The Time of the Clockmaker (19 page)

“And has it?” The countess looked at me through big eyes.

“No, it hasn't. You would be the first to know about it, if it did.”

Seemingly pleased with my answer, the countess bade me to go on.

“That was it,” I said. “That's more or less all he said.”

“Hmm . . . I suppose he was just ensuring things were all right,” she said slowly.

“I suppose he was.”

I took the lull in conversation to go back to my room. Internally, I was a mess and needed some quiet to sort out my thoughts. I knew the countess wouldn't be able to provide me with that unless I closed my door.

I sat on the edge of my bed. It seemed this was the spot I was doing most of my thinking—not to mention panicking—nowadays.

I just didn't know what to think. More and more, things were starting to look interwoven. If there was a court alchemist looking for the secret to immortality, did my attacker know about him too? What if the immortal murderer who killed Miss Hatfield was also a part of this? What if Henley was right and they were the same person? Did Richard know more than he
appeared to? Was he tangled up in this too?

The more I thought about it, the more afraid I grew. Immortality and time itself used to be my only enemies. It used to be simply a race against the discomfort I'd begin to feel when staying in one time too long. Now it was more than that. Now there was someone after me. And if time didn't get to me first, I knew
he
would.

Immortality is complicated, but once you figure out the rules, it leaves you alone in peace, more or less. You need to know your limits: Don't stay in one time for too long. Don't make connections with people. Certainly, don't fall in love with someone. I had broken so many of these rules, and I knew where it had gotten me. I had to live with the consequences every day.

But this was different. This situation had no rules that I could follow. I didn't know who this killer was. But more importantly, I didn't know why he was after me. That made things almost impossible. I knew I couldn't do anything until I could get my hands on the clock.

EIGHTEEN

SITTING IN MY
room, I wished Henley would say something to me. Anything. We hadn't talked since we had argued the day before, and so far, it didn't seem as if that would change any time soon. I couldn't stand knowing that he was there but out of reach.

“Henley?” I called out into the empty room. There was no reply.

So that was how he was playing it now? Outright ignoring me?

I didn't call again. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that I needed him.

The clock,
I told myself. That was what I had to concentrate on.

It had been a couple of days since I had dropped off the countess's clock to be fixed, so I figured I could pick it up today. It wasn't as if anyone needed me, anyway.

When I retraced the steps I had taken with Richard, for the first time in a long time I felt truly alone. Miss Hatfield was still dead, the countess was probably with Phillip, and Henley was gone.

My chest hitched as I tried to take a deep breath. I went through the motions to retrace my way back to the clockmaker's rooms. When I found the right door, I shook my head and tried to clear my mind. Just as I raised my hand to knock, the door swung open.

“My dear, come in.” It was the old man. “You look distressed.”

I suppose I did look a bit upset, but I brushed it off. “Oh, it's nothing. I'm just having a difficult day.”

“To some, a difficult day can be an apocalypse, while to others, a difficult day can be a torn dress.” The old man waved me in.

I followed him through the gray storefront to the back room, where I saw the clockmaker's young girl sitting on a workbench.

“I suppose you're here for your clock?” she asked.

“Yes, I am, if it's ready,” I said.

“It is. It wasn't anything much to fix up.”

As I watched the clockmaker rummage around behind her, I wondered how to breach the topic of the clock. Luckily, I didn't have to. The girl did it for me.

“The clock you commissioned,” she started.

“Yes. . . . Is there any issue with getting it made?”

“No. I just wanted to let you know that it will be ready in a week's time.”

I knew a week was fast for something so intricate and
complex, not to mention larger than a normal clock, but this was urgent. Day after day, I was starting to feel the effects of staying in one time too long. The nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach had turned into something more.

“Is there any way to speed the process up? Money wouldn't be an issue.” I thought I would charge it to Lord Empson's account. They must have things like that in this time period. I could say the money was for the countess's clock. I felt guilty, but this was something that had to be done. “A week just might be a bit—”

The girl cut me off with a solid and resounding “No.”

I hoped I had that long to spare.

The clockmaker handed me the countess's clock. Sure enough, the shattered glass face was replaced, and the metal backing was once again without a scratch.

