Category Archives: Northern Gothic

Author’s Note: Respond to a Twitter post on Monday. Write all week. Draft and revise on Saturday. Edit on Sunday. Repeat as needed, I guess.

“Don’t forget your lunch,” Bonnie Fender reminded Timothy as he dashed through the cramped little kitchen. The bag waited in its customary place: on the edge of counter in front of the microwave. Right by the door to the garage.

“What kinda chips?” He slung his worn backpack to the floor and shoved the lunch inside.

She didn’t look up from the onion she was dicing. “Your favorite. Got your library books?”

“Yep.”

He reached for the door.

“Not in the same pocket as your lunch I hope.” Chop chop chop.

Timothy sighed in a very put-out way and moved the lunch to the bag’s outer pocket.

She smiled her usual half-grin. “Uh huh. Dad’ll pick you up at four forty-five. Front of the library. Don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

“And don’t talk to strangers.” Now she gestured with her knife. The smell of onion wafted his way.

“I never do.”

“I love you, Baby Boy.”

He groaned. “Love you too, Mom.” The words came by rote, like grace at suppertime, the national anthem, or the Lord’s Prayer—acts so ingrained they no longer required thought.

Timothy had fixed his father’s old Schwinn, abandoned to the junk side of the shed. When Randy saw his son’s work, he visited every pawn shop, church, and yard sale in half the county to purchase do-it-yourself manuals, car repair guides, and home improvement books. The collection gathered dust on Timothy’s little bedroom bookcase. The boy read them out of courtesy and respect, but that was as far as things got. There was never money for home repair. His Dad was lifelong friends with Joe of Joe’s Auto repair and so got the best friend discount. His Mom prohibited him from tinkering with her appliances, many of which had seen better days. 

Now he bumped and rattled down the gravel road, headed toward the blacktop secondary that teed at Redshannon Road. From there he pedaled hard down the white shoulder line straight to town. Thirty minutes and five miles later—give or take—he would arrive at any one of several under-the-table jobs befitting a thirteen year old. 

The Havelocks lived in one of the town’s few mansions, a leftover from timber baron days.

“It’s historically registered,” Mrs. Havelock reminded him every Monday when she set him to work on the lawn. “So be very careful as you go.” He had never met Mr. Havelock, though he had seen the beady-eyed man watching through a first floor window, and smelled the cigar smoke while he waited on the porch. They never allowed him inside.

On Tuesdays he stopped at the quaint little cottage of Miss Blum. She was young, had taught his third grade class, and loved to redecorate. 

“Can you help me rearrange the living room?” she asked every few months. 

He had also cleaned the basement, helped change all the window treatments, and exchanged the old second floor bedroom suite with a brand new set. It’s just as well, Timothy thought. The yard only takes thirty minutes.

Mrs. Grantham had him weed the prize flowerbeds that surrounded their split-level. Mr. Grantham gave him run of the weed-eater.

“She don’t complain when you do it,” he confided to Timothy and gave him an extra ten. That was Wednesdays.

And old Mr. Schwartz wanted his grass cut every Thursday. All two and a half acres. With a pushmower. “Gotta build those muscles for Junior Varsity baseball,” he insisted. “That’s what I did when I was your age.”

Timothy didn’t think it wise to suggest he had no interest in sports.

But if the purpose for his Schwinn was freedom, his labor had purpose beyond Friday ice cream money and college savings as well. He had stumbled upon a problem, and his clients were just four of a community of test subjects.

Mrs. Havelock wore a dainty watch with shiny stones in the bezel.

“It’s a lovely watch.” He only glanced up for a moment as she inspected his weeding-in-progress.

“Why thank you, Timothy. I bought it from The Timekeeper over on Main Street.”

“I should stop by there. Mom’s birthday is coming up and…”

Mrs. Havelock’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I’m sorry, Timothy. Where?”

“The Timekeeper?”

She touched her cheek and stared at the house. “Now, I don’t believe I’ve heard of that place.”

