The hour was nearly six when Eveline Thorne first laid eyes on Greymoor Estate — a mansion half-lost in ivy and history, cradled by the fading hills of Wiltshire, where the sun seemed to linger longer than it should, as though unwilling to let go.
The carriage wheels slowed over gravel, crunching with a quiet finality. Eveline leaned slightly against the windowpane, it's surface cool against her cheek, and stared out in wonder. A mist curled lazily at the base of the estate's garden wall, wrapping itself around wild hedges and thorned rosebushes like memory refusing to fade.
The estate didn't looked abandoned. No, it looked paused.
"It looks as though it remembers things," she murmured, barely above a breath.
Beside her, Mrs. Wilmot — her chaperone and companion, appointed by a distant uncle who'd long since tired of Evelyn's presence—adjusted the buttons of her gloves without lifting her gaze.
"Homes do not remember, Miss Thorne. People do."
But Eveline wasn't so sure.
As the driver helped them down, Eveline stood quietly, skirts brushing the ground, and let the air settle over her. It smelled of old roses, distant rain, and something faintly metallic — like time, she thought. Or the moment before a storm.
Inside, Greymoor was a cathedral of shadow and gold. The high ceilings stretched like prayers above her head, and faded oil portraits stared from their corners, caught in expressions that never quiet resolved into smiles.
A grandfather clock stood near the base of the staircase. Ornate. Heavy. The brass pendulum no longer moved, and the hands pointed —unwaveringly —to five fifty-nine.
Eveline took a step toward it, eyes narrowing.
"Does it not work?" she asked.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Prembridge, appeared from the wast corridor. She was short and hunched slightly, but her eyes were quick — like someone who had learned to watch instead of speak.
"Oh it works well enough, Miss. But no one has dared to wind it since…" She paused, folding her hands, "…since the master disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"A long time ago now. Some say he was last seen at the gilded hour—when the sun turns goldm and truth turns quiet."
Her voice dropped at the last line, like it belonged to someone else.
"And the clock hasn't moved since?"
"Not once. Not even by mistake."
The weight of her words settled into Eveline's spine. She looked again at the unmovimg hands, their brass edges catching the fading light, and felt an odd flicker in her chest — not fear exactly. Something older.
"So it's waiting," she whispered.
Her room was at the east wing, where the windows opened toward a forgotten garden. The iron railing of the balcony was weathered white, and the view was equal parts wild and beautiful — a tangle of green, dusky pink roses, and an abandoned path lost beneath moss and memory.
Beyond it, cloaked in violet mist, stood the clocktower. Its shadow stretched long across the grass, and for a moment Eveline imagined she could hear its old gears turning—slowly, painfully—even though the hands had not moved in years.
She lit a lamp near the desk. The flame flickered against the plain wallpaper, warming the quiet. Her fingers grazed a small stack of untouched letter paper. She hadn't written to anyone in months — there was no one left to write to, really — but the room seemed to invite a confessiom.
She sat, dipped her pen in ink, and paused.
"I do not know who I am writing to," she whispered aloud, "but someone must hear this. Because something is beginning."
Far below, the old grandfather clock still stood at five fifty-nine.
And time, Eveline suspected, was no longer what it seemed.