The Clockwork House

by Wendy Saunders

  Ava pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.

  ‘What did you use Baz?’

  ‘I made them with dragon butter,’ he shrugged.

  ‘Dragon butter,’ her eyes widened, ‘are you mad? They’re little old ladies.’

  ‘I’ll admit it’s a little strong, but it won’t hurt them,’ he picked a brownie off the plate and bit into it.

  ‘Oooh, don’t mind if I do handsome,’ Ivy leaned over and batted her eyelashes as she retrieved a brownie and daintily bit into it, giving Baz a coy look.

  ‘Oh, sweet baby Jesus,’ Ava rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘Are they going to be alright?’ Kelley asked in amusement as he watched Barbara staring at the ticking hand of a carriage clock as if it were the most riveting thing in the world.

  ‘They’ll be fine,’ Ava frowned in annoyance. ‘Trust me, within an hour they’ll be out cold and sleeping it off. You might want to go to the kitchen though and see if Bunty has any cookies or chips. They’ll be getting the munchies soon and we need to try and prize the brownies away from them before they eat any more.’

  She glanced over at Esther who was already snoring loudly in the corner.

  ‘KELLEY?’ a muffled voice came from underneath the green toadstool of knitting next to Norma. ‘KELLEY is that you?’

  The pile of green wool wriggled a bit and as the layers fell away, it revealed another lady, but one Ava didn’t recognize.

  ‘GRANDMA?’ Kelley’s eyes widened.

  She gave him a wide stoner’s smile, filled with affection.

  ‘Awww look it’s my grandson! Everyone look, my grandson, isn’t he a handsome boy!’

  ‘He sure is,’ Ivy turned her predatory gaze on him and licked her lips, which wouldn’t have been the least bit seductive even if they weren’t smeared with brownie crumbs.

  Kelley slowly grasped Ava’s arm and inched her in front of him.

  ‘Come and kiss Grandma!’ his grandmother held out her hands and made grabby motions.

  ‘Maybe later,’ he replied as he eyed Ivy warily.

  ‘That’s your grandma?’ Ava whispered in horror. ‘Oh my god Kelley,’ she hissed, ‘what’s your dad gonna say when he finds out my dead mom’s lawyer got his mom stoned?’

  ‘Life is never dull with you Ava,’ he shook his head.

  ‘Ava!’ his grandma grinned widely. ‘OH! So, this is Ava! I’m Alma dear, Kelley’s grandma. Don’t you worry about my Gus, he’s too stuffy for his own good anyway.’

  ‘Grandma, he’s a cop, he’s supposed to be.’

  ‘Pffft,’ she waved him away. ‘You’re so beautiful, isn’t she beautiful? Doesn’t my Kelley know how to pick ‘em? Oh! they’re going to make me such pretty great grand babies.’

  ‘Er… no… I…’ Ava’s eyes widened, ‘that’s not… we’re not…’ she flapped her hand, indicating back and forth between her and Kelley with her finger, trying to find the right words.

  ‘Oh no need to be shy dear,’ Alma winked conspiratorially. ‘I’ve heard all about you and Kelley naked in the back of a truck, from my Gus.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ Ava pressed her fingers tightly into her temples hoping to wake herself from this very weird, very vivid nightmare. ‘We weren’t naked.’

  ‘We kinda were,’ Kelley whispered.

  ‘Not helping,’ she glared at him and he stepped back with his hands raised in surrender.

  ‘Look,’ Alma reached into her purse which was tucked at her side. She placed her little wire framed glasses on and lifted her phone. ‘Now how does this work again.’ She poked at the screen experimentally a few times with awkward fingers before beaming and turning the phone around to show everyone the picture of Kelley standing in front of Ava’s truck, wearing nothing but a frying pan and a scowl.

  ‘Um hmmmm,’ Ivy hummed in pleasure, her eyes narrow and heavy lidded as she puckered a kiss in his direction.

  ‘GRANDMA!’ Kelley growled, ‘I’m going to kill Killian!’

  Alma smiled and leaned over, helping herself to another brownie.

