Timekeeper

by Tara Sim

  “Well, the minute hand’s not exactly missing,” the Lead continued. “They found it at the bottom of the tower, bent at a right angle.”

  Danny choked on his own saliva. Bent?

  “But what’s happened to the town?” he asked, not bothering to conceal the worry in his voice.

  “They’re fine, so far as we know, but it’s interfering with daily life. Time is moving in quick bursts once an hour. Mayor Aldridge said it’s like tripping. In any case, we’ve commissioned a new hand to be made. As soon as it’s installed, it’ll fuse with the power of the clock tower and time should go back to normal. The hand will be ready for pickup soon. Do you think you can handle this, Daniel?”

  Despite his instinct to say no, Danny told the Lead that he was more than willing. It wasn’t entirely a lie. He wanted to make sure the tower was all right. Maybe he could learn something more about the vandalism. Maybe, if he figured out what was going on, he could finally convince the Lead to put him on the Assignment.

  As he was leaving, he hesitated on the second floor and turned away from the stairs, toward Matthias’s classroom.

  Matthias was an old friend of his father’s. He and Christopher Hart had started off as apprentice mechanics together, and it hadn’t taken much time for them to grow inseparable. From shared assignments to orchestrating pranks on the other apprentices, they had done everything together. As a result, Matthias had been a big part of Danny’s life as well, a regular figure at Sunday dinners and birthday parties.

  What Danny remembered most was Matthias looking after him when his parents went out. The man would feed him stories as the night grew long, stories of his travels—some true, some nothing more than fancy. (“Did I tell you about the time I met a witch in the Białowieża Forest? She said she would put a curse on me if I hurt any of her bison.”) And when Danny was lonely or scared, Matthias would drape a strong arm over his shoulders, keeping him safe and close. Danny needed to feel a measure of that safety right now.

  Matthias was teaching a room of apprentices when Danny found him. Matthias was a tall man with a wide chest and a strong jaw, and he normally braided his brown hair, which would have been a source of humor for the younger mechanics if it weren’t for his reputation for winning pub brawls.

  But though Matthias could be strong and bold, what Danny liked most about him was his calm, easy manner, so at odds with his own. Even now Danny saw the room of teenagers barely younger than himself and hung back.

  “When the pieces of the clockwork are removed, you must be careful to wrap them up and store them, or else they might go missing.” Matthias stood before a sketch of clockwork drawn across the chalkboard, pointing sternly to a cog drawn to one side. A metallic whirring box on the teacher’s desk recorded every word of the lecture, inscribing them with a tin wheel. “The bits of clockwork are still powerful, even when they’ve been removed from the main frame, so these need to be taken back to the office. Never toss pieces away. You get that, you lot?”

  He was chorused with yesses and nods. Danny smiled. He had never been in Matthias’s classes as an apprentice, but wished he had been.

  “Now then, one last thing before I let you loose. We have a special visitor today who’s going to tell you a little more about how assignments work.”

  Matthias nodded to a corner Danny couldn’t see. A tall, blonde girl walked up to the front of the classroom, her broad shoulders held straight and her gait steadfast. When he recognized her, Danny held back a curse.

  Daphne Richards. A full mechanic only a year older than himself. She and that snob Lucas Wakefield had been the youngest mechanics on record at eighteen before Danny had snatched the title away, painting a target on his back at the same time.

  Since then, the three had used their strengths to demand the most challenging assignments in an effort to outdo one another: Daphne with her intellect, Lucas with his looks and his money, and Danny with his sheer, if sometimes aggressive, determination. It had driven the Lead mad.

  Then Danny’s accident had happened.

  A twinge of jealousy ran through him. Why hadn’t Matthias asked him to speak to his class? Then again, Matthias had been Daphne’s mentor. Just as Danny’s father had taken it upon himself to teach Danny all he knew, Matthias had chosen Daphne as his junior apprentice. That sort of bond was hard to sever.

