny black O. A high-pitched scream blasted up at us.
“Addy!” I shrieked, taking a step back in surprise. I tripped over my own feet, falling on my ass on the hard cobblestone floor. Pain throbbed in my hip as tears streamed down my face. “Addy, no,” I cried again, reaching for her.
“Mom!” Layne yelled in my ear. “Stop it!”
A hush of silence filled my head.
I blinked at my son, whose face now filled my vision. His blond eyebrows were pinched together.
“Layne?” I lifted my hand toward his face, touching his cheek. “You’re real.”
“Of course I’m real.” He covered my hand with his.
I pulled him into my lap, squeezing him hard, covering his face with kisses. He smelled like his bed, his skin still warm from it.
“Mom! Come on! Stop already.” He pushed out of my lap, resting on his knees beside me. “What are you doing down here?”
I looked beyond him at the workbench with the clocks. A clucking sound drew my gaze to the other side of the room. Elvis watched me from her cage, her head tilting one way and then the other.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Help me up.”
He pulled at my arm, tugging me to my feet. I walked over to the clocks, my hip still throbbing.
“Look at that.” Layne joined me at the workbench. “That wolf one is ticking again.”
The clock with the snarling beast was ticking away, not a chime to be heard, or a cuckoo for that matter.
“But the time’s wrong,” he continued. “We need to fix—” He reached toward the clock.
“No!” I snagged his arm, pulling him back. “No touching!”
“I was just—” he started.
“I mean it, Layne. These clocks are off limits. Look with your eyes, not your fingers.”
Heavy footfalls sounded overhead in the kitchen. Doc took the steps two at a time. “Violet.” He was slightly winded when he stood next to us at the workbench. His hair reminded me of Cooper’s shark fins. “What’s going on?”
His shirt was missing. The bruises on his ribs were beginning to fade, his skin colored a dull bluish green now instead of vivid purple and black. He’d managed to pull his jeans on before coming downstairs, although they were zipped only, not buttoned.
Layne gaped at Doc’s side. “It looks like you were hit with a battering ram.”
That was one way to describe what happened.
“Addy woke me,” Doc said, rubbing his eyes. “She told me you were down here screaming. Are you okay?”
Was I really screaming? I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. “I think so.”
“What happened?”
I looked around, trying to piece it all together. “I’m not sure.”
“Mom was down here sitting on the floor yelling at Addy,” Layne explained, eyeing the clocks.
Just then Addy came down the stairs, making a beeline to her true love. “Poor, poor Elvis. Did Mom scare you?”
Screw the chicken, I scared myself.
I covered my mouth with a trembling hand, watching my daughter pull the chicken from its cage and stroke its feathers. My gaze returned to Doc’s. “Maybe I was sleepwalking.”
His gaze dipped to my toes. “You’re wearing your robe and slippers.”
“Yeah.” I glanced down. The belt on my robe was even tied. “I remember putting them on, too. Is that normal for a sleepwalker?”
“Have you ever done something like this before?”
I shook my head. “Not that I know of.”
“Look, Doc,” Layne said. “This wolf clock is ticking again.”
The lines in Doc’s brow deepened. “It sure is.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Almost six.”
“Layne,” I said, snapping back to mom-mode. “Go upstairs and start getting ready for school.”
“Ah, Mom. It’s too early.”
“Do as I say, please.” I glanced over at my chicken-lover. “You, too, Addy. Get dressed and I’ll make you both some French toast.”
“Fine,” Layne snapped, stomping up the stairs.
Addy put Elvis back in her cage. “No offense, Mom.” She paused on her way up the stairs. “But I’d rather have Doc make us French toast. You can pour our orange juice, though.”
How generous of her. I narrowed my eyes. “Go, Adelynn Renee.”
When the kids were out of earshot, I turned to Doc. “I heard a clock chiming,” I said in a lowered voice in case anyone was eavesdropping from the top of the stairs. “That’s what brought me down here.”
“Another nightmare?”
“No. I don’t have nightmares when you’re near me.”
He crossed his arms. “Okay, start from the beginning.”
I leaned against the workbench. “Somebody whispered in my ear, waking me up.”