  ‘Alma I really wouldn’t…’ Ava protested, but Alma ignored her, biting into the brownie with glee and grinning widely, with chunks of brownie stuck to her teeth.

  Click.

  Ava turned around to stare as Kelley lifted his own phone and snapped a picture.

  ‘Forget the family album,’ he told his grandmother with a smirk, ‘that one’s going on the front of this year’s Christmas card!’

  Betty crunched her potato chips loudly, shoveling them rapidly into her mouth, as her eyes darted back and forth between them.

  ‘Baz,’ Ava sighed in exasperation, ‘what are you doing here?’

  ‘I told you, there was tea and a ferry…’

  ‘No, I mean what are you doing on Midnight Island?’

  ‘I came to see you,’ he frowned.

  ‘So you said,’ she almost rolled her eyes in frustration trying to get a straight answer, ‘but WHY?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I say?’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head.

  ‘I came to bring you these,’ he shuffled forward on the couch and reached into his pants pocket. He emptied out the contents, searching through the fluff, spare change, cherry lifesavers and finally picked out two items, handing them over to Ava. ‘These were part of your mom’s will; you forgot to collect them before you left Bisbee.’

  Ava looked down at the items nestled in the palm of her hand. One was a delicate little golden locket the size of a half dollar, on a long chain. It was slightly old and tarnished. She clicked it open but there were no pictures inside it, just the green velvet inserts. All in all, it was a plain, unremarkable piece of jewelry that was not at all her mother’s style. More often than not Serenity would be found in moonstones and beads. Ava couldn’t understand why her mother would keep the locket, but not only that, why she actually went to the trouble, in her will, of ensuring it came to Ava.

  Slipping the chain around her neck so she wouldn’t lose it, the locket settled between her breasts, hanging down almost to her rib cage. Looking down at the second object in her hand her heart jolted slightly in recognition. Although she’d swear blind she’d never seen it before, there was something unsettlingly familiar about the old pocket watch attached to a short chain and clip. Something she couldn’t quite remember. Pressing the tiny shell shaped button at the edge the lid flipped open to reveal the watch inside. It was no longer working, the hands had long since stopped moving and were frozen at midnight, or midday, depending on the point of view.

  She held it up to her ear. Although the hands no longer moved and could not tell the time, she could still hear a quiet ticking sound, almost like the watch had a heartbeat.

  Closing the lid, she brushed the worn, slightly dented metal with her thumb. Etched elegantly into the face were the initials E.L.

  Ava glanced up at the sound of Bunty squeaking slightly in distress. When her dark gaze landed on the older woman, she saw her standing with her hands pressed tightly to her mouth, her eyes wide and locked on the old pocket watch in her hand. Her eyes flitted up catching sight of Ava watching her curiously, she gave another squeak of distress and scurried from the room.

  Ava glanced at Kelley who shrugged in confusion and nodded toward the door. Taking him up on his suggestion Ava followed Bunty, finding her in the kitchen sitting at the table pouring herself a brandy.

  ‘Bunty are you alright?’ Ava asked.

  ‘Yes, yes dear I’m fine,’ she tossed the contents of the small glass back in one un-ladylike slurp.

  ‘I don’t think you are,’ Ava crossed the room and sat down next to her, ‘and it has something to do with this, doesn’t it?’

  She held out the small battered gold watch.

  ‘Don’t,’ she shook her head.

  ‘Don’t what?’ Ava asked in confusion. ‘What is this all about Bunty? Do you know who the watch belongs to?’

  Bunty nodded slowly.

  ‘Ephraim Lynch,’ she w
hispered.

  ‘Bunty what the hell is going on?’ Ava breathed heavily. ‘I know you know more than you’re letting on. Please tell me.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re asking,’ Bunty replied desperately. ‘Once you know, there’s no going back and she made me promise.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Hari,’ Bunty answered, her eyes filled with indecision and worry.

  ‘What did she make you promise?’

  ‘Ava, the house,’ she took a deep breath, ‘it’s always been about the house and now they’ve found the bodies, it’s only a matter of time before they find the rest.’

  ‘The rest?’ Ava’s eyes widened. ‘Bunty are you telling me there are more bodies in the house?’