  Daphne gave Matthias a small smile and turned to the class. Like some of the younger women in London, she chose to wear trousers and a blouse. Her dark jacket helped conceal her curves, but it couldn’t hide the purple diamond-shaped tattoo beside her right eye. He’d once heard an older mechanic call her a walking scandal.

  “As many of you know,” she began, “London is the central headquarters for clock mechanic affairs in England. When you’ve passed your assessments to become full mechanics, you’ll have the option of staying here and receiving assignments for towns in and around Greater London, including Essex and Kent. Or, if you prefer, you may relocate to another of the branches, such as in Manchester.

  “We’re also developing a new foreign exchange program with clock mechanic unions in China and America. The latter, for example, would allow certain apprentices to visit one of the American union hubs, such as the one in New York.”

  As she discussed the exchange program, Danny scanned the room. The boys weren’t paying attention to her; they were either scribbling in their books or staring out the window. The girls, however, were enraptured. One girl was furiously writing down everything Daphne said, getting ink splotches all over her hands.

  “We’re also in the process of beginning an exchange program with India,” Daphne went on, and Danny’s attention snapped back to her. “Indian apprentices can come to London to learn, and London apprentices can go to Delhi, or one of the other large cities, to study Indian tower design.”

  Danny watched her face as she continued to discuss plans for the new program. He knew—was one of the few mechanics who knew—that her father had been half Indian. No one would guess it, looking at her skin and her hair and her eyes. Danny certainly wouldn’t have known if Matthias hadn’t accidentally let it slip years ago.

  There were many who opposed the idea of a female clock mechanic at all, let alone one with foreign blood. Despite their history, Danny couldn’t help but feel an unspoken understanding. There were some things you were better off keeping to yourself, if you could.

  Daphne finished her speech just as a steam whistle blew, signaling the end of class. The apprentices rose with a rustle of papers and the scraping of chair legs while Matthias thanked Daphne for her time. As she headed out the door, her pale blue eyes locked onto Danny’s.

  “Mr. Hart,” she said coolly.

  “Miss Richards.”

  When she and the students had all gone, Danny slipped inside the classroom. Matthias flipped a switch on the recording mechanism to power it down.

  “Danny Boy.” Matthias grinned. “How was your assignment? We heard about the missing numeral.”

  Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “Could’ve been worse. How are you, Matthias?”

  “Could be worse,” he echoed. “What happened?” Danny told him about the melted numeral and how it had been found.

  Matthias whistled. “And it just happened to be found by a man who melts iron for a living?”

  “It’s fishy, isn’t it?” Danny sat on top of a wooden desk in the front row. “Now there’s a report that the minute hand’s been bent. I still think it’s the ironworker, but the Lead doesn’t suspect him.”

  Matthias started erasing the clockwork sketch. “You’ve been reading too many detective books.”

  “Says the man who got me to read them in the first place.”

  Matthias shrugged in mock guilt.

  “Do you think I should do something? About the ironworker.”

  “If the Lead doesn’t suspect him, I doubt there’s anything you can do. Just complete the assignment as best you can.”

  Not quite the answer Danny wanted.
If it hadn’t been the ironworker, then who could have stolen the numeral? He thought about the protesters outside and his shoulders tightened. He thought also about the mechanics who had been at the Shere tower before him, who would have had plenty of time to hide a bomb within the clockwork.

  Someone had carved the initials E.B. into the desk on which he sat. He traced the letters with his fingertip, trying not to think about his scar, where the clock had carved its own initials into his skin.

  Matthias noticed the shift in Danny’s mood. “Was the assignment hard for you, after what happened?”

  “It wasn’t hard at all,” he lied. “It’s my job.”

  “Danny.”

  He sighed. “Yes, it was hard. Would you be surprised if it wasn’t?”

  “I don’t blame you for being scared.” Matthias sat on the professor’s desk, facing him. “It’s only been a few months since the accident. Your mother says you’re still having nightmares.”

  Of course his mother heard him screaming at night. Not like she would bother asking him about it in the morning.

  Matthias frowned. “We’re worried, Danny.”

  “Look at me. I’m fine.”

