The Clock That Wakes

September 25, 2012

by Weston

3 min read

Story Premise 3 min read (556 words)

"When Mira and her six-year-old son, Leo, moved into the old farmhouse on Cedar Lane, she told herself the creaks and groans were just the wind and the house settling. She was more afraid of the rusty furnace or a broken lock than of spirits. Leo, however, often stared at the corner of his room, […]"

When Mira and her six-year-old son, Leo, moved into the old farmhouse on Cedar Lane, she told herself the creaks and groans were just the wind and the house settling. She was more afraid of the rusty furnace or a broken lock than of spirits. Leo, however, often stared at the corner of his room, whispering to ‘the lady in the window,’ but Mira chalked it up to an overactive imagination.

Then, two weeks ago, her antique wind-up alarm clock, a wedding gift from her grandmother, began to behave strangely. Every morning at 6:30 AM, the alarm would ring, and when Mira stumbled over to silence it, the clock would be lying face down on the floor, its brass bells bent. The first time, she dismissed it as a clumsy accident. But it happened again the next day, and the next. She started setting it on the nightstand, but it still ended up on the floor. She even tried removing the bells, and the clock just sat there, silent, its hands spinning wildly. In her sleep-deprived state, she began to doubt her own memory.

Her ex-husband, a practical man, came over to fix the furnace and laughed at her fears. ‘It’s a draft,’ he said, setting the clock on a high shelf. ‘Or maybe you’re just a sleepwalker.’ But that night, as Mira tucked Leo in, he pointed at his window and said, ‘The lady is watching your clock again.’ Mira’s blood ran cold. She returned to her room, and the clock was on the floor, shattered. In the shards, she saw letters etched into the wood beneath the paint: ‘WAKE UP.’

She called her ex-husband, who came over and helped her peel back the ancient wallpaper. Beneath it, they found dozens of scratched messages: ‘NOT YOURS,’ ‘LEO IS MINE,’ ‘SHE SLEEPS.’ They also found a hidden hatch in the closet floor. Inside, a dusty, moth-eaten baby dress and a tarnished locket with a faded photograph of a woman who looked exactly like Mira. The clock’s mainspring was coiled around a yellowed note: ‘I buried my son under the oak. You took his room.’

Trembling, Mira dug beneath the huge oak in the backyard and unearthed a tiny rusted jar. Inside was a lock of auburn hair and a child’s wooden whistle. That night, the clock rang at 3:00 AM, for the first time ever. Mira woke to find Leo standing at her bedside, his eyes wide, holding the broken clock. ‘She says the bells are for my funeral,’ he whispered. Mira grabbed Leo and ran to her car, but the engine wouldn’t start. Through the rearview mirror, she saw a figure in the farmhouse window—the woman from the locket, holding the clock up, winding it slowly.

Now, Mira and Leo live in a sterile apartment in town. She no longer uses an alarm clock; she uses her phone. But every morning, at exactly 6:30, her phone’s screen flickers to life with the time 3:00 AM, and a faint, tinny ringing echoes from the walls. Leo has started talking to ‘the lady’ again, and he says she’s moved their furniture around in the night. Mira lies awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering how long before they find the next message carved into the floorboards of this new, old place.

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