“I presume his lordship will take care of this?” the girl asked.

“Lord Empson? Yes, yes. That will be fine.”

I thanked both of them, but the old clockmaker was the only one to give me a small smile as I left.

I practically ran down the corridor with the clock in hand. Passersby looked at me strangely and turned to watch me go. I was eager to see the countess. I felt like I needed to make it up to her.

Swinging open the doors to the countess's chambers, I waltzed in.

I walked with purpose to the table in the dining room on which the small clock had sat, before I had bumped into it and sent it off the edge. I stopped when I saw the countess sitting in the room.

“My lady.” I dropped into a curtsey.

The countess didn't take her eyes off the sampler she was working on in her lap.

I placed the clock carefully on the table. When the metal hit the wood, I looked for a reaction from the countess. Nothing.

Even when I excused myself, the countess didn't look up at me or the clock on the table.

I left the room but promptly returned to ask her about dinner. Were we dining with someone else again?

But the question never left my mouth as I caught the countess fingering the engraved case of the clock. I don't know exactly what went through her mind in that moment, but it was a familiar sight. Her lips were tightly pressed together. Her eyes were shut.

It was the face of someone wishing for a different world and a different life. I knew that expression, because I often wore it.

I tried to creep back out of the room, but the countess turned and caught me.

“Eleanor.”

“Yes?”

“Stay with me?” she asked.

I couldn't decline. I didn't want to either. And so I spent the rest of the afternoon with the countess, watching her work on her sampler.

Though it wasn't as exciting as the rest of court, there was something about spending time with the countess that I enjoyed. She wasn't any real relation of mine, and we had no formal connection, but there was a part of me that strove for her approval.

“Are you sure you wouldn't like to start a sampler while
you're here?” the countess asked.

“It's fine. I'm enjoying having some peace.” Truthfully, I didn't know how to sew, but I wasn't about to let the countess figure that out.

“I hope you're contemplating something worthwhile,” she said. “An idle mind is a greater sin than an idle body.”

Ever since Miss Hatfield had come into my life with a vial of the Fountain of Youth's waters, I was never at a loss for things to contemplate. There was always the fact that my life—if I could call it that, since I would never die—would never be the same again.

“I have a confession to make,” she started.

Those were the oddest words I had heard coming from the countess's mouth, since it seemed she never did anything wrong.

“Lady Empson invited us for dinner at noon, and I declined on behalf of us both.”

I shrugged. “I don't mind.”

“Thank goodness,” she said. “I'm sure Lady Empson means well, or Lord Empson put her up to it, but in either case, I can't put up with an hour or so of her not talking, or worse—talking but blandly not having an opinion.”

I tried not to laugh at how much the countess hated Lady Empson's shrinking violet act.

“If she were a wallflower, you could paper the walls with her,” I said.

The countess furrowed her brow, and I immediately saw my mistake. Did they even have wallpaper yet?

“Tapestries,” I sputtered.

“What is a wallflower?” she asked, slowly.

I guess that word hadn't been invented yet either.

“Oh, nothing. Slip of the tongue,” I said. “Just a word we use back home.”

She nodded, returning to the sampler on her lap.

A week went by quickly in this way, the pain in my stomach getting more and more intense. The pain caused me to retire to bed earlier and wake up later, as it seemed only during sleep did it become tolerable.

Henley didn't talk to me. I admit it was in part because I avoided being alone with him. Though I didn't go to any feasts or dinners with Lady Sutton or Lord Empson, I spent my waking hours looking busy with the countess, or Helen, or Joan. I threw myself into social situations during which I knew Henley could not talk to me.

I avoided Richard too. I knew I should have been spending time with him to see if he would say anything about the alchemist's plans, but I just didn't
want
to see him. I stayed in, where I knew he would not try to visit. He still sent me a pastry each night from the court feasts, as if to remind me he existed. Every night, when Joan helped me undress, she would mention that Richard had brought a pastry for me and inquired after my health. Joan even thoughtfully set the pastry on a platter in my room, but seeing it was untouched the next morning, she would whisk it away. It was on the fourth night they suddenly stopped coming. I didn't want to ask Joan, but I knew Richard had also stopped coming.

