The rain had started an hour ago, but it showed no signs of stopping. It poured in sheets across the cobblestone streets of Elmsworth, a small, half-forgotten town tucked between foggy hills and dense forest. People didn't come to Elmsworth unless they had a reason—or unless they were running from something.
Jonah Blake wasn't running. Not exactly. But he wasn't here by accident either.
He stood on the sidewalk, staring at the crooked wooden sign swaying above a narrow shop door:
E. Bellamy – Timepieces Repaired
The paint was flaking, the letters nearly washed away. The shop was crammed between two taller buildings like a secret trying to stay hidden. Its windows were so dust-coated that Jonah couldn't see through them, just the vague outlines of something metallic inside. Gears? Clocks? He wasn't sure.
In his coat pocket, Jonah's fingers curled around the heavy silver pocket watch that had brought him here.
It had belonged to his grandfather, a man he barely remembered. But last week, while cleaning out the attic, Jonah had found it buried in an old shoebox—ticking. No battery, no wind-up. Just ticking. And inside the lid, scratched into the silver:
"Return to Bellamy."
Jonah had Googled the name out of curiosity. There were no listings. No website. But one old forum post from 2008 mentioned a place in Elmsworth that "fixed time like it was a broken toy." It sounded like nonsense. Except the name on the shop was the same.
He should've turned around. Should've walked away.
But he didn't.
He stepped up to the door and reached for the handle. Before he touched it, the door gave a soft click—and creaked open on its own.
The scent hit him first. Dust. Oil. Brass. And something else… like the air after a thunderstorm—charged and strange. The shop was dim, lit only by pale daylight leaking through the dirty windows. Inside, time stood still—or rather, it stuttered.
Clocks covered every surface. Tall grandfather clocks lined the walls, their faces solemn and old. Cuckoo clocks, pocket watches, hourglasses, sundials. Some were ticking fast, others slow. Some were completely silent. None of them agreed on the time.
Jonah stepped inside, the door shutting behind him with a soft thud. The sound made him jump. He took a slow breath and whispered, "Hello?"
Nothing.
No shopkeeper. No footsteps. Just the ticking—hundreds of rhythms competing in the air like a thousand tiny heartbeats.
He walked farther in, eyes tracing the cluttered shelves and half-built contraptions. On a workbench sat a clock with a face split in two—half of it spinning forward, the other backward. Sparks flickered beneath it. Jonah tried not to look too closely.
Then came a new sound.
Whirr.
Click.
He spun around. One of the larger wall clocks had just shifted. Its wooden face slid open with a smooth mechanical hiss, revealing a hidden compartment. Inside, something glinted.
Jonah stepped closer.
A key.
It was small, silver, and old. Not just aged—ancient, with tiny symbols carved into its handle. As he reached out and picked it up, something strange happened.
The ticking stopped.
Every single clock in the room fell silent in an instant. No gears. No chimes. No movement. The shop felt like it had been dropped into a vacuum.
And then—
A whisper.
It wasn't a voice. Not really. More like a memory, brushing against his thoughts.
> "Time doesn't wait, Jonah… but it remembers."
His skin prickled. He stumbled backward, heart hammering. "Who said that?"
No answer.
Only the soft ticking of a single clock starting again—somewhere in the back room.
Jonah looked down at the key in his hand. He didn't know how, but he could feel it was important. It had been waiting for him. This wasn't just a coincidence. The watch. The name. The shop opening on its own. And now… the key.
Something was happening. And he was already in too deep to back out.
Behind the counter was a narrow doorway, half-covered by a bead curtain. From the other side, the ticking continued, faint and steady. Jonah took a breath, closed his fingers around the key, and stepped through.
He didn't know that the moment he crossed that threshold, the gears of the past would start turning again—and that time itself had just begun to unfold its long-forgotten secret.