The Clock Strikes Her Name

The old grandfather clock stood in the corner of the dimly lit parlor, its wooden case scarred by decades of neglect. It hadn’t worked for years—no one in the Hawthorne family had bothered to wind it since the accident. But tonight, as midnight approached, something stirred inside the ancient mechanism.

Margaret Hawthorne sat across from the clock, clutching a yellowed letter in trembling hands. It was the only clue she had left of her mother’s disappearance—a single note, unsigned, with one cryptic line: “When the clock strikes your name, find me.” She had read it over and over since she found it buried in the attic, tucked inside an old book of fairy tales.

The house was silent except for the faint ticking of the mantel clock, which was still stubbornly alive despite its age. Margaret’s breath caught as the second hand inched closer to twelve. The grandfather clock, however, remained silent.

Suddenly, with a low creak and a shudder, the clock’s face began to glow faintly. The hands, frozen at twenty past three, jerked forward until the hour hand pointed directly at twelve. Then, almost impossibly, the clock chimed—but not with the usual deep bong of hours past. Instead, each chime rang out like a whisper, soft and clear.

Mar...garet...

Margaret’s heart pounded so hard she thought it would burst. The clock was calling her name.

A surge of cold air swept through the room, extinguishing the candlelight and plunging the parlor into darkness. The faint glow from the clock’s face pulsed gently, like a heartbeat.

“Mother?” Margaret whispered, her voice cracking. “Is that you?”

The letter had said to find her mother when the clock struck her name. But where? How?

As if in answer, the clock face shimmered, and behind the glass, an image began to form—a swirling mist coalesced into the faint outline of a woman. She was beautiful and sad, dressed in an old-fashioned gown, her eyes full of longing.

Margaret reached out instinctively. The image flickered, then solidified enough for her to see the face clearly.

“Margaret, my child,” the apparition said softly. “I was trapped between times, caught in the moment I vanished. The clock is the key to releasing me.”

“Why did you disappear?” Margaret asked, tears in her eyes.

“A curse,” her mother replied. “Our family was cursed long ago by a jealous rival. On the stroke of midnight, the clock holds the time of my vanishing—twenty past three. I am trapped in that moment, but only when the clock calls your name can I be freed.”

Margaret knew the stories her grandmother told—about the Hawthorne curse, a shadow that haunted their bloodline, stealing loved ones in the dead of night. Until now, she had dismissed them as folklore. But now, staring at her mother’s spectral face, she understood.

“How do I break the curse?” she asked.

“You must turn the clock’s hands backward to the moment I disappeared. When the hands meet again at twenty past three, you must say my name aloud. Only then will the curse be lifted.”

With trembling fingers, Margaret wound the key she had found tucked inside the letter. The clock’s hands moved in reverse, ticking backward through the night. As the hands approached twenty past three, the room grew colder, the shadows longer.

When the clock struck the fateful minute, Margaret took a deep breath and whispered, “Mother.”

The clock chimed once—then twice. A brilliant light exploded from its face, filling the room with warmth and color. The apparition smiled, stepping forward, becoming solid flesh.

Margaret caught her mother in a tight embrace, feeling the warmth she thought she had lost forever.

The clock’s glow faded, and its hands slowly resumed their normal pace. The curse was broken.

For the first time in decades, the Hawthorne house was filled with hope—and time moved on.