The Clock That Wouldn’t Strike Twelve

 


(Filed under: Field Reports  Temporal Oddities, Domestic)


There’s a clock in Louth that refuses to acknowledge midnight.

No matter the day, the month, or the state of the moon  it stops dead at 11:59 and stays there until precisely 12:07. Then it starts again, ticking as if nothing strange has happened.


The locals have grown used to it. They call it the polite apocalypse  the time when reality nips out for a smoke.


I was asked to investigate after a vicar reported hearing the organ play itself during the missing minutes. Apparently, it only performed hymns that didn’t exist yet.


The Scene


The church was cold in the way only English stone can manage  the kind of chill that smells faintly of sermons and damp wool.

The clock hung above the nave, brass hands trembling like a guilty conscience. Beneath it, a small brass plate read:

 

Donated by Mrs. Prudence Bellweather, 1824.


(That year again. Always 1824. Someone somewhere really ought to have audited that decade.)


I arrived just before midnight, thermos in hand, recorder running.

At 11:58, the world felt normal.

At 11:59, everything stopped.


The air thickened. The candle flame leaned east. The second hand twitched and froze.


Then came the whispering. Not words exactly. More like memory trying to rehearse itself. I caught fragments: “north window… brass key… the third toll…”


The Clues


I found three things that didn’t belong:

  1. A brass key hanging from the organ stop labelled Revelation.

  2. A mirror behind the pulpit that showed the nave perfectly, except for the clock which, in the reflection, was moving backwards.

  3. A hand-written note tucked into a hymnal, unsigned:

    “At the twelfth chime, look behind time itself.”


Very poetic. Deeply unhelpful.


When the clock resumed at 12:07, everything returned to normal except the mirror. It now showed me standing in the pews, holding a key I hadn’t yet found.


The Puzzle


So, dear reader, here’s your problem:


If time stopped for exactly eight minutes,

and something in those minutes left behind a note,

and that note instructed me to “look behind time,”

what door does the key open?


I found no lock in the church, nor any in the vestry or belfry. But when I checked my watch, it read 11:59 again. The world hadn’t restarted I had.


The organ began to play “Abide With Me” backwards.


I’ll leave it there, because if I write down what I saw next, the kettle will start hissing again — and I’m not making that mistake twice.


Send your theories. One of you might spot what I’ve missed.


File closed (for now).


S. Daark

(Filed: Tuesday, Naturally)



What do you think the key unlocks?

Hint: “Behind time” may not mean after it. Check your clocks.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Possession Gone Wrong

Image
  (Filed under: Field Reports — Category 6: Spirits, Miscommunication, and the Unwise Use of Latin) They called me to Cleethorpes on a Tuesday. They always call on Tuesdays. The message was brief: “Girl speaking in tongues. Priest fainted. Bring biscuits.” I arrived at dusk, which is the exact time you shouldn’t arrive anywhere haunted. The sky looked bruised. The house looked guilty. The priest  Father Cavanaugh  looked like a man who’d just remembered he was an atheist. “She’s in the parlour,” he whispered, crossing himself without conviction. “Whatever’s inside her knows your name.” Splendid. That’s always how you want to start an evening. The girl Elspeth Morrow, age fourteen  sat in a floral armchair that had seen too much. Her eyes rolled white, her lips murmured “Invenit me, invenit me…” (“It found me, it found me.”) A shadow pulsed on the wall behind her — not cast by her, but around her, like the light itself had gone off-script. I se...
Read more

Welcome to the Daark Archive

Image
  If you’re reading this, something’s already gone wrong or worse, it’s gone right . My name is Sebastian Daark . Investigator of the paranormal, the inexplicable, and the aggressively inconvenient. I once hosted a podcast called The Midland Mysteries , a series so alarming it was never broadcast. The servers deny all knowledge. I envy them. This archive is what remains  recovered case notes, field reports, and the occasional apology to physics. You’ll find hauntings that file complaints, benches that eat the patient, and demons with a worrying grasp of local council bylaws. All written down, catalogued, and cross-referenced by a man who really should have stayed in bed. Read carefully. The truth is rarely polite. — S. Daark (Filed: Tuesday, Naturally)
Read more

The Eighth Minute

Image
  (Follow-up to “The Clock That Wouldn’t Strike Twelve”) First, a note of thanks to those of you who wrote in, theorising that the brass key opened anything from a confessional to a dimensional tear in Mrs. Bellweather’s handbag. Charming ideas, all. Only one of you guessed correctly, though I suspect you were joking when you said it. You see, the key didn’t open a door. It opened a minute. Let me explain before your tea goes cold. The Return to Louth I went back two nights later, thermos refilled, self-preservation switched off. The vicar had wisely taken up temporary residence in Skegness. The church was empty save for the clock, which stared down at me like an unsympathetic god. This time I didn’t wait for 11:59. I wound the clock manually a sin against both mechanics and theology and inserted the key into the small aperture behind the pendulum. It fit. Perfectly. When I turned it, the second hand moved backwards. And so did I. The pews brightened. ...
Read more