The Time of the Clockmaker Page 4

  My eyes stopped at person after person. All wearing shades of green. Plastic necklaces. Hats. Striped pants. But I didn’t see her.

  I looked behind me at the chilly wall I was now pushed up against. Banana Republic, it proclaimed. In front of me, a mass of people filled the street. Some poured toward the coming parade. Others surged forward in hopes of finding a better view. I knew Miss Hatfield had to be across the street.

  A stocky woman pushed past me, hitting multiple people at once with her green bags. I pressed my back against the wall to let her through.

  “Henley,” I whispered. “Can you see her?”

  There were so many people crammed on the sidewalk that no one took notice of a young woman talking to herself in front of Banana Republic. Better yet, no one noticed a bodiless voice responding.

  I can’t see your kind, remember? he said, knowing immediately who I was asking about.

  I thrust myself forward into the horde of people and began clawing my way past strangers. The more people bumped into me, the more I bumped back. She had to be here somewhere.

  The dank smell of sweat and oily face paint made me want to cough. I felt a young girl’s hot cheek against my shoulder and another man’s sticky back press against my side. My white clothes already had splotches of green from the smeared paint on everyone’s bodies. But still I shoved myself forward, toward the looming cathedral ahead.

  As I forced my way, it seemed to grow bigger before me. I trained my eyes on it, trying to keep myself from drowning in the crowd.

  A shooting pain drew my head down. I realized that I was finally up front and my stomach had hit one of the metal barricades that the police had set up in order to keep the crowds out of the street. The roar of people was so loud now that I hadn’t even heard the clank of my body hitting the metal. I knew the parade must be getting closer.

  I scanned the sidewalk across from me and saw a flicker of white moving erratically through the green. That had to be Miss Hatfield. There was no question about it. But the relief I felt turned cold. At once I knew that something was wrong. There wasn’t anything normal about Miss Hatfield’s motion. Her movements looked broken.

  She was running. But she wasn’t running toward something or someone. She wasn’t looking for someone at all. She was running away from something.

  I yelled, but my voice got lost in the crowd. As the parade drew nearer, the people around me grew louder. I didn’t know what to do, so I frantically waved my arms, hoping that it might get her attention.

  It worked. I saw her head snap toward me. Her eyes seemed to narrow in on my face. She looked back again. Behind her. But I had already seen the look on her face.

  Miss Hatfield pushed her way toward me. Her gaze was focused on mine. Our eyes held as people came in and out of focus, until she was directly across the street from me. In that one second, all that separated us were two flimsy metal barriers and an empty street.

  The parade probably passed another block, as the cheering seemed closer. I stood still and watched her.

  Miss Hatfield took one final glance behind her before locking eyes with me.

  I smiled and started to call her name, but a look of confusion on her face stopped me. As she looked down, my gaze followed. We both saw a stain of red coloring her shirt.

  I felt cold metal scraping my leg as I clambered over the barrier in front of me. I tried my best to run to her. I pushed past the barrier, but I saw the red spread faster and faster. My eyes were drawn to a knife sticking out of her stomach, and I thought I would be sick at any moment.

  I saw Miss Hatfield’s face blank out. It was white. Everything was drained save for the expression of bewilderment on it. I watched her fall into the throng. Her eyes flickered back to me and her lips twitched into a faint smile one last time before she disintegrated into mere specks of dust.

  She was consumed by the crowd before she even hit the ground. No one around her had taken notice, as all eyes were on the approaching parade.

  I wanted to scream, but nothing was left. The crowd roared around me, and though it was impossible, I thought I heard the dull clatter of the blade hitting the sidewalk.

  A policeman took my arm. He was smiling, saying something, but all I heard was noise. It sounded like an endless buzz—both his voice and that of the crowd—as he guided me toward the opposite sidewalk on which she had just been standing.

  I stood there for a long time after. The people around me watched the parade, but I was blind to that. My eyes wouldn’t leave the spot where Miss Hatfield had once stood.

  I somehow found the presence of mind to bend down and take the glittering knife lying near the gutter.

  I turned it over in my hands, the sheen of blood making my hands shake uncontrollably.

  I knew what had happened, but I couldn’t understand how.

  FOUR

  YOU HAVE TO go.

  I heard that familiar voice, but right at that moment, I couldn’t pull it into focus. I heard the words but couldn’t place their meanings, much less respond to them.

  Rebecca. Do you hear me?

  I wanted to shush the voice and wave it away.

  Rebecca. It’s not safe here.

  But it was so insistent.

  Rebecca! Are you listening?

  “Shh . . .” was all I could manage.

  Listen to me. It’s not safe here.

  Something in my mind seemed to click. I almost heard the snap as everything fell back into place.

  “Henley?”

  Rebecca. I know you’re in shock. But you can’t stay here.

  I heard his words, but their meanings were delayed.

  I don’t know exactly what happened. But you have to get out of here.

  Out was all I heard, and I agreed. I had to get out.

  My limbs felt wooden. For a moment they wouldn’t respond, but then all of a sudden they were moving and I used them to propel myself forward in the general direction of home. Miss Hatfield’s home.

