The Clockmaker’s Promise

The little shop sat at the end of a narrow cobblestone street, where the gas lamps seemed to burn a fraction dimmer than anywhere else. Its windows were clouded with dust and speckled with the remains of old rain, the sign above the door so faded you could barely make out the words T. Wren, Horologist.

If you didn’t already know it was there, you would walk right past it. Most people did.

Elsie had been here before—when she was seven, clutching her grandfather’s hand, staring at the ticking forest of pendulums, dials, and winding keys. The air was thick with the smell of brass polish and machine oil, and every clock in the shop had a different voice. Some ticked crisply, others hesitated like they had to think about each second before letting it go.

Now she stood alone at the counter, twenty-one today, shifting from foot to foot.

A door creaked open in the back, and Mr. Wren appeared, wiping his hands on a rag. His gray hair stood in haphazard peaks, and his eyes, magnified behind his spectacles, studied her with unnerving precision.

“Ah,” he said slowly, as though trying out the sound of her presence. “Elsie Whitcombe. I suppose you’ve come for your grandfather’s watch.”

She nodded.

He reached under the counter and set it down before her: a small brass pocket watch, warm in tone, its surface polished to a mirror-soft gleam. The hands moved in perfect unison, and the second hand’s sweep felt… purposeful.

“He told me to give you this on your twenty-first birthday,” Mr. Wren said, leaning on the counter. “And to tell you something.”

She looked up. “What?”

His gaze flickered to the dark shelves behind her, then back again. “Can you keep a secret?”

A chill ran up her spine, though she didn’t know why. “Yes.”

“Good,” he murmured. “Because this doesn’t just tell time. It borrows it. A minute here, an hour there—from people who waste it. From those who never notice it missing.”

Elsie gave a short laugh, expecting him to smile. He didn’t.

“You’ll never be late again,” he continued. “Deadlines, appointments… gone in an instant. But time is a balance. Every second has to come from somewhere.”

He slid the watch toward her, and she picked it up. The moment her fingers touched it, she swore the ticking grew louder—not in the air, but in her head. It was like a second heartbeat.

The first time she used it was almost accidental. She had overslept, her bus already pulling away at the end of the street. She remembered the way Mr. Wren had shown her to wind the stem twice, sharply.

The world… shivered. The bus, impossibly, was there again, brakes squealing. She boarded, heart pounding, and realized with an uneasy thrill that she was early.

She started using it more often. To finish assignments in record time. To avoid awkward conversations. To breeze through tedious shifts at work. When she wound the stem, she would feel a faint tug, like the watch was plucking something from the air—and someone, somewhere, was just a little bit poorer in time.

It was harmless, she told herself. She was taking from the careless. From people who wasted their hours scrolling, gossiping, dozing through their days.

Weeks passed before she noticed the first change. She caught her reflection in a shop window and froze. A deep crease had formed between her brows, one that hadn’t been there yesterday. She told herself she was imagining it.

Then came the grey hair at her temple.

And the ache in her knees on cold mornings.

By the third month, she could no longer deny it—her body was older. Not ancient, but older than twenty-one. Twenty-five, maybe twenty-six. She hid it with makeup, with longer sleeves, but in the mirror she saw it: the faint slackening of skin, the heaviness in her gaze.

The watch ticked on, hungry.

She went back to Mr. Wren’s shop, heart hammering.

He was polishing a mantel clock, and didn’t look up when she entered. “You’ve been using it.”

“You didn’t tell me it would take from me,” she hissed.

His sigh was slow. “It doesn’t. Not at first. But borrowing time is like borrowing money. Interest comes due.”

Elsie gripped the counter. “Then take it back. I don’t want it.”

He finally looked at her, pity in his eyes. “You can’t give it back. The watch is bound. The only way to be free is to let it run out.”

Her voice shook. “And when it runs out?”

His silence told her everything.

That night, Elsie locked the watch in a drawer, determined never to use it again. But she began waking in the dark with the sound of its ticking in her ears—louder, closer. She started finding it in places she hadn’t left it: on her desk, on the pillow beside her head, once clutched in her own hand though she had no memory of picking it up.

Her friends began to notice the changes. “You’ve been stressed,” they said gently. “You look tired.” She smiled and lied, but inside, terror gnawed at her.

By her twenty-second birthday, Elsie’s hair had more silver than black. Her skin was paper-thin. She no longer needed to wind the watch—it ticked faster on its own, counting down the debt she could never repay.

The last time she went to the shop, she could barely walk. Mr. Wren met her at the door, his expression unreadable.

“You’re early,” he said softly.

She managed a weak laugh. “Guess I’ve got time to spare.”

He shook his head. “No, Elsie. You’re right on schedule.”

The watch in her pocket gave one final, deliberate tick.

And the world went still.

Epilogue

The shop sat empty for months after Elsie’s death. Dust thickened over the shelves, and the air grew stale without the rhythm of ticking clocks.

Then, one rainy evening, the bell above the door jingled. A young man stepped inside, shaking water from his hood. He was perhaps nineteen, lean, with the restless energy of someone impatient to be somewhere else.

The counter was empty. He hesitated, then spotted a single object resting in the center—no glass case, no tag, no note. Just a small brass pocket watch.

It was warm when he picked it up, almost pulsing in his palm.

From somewhere in the back of the shop, a voice drifted out, gentle but low:

“Can you keep a secret?”

The boy smiled faintly, not sensing the weight behind the words.

“My lips are sealed.”

The door shut behind him with a soft click, and the street outside seemed suddenly darker.

Inside the drawer of the counter, beneath a pile of yellowed receipts, sat a faded newspaper clipping.

Local Woman Dies After Rapid Onset Aging — Doctors Baffled.

No one ever noticed it was dated exactly one year ago.