I sat with the countess for hours, making light conversation. Occasionally, when I slipped up and mentioned an object or a phrase that hadn't been invented yet, the countess would nod
and blame it on my Eastern upbringing. She didn't question me about Lithuania any further, seeming to think that this court was the only place worth talking about.

I spent so much time with the countess that she seemed to have grown used to having me by her side at certain times during the day, especially before and after meals. But today I needed to pick up the clock.

“I think I'll take a walk after supper,” I said.

The countess looked surprised, but I didn't know whether it was due to my abruptness or whether she was surprised that I wouldn't be sitting with her as I usually did.

“Did you want me with you?” I asked. “I could always go later.”

“Oh, no. You go on ahead. Fresh air would be good for you. It's always good for the young.”

She said those words, but I didn't believe her. Though the countess would never admit it, I was pretty sure she knew she was going to miss me. It seemed I was the only person who spent time with her—besides Joan and Helen, of course, but she didn't seem to talk to them besides giving them a list of tasks.

In any other circumstance, I would have made time to sit with her, but since I was trying to leave to go to the clockmaker's to pick up the clock, I had to go.

I excused myself and walked down the bustling hallways, squeezing between extravagant skirts and velvet leggings.

This was it. Possibly there was now a way out. I knocked and waited. On the other side of the door, I heard small footsteps. The young girl, perhaps?

I opened the door, but she didn't greet me.

“Here for your order?” She was as sullen as ever.

“I am,” I said. “Where is your . . . grandfather?”

The girl spoke to me forcibly. “The clockmaker is not here.”

“Should I come back at another time?” I was disappointed, to say the least. I knew that with every day wasted, the risk—both of the murderer and slowly going insane—only grew.

“That will not be necessary. Your work is ready.”

I followed her to the back room.

Today the room seemed to be lit with more candles than usual. As the girl stood to look through boxes and miscellaneous items on the shelf, a halo effect was created by the light behind her. Her hair ran down over her shoulders and glowed warm in the light.

“Here you go,” she said.

I held out my hands, expecting a great weight to be put into them. But that didn't happen.

I looked down when I felt a small disk, cold to the touch, placed in the palm of one hand.

“This isn't it. I don't understand.”

“You
are
Lady Eleanor Shelton, are you not?” The girl looked up at me and cocked her head.

“Yes, I am—” I had no recollection of giving either her or the clockmaker my name.

“Then this is yours,” she said.

I began to grow frantic, and my voice rose. “This clock looks nothing like the one I drew.”

As I turned it over, the silver metal of the miniature clock glinted in the light. I could feel it ticking in my hand. The clock's cover had flowers and vines engraved onto it. Climbing roses,
maybe?

“I've never seen anything like it.” The girl peered into my hand. “He calls it a pocket watch. The clockmaker must have thought it would be more becoming of you to have this instead. It's something he does all the time. It's free of charge, when he does it. He only does it when he feels strongly. But still . . . I've never seen something so small, so intricate.”

“But it's not what I want.”

“I know,” she said. “But it's what's better for you.”

“If I'm the one commissioning a clock, I think I should get what I want,” I said.

“Don't worry, it'll grow on you.”

Don't worry? I didn't know how I could not worry. My last resort had run down the drain.

“I'll pay extra—”

“It isn't about the money,” she said. “Though we could certainly use it, money has never been a big factor with the clockmaker. It doesn't motivate him.” The girl shrugged, and I felt I was having this conversation with a thirty-year-old woman, instead of just a girl.

“I just want what I came here for.”

“I know you do,” she said. “That's what they all say, but soon you'll be better off this way.”

She started toward the door, and I had no choice but to follow her.

“Will you at least tell me when the clockmaker will be in again?” I asked. “This is really important to me.”

“He'll be back this evening. He only went to the neighboring village for some parts,” she said. “But if you're planning on
trying to change his mind, you might as well give up. He's never changed his mind on things like this. When he feels strongly about something, that's the way it goes.” She laughed, and it was a sound I had never heard from her. “You look like you ate something sour.”