The Eighth Minute

 

(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. Candles re-lit themselves. Dust motes froze midair like guilty snowflakes. Then, quite suddenly, I wasn’t in the church at all.

The Eighth Minute

Picture a long corridor made of nothing.

No sound, no air, just the ticking of a clock you can’t see but can’t stop hearing. The light wasn’t light, exactly it was memory, and it moved like breath on glass.

In that corridor, I found three things:

1. A brass door with no hinges.

2. A shadow that looked exactly like mine, except it wasn’t doing what I was.

3. Mrs. Prudence Bellweather herself or what was left of her.

She was very polite. She explained, in the tone of a disappointed headmistress, that she hadn’t donated the clock; she’d designed it. Built to hold time still, “for those moments when the world should have paused but didn’t.”

Her first test run?

The night her husband died at 11:59 PM, 1824.

She wanted a few more minutes to say goodbye. The clock gave her eight. Unfortunately, it also gave her residency.

I asked what she wanted now.

She smiled or perhaps the shadow did and said,

“To be forgotten properly.”

Then she handed me the note I’d already found in the hymnal.

It was signed this time.

The Resolution

I turned the key again. The corridor collapsed into bells.

I woke on the church floor, the clock ticking merrily at 12:08.

The mirror no longer reflected me at all.

It showed the pews  empty, save for a small brass plaque newly affixed beneath the clock:

In Loving Memory of S. Daark, Who Solved It.

So, yes, congratulations to whoever guessed “it opens time.”

Please stop.

It might be listening.

Filed under: Temporal Mechanics, Regret, and Slightly Sentient Furniture.

S. Daark

(Filed: Technically Still Tuesday)