  The streets were still littered with people, but the crowds had dissipated after the parade had passed. It was easier to move, and I found myself running home.

  I scrunched up my face. My mind was numb. I couldn’t begin to think, for fear that I would think about what just happened. It was as if my brain had shut down and my body simply went through actions.

  Rebecca, Henley called again. I know it’s hard, but I need you to concentrate. Focus on getting home.

  Home. I nodded when I saw the all too familiar door Miss Hatfield had opened hundreds of times. I half expected her to open it again, but instead I dug through my pockets for my keys. Lifting them up to the door, I looked down at the sound of clanging.

  The keys struck one another. Clanging. Over and over like the bells of the cathedral. I couldn’t make them stop. My hands were trembling of their own accord.

  I felt a strange pulling sensation on the other end of my keys and saw them grow steady. I knew Henley was doing this and I briefly shut my eyes, happy for him to take over. At last, we managed to push the key into the lock and open the door.

  I sighed, returning to the house and place I knew better than anywhere. I succeeded in locking the door behind me, but when I turned back, everything was different from what I remembered.

  The normally slightly cluttered parlor was in complete disarray. Photos from the walls were strewn on the floor, their frames splintered. A vase that was normally in the corner of the room was now also on the floor, shattered. The pea-green sofa Miss Hatfield seemed fond of was tipped over. The cushions that usually rested on it just so were scattered among the wreck.

  “I—is there anyone here?” I breathed.

  Is anyone still here was probably closer to what I had meant, but Henley understood.

  No was all he said.

  I gingerly stepped through the mess. I soon saw that all the rooms were in a similar state. If I was concerned about breaking anything, I needn’t have worried, because everything was already shattered and torn.
I didn’t even worry about hurting myself; I already knew that I was numb.

  I didn’t know what to do, so I stupidly went to the one place I felt safest—my room. Of course it was trashed, the same as every other room.

  My jewelry box was crushed under my bedside table, which in turn lay unnaturally on its side. The sheets were stripped off the bed, and the mattress was half on the floor. The contents of my closet were strewn about like dirty autumn leaves.

  I found a clear corner of the room to sit in. It was the one quiet patch in the middle of havoc and confusion.

  I drew my knees up to my chin, trying to make myself small enough to be insignificant. I wanted to mold myself into the small spot, hoping that somehow I’d get lost in the tumult.

  I—I don’t know how I couldn’t see this. I could almost hear Henley pacing in front of me. I should have seen the person who did this. The person who killed Miss H— my mother.

  I couldn’t understand it either. If anyone could understand, it would be Miss Hatfield . . . but she was gone now.

  I remembered one of the earliest serious conversations I had had with her.

  She listed all the ways the women who shared our name had died. The first Miss Hatfield drowned herself. The second died from a fire while aboard a ship heading to Wales. The third was killed during the start of the Salem witch trials. The fourth died in an insane asylum after telling her fiancé what she had become. The fifth Miss Hatfield killed herself in front of the sixth—my Miss Hatfield.

  “Don’t you think it strange that each Miss Hatfield dies from an accident soon after she finds the next one?” she had said. “Is it really just an accident, or is it time trying to protect its secrets? Is it destiny?”

  In my naïveté I had asked, “You don’t mean that you’ll leave me?”

  “Not willingly, but I can’t control destiny.” I remembered her gaze was downcast; she refused to look me in the eye, but suddenly her head snapped up. “I’ll do whatever I can to prepare you for what’s ahead.”

  And I desperately hoped she had done enough to prepare me.

  “Oh God.”

  At first I didn’t realize that the voice was mine. It slipped out and I couldn’t stop it. Once I uttered those words, they hung there in the still air.

  “Oh God. Oh God.”

  For the first time since her death, I felt tears in the back of my throat. In the panic and the rush, I had forgotten to cry. But I knew that now was not the time.

  I sat up straighter, imagining that Miss Hatfield could see me.

  “You see everything. Everyone in every place in every time, except me and your mother,” I said.

  I do. Henley paused.

  “This . . . person came into the house.” I tried to lay out the facts. “I suppose that’s not hard to do. Break into the house, I mean.”

  Henley didn’t respond.

  “Anyone can do it. And this intruder was obviously looking for something.”

  That would explain the dishevelment, Henley said.

  “He didn’t bother covering his tracks, that’s for sure.”

  What could this person want?

  “I didn’t take a close look, but nothing seems missing.” I thought back to the clock in the kitchen and the ring on my finger. “Nothing important is missing.”

  This isn’t a petty burglary, though. Is there really nothing of value taken?

  I thought through the things Miss Hatfield and I kept in the house. “There really isn’t much of value here,” I said. “But you’re right. This doesn’t look like a regular break-in, since nothing’s missing as far as I can tell.”

  It still doesn’t make sense.

  I wanted to ask when things ever made sense, but I refrained, knowing it wouldn’t help at all.

  I would’ve seen him. I would’ve seen the break-in—if something was going on here I would’ve seen it.

  There was silence again, and I hugged my knees closer.

  “You can see everyone in all times,” I reiterated.