The same thing happened with all of his clients. Miss Blum had purchased a mantel clock there, but couldn’t name the place a moment later. Mrs. Grantham’s grandfather clock filled the living room with ticks and chimes, but when she wasn’t looking directly at it, she couldn’t name the seller either. Even Mr. Schwartz, who prided himself on remembering the worst rosters of his beloved Pittsburgh Pirates, could not remember where he had gotten his watch fixed. That seemed truly bizarre to Timothy, because Schwartz loved to tap his finger on it, a non-verbal warning that time was a-wasting.

“Mom,” he asked one evening at dinner. “Have you ever heard of The Timekeeper?”

“The who?” she shoveled another helping of mashed potato on to her plate.

“It’s a watchmaker. On Main Street.”

She shook her head.

“There’s no watchmaker on Main.”

“Timekeeper,” Timothy corrected. “Just before the turn. The shop backs up on Redshannon Creek.”

Randy stared dubiously. “Are you on… drugs?” he whispered the last word. Bonnie stopped eating, her meatloaf hanging from her fork.

“No,” Timothy insisted. His parents laughed.

“Well, that’s a relief,” his Mom said between chews. His dad motioned for the last of the green beans. Timothy watched the minute hand of their plastic wall clock and puzzled. Through his job, his parents, the public librarians, his teachers, and even a few random strangers, he had made a discovery: most folks had been to The Timekeeper, but no one remembered it.

With Mr. Schwartz’s yard complete, Timothy rode down to the shop no one recalled. He chained his bike to a light post and walked in. At once, three clocks chimed the hour. He checked his watch.

They were all wrong.

“Be out in a moment,” came a lighthearted voice from behind a faded beige curtain.

The shop was clean, at least by Miss Blum’s standards. A set of glass lantern and carriage clocks had been displayed on a linen covered table by the window. Their insides whirred and tinked along in a steady rhythm. Grandfather and other longbox clocks attended like wooden soldiers awaiting inspection against the adjacent wall. Opposite, the owner had placed a set of shelves where other antique and mantel clocks formed a ticking skyline of wood, ebony, gold, and silver. The smaller clocks lived on the ends, while a mahogany carriage clock took pride of place. Above the shelves, the wall had been crowded in white or silver-faced pendulum clocks and cuckoo clocks painted with colorful trees and birds, their characters emerging from alpine-scene windows. They hung high and low, and everything, Timothy noted, was free of dust.

He approached the glass case along the back wall. It too was clean, and pocket watches in gold and dark wood lay in satin bedding beside silver ones that revealed their inner workings. There were men’s watches with leather bands and gold faces; women’s watches like Mrs. Havelock’s but even fancier. Timepieces on silver chains. Everything ticked along in comforting certainty, but none of the times were right.

“Hello!” 

Timothy startled.

“So sorry,” said the man. And Timothy thought he looks faded. The shopkeeper was elderly, rumpled, and had thrown an old grey cardigan over a white dress shirt, half untucked. Like Einstein or Twain had been dunked in the creek and tumbled through the dryer. But this bushy old man wore silver framed spectacles as well, and carried a gnarled walking stick.

“It’s ok,” Timothy said and stopped. “I was looking for a present… for… my mom.” Dumb. Why didn’t you plan this out? 

“Oh? Very good. Now, your name, sir?”

“Timothy.” 

“Remarkable. That’s my name as well.” The old man adjusted his sliding glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

He doesn’t have the tired eyes of some older folks, Timothy noticed.

“So that we can tell each other apart, why don’t you be Timothy, and I’ll be Old Tim?”

Despite himself, Timothy smiled. “That sounds good.”

“Yes, yes, it does,” Old Tim agreed. “Now how much are you willing to spend on your mother?”

The color drained from Timothy’s face. “I… I only have twelve dollars.”

Old Tim clucked in dismay. “Well that’s just not enough for anything I’ve got in my store. Perhaps you’d come back later? Bring your father with you?” He motioned Timothy toward the door.

“W-wait!” Timothy balled his fists at his sides. Now or never. “Old Tim. Sir.”

“Mm?” Old Tim looked down his nose at the boy. 

Timothy was certain those steely eyes were not the eyes of an old man, and that the shopkeeper could read his mind. He sighed. No way out but through. Just like school.