  Bunty shook her head.

  ‘So many bad things went on in that house, they left a terrible scar, a wound that never fully healed. Once it has you it will never let you go. Hari was trapped here, Caroline ran to save herself and you,’ she reached out and gripped her cheek with frail papery hands, ‘sweet girl you should never have come to the island. Now I fear it is too late for you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ava swallowed slowly her throat suddenly dry.

  Bunty suddenly climbed to her feet, the chair screeching loudly against the floor. She crossed the room and retrieved something from a drawer and handed it to Ava.

  ‘What’s this?’ Ava stared down at the old dog-eared envelope.

  ‘Your grandmother left that for you before she died. Take it and read it. Once you do, you’ll have a choice. You either get on the ferry, leave the island and never look back.’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘Or you come back and find me, and I will tell you everything, but I warned you once before Ava, truth comes at a terrible cost.’

  14

  Ava sat Indian style, crossed legged on the long dry grass, as the breeze rippled and tugged at her hair. One of the things she loved about the island was that despite the summer temperatures, the cool breeze coming in off the Atlantic made the long summer days pleasant rather than stifling. At night the temperature would cool enough to make sleeping easier, unless plagued with strange dreams, which Ava had been most nights. Dreams that were made even worse by the fact she couldn’t remember.

  It was infuriating. She’d wake in the early hours of the morning, sometimes drenched in an icy cold sweat and feeling such strong emotions.

  Sometimes she’d be so sad, filled with loss and sorrow. Other times she’d be filled with anger and fury. Then there were the times she felt completely helpless and afraid, but every single time she couldn’t bring to mind the cause of these emotions. She couldn’t understand where these feeling came from. It was almost like they weren’t her emotions, like she was experiencing someone else’s pain.

  She reached out and idly stroked Bailey’s pointed ears as she lay out on the warm grass and stared up at the brooding, silent house in front of her. She’d been sitting on the letter Bunty had given her for almost two days. She wasn’t entirely sure what was stopping her from reading it. Maybe it was the dramatic, over the top, theatrical warnings and predictions about the house. Maybe it was her own growing paranoia over the property, or maybe it was just as simple as she didn’t want to risk rejection, even from beyond the grave.

  Her grandmother, whom she’d never met, had gone to the trouble of writing a letter to be read posthumously to the daughter, of the daughter who’d abandoned her. Call her crazy, but Ava was certain that was not going to make for happy reading.

  It felt like she had so much crap going on in her head that she couldn’t seem to sort it into neat little piles. A week ago, she’d been happy. Not just content but actual, honest to God, happy, right down to her bones. The work on her house was well under way, she was making friends and being accepted into the community. She also loved cooking for everyone, nothing else had given her such a sense of satisfaction before.

  Then there was Kelley…

  The guy who’d gone and snuck right under her radar and set up camp. The guy who made her want to look ahead, to plan a future. She’d had this crazy idea in her head that she was going to ask him to help her get her high school diploma. In the day to day reality it wouldn’t make a difference of course, it wasn’t like she was going to go to college or suddenly get all career orientated, but it would mean something to her. She wanted to prove to herself she could do it.

  She shook her head.

  Damn it, the longer she was on island the more she could picture herself staying. That was another reason for not reading the letter. Bunty had implied that the information revealed in the letter would force her into a choice, stay or leave. What if she found out something she really didn’t want to know? What if she had no choice but to leave? The thought made her chest ache and her stomach burn.

  She didn’t want to leave.

  There, she’d admitted it. She was madly in love with the island and pretty intensely in ‘like’ with Kelley, the kind of like which could all too easily trip over into something a hell of a lot scarier if she let it.

  She stared back up at the house once again and still felt that tug. It was just a house. Okay, sure, so they’d actually found dead bodies in the basement. Not ideal; worst case scenario one of her ancestors was possibly a deranged would-be serial killer, but all that other crap? There was no such thing as ghosts. The place wasn’t haunted. Stuff like that just wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. She was just letting herself get carried away with everyone else’s overactive imaginations.