“Whispered what?”
“The words, ‘It is time.’ I thought it was Addy at first, because the voice sounded female. I checked on her, but she was asleep in her bed. Then I visited Layne and Aunt Zoe. I even came downstairs and peeked at Harvey. Everyone was sleeping, including you. That’s when I heard the chiming and followed it down here.”
“Did it feel like you were awake at that time or were things hazy?”
It was all very clear. “I’m pretty sure I was awake.”
“What happened after you came down here? What spurred your screaming?”
“I was looking at this clock with the wolf-like beast on it.” I stared at the ticking clock, replaying the scene in my head. “It was chiming non-stop. I tried to open the cuckoo door at the top, but it wouldn’t budge.” Out of curiosity, I pulled on the door again. It still wouldn’t open. That didn’t seem normal, but then what did these days?
“I heard Addy’s voice behind me,” I continued. “She started talking to me, and then …” I trailed off.
“And then what?”
I held up my index finger. “There was something off about Addy. She didn’t look at me or answer my questions. Then, when I tried to touch her, my arms went right through her like I was a ghost.”
One of Doc’s eyebrows lifted. “Or she was.”
“How can that be, though? If I were dreaming, it would make sense. But everything seemed so real—sights, sounds, smells. Things were too solid feeling not to be.”
He rubbed his jaw. “I’ll need to think about this more after I’ve had some coffee. What made you scream?”
“Addy opened the cuckoo door on the one that’s ticking. Something about her touching it frightened me. I had the notion that her making physical contact with it put her at risk. Inside the door, instead of a cuckoo bird, there was a little blond girl with blood on her hands and around her neck. I thought she’d been bitten by the beast. Addy reached out to touch the girl. I tried to stop her, but she wasn’t listening and I couldn’t grab her. When her finger brushed over the little girl, a black wisp of smoke came out and wrapped around her finger. Then the girl popped out of the door, shrieking at us instead of cuckooing.”
Concern lined his face. “So you screamed back.”
My cheeks warmed. “Yeah, something like that. Then I stumbled backward, tripped, and that’s when Layne came into the picture.”
Doc moved next to me, his focus on the clock. “And now it’s ticking again.”
“What do you think, Mr. Oracle? What do you see that I can’t?”
He put his arm around my sho
ulder. “You’re a Timekeeper.”
“That’s not very enlightened ‘seeing’ on your part.”
“This experience with the clocks is new for you. Maybe the voice you heard comes with being a Timekeeper.”
“But why was Addy pulled into it?”
“I don’t know. It could be as simple as you being worried about her messing with the clocks when she’s down here taking care of Elvis.”
I had repeatedly warned her and Layne not to touch them.
“It also could have been a premonition,” Doc added.
“Like a vision of something that is going to happen in the future.”
“Or a warning.”
I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms. “Well, if that’s the case, I know how to keep this sort of thing from happening for real.”
“How?”
Blinking the last of the sleep from my eyes, I grimaced at the two time bombs. “I’m moving these clocks out of here today.”
“Moving them to where? Zoe’s workshop?”
“No. That’s too accessible for my kids. I’m taking them to work.”
“Calamity Jane’s?”
“Actually, the apartment above my office.”
“You’re going to delegate timekeeping to Cornelius?”
“More like trust him to watch over the clocks and keep me updated on their status.”
“What makes you think he’ll be willing to be your timekeeping lackey?”
“He loves eccentric, haunted stuff. These clocks are right up his spook-filled alley.”
“But you need to keep an eye on them. You’re the Timekeeper.”
“So far, this aspect of my job includes waiting for a clock to start ticking or stop ticking. Until Mr. Black teaches me some of the finer details of timekeeping, Cornelius can handle clock watching. It’s along the same lines as ghost spying with the fancy cameras and microphones he’s planted throughout Calamity Jane’s.”
Doc pulled me closer, his chest warm as he hugged away my chills. “I’m not sure this is what Ms. Wolff intended when she handed off the baton.”
I smirked up at him. “Yeah, well, Ms. Wolff didn’t have curious children who like to explore with their fingers.”