  I can . . . well, except for you. I only see you in the one time you’re in.

  I let out a breath. “And Miss Hatfield.”

  And Miss Hatfield, Henley confirmed.

  I swallowed. “Then he—or she—has to be like us.”

  The room was quiet for such a drawn-out period of time that I almost thought Henley had left me.

  What do you mean? he said after a while.

  “They have to be immortal,” I said.

  Henley paused again. That doesn’t make sense.

  “That’s the only option that makes sense.” I stood up, hearing shards of glass snap under my sneakers. “If this person was mortal, then you would have easily seen him breaking into the house. Even if you had been distracted by something else, in some part of time there would be a person breaking into the house and you would be able to see it even now.” I began to pace around my room, not caring if I stepped on anything. “Watch the house. What do you see?”

  It seems fine. And then it’s destroyed.

  “Just like that?”

  Just like that.

  “The fact that you can’t see someone do it can only mean that an immortal did it, if you can see everyone else. The intruder probably fled to a different time immediately afterward.”

  That does make sense. . . . Then it’s also likely that the intruder was the one who murdered Miss Hatfield.

  I froze at the word. Murdered. That was exactly what had happened. He was a murderer.

  “An immortal murdered Miss Hatfield.”

  I felt a heaviness in the pocket of my sweatshirt and reached in to feel cool metal. I drew the knife out. I had forgotten that I had taken it with me. I had no idea what to do with it, but it just hadn’t seemed right to leave it there.

  I gripped the blade, wishing that Miss Hatfield was magically not dead and that she would return at any moment to scold me for my posture. She was gone when I needed her help most of all.

  I looked down at the line the worn blade had imprinted into my palm. Had I gripped the knife any harder, it would have broken skin. I knew I would have preferred that to the nothingness I already felt.

  Rebecca. Henley called me out of my thoughts. If this person is in fact an immortal, you’re not safe. They’re going to be looking for you.

  FIVE

  DO YOU HAVE everything you need? Henley sounded even more agitated than I was.

  I threw my phone into a navy duffel bag I had found in the closet near the foot of the stairs. I wondered if it belonged to Miss Hatfield, or whether it belonged to one of the other Miss Hatfields who had come before her. But I guess there was no sense in wondering, since I would never find out.

  I ran into the kitchen to reach for the one object I knew was the most important in the house.

  My fingers cradled the golden edges of the clock as I pulled it off from where it was mounted on the wall. I remembered when Miss Hatfield had first explained to me its incredible capabilities. Her fingers had lingered on the face of the clock as mine now did. I touched the clock in the same way that all six Miss Hatfields before me had touched it and countless after me will.

  Rebecca.

  Henley’s insistent tone brought me back to the present and I went back to my bedroom to place the clock in the bag.

  I saw a skirt I had thrown onto the foot of my bed this morning start inching toward the duffel bag. Once there, it wrapped itself around the clock.

  “Good thinking, Henley,” I said, as breaking the clock would be the last thing I’d want.

  The clock was the only way I could travel from one time to another, but more importantly, it was a way for me to stay sane. I didn’t have my own time anymore and therefore was only a visitor in any time period. The longer I stayed in one time period, the more uneasy I would begin to feel. It was like a growing knot in my stomach that progressed from discomfort to restlessness to insanity.

  Shaking my head, I began to turn to my closet to pack some clothes, but Henley
stopped me.

  We don’t have that much time. Rebecca, I don’t think you understand exactly how much danger you’re in.

  He was right. I didn’t understand. But neither did he.

  I knew I should have been worried, but oddly he seemed more concerned than I was. It was almost as if I couldn’t be bothered with it.

  You’ve got to go now.

  I grabbed the duffel bag under my arm and walked briskly out of the front door. I didn’t want to run because I knew that would call attention to myself.

  I smiled grimly, thinking how much I sounded like Miss Hatfield.

  I raised my arm to hail a taxi. Luckily, there were always taxis in the neighborhood going to and from the busier districts, and I caught one without having to wait too long.

  “Where to, miss?”

  “JFK, please.”

  The driver glanced back into his rearview mirror and eyed my small duffel bag. I thought I saw him frown.

  “Only that tiny luggage?”

  “Yes,” I said, and I left it at that.

  I spent the rest of the drive to the airport sitting in silence. I was glad the taxi driver didn’t try to make conversation. I needed time to myself. I desperately needed to think.

  I thought back to all the immortals I had heard about. It was a short list. They all time traveled. If Henley couldn’t see the intruder, I had to assume he or she had the same ability. If the intruder was in fact immortal and could time travel, then traveling to a different time wouldn’t make much of a difference. He would still find me.

  I paused and glanced at the driver, but he only turned the radio up in response to my silence. If he only knew the kind of trouble I was in . . .

  The car jerked to a halt and my body pitched forward.

  “Here we go.” The driver turned and waited for me to open my purse.

  I had just enough to pay in cash provided I fished for a few extra dimes that were living in the very bottom of my pants pocket.

  “Thank you,” he said. He eyed my light-looking duffel bag again. “Have a safe flight.”

  I collected my bag and stepped into the airport.