The Clockmaker’s Secret

In a sleepy town nestled between the crooked hills of Gallowmere stood a tiny clock shop, Elliott’s Timepieces. The shop hadn’t changed since 1891. The faded green paint peeled like sunburned skin, and the shop windows, stained from time and smoke, revealed rows upon rows of clocks, none ever in sync.

Nobody ever saw the owner. Clocks were fixed overnight, mysteriously. Locals called it “The Shop That Sleeps By Day.” Teenagers dared each other to knock on its door at midnight. Most didn’t. Those who did, never admitted what they heard on the other side.

That is, until Nora came.

Nora Vale, a curious 26-year-old with a patchy past and a new journalism degree, arrived in Gallowmere chasing ghosts—or rather, ghost stories. Her late grandfather once told her, in a whisky-slurred whisper, that some clocks don’t tell time… they trap it. He pointed to a yellowed photograph of Elliott’s shop in an old newspaper, circled in red ink.

“I’m going to crack it,” Nora promised her editor. “This story could launch my career.”

Her first visit was underwhelming. The shop was closed. A brass sign read:

> We repair what time forgets. Please leave your broken moments by the door.



That night, she left her broken wristwatch on the doorstep with a note: Can you fix time?

The next morning, it was back—ticking perfectly.

But something was off.

The second hand ran backwards.

Intrigued, she returned at dusk, hoping to catch the mysterious owner. As the last sunbeam kissed the street, the door creaked open.

It wasn’t locked.

Nora stepped inside.

Chimes greeted her like whispers. Dozens of clocks ticked in every direction—sideways, in bursts, or not at all. She swore one was breathing.

“Hello?” she called. Her voice dissolved into ticking silence.

Then came the voice: “You left a broken moment.”

She spun. An old man stood behind the counter, in a black waistcoat and silver-rimmed glasses. His eyes were the color of old clock dials—pale and unreadable.

“Mr. Elliott?” she asked.

He smiled. “Elliott was my father. I just keep the clocks.”

“What is this place?”

He motioned toward a grandfather clock taller than her, its hands spinning like a storm. “Not all clocks measure time. Some measure regret. Others, memories. One or two, choices never made.”

She blinked. “Is that metaphor, or—”

He shook his head.

She swallowed. “I want to write about this place.”

“Then understand it.” He pointed to a dusty mantle clock. “Touch it.”

Nora hesitated. Then placed her hand on the clock.

And fell.

Not in body—but in time.

She was ten again, standing in her old backyard, watching her parents argue in the kitchen. Her father slammed the door. Her mother wept. Nora screamed—but no sound came. She turned to the old man, now beside her in the memory.

“You said this measured regret,” she whispered.

“No,” he replied gently. “This is your broken moment.”

Tears filled her eyes. “Can I fix it?”

He didn’t answer. The world twisted, and she was back in the shop, heart racing.

The clock stopped ticking.

She stared at the old man. “What are you?”

“I’m the custodian,” he said. “I do not change time. I only… hold it.”

“Can anyone fix it?”

He studied her. “Some things are meant to break, Nora. Some must remain frozen—so others may move forward.”

That night, Nora didn’t sleep.

The next morning, she returned. The shop was gone.

Only a charred foundation remained, and a single soot-covered clock. Her repaired wristwatch—still ticking backwards—lay untouched in the ashes.

A note beneath it read: You asked if I could fix time. But time was never the problem.

Nora never published the article. Instead, she opened a small clock shop on the edge of town. She called it Moments in Time. It didn’t fix clocks.

It healed them.