  Matthias studied him a moment, then stood and walked up to Danny with his little finger extended. “You’ll swear on it?”

  It was a custom Matthias had learned in China when he’d visited as a much younger man. He had taught it to Danny a long time ago.

  “Matthias,” he groaned. “I’m too old for that sort of thing.”

  “You’re never too old to tell the truth.”

  Danny rolled his eyes and held up his own little finger to entwine it with the man’s thicker one. They shook.

  Matthias lightly cuffed his head. “You should be off. You have menacing ironworkers to question and clocks to save.”

  Danny noted the rings of exhaustion under Matthias’s eyes. The man had had a scare when he heard of Danny’s accident. Matthias didn’t have many people in his life to fuss over, which meant Danny got the brunt of his protectiveness.

  But maybe he looked tired for another reason. Danny wondered if the apprentices had been talking about Matthias behind his back again.

  “Go on,” Matthias urged with a shooing motion. Danny slipped off the desk and wondered if there would ever come a time when adults stopped treating him like a fragile object.

  He needed to go downstairs and wait for the new minute hand. Trying to distract himself from wondering what the protesters would do if they saw the part in his arms, Danny walked down the hall and glanced at the paintings as he went. He slowed to a stop when he came to the one he knew best. His father’s favorite.

  It depicted a storm-tossed sea in grays and blues and greens, the water parted to reveal a dark ocean floor. In that waterless cavity stood two large figures, one red and one gold. They faced each other, prepared for a difficult fight. Lightning forked above their heads.

  Danny touched his fingers to the golden figure and thought of the golden tower in Enfield. The more he focused on it, the heavier his body grew. What if these incidents meant more? What if they were a prelude to something else?

  Away from Matthias’s calming presence, Danny’s stomach twisted into knots again. Sometimes clocks fell apart with age. It was to be expected when the towers had been maintaining time for hundreds of years.

  But this was not the same thing. A numeral had been melted. A hand had been bent.

  What was strong enough to tamper with time?

  Danny’s mother and Matthias had told him stories when he was younger, but his father had kept a few up his sleeve as well. The first time Danny remembered seeing Big Ben, really seeing it and feeling it for what it was, he’d asked his father how the clocks ran in the first place.

  “Don’t you know?” Christopher had asked, feigning shock. “How on earth will you be a clock mechanic if you don’t know your origins, Ticker?”

  Every story originated from myth. Different cultures had their own gods. Their world had both.

  Chronos was the father of time. After the world was shaped, he awoke within the cosmos, wrapped within galaxies and energy. He saw the earth and how wild and untamed it had become. How it needed to be maintained. So he created time out of the restless power within him, a tiny stream that became a raging flood as it spun the earth on its axis. Men and women aged, trees grew, plants withered. Time moved all things. Killed all things.

  But Chronos couldn’t keep an eye on everything, so he cut four fingers from his hand. From his fingers grew the Gaian gods, each one chosen to oversee an element. Terra, earth. Caelum, sky. Oceana, sea.

  Aetas, time.

  “Aetas was called the Timekeeper,” his father had said, one hand resting on Danny’s shoulder. He remembered the familiar weight of it, the strength of those fingers gently squeezing his shoulder, the calluses on his father’s palm. “He made sure the pattern of time never became unbalanced, never got too tangled. He made sure our pasts, presents, and futures never collided.”

  While the Gaian gods maintained the earth’s elements and humanity advanced, Chronos grew hateful. He saw lives of greed, lives of gluttony, lives of pride and blood and sin. Weary of this corrupt world, he retreated into slumber.

  Aetas also grew weary, and mad with the power of time, which was too enormous for him to bear alone. His sister, Oceana, begged him to return his domain to Chronos. When he tried, Chronos turned him away and told him to forget the burden. The world could burn. He no longer cared.

  But Aetas cared.

  Desperate, he gifted some of his power to humans so that they might help him control the wild beast that was time.

  “Chronos found out, and oof, was he mad.” Christopher smacked the side of his leg for emphasis. “He woke and confronted Aetas. Said that humans should never have been given such power.”