“This isn’t really about my mother. You see…” And he told Old Tim about his findings. The shopkeeper twitched his mustache and adjust his glasses several times as Timothy explained Miss Blum’s mantel clock and Mr. Schwartz’s wristwatch. The man pulled up a metal stool that screeched as he dragged it across the wood floor and leaned in as Timothy presented more evidence. Mrs. Grantham’s grandfather clock. Jenny the reference librarian, who couldn’t even tell him where the store was, even with the Internet. Mrs. Havelock’s glittering watch and his parents’ inexplicable ignorance.

“…and that’s when I finally decided to seek you out. To get the truth—“ He cut himself off, aware that he had been flapping his arms and pacing, and now Old Tim sat motionless still staring down his nose, not even a twitch of his mustache to reveal his thoughts. 

“Please don’t kill me.” Timothy closed his eyes and scrunched his shoulders, waiting for the inevitable deathblow. Dummy. Stupidest last words ever.

Nothing.

He slowly opened his eyes. Old Tim still hadn’t moved.

“Sir?”

Old Tim’s face sagged. Not much, but enough that Timothy noticed. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to forget everything you just shared?”

Timothy shook his head. “I’ve tried. But it’s like when I see a machine that needs fixing, or a task that needs doing, or a book that needs reading. It just gets in there.”

“So you really want the truth?” Old Tim crossed his arms.

“Will it hurt? Will you have to kill me?” Timothy shied back a step.

Old Tim smiled and tapped his fingers on the glass case. “Most truth hurts, young man. But if this bit kills you, it won’t be because of me.”

Timothy’s shoulders relaxed. “Okay then. I want the truth.”

“And you shall have it.” Old Tim thumped his walking stick and wriggled his mustache. “First, you should know that while I am—or was—a watchmaker, I am now also a Timekeeper.”

“Timekeeper? Like your store name?” 

“Mm-hm.”

“Or like in gym class?”

Old Tim laughed in a surprisingly high wheeze. “Both. Kind of. When it comes to time there are lords and masters, paladins and conquerors. All manner of being with a host of agendas.”

“So which are you?” Tim searched the old man for a badge of status, but he wasn’t even wearing a watch.

The Timekeeper waved his cane. “None of those. I’m just me. I do a job, just like your folks. Just like everybody else in town.”

“You know we have high unemployment,” Timothy observed. “I read in the paper—”

“You’re a bright lad, but my goodness. Unemployment doesn’t mean you don’t have a job.” Old Tim pretended to wave the idea away. “It means you don’t have a job that makes money. There’s a difference.”

Timothy scratched his stubbly head. 

“Will you walk with me?” He motioned for the boy to follow him behind the counter and through the faded curtain. Timothy looked wary; Old Tim sensed the cause. “I’ll go first. You’re younger, faster, and if you feel threatened at any point, you will be able to run away easily. Alright?”

Timothy stared in wonder at the back room. It was cluttered with clocks, trays of gears and pins and wheels of every conceivable size and type. Delicate paper thin tin and wood wheels. Gold and silver ones. Crystals, jewel pins, and bezels. Cases of wood and precious metal large and small. Little chains and clasps. Tools cluttered the long workbench. He paused at the latest project—a golden pocket watch. “Could you teach me?”

Old Tim paused to look back. “To be a Timekeeper?”

“To be a watchmaker?”

“Oh, that? That’s easy. We’ll see.”

A battered plank door of very old greyed wood hung on the far wall. Old Tim grabbed a flashlight from a hook and opened it.

“After me, right? It’s a long way down, so let me know if you change your mind.” He stepped into the gloom. Timothy followed.

As they walked, it occurred to Timothy that he had broken his mother’s rule about talking to strangers, and worse, nobody knew where he was. But Old Tim still hadn’t seemed like a threat. Well, like much of one.

“The town dates back to the late seventeen hundreds, but this post had been established long before…”

In fact, he seemed to know a lot about the history and geography of the area, which Timothy found intriguing.

