The Chime at Hollworth's Clock Shop

Everyone in Shivergrove knew you weren't supposed to be on Marrow Street after the clock tower struck seven, but Ben had never much cared for rules that didn't come with a good explanation attached.

The explanation, as it turned out, was Hollworth's Clock Shop.

It sat wedged between a shuttered bakery and a laundromat that smelled permanently of lint, its window crowded with grandfather clocks, cuckoo clocks, and one enormous clock face with no hands at all, just a painted moon that seemed to watch you as you passed. Old Mr. Hollworth had died years before Ben was born, but the shop never sold, never emptied, and never, according to Ben's grandmother, kept regular hours.

"It keeps its own time," she'd told him, in the voice she used for things she half-believed. "And you don't want to be inside when it decides to strike."

Ben thought that was nonsense right up until the afternoon his little sister Birdie's mitten blew through the shop's cracked door, and she marched in after it before he could stop her.

The bell above the door didn't ring. Instead, something inside went *tick* — slow, deliberate, like a held breath.

"Birdie," Ben hissed, following her in. "Grab it and let's go."

The shop was a forest of clocks, all ticking, none agreeing. Some said noon. Some said midnight. One, Ben noticed with a chill, was ticking backward.

Birdie's mitten had landed atop a glass case near the counter, and inside the case sat a single pocket watch, tarnished silver, its hands frozen at 6:59.

"Don't touch that one," said a voice.

Ben nearly leapt out of his shoes. An old woman had appeared behind the counter — not walked in, just *appeared*, the way a shadow appears when a cloud moves. She had bright, sharp eyes and wore a cardigan buttoned all the way to her chin.

"I'm Mrs. Aldous Hollworth," she said. "I mind the shop. Mostly I mind the watch."

"Why?" Birdie asked, tugging her mitten free.

"Because Mr. Hollworth made a foolish trade a long time ago," Mrs. Hollworth said, "to keep himself young forever. He wound that watch back one minute every night, and every night he got to live the same happy hour over again. Six-fifty-nine to seven o'clock. Sounds harmless. But the watch got greedy. Wanted to keep the whole town in that hour with him."

Ben glanced at the frozen hands. "So the shop clock never strikes seven?"

"Not since Hollworth disappeared into that hour himself," she said. "But the watch still tries. Every year around now, it reaches out — pulls in some curious child who wanders in past closing, looking for a lost mitten or a shortcut or a dare." Her sharp eyes flicked to Birdie. "It very nearly had you."

Birdie's face went pale. "Had me?"

"You touched the case. That's enough of an invitation, some years." Mrs. Hollworth reached beneath the counter and produced a small brass key. "Fortunately, I've had a hundred years' practice keeping doors shut that ought to stay shut."

She turned the key in a slot at the base of the case, and the watch's frozen hands gave one shuddering *tick* — 6:59 sliding, at last, to 7:00.

The moment it did, every clock in the shop struck seven at once, a great clattering chorus of bells and cuckoos and chimes, so loud Ben clapped his hands over his ears. Birdie laughed despite herself, and when the noise finally died, the shop felt different — lighter, like a window had been opened somewhere.

"There," Mrs. Hollworth said, satisfied. "Hour's over. Hollworth can rest, and you two can go home for supper."

She ushered them to the door, the bell above it ringing properly this time, cheerful as any ordinary shop bell.

"Will it happen again?" Ben asked, pausing on the step.

"Every year, around Halloween, that watch gets restless," she admitted. "But so long as somebody's here to wind it forward instead of back, Shivergrove's just fine." She smiled, not unkindly. "Best not linger past seven, though. Just in case I'm out to supper myself."

Walking home, Birdie clutched her mitten and glanced back once at the darkened window, where the moon-faced clock now, unmistakably, had two hands — pointing at seven, and staying there.

"Grandma was right," she said.

"Grandma's usually right," Ben agreed, and they didn't look back again.