Toby had never resided anywhere for over a year. His parents hopped all over the map, following work and new beginnings, and the vacant half of every new home always seemed foreign to him. They came to a stop outside the ancient stone cottage on Lavender Lane and Toby looked through the mossy corrugated roof and lopsided wooden door. On the child's perspective, it was darn near an 'anywhere' from which magic or mischief could barricade itself in at any given corner.
That afternoon, having opened a few boxes, Toby ambled down the tight hallway, dragging his hands along the well-worn wallpaper. He observed the closet door down the hall. The door was heavy oak, with tarnished brass handles, molded into lion heads. Intrigued, he popped it open.
Inside – not shelves, or clothes, or whatever else might have been inside – a tall grandfather clock. It was dark cherry wood, worn smooth by some long ago forgotten hand. The clock's face was white, with heavy black numerals, but its glass was clouded with dust and cobwebs. The pendulum was like a stone. There hung at its side but one ponderous brass weight, utterly at rest. A small nameplate on the front simply read: "Harrington & Sons, 1873."
His heart missed a beat. Toby had never heard of a clock like it sitting in a closet. He stepped forward, sweeping spiders aside and allowed his fingers to girdle the curling vines etched along the clock's face. The craftsmanship took him back to pictures he had seen in history books: Victorian artisans prized ranking up these timepieces which, through their very fine gears and pendulums, kept the time perfectly.
He glanced down at his digital watch, 3:15 p.m., and when he looked up, his own eyes settled on the clock, its hands frozen at 12:00. He wondered if it worked. Opening its tiny little door facing him, he anticipated a cobweb or two giving flight. He encountered hundreds of minute cogs and springs: all dusty but undamaged. There was a winding key on the closet floor, cold and slick in his palm.
Why is it present? he hissed.
Behind him, only the quiet of the vacant corridor might reply.
Toby's thoughts raced with potential, perhaps this clock had once kept time for every meal and story time in the den. The previous owners might have taken it to the closet when the party was in full effect and simply forgot about it.
Or perhaps it had been abandoned—a vintage too precious to sell, stashed away in a drawer until the advent of a courageous spirit who'd give it a twist.
He closed the clock door softly, careful not to jangle its works. The mystery enveloped him like a secret pledge. That evening, Toby, sitting at his desk by the dim lamp, glared at the small key on the table. He quivered with anticipation —a summons to journey, to hear what stirred in the quiet hour.
Outside, the sun slipped behind the trees in a whirl of purple and gold. Toby imagined the clock chiming for the first time in a century, its tolls reverberating down Lavender Lane at midnight. He shook with expectation. Tomorrow, he decided, he would solve its mystery.
The old clock slumbered, waiting for the key to wind, for its pendulum to swing, for a new tale to start.