Chapter 1: The First Turn

The shop crouched at the town’s edge, squat against the dusk’s gray veil. Its walls bore stains from years of weather. Rain and frost had etched lines into the wood like the grain of an ancient tree. It loomed, a stubborn silhouette amid the sprawl of homes that faded into the hillside beyond.

Inside, dust swirled faintly in the still air. A shaft of late sun sliced through streaked panes, gilding shelves where clocks waited. Some remained whole, their faces polished to a dull sheen; others lay broken, hands frozen mid-count, gears spilled like secrets across the wood. The air hummed with the faint rasp of metal and the chorus of springs and ticks—some sharp, others faltering. The rhythm blended into a sound he no longer heard, yet it pulsed through him like blood and flowed as steady as the oil scent clinging to his hands, the wood, the floorboards beneath his boots.

He stood at the workbench, his hands quiet. His shirt hung loose at the collar, a patched vest pulled tight as he bent over an antique clock—a tarnished relic from an estate sale three towns over. He had bought it for a pittance among cracked porcelain and moth-eaten rugs. Its brass casing bore age-pocks; its gears gleamed dully beneath dust. He brushed it away with fingers roughened by craft, muttering of long-gone makers—names vanished, their skill enduring in the metal’s stubborn strength.

The shop was his haven, a world of order carved from chaos. Tools hung on pegs along the walls; hammers, pliers, files—each worn smooth by years of use. A lantern flickered on a shelf, casting jagged shadows across the knot-scarred floorboards. He had worked here since boyhood, apprenticed to an old man whose hands shook but never faltered. Now the place was his, and its silence was a trust he’d grown into.

The clock felt new beneath his hands, a stranger among familiars. He traced its curves with a fingertip, sensing its weight as he pried the casing open. The metal felt cool under his touch; a faint groan rose as the hinges gave. A key nestled inside, brass and oddly warm in his grip, glinting like a secret kept too long. He turned it in his palm—smooth-edged, yet heavy, as though it held more than size allowed. A pulse—or a promise—stirred beneath his fingers.

He fit it to the clock’s core. It clicked into place—precise, sure. He turned it once, a cautious twist born more of instinct than knowledge.

The air shivered.

A ripple passed through the room like a breath caught mid-exhale. A faint squeak split the silence—sharp, fleeting, like a hinge under strain.

And the shop rewove itself.

He stood again before the unopened clock, his hands poised over the workbench as if untouched. Dust lay undisturbed on the brass. The dusk outside hung unchanged, streaking the slate sky with the day’s last light. He blinked. His pulse quickened as he glanced at the wall clock above the counter—six o’clock, not quarter past. Fifteen minutes stolen from the present.

He sat still.

The truth settled in his chest—heavy, cold. He traced it back: the turn, the squeak, the reset. The shop’s shadows stretched long and silent. They bore witness to a theft wrought by his hand. The weight of it settled deep—power and question both.

What could it do?

What might it take?

He rose. His boots creaked on the boards, each step deliberate as he crossed to the back room—a narrow space of shadows and dust, thick with oil and old wood. A scarred table stood against the wall, cluttered with tools and scraps. A screwdriver, chipped. A bent gear. A bottle of wine, left from a night’s labor weeks ago. He poured a glass. The liquid caught the lantern’s flicker, glowing red as old blood. He drank slowly. The taste sharpened, softened—velvet on the tongue. It grounded him against the strangeness that clung to the air.

He returned to the clock, the key warm in his hand like a living thing. He turned it again. Time slipped—smooth as water over stone—and he stood once more with the bottle untouched. The flavor lingered on his lips, a theft savored twice.