Clockworkers

by Ramsey Isler

  Jessica threw up her arms in a defensive gesture like Sam had just taken a swing at her. “I was just throwing out a theory! It was an idea that might make sense out of all this. But this is crazy talk. The kid probably just read an obituary or something and thought it would be funny to prank you. Men are pigs...even at that age.”

  Sam took a deep breath and held her head in her hands. “No, I think he actually did know my dad. He said he was an elf.”

  “Oh yeah, that makes way more sense,” Jessica said.

  “My dad had a weird obsession with elves,” Sam continued. “He kept it quiet usually, but it absorbed a lot of his time. He made casual references to it for years, but I never thought anybody but me really knew how preoccupied he was with them. He had tons of books and newspaper clippings about elves and little people. And then, tonight, this kid shows up literally out of nowhere, says he’s an elf that knew my dad, then he completely disappears.”

  “Elves,” Jessica said. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Elves.”

  Uncomfortable silence filled the space between them until Jessica gobbled up the last of her ice cream and said, “You look like you need a vacation.”

  “There’s too much to do,” Sam said. “There’s stuff with the shop and all these legal papers that need to be handled.”

  “As I recall, your father took care of most of that ahead of time.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “You know,” Jess continued, “they have these things called fax machines now, where people can send you documents from anywhere in the world.”

  “I’m not flying off to some exotic location, Jess. The shop needs me more than ever, and I’m just not in the mood to get on a plane and deal with travel.”

  “Fine, let’s stay here then,” Jessica said without a missing a beat. “Take the day off tomorrow and let’s go shopping.”

  Sam shook her head. “I’m having the locks changed and a guy is supposed to come over to check the security system.”

  “Do you always have to be so damn practical?” Jessica said.

  “Yes.”

  “What time is the lock guy coming?” Jess asked.

  “You know how they are,” Sam replied. “They said sometime between noon and two o’clock.”

  “And the security guy?”

  “Ten in the morning.”

  “So you should by done by three,” Jess said. “That gives us plenty of time to hang out and relax.”

  “I dunno.”

  “Yusef can handle the shop for a day,” Jess said. “No one will blame you for taking a little bit of time off after all you’ve been through recently.”

  “Don’t you have to be at work too?” Sam asked.

  “I can take off early,” Jess said. “I sealed the deal on that detergent account today, so I’m untouchable right now.”

  “That’s great,” Sam said. “I’m really happy for you, but I don’t have it as easy as you. I’ve got a whole business to run.”

  Jess grabbed her by the shoulders. “Sam, take off the armor for a little bit. Please.”

  Sam’s eyes met Jessica’s for just a moment, then all the fight went out of her. “Fine.”

  “Good,” Jess said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, all this ice cream is about to put me in a serious food coma. See you in the morning.”

  Chapter 6

  Jessica’s couch was narrow and leathery, and it had serpentine curves that were pleasing to the eye but torturous on the human spine. Sleeping on it was like resting on the belly of a malnourished crocodile with scoliosis. But Sam had always been an easy sleeper, and she could get a decent night’s rest on a bare rock if she had to. She slumbered until she was finally awakened by Rupert breathing in her face.

  “Why does your breath smell like shampoo?” she grumbled to him.

  “He got into my bathroom,” Jessica said as she appeared in a nearby doorway, dressed only in a fluffy lavender bathrobe. “He must have decided my strawberry conditioner smelled like dessert. He isn’t too bright, is he?”

  “Shh,” Sam said as she covered Rupert’s ears. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

  “It’s almost nine,” Jess said. “We should head back to your house to meet the security guy.”

  “You don’t have to come with me,” Sam said. “I’m sure Rupert and I will be fine.”

  “Oh don’t even try it,” Jessica said. “I know the minute I let you out of my sight you’ll start working again. Just get your butt moving.”