  The truth was, she had come to a crossroads. With or without the letter, she needed to make a choice. The summer was drawing to a close, they were already heading into September. Kelley would return to teaching for the new semester and there was really only a couple of months before the weather turned. She had a small window of opportunity to either continue restoring the house or cut her losses and bulldoze it to the ground, with all of its secrets.

  At that moment she couldn’t say either was particularly appealing. She flopped back against the grass with a frustrated sigh, staring up at the cloudless blue sky. With the breeze rippling over her skin like a playful lover and the sounds of the ocean crashing at the foot of the cliff, she found her eyes drifting closed.

  ‘Ava…’

  She bolted upright, her heart hammering in her chest as she sucked in a deep breath. She thought she’d heard her name, a husky whisper, so close she could’ve sworn she’d felt a puff of breath against her ear. But now sitting up on the grass, there was no one there but her dog, who was looking at her strangely.

  She glanced up at the sky. The bright blue cloudless sky was now overcast, gray clouds drifted above her, casting shadows across the cliff top. She shuddered, wondering how long she’d slept for. The air was ripe with the strong hazy scent of ozone as the first fat drops of summer rain began to fall.

  Ava looked toward the house, the only shelter other than her RV which was sealed with crime scene tape and still not repaired. She stood and dusted the grass from her shorts, but as Bailey began to bark loudly, she glanced up and her heart jolted in her chest.

  Just for a split second she was sure she’d seen a little boy standing in the doorway of the house. The doorway which, she realized uncomfortably, had been closed when she’d fallen asleep and now stood wide open. She shifted, as if she were going to head toward the house but hesitated at the last moment.

  Maybe she was more spooked by Bunty’s dire warnings than she’d thought. It was stupid, she shook her head, annoyed with herself. There was no such thing as ghosts and she was going to prove it, to herself and everyone else.

  She took one very determined step toward the house when a car suddenly appeared at the top of the road, pulling in and parking next to her. A tall, lanky, familiar body climbed out and approached her.

  ‘Kelley?’ she asked, blinking through the rain, ‘what are you doing here? I thought you had a class to teach?’

  ‘I did,’ he replied, ‘hours ago. When you didn’t c
ome back, I was worried. My dad still doesn’t have any leads on who trashed the RV and it makes me nervous when you’re up here all alone. Whoever it was doesn’t seem to have good intentions, not to mention the few die hard reporters who are still sniffing around, as well as the obsessed ghost hunters.’

  Although there was a police perimeter and a couple of security guards hired to protect the property until the fascination with the recovered bodies died down, he was right, it was stupid to be up there alone.

  ‘I fell asleep,’ she shook her head. ‘I didn’t realize what the time was.’

  ‘Well,’ he glanced up at the sky as the rain came down harder, ‘we should probably head back.’

  Ava glanced at the open door once more.

  ‘There’s something I have to do first,’ she headed toward the house.

  ‘Ava?’ he hurried after her, ‘what are you doing?’ He climbed up the stone steps and grasped her hand, stopping her just outside the open doorway, partially sheltered from the rain by the second-floor balcony above them.

  ‘I saw,’ she frowned, ‘I thought I saw a little boy.’

  ‘Where?’ Kelley replied, ‘in the house?’

  ‘Standing in the doorway,’ she looked up at Kelley.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he shook his head. ‘Fearless,’ he muttered. ‘You’re the only person I know who would go charging into a haunted house after admitting to seeing a little boy standing on the doorstep.’

  ‘I have to check, Kelley,’ she frowned. ‘What if it’s some kid up here on a dare; what if he falls through another part of the floor like we did? And gets hurt?’

  Kelley blew out a heavy breath. He hated to admit it because the scared little kid part of his brain was screaming GHOST! RUN! at the top of his lungs, whereas the adult part of his brain was saying, go check it’s not a real kid. Damn it, he hated being responsible.

  ‘Fine,’ he frowned, ‘let’s go check. But if it is a ghost, please try not to think less of me when I scream like a little girl and pass out.’

  ‘I’m not making any promises,’ her mouth curled, and she reached out, taking his hand. ‘Bailey,’ she whistled for her dog, frowning when she remained resolutely seated next to Kelley’s car.