The Clockmaker’s Promise

In a cobbled corner of Eldergate, where the air always smelled faintly of brass and lavender, stood a tiny clock shop called Morrow & Ticks. It was tucked between a crumbling bookshop and a florist that only sold blue flowers. Most people passed it by without a second glance. But those who entered often left… changed.

The shopkeeper was a man named Elias Morrow, a wiry figure with silver-streaked hair, hands stained with oil, and eyes like clock springs — tight and endlessly wound. Elias wasn't just a clockmaker. He was the Clockmaker.

They said he could make timepieces that did more than tick. A music box that let you relive your happiest memory for exactly three minutes. A wristwatch that gave you courage during job interviews. A grandfather clock that whispered lullabies to children too scared to sleep.

But Elias had one rule: “I cannot make time go backward. Don’t ask.”

One rainy evening, as autumn tugged at the windows and lightning stitched the sky, a girl named Lira stepped into the shop. She was soaked to the bone, clutching something wrapped in oilcloth.

Elias looked up from his workbench without surprise. He rarely looked surprised. “What can I do for you?” he asked, voice soft as the turning of gears.

Lira approached and unwrapped the bundle — a broken pocket watch, its crystal cracked, hands frozen at 3:17.

“It was my father’s,” she said. “He died last week. This stopped the moment he did.”

Elias took the watch delicately, as if it were made of memories. “And what would you like me to do with it?”

“Fix it,” she said. “But also… I want to go back. Just five minutes. To say goodbye.”

Elias’s hands paused. A tick in the silence.

“I told you,” he said, “I cannot make time go backward.”

“But you can make clocks that cheat time,” she pressed. “You’ve done it before. A boy in the south said his mother lived an extra hour because of your timepiece.”

Elias sighed. “An hour bought is not the same as an hour reclaimed.”

Lira’s eyes brimmed. “Please. I’ll pay anything.”

Elias looked at her — truly looked. Grief was a heavy thing, and she wore it like armor. “Payment isn’t the issue,” he murmured. He turned the broken watch over in his hands, then stood and walked to the back shelf, returning with a velvet box.

Inside was a small, brass compass.

“This doesn’t point north,” Elias said. “It points to moments. Memories you long to revisit.”

Lira frowned. “Will it take me back?”

“No,” Elias said. “But it will let you walk through the memory, like a dream. You cannot touch. You cannot speak. But you can be there.”

Her voice cracked. “Even for five minutes?”

“Exactly five.”

She reached out, but he pulled it back. “One condition. Once you return, you must bury the compass. You cannot use it twice.”

Lira nodded, and the deal was done.

That night, she sat on her father’s old chair and pressed the compass to her chest. It spun wildly, then pointed straight ahead. The world blurred.

She found herself in their garden, sunlight dancing on the leaves. Her father sat beneath the peach tree, book in lap, glasses slipping down his nose. He was humming — off-key and terrible — but so wonderfully alive.

She wept silently as the five minutes passed.

When it ended, she returned to the chair. The compass was still warm in her hand.

She buried it beneath the peach tree the next morning.

Years later, when Lira took over the shop — her hands now stained with oil, her eyes wound tight like springs — she placed a sign by the door:

Morrow & Ticks. Timepieces & Treasures.

Time waits for no one. But memories? They just might.

And she, too, refused to make time go backward.

But she made sure no one had to forget.