  Chronos descended to where Aetas lived within the ocean. The water parted for their battle, roiling walls of gray and blue, the crash of lightning and waves above. They fought among dry coral reefs and seashells that broke beneath their feet, the sea a raging storm for three days and three nights, until Aetas grew weak enough for Chronos to land the final blow.

  Danny had looked up, his eyes wide. “Chronos killed Aetas?”

  “Yes. And when he did, time shattered. No one could control it. And so we built the towers.” Christopher had gestured to Big Ben. “The towers are conductors of Aetas’s leftover power. Through them, we can control time—or give ourselves the illusion we can. The burden is ours now. We are the Timekeepers.”

  There were no Gaian gods to help anymore. The other three had receded, choosing to fade to little more than myth. The demand for technology grew in their absence, a demand for humans to control what was once out of their grasp. People held fast to their Bibles and their churches, to the belief that perhaps a benevolent creator looked on, and did nothing.

  Everyone leaves, in the end.

  It took an hour to reach Enfield. As he got closer, Danny nearly hit a bump in the road and swerved to avoid it. He cursed as his heart jumped into his throat. This bloody town would kill him.

  The town was holding its weekly market, and people were clogging the path. He parked on the outskirts and lifted the thin, long parcel containing the new minute hand from the back of the auto.

  Immediately he sensed the cracks in time, the empty pockets of missing seconds and moments. It made the air heavy and the sky appear frozen, as if the town were being forced to slow down until the next hour. Time wanted to move in leaps, just as the Lead had said.

  Why on earth were they holding the market now? He peered at their faces and noticed tight mouths, narrowed eyes. They were putting up a brave front.

  Danny walked across the village green and caught glimpses of wares for sale: timepieces, crockery, flower-pulp paper—even a large, clunky photograph-taker. The black camera box sat on its three-legged stand like a raven perched on a fence. Danny longed to have one of his own to play with. The lightness of his po
ckets kept him away.

  He examined the timepieces for sale. They hadn’t stopped, exactly, but the minute hands were stuck at eleven, the time when the minute hand had been detached from the tower. At least the hour hands were all correct.

  “How do you know what time it is?” he asked a woman passing by.

  “We guess,” was her terse answer.

  Fair enough.

  Someone touched Danny’s shoulder and he turned, coming face-to-face with Mayor Aldridge. The mayor’s mouth was creased from a lifetime of frowning.

  “Mr. Hart, thank you for coming back so soon. I’m sorry for the trouble.”

  “That’s all right. I’ve brought a new minute hand.”

  “Brilliant,” Aldridge said distantly, glancing at the parcel under his arm. “The sooner we return to normal, the better. We’ve tried to keep things as routine as possible, setting up the market and all. Don’t want them to think too much about becoming another Maldon.” The mayor mustered up a nervous laugh, and Danny’s cheek twitched. “The, ah … police will be here again, won’t they?”

  The Lead had mentioned there would be an investigation, and Danny said as much to the mayor. Aldridge sighed. “Nothing for it, then. Such a disturbance …”

  Danny nodded in a vaguely sympathetic way and excused himself. He walked past the church to the tower beyond the green, eyes on the missing pivotal line of the minute hand. Walking through the town was like walking through a bog. Time dragged him down, willing him to stop where he stood until the next hour rang. He gritted his teeth and pressed on.

  The tower sent a hollow ache through his chest when he crossed the threshold. Danny grunted and braced himself against the wall, wondering if this was how it felt to lose a limb. He climbed the stairs, taking a break in the belfry to wipe his forehead and examine the four bells more closely. None of them were named. That ceremony was reserved for the largest of the towers, like Big Ben.

  On the next level, Danny leaned the package against the stair railing and watched the hypnotizing effect of the clockwork’s movement. It had been a while since the gears were cleaned; someone would have to come back and do that. The maintenance crew in Enfield was not allowed to touch the clock pieces, only clean and take care of the tower on a basic level, and report anything unusual to the headquarters in London. Like missing numerals and hands.