The Waiting: A Supernatural Thriller(31)
Frowning, Evan sifted through more pages of incoherence and found another legible sheet.
I’ll go back and stay inside that night. I won’t go out, won’t go out, won’t go out.
The writing became larger and larger, until it filled the rest of the paper with erratic slashes that cut through the sheet itself.
Evan set it aside and flipped through the remaining notes. A few more diagrams of grandfather clocks, these looking like they’d been pulled from a book, lay at the bottom of the of the stack. He was about to reorganize the shuffled pile when he saw the imprint of letters on the last page, but he couldn’t read them since the writing was on the opposite side. He turned the sheet over and stared at the words traced repeatedly into the paper.
I CAN SEE THEM.
Evan dropped the page and glanced around the basement, turning his head to look at the clock behind him. Its face stared back. He stood and walked closer, again mesmerized by the detailed carvings covering its surface. His hand wandered to the trim, tracing the curved lines, their arcs trying to tell him a story. The smooth glass was frigid beneath his palm; he worried for a moment that his hand might stick, but was able to pull it away.
Blinking, Evan turned and picked up his tea, which was cold. Upstairs, he heard Shaun’s voice, groggy with sleep.
“Da?”
“Coming, buddy,” he yelled, and moved across the room, stopping only once on the landing to stare at the clock before he shut off the lights and went upstairs.
11
During breakfast Shaun kept looking at the basement door.
Evan watched him, waiting for another hysterical outburst, but none came. He simply glanced in the basement’s direction after every few bites of pancake that Evan fed him, an uneasy look in his eyes. When they’d finished with breakfast, Evan got Shaun dressed and then went through his exercises with him.
By mid-morning they sat in the pontoon, cruising across the lake, fingers of wind that spoke of warmer temperatures combing their hair back. When they walked by Collins Outfitters, Evan waved through the open door to Jacob, who stood chatting with several customers. Jacob waved back, motioning for them to stop in later. Evan nodded, then buckled Shaun into the van and pulled away down Main Street.
They stopped at the same café as before and sat outside at the same table. While Shaun drank his malt through a straw, Evan flipped open his laptop and almost sighed with relief at seeing a Wi-Fi signal come through strong and clear. Not wasting any time, he punched Abel Kluge, Mill River, MN into the search engine and watched a few dozen hits come up. Clicking the first one, he read: Abel Kluge (1878–1920) was a prominent clockmaker during the early twentieth century. He is well known for his intricately devised pocket watches that wound using a face dial rather than the traditional stem. Although he made great innovations, such as the wristwatch, which would later become popular, his true passion was long-case clocks, or grandfather clocks. It is unclear how many grandfather clocks he made during his short career, but some historians believe the number to be somewhere near one hundred. The dark mahogany that he used to build his clocks is a primary indicator of his style, as is the double pendulum that many of the long cases contained.
An emigrant from Hungary, Abel first made a name for himself when he moved to America in 1897. Settling in Chicago with his young wife, Larissa, he began to produce highly sought-after timepieces from a small shop on the north side of the city. His renown grew quickly, and although being rumored as a “man without character,” soon Kluge had made enough money to retire, which he did in the winter of 1905.
Little is known of his life after moving from Chicago. The small town of Mill River, Minnesota, became his and Larissa’s home, and after the completion of a veritable mansion in comparison to the other structures in the town at the time, Abel Kluge receded from the art of clock making altogether.
Until his death in 1920, he and his wife lived in seclusion, relying on a small staff of maids and butlers to venture into Mill River for supplies. On November 10, 1920, a member of the staff received no reply from the Kluge’s third-floor bedroom, and upon entering, found Larissa seated in one corner of the room, dead. There were no wounds on her body, and cause of death was ruled natural. Besides a small pool of blood on the floor, Abel was nowhere to be found. A subsequent search yielded nothing in the woods surrounding the property. Abel’s automobile was present and accounted for, his coat, hat, mittens, and shoes were all found in their proper places in the entry. Temperatures were near fifteen degrees Fahrenheit the night of his disappearance, and after a week the search was abandoned. Abel was officially pronounced deceased a month later. To this day, historians and theorists alike have yet to come to a conclusive answer about what may have killed Larissa Kluge and where her husband may have gone. Some theorize that Abel had a young lover in the nearby town of Mill River and slipped away with her after somehow poisoning his wife. Others contest that he merely wandered away into the night after seeing his wife had died of some natural cause, unable to continue living without her. It is a mystery that may never be solved.
Evan sat back from the laptop and gazed across the quiet highway, at the lake. He studied where he knew the island was, though he couldn’t see it. Coming back to himself, he exited out of the webpage and scanned the other articles. Most repeated what the first piece stated, and he glossed over the words until the last entry. The screen displayed an ornate page from the Mill River Chronicle, dated November 13, 1920, and highlighted in the bottom right-hand portion was an obituary. He squinted, leaning close to the screen to read the text.