The Clockmaker’s Secret

In Ellensworth, the clocks had long stopped ticking. It wasn’t a matter of broken gears or drained batteries. Every clock in town—wristwatches, grandfather clocks, even the digital displays in shop windows—had frozen at the exact same time: 3:33. No one knew why. No one asked. Not anymore. The adults said things like “It’s always been like this,” or “Time doesn’t matter when everything is safe.” The children learned not to question it. Most forgot they’d ever noticed. But Elara Wynn remembered. She remembered everything. She remembered the fog rolling in like it always did, pale and whispering, muting the world in a blanket of silence. She remembered the chill in the air, how it sank into the bones and refused to leave, no matter the season. And most of all, she remembered the day her older brother Kian vanished—on his seventeenth birthday. Two years ago, almost to the day. She was fifteen then. Now seventeen, she had waited for the same thing to happen to her. But it hadn’t. Not yet. Elara stood on the rooftop of her family’s crumbling townhouse, peering out over the stillness of Ellensworth. It was a beautiful place, in a forgotten kind of way. Cobblestone streets, curling iron lampposts, ivy that never browned or grew. Buildings that seemed to sigh under the weight of years that didn’t pass. The sky above was an endless grey, like dusk stretched thin. The sun hovered in place behind the clouds, neither rising nor setting. Time had stopped. But Elara had not. She kept journals, pages and pages of notes. She marked days by how often she had to refill the kitchen lanterns or when the bread went stale. She recorded changes in the fog, in people's moods, in the way birds flew in the same pattern over and over. She even had a calendar of sorts, with red string and pins, like the detectives in old movies. It all pointed to one truth: something had happened to the town. Something unnatural. And her brother had known. He must have. “Elara!” Her mother’s voice echoed faintly through the haze. “Dinner!” She climbed down the fire escape, the metal cold beneath her bare hands. Inside, the house smelled of rosemary stew and warm bread—comfort food meant to keep fear at bay. They ate in silence. Always silence. Her mother’s eyes were hollow, her smile paper-thin. Her father never looked up from the newspaper, even though the stories never changed. Every headline repeated. Storm on the Horizon. Minor Flooding Near North Wall. Community Garden Closed for Maintenance. “School tomorrow,” her mother said softly. Elara blinked. “There hasn’t been school in months.” “Yes, of course,” her mother nodded. “Silly me. I must be tired.” They weren’t tired. They were trapped—trapped in a loop, a perfect illusion, and only Elara could see the seams. That night, she pulled out the box of Kian’s belongings. It had been buried beneath her bed for months, but tonight felt different. The fog outside was heavier, somehow, almost black. And something inside her hummed like a wire pulled too tight. Inside the box were old notebooks, a music player that no longer worked, and a silver ring with strange engravings—symbols she didn’t recognize. Tucked in the back of his journal was a torn piece of paper. “The clocks don’t lie. Look where time broke first.” It was scrawled in Kian’s sharp, deliberate handwriting. Elara's breath caught. She knew exactly what he meant. The old clockmaker’s shop on Hollow Street. It had been closed for as long as she could remember. Boarded up, dusty windows, no sign of life. Rumor had it the clockmaker had gone mad. Others said he’d vanished like the rest. Her parents never spoke of it. She grabbed her coat, shoved the ring into her pocket, and crept out into the fog. The town at night was even stranger than during the day. The stillness felt…watched. Lights glowed faintly behind drawn curtains. No footsteps echoed but her own. When she reached the clock shop, her breath caught. The boards were gone. Where once there had been dusty glass and rotting wood, now stood a pristine storefront, bathed in golden light. Clocks lined the walls—dozens, hundreds—each one ticking in perfect harmony. A sign on the door read: Open. The handle was warm. She pushed the door open, and the sound that met her ears nearly made her cry. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Time was moving. Here, at least. Behind the counter stood a man with hair like spun silver and eyes the color of mercury. He looked ageless, like someone who remembered centuries but had never felt them. “Elara Wynn,” he said, smiling as if he knew her. “I’ve been waiting.” End of Chapter 1.