“…which means ‘red wise river’… the locals believed there was knowledge to be found here in the water, but depending on how the sun hit it, it glowed red, and that made folks nervous. Well, rightfully so, I guess, it wasn’t the creek alone glowing red…”

“How much further?” Timothy noticed that the walls of the passage were damp. He stepped carefully, and wondered how it was that Old Tim hadn’t taken a tumble already. Maybe he has, but who would help him?

“Only a little.” Old Tim had kept a good pace, and Timothy soon found his eyesight had adjusted.

“Wait. Is it just me, or is there light ahead?”

“There’s light, unfortunately.” They reached a level place, and Old Tim now flashed his light on another plank door, this one more worn and rotted than the first. Light glowed around its battered edges.

“You ready?” Old Tim asked.

Timothy nodded. Took a deep breath. Heat came from the other side as well.

Old Tim led him into a vaulted, torchlit chamber. In the center sat a metal lid five feet across. It had no handles, only the mechanism of a clock—what looked like a largish pocket watch—embedded in the center.

“What is it?” Timothy asked.

“A doorway to Hell,” Old Tim said. “And this here,” he rested his hand on a lever in the stone, “is a way to route the Redshannon Creek directly into this room.”

“You’re kidding.” Timothy was awestruck. He stepped toward the lid.

“Sadly not,” The Timekeeper said. “Let me show you.”

He motioned to a small door on the lid. They both got on their knees, and the Timekeeper slid it back to reveal a crystal viewportal into the abyss. The bezel had been etched with runes and symbols, but they were secondary to Timothy. He was entranced by the spirals of light and heat, and by the creatures that flapped and rode the updrafts in the flaming depths. Forms crawled and slithered around the rocky crags. Something hurled itself against the portal. Leathery wings blocked the view.

“That’s enough.” The Timekeeper slid the door shut.

“The characters—Chinese? Runes?”

He patted the boy’s shoulder. “A little of everything. The collected knowledge of the world exists across time, so to make the best seal, you need to access everywhere.”

They trudged back up the tunnel; Timothy felt weightier with his newfound knowledge. Like he was more substantial for knowing. Like there was more to him than before.

“So you don’t want anybody to know the portal is here? Is that why they don’t know about the shop?”

Old Tim had given Timothy the light and told him to lead so that he could run if he chose, but that didn’t seem to stop the shopkeeper from matching the boy’s pace.

“Partly,” he said. “But the strength of people is people. So a little more knowledge across a little more time across a few more people, and it becomes harder for anything to break through.”

“So what you’re saying is the more we connect, the more we protect?”

Old Tim laughed. “You are a worthy apprentice, my boy.”

When they returned to the showroom, Timothy asked again if he could learn to be a watchmaker.

“And maybe a Timekeeper, too?”

The old man nodded. “Let me see your watch.”

“I’m not wearing one.”

“Oh!” he opened the case. “Then take this one. I have some protections in place, but when it’s time for you to return, you’ll know it.”

“But I don’t have the money—“

“A gift, then. For an exceptional day with an exceptional young man. If your folks are worried, you can say it was for helping me clean my shop.” He set the time on the watch and handed it to the boy.

“Thank you,” Timothy said. “But I’m curious about something else. Why are all of your clocks set to the wrong times?”

Old Tim tapped his temple. “Oh, they’re all the right times. Just not the right places. More connections…”

Timothy grinned. “I get it. Connections with people across time and place.”

Old Tim motioned him to the door. “Have a great day, Timothy.”

The boy waved. “I’ll be back on Monday!”

The old man smiled as the boy unlocked his bike and rode away, then turned his sign so that “We’re Closed” faced outward. He would become someone new tomorrow. Someone drastically different. Perhaps he would become a woman. Or change his skin color. The shop would have to disappear of course. A drop of illusion and a dollop of man’s natural tendencies would solve that problem.

As for Timothy, the Timekeeper chuckled his wheezy chuckle. The boy was powerful, and might well return. But the charm would slow him down, as it did everyone else, and if the shop, the evidence, and Old Tim were gone, Timothy would have nothing but a ghost story to share. It would hurt, but both of them would be safer. All humanity would be safer, the Timekeeper thought. Better a boy with a ghost story than to face an angry mob over a gate to Hell.