  * * *

  They returned to Sam’s home just as the security system technician was knocking on the door. Sam let him in and he did his job quickly and thoroughly, with Rupert staring intently at him the whole time. “You don’t need a security alarm with that big guy around,” the technician joked with a nervous laugh. Sam didn’t find it funny.

  The security system turned out to be working properly, but the technician added a few additional sensors to the doors and windows to be safe. After he left, Sam and Jess gave Rupert a bath since that job always worked out better with two people involved. When they were elbow deep in soap bubbles, the locksmith came. He was quick, and in less than an hour all the locks were changed and Sam had a new set of keys. With the day’s tasks done, Jess insisted on going out and getting some relaxation time. Sam obliged, and left Rupert at the house. At first, she worried that he might be a little scared to be alone after everything that had happened. But he seemed pleased to be home, and he happily trotted to his dog bed to take a nap.

  Sam and Jess went off for a day of frivolity in Jessica’s sporty convertible. Their first destination was a nearby commercial area that included some boutique woman’s clothing stores. Jess had a fascination with expensive and tight-fitting blue jeans. Sam had no interest in watching Jess admire her own ass in dressing room mirrors, but she did share Jess’s love of t-shirts with ironic phrases. Sadly, once she’d bought a few tees, the shopping trip lost its charm for Sam. But there was a beautiful, picturesque park next to the shops. While Jess disappeared into a changing room to try on a few pairs of jeans that looked two sizes too small for her, Sam went for a walk in the park.

  The park was quiet. There weren’t many people available to enjoy its beauty on an early Wednesday afternoon. The buildings that surrounded the park were full of workers too busy with their desk jobs to enjoy a moment of revelry amongst the grass and trees. There were a few teenagers drifting in from the local high school, but the place was mostly vacant and Sam felt like her little area of the park was her own private sanctuary. The flowers here were in full springtime bloom. Rows of yellow, red, and lavender petals framed the wide green lawn. Sam’s senses took in all the natural glory, and she tried her best to ignore the artificial world that framed the park.

  Then her nose caught a whiff of a familiar scent—the flowery, woodsy fragrance that had lingered in her home that night after the boy had broken into her house and disappeared. It would have been a pleasant aroma, if not for the fearful memories it evoked. In that moment, she knew she wasn’t alone. She couldn’t see him, or hear him, but she knew he was there. She could feel him staring at her.

  “You again,” she muttered.

  “Hello, Samantha,” a young voice responded. The sound made her jump, just a little. She hadn’t expected an actual reply. The voice came from nowhere in particular, like a whisper in the wind.

  “Where are you?”

  “Around,” the disembodied voice said. It seemed to come from her left this time. “I’m not going to hurt you,” the boy continued.

  “Come out where I can see you,” Sam said, quietly.

  “Not now. Not here. It wouldn’t be smart.”

  “Why are you following me?”

  “To give you the final gift your father left for you.”

  Sam paused, then said, “Did you really know my father?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “He found me many years ago. Before you were born.”

  “T
hat’s not possible. I’m way older than you are, kid.”

  “It is possible,” the voice said. “I’m way older than you are, kid.”

  “I’m tired of these games,” Sam said. “What do you want from me?”

  “My, you do forget fast. I told you already. I must give you the last gift your father left for you.”

  “Then give it to me now.”

  “Not now. Not here. It wouldn’t be smart.”

  “You already said that.”

  “Ah, so you do remember what I say.”

  A number of curses flashed through Sam’s mind, and she pondered screaming some of them before a clever idea emerged. “If you really knew my father,” she said to the mysterious voice, “you would know what he ate every morning.”

  “Pudding,” the voice said immediately. “Usually vanilla, but sometimes he would have banana cream. Very tasty.”

  Sam frowned. “He only ate banana cream—”

  “On your birthday,” the voice interrupted. “You used to call it ‘nana cream.”

