The Clockmaker’s Promise

M Mehran

Everyone in the quiet town of Eldenbrook knew Elias Thorn, the old clockmaker whose shop stood at the corner of Willow Street. The windows were always fogged with dust and time, and the shelves were filled with clocks—grandfather clocks, pocket watches, delicate sand timers, and curious contraptions no one had names for.

But the most mysterious thing about Elias was not his clocks.
It was his secret:
He could fix time.

Some said he once repaired a moment of regret for a grieving widow. Others whispered he restored a lost memory for a child who had forgotten her mother’s face. No one knew how he did it. They only knew the price was never money.

And so people came, quietly, secretly, leaving with lighter hearts—or heavier ones, depending on the moment they chose to change.

But none of that mattered the night fifteen-year-old Rowan Carter walked into the shop with a shaking hand and a broken watch.

It had belonged to his father.

The man who never came home.


---

The door chimed softly as Rowan stepped inside. The hum of ticking clocks filled the air like thousands of tiny heartbeats. Elias Thorn, with silver-thread hair and warm, unreadable eyes, looked up from a clock he was polishing.

“You’ve been outside my door for three days,” Elias said. “Come in, child.”

Rowan swallowed. “I… I wasn’t sure.”

“You are sure now.” Elias nodded. “What do you want fixed?”

Rowan opened his hand. The pocket watch lay cracked, its glass shattered, its hands frozen at 7:12 PM—the exact minute his father’s car went off the old Briarwood Bridge.

“I want to go back,” Rowan whispered. “Before it happened. I want to stop him.”

Elias didn’t take the watch. Not at first.
“Time is not a toy,” he warned. “It doesn’t like being moved. It resists. It demands sacrifice.”

Rowan’s voice broke. “I’d give anything.”

Elias’s expression softened with a grief that seemed older than the town itself.
“Many have said that,” he murmured. “Few understood what it meant.”

Still, he held out his hand.
“Let me see it.”

Rowan placed the broken watch in Elias’s palm. The moment the clockmaker touched it, the shop grew cold. The ticking of the other clocks slowed until the whole room held its breath.

Elias closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, they glowed faintly with a golden light.

“This watch is tied to a moment you wish to rewrite,” he said quietly. “I can open the door. But remember—every changed moment steals something from another.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you return to the past,” Elias said, “you must leave something behind.”

“Like what?” Rowan whispered.

“A memory,” the clockmaker said. “A piece of your life. Something time will take as payment.”

Rowan hesitated only a moment.
“My father is worth more than any memory.”

Elias nodded. “Then hold the watch. And do not let go.”


---

The shop dissolved.

Rowan felt himself falling through light, through ticking, through moments stretching and snapping like threads. Then his feet hit solid ground.

He stood on Briarwood Bridge.

Wind brushed against his face, cold and familiar. The wooden planks creaked beneath him. And there—just ahead—stood his father, leaning over the railing, staring down at the rushing river below.

Rowan’s breath caught in his throat.

“Dad!”

His father turned, surprised. “Rowan? What are you—”

“Don’t drive tonight,” Rowan gasped. “Please. The bridge… your brakes—”

Before he could finish, headlights glowed on the road behind them. A car swerved, tires screeching on wet wood.

Rowan lunged.

He shoved his father out of the way.

The car hit Rowan instead.

Everything went black.


---

When Rowan opened his eyes, he was lying on the ground, rain hitting his face. His father hovered over him, frantic.

“Rowan! Rowan, stay with me!”

“I’m… okay,” Rowan murmured. But he wasn’t. Something inside his mind felt hollow, missing.

Elias Thorn stepped out of the shadows of the bridge as if he had always been there.

“It is done,” the clockmaker said quietly.

Rowan’s father looked up, confused. “Who—?”

“You don’t remember me,” Elias said gently. “That is how it should be.”

He held the restored pocket watch in his hand. The glass was whole, the hands moving again.

Rowan sat up slowly. “Did I save him?”

“Yes,” Elias said. “Your father will live. The accident will never happen.”

Rowan exhaled in relief. “Then… what did I lose?”

Elias hesitated.

Then he handed Rowan the watch.

Rowan looked at it, waiting for memory to rise.
But nothing came.

“What… what is this?” Rowan asked.

“It belonged to your father,” Elias said softly. “It was your favorite birthday gift. He saved for months to buy it for you.”

Rowan blinked. “I don’t remember any of that.”

“That was the price,” Elias said. “To save your father, time took the memories you had of him.”

Rowan’s chest tightened.
All the laughter.
All the stories.
All the moments they shared—gone.

His father knelt beside him, tears in his eyes. “Rowan? Do you know who I am?”

Rowan looked into his father’s face. It felt warm… familiar… but distant, like a name he once read long ago.

“I don’t remember,” Rowan whispered. “But… I want to learn.”

His father pulled him close, holding him like something precious returned from the brink.

Elias watched them silently.

Sometimes saving someone meant losing the part of yourself that loved them.
Sometimes love meant choosing the loss anyway.

When Rowan looked up, the clockmaker was gone.

Only the steady ticking of the pocket watch remained.