Timekeeper (Timekeeper #1)(16)

Finally, with the twelve main fibers drawn together, Danny screwed in the last bolt. Stepping back, they watched as the longer minute hand slowly traveled around the clock’s face until it stopped close to the six position. Just about 12:30. The pain in Danny’s chest vanished.

People from the market had come over to watch, and just as they had the last time, they cheered. The corners of Danny’s lips turned up.

There was still the matter of the old minute hand, which had been taken back to the office for analysis. He had half a mind to snoop around the town some more, perhaps take a look at the ironworker’s forge.

Maybe he really did read too many detective novels.

But he couldn’t deny that the incident was suspicious. And after what had happened in Shere, he felt justified in his caution.

“Do you have a theory?” he asked Brandon. “About the missing tower parts.”

The apprentice hesitated. Danny took his silence as a no.

“This isn’t normal. There has to be some reason why it’s happening.” At least now, with a second assignment under his belt, he would hopefully be closer to getting the Assignment.

As Danny gathered his tools, Brandon studied the clock face, an unreadable expression on his own. “You mentioned your father last time,” Brandon said. “What happened to him?”

Danny couldn’t tell what to be more surprised by: that the apprentice didn’t already know, or that he’d asked. Everyone knew what had happened to Christopher Hart. But there was something annoyingly sincere about Brandon’s gaze as he took in Danny’s reaction.

“That’s not the sort of story you want to hear,” he said. “It’s a sad one.”

“I like sad stories, too.”

Danny’s anger flared like wind through a flame, but he quashed it and gestured to the cables on either side of the scaffolding.

“Let’s get inside.”

After they dragged the scaffolding back into the tower, Danny smoothed down his runaway hair. He glanced several times at his apprentice, who was taking in the view of the still-bustling marketplace.

“He disappeared three years ago.”

Brandon turned, surprised. He lifted a hand, like he would touch Danny’s arm in sympathy. Danny turned away before he could. He wasn’t sure what would happen if Brandon touched him now.

“How?”

Danny brushed the dust from his trousers. “Not disappeared, exactly. He was a mechanic, like me. One of the best. Worked on Big Ben all the time.” Some of his favorite childhood memories were when his father and Matthias told him about the massive clockwork inside Big Ben and the four gleaming faces at the very top, staring out at all of London.

“He started training me when I was young. We took apart clocks and timepieces, and read books about clock towers around the world. Mum had hopes of sending me to Cambridge or Oxford, but I refused. I wanted to be like Dad. I wanted to be a clock mechanic.” He smiled as a memory unfurled within him, a memory of his father and him laughing when a spring had become lost within his mother’s curly hair. But as he continued, the smile died.

“We saved up to go on holiday to France, since Mum’s always wanted to go, but something happened to Evaline Tower in Maldon. They needed someone to look into it.”

Danny swallowed. His throat felt tight, like the hand of the past gently squeezed it. “My father volunteered. Mum wouldn’t leave for our holiday without him, so we were stuck at home. He went to Maldon and didn’t send any word back to us.

“The next day we heard the town was Stopped.”

Brandon cocked his head to one side. “Stopped?”

“Lord, don’t you know anything? It’s when the clock stops working altogether. Until it’s fixed, the town Stops, and the people inside are trapped. Time can’t move forward. No seasons pass, days don’t transition to night, people don’t age. And no one can speak to the ones trapped inside, not even through a telephone. They’re all just … stuck there, caught in an endless loop.”

Danny again recalled the horrifying moment in Shere when the clockwork exploded. If he hadn’t fixed the clock in time, he would have suffered the same fate as his father.

A voice in his mind whispered that maybe he should have.

“We don’t know why the town Stopped, or how the clock can be fixed. We don’t know anything. All we can do is wait and see if there’s any change.”

Danny sat on the staircase leading to the platform and rested his arms on his knees. “Mum keeps waiting for him to walk through the door, but I know he won’t. Once a town is Stopped, it’s Stopped until the clock is fixed.”

Everyone leaves, in the end.

The apprentice settled next to Danny, his eyebrows furrowed. “I’m sorry. You’re right, that is a sad story.”

“You asked to hear it,” Danny reminded him, cross. He wasn’t even sure why he had bothered to tell him. But if Brandon didn’t hear it from him, some other mechanic or apprentice would have been all too pleased to trade gossip.

There was also something about the apprentice that made Danny feel his words would not be judged. That it was safe to tell his story here.

“Are you sure nothing can be done?” Brandon asked.

“Well. There is one thing. They’re building a new clock tower just outside of Maldon. It’s almost complete, but the clockwork needs to be forged and installed. The Lead thinks that if this tower creates a new area of time, it’ll cross into Maldon’s time zone and free the town. Some of the mechanics say it won’t work. Others don’t want the tower built at all.” He rubbed his eyes. “But it has to work. It has to. If they can’t find a way, I will. I have to see Dad again.”