  Sam paused, and it was like some switch suddenly turned on in her head. A flood of old, foggy memories came rushing to her mind. She remembered years of the annual pudding treat she had with her father. Every morning, going back through college, and high school, and grade school, even before. Thoughts of swinging her short legs happily at the kitchen table, humming a little tune as she feasted on her gooey treat.

  “Piffy says he likes it too, daddy,” the six-year-old vision of herself said.

  Her father—much younger and energetic back then—just smiled and nodded.

  “Mommy can’t see Piffy.” Little Sam continued. “She says he’s ‘maginary.”

  “Piffy can just be our little secret, okay?” her beaming father said as he patted her head.

  At first, the memory felt like it had come from a dream, or a TV show that had somehow gotten mixed up in Sam’s head and her brain was feeding her a jumble of real and imaginary images. But as she focused on the details, other memories verified what she saw in her mind’s eye.

  “I remember...you,” Sam said.

  “Good,” the ghostly voice said.

  Sam shook her head so hard that her unruly hair flopped about on her head. “I’m imagining you”, she said. “Just like I did back then. I must be losing my mind.”

  “No, no,” the voice said in a smooth, placating tone. “You’re not losing it. You just found a piece of it you have not used in a while.”

  “You’re not real,” Sam said. “You can’t be.”

  The voice laughed, and said, “Do you really think you’re that crazy?”

  “I’ve been through a lot recently,” Sam said. “I’m more prepared to accept temporary insanity than the existence of fairies.”

  “Elf,” the voice said. “Fairies have wings.”

  “Whatever,” Sam said. “If you have something you want to say to me, just get on with it. I can’t sit out here talking to myself all day.”

  “You get your gift tomorrow,” the boy said.

  Sam’s eyes widened. “When? Where?”

  But there were no more words on the wind. She listened hard, but heard nothing more than the sounds of the city.

  Jess appeared next to her, holding a cup of strawberry frozen yogurt. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “Were you just talking to yourself?” Jess asked.

  “No. Well, maybe. Just...thinking out loud.”

  “You look spooked,” Jess said. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

  “I’m not really sure of anything anymore,” Sam said.

  * * *

  Jess considered taking Sam to a hospital.

  At least, that’s what she said on the ride back from the park. Sam’s entire demeanor had changed, and it scared the hell out of Jess. But Sam kept assuring her she was perfectly fine, and for once Jess believed her.

  They went back to Jess’s condo and Jess tried her best to snap Sam out of her melancholy mood, but nothing worked. Sam’s mind was 20 years in the past, and she was fighting to make sense of what was real and what was fantasy.

  Elves certainly weren’t real. At least, that’s what Sam constantly tried to convince herself of. Elves were born out of stories for children and geeks that played Dungeons and Dragons in their mom’s basement. They weren’t real. So the boy claiming to be an elf had to be something else.

  But if not an elf, what was he?

  It would’ve been easy to dismiss it all as an elaborate ruse if Sam didn’t remember him from her childhood. She remembered that face. She remembered that smell, and that voice. She’d read some research about false memories, and neurons sending mixed up signals. Maybe that was it. Maybe she’d actually seen the boy more recently and just misremembered. Or maybe...something else was going on.

  Sam pondered the possibilities for hours. She wracked her brain for any sign that her memories were betraying her. She found none. She tried to recall if there had been any inconsistencies in the boy’s story. There were none. So her next step was clear. She would take the boy at his word, and see the gift he had to offer.

  So Sam thanked Jessica profusely for all her help and consideration before packing up and heading home. Rupert greeted her with an enthusiastic rub of his snout on her leg. Sam made sure he had food in his bowl, and then she made her way to her bedroom. She slipped off her clothes, showered, and jumped into a warm shirt and a pair of sweatpants. She sat on her bed, stretched, and yawned.

  Then she reached over, opened the single drawer on her nightstand, and pulled out her gun.

