The Clockmaker’s Secret

There was a store that never closed in a quiet village tucked away between a forest and the sea.

It was crammed between a bakery and a shuttered post office on the intersection of Hollow Street. Nobody could recall when it opened. It has always existed, according to some. All that was written on the sign above its entrance was "Time Repaired."

"Time Repaired."

The fragrance of memories, oil, and metal filled the air inside. Every wall was adorned with clocks, including hourglasses, wristwatches, grandfather clocks, and cuckoo clocks, all of which ticked in exact time. The clockmaker sat in the center of it all.

Eliot Grinn was his name. He had gentle eyes, silver hair, and hands so steady they could set a particle of sand-sized gear. Eliot did not talk unless someone spoke to him. He hardly ever looked out. He labored as though time were of the essence.

A girl named Mara went into the store one wet evening. She had just moved in with her aunt three days prior, so she was fresh to the area. The quiet ticking of Eliot's business had beckoned to her like a whisper, and she enjoyed visiting places that no one talked about.

"Pardon me," she said. "Are you a watch repairer?"

Eliot raised his head. “I fix time.”

Mara blinked. “That’s… a little dramatic, isn’t it?”

He smiled. “Time breaks in more ways than people realize.”

Curious, Mara handed him her late father’s old pocket watch. “It hasn’t worked in years.”

Eliot opened the watch with a tiny tool, peered inside, and frowned. “This one’s not broken,” he said softly. “It’s paused.”

“Paused?”

He gave her a look. "Want to see what it can recall?"

He turned a little dial within the watch before she could respond, and then everything froze. The clocks ceased to run. Raindrops suspended in midair like pearls of glass. Even the wind was quiet outside.

Then a flashing image of Mara's father, smiling, younger, and alive, emerged from the pocket watch's mechanisms. She had never heard him whisper anything before.

"I apologize, Mara. To keep you safe, I had to go. You will eventually discover the truth in the location where time seems to stop.

Then it dimmed.

Mara let out a gasp. "What was that?"

Eliot said, "A memory locked in the watch." He was more than just your dad. Like me, he was a Keeper of Time.

Mara gazed at the timepiece. "So, I am one too?"

Eliot gave a nod. "Time must be protected. You just learned its first secret, too.

Once more, the clocks started to tick. It was raining again outside. However, Mara was aware that things had changed.

Additionally, the watch in her pocket was ticking away from the future and toward an unsolved mystery.