  She bought it back when she first moved to the place. Her father hated the idea, but Sam had always been the more practical one in the family. A single woman alone in a house needed to take extra precautions. So she bought a nice, pocket-sized Glock nine millimeter and packed it full of hollow points. She even got a concealed carry license for it. Life in gun-friendly Michigan has its perks.

  Sam would wait for her little elf friend to show up the next day, and see what his “gift” was. And if he tried anything threatening, Sam would give him a gift of her own.

  * * *

  Since her outing with Jess didn’t end up nearly as relaxing as it was supposed to be, Sam decided to take the next day off too. That was only her secondary reasoning though. Since the boy hadn’t specified a time for his appearance, Sam figured it would be safe to stick around the house all day and see what happened.

  Sam hadn’t spent a day at home alone on a weekday in nearly two years. She found it oddly foreign and fascinating. She woke up at 6, as she usually did. But for the first time in a very long while she didn’t have anywhere to go. She decided to enjoy the morning for once, so she sat on her porch with a cup of coffee and watched the world awaken. Some of her neighbors emerged from their homes and gave her surprised looks. But they all waved to her politely. Sam waved back, and watched them drive off to their jobs. It suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea what any of them did for a living.

  A while later she went back inside to find other activities to keep her busy. She turned on the TV and found talk shows on that she didn’t even know existed. Three o’clock came and a flood of schoolkids paraded down her street and chatted about inane schoolyard gossip. Six o’clock rolled around and the neighbors she had greeted in the morning came back home from long days at the office. Sam observed it all with the curiosity of a child looking through the glass of an ant farm.

  But there was no sign of her young friend. For a moment, she thought he might have chickened out. Then she figured it might be more likely that he’d appear at night. Soon, the sun hid behind the horizon and the sky darkened just enough for the stars to shine again. It was a nice evening. The crickets were chirping and the air was fresh. Sam sat in the kitchen and opened some windows. She grabbed a chair, sipped on a mug of hot chocolate, beckoned Rupert to her side, and waited.

  * * *

  Hours passed. The hot chocolate was gone. Sam was
knocked out cold, and lying face-down on her kitchen table. A little trail of drool dangled from her mouth and pooled onto the table. Sam was in perfect, dreamless sleep.

  She never would’ve known someone else was there if Rupert hadn’t barked.

  Rupert’s yelp woke Sam with a start and she was instantly alert. In her mind she cursed herself for letting her guard down. She checked her watch. 11:35.

  She looked down at Rupert and saw him staring into the living room. The lights were off in there. Sam was certain they were on before she dozed off.

  Sam didn’t have Rupert’s excellent senses, but she could still tell something was awry. Some ancient remnant of human evolution told her she was not alone. The back of her neck tingled and her heart raced. She stuffed her hand into the pocket on the belly of her hoodie and clasped the handle of her gun. “I know you’re here,” she said. “Come out where I can see you.”

  She saw his eyes first—two shining orbs in the darkness, approaching slowly. Then dainty feet clad in handmade shoes appeared. Then a pert little nose, and a coppery face sporting a beaming smile with long eyeteeth that looked sharper than Rupert’s.

  “Hallo,” the familiar boy said with a stately bow.

  “You mind telling me how you got in here?” Sam said.

  “I came in through the front door.”

  “When?”

  “Some time ago.”

  “How?”

  The boy shrugged. “I just walked in. Do you have anymore hot chocolate?” He took two steps forward.

  Sam pulled out her gun.

  The boy didn’t even blink, but his smile shifted just a tiny a bit. “Oh, that’s not a nice way to treat a guest.”

  “You’re actually a trespasser, not a guest,” Sam said. “So you just keep your distance and tell me why you’re here.”

  “To give you the gift your father left for you, of course. Just as I said, silly girl.”

  “And where is this gift you were talking about?” Sam said.

  The boy opened his arms wide and said, “Right here! It’s me!”

  “You?” Sam asked with a raised eyebrow.