The Clockmaker’s Constant

My name is Elias Thorne, and for three years, from 2017 to 2020, I lived in a rented cottage on the outskirts of a village called Hethering. The cottage, known locally as ‘The Old Post’, had once been a small post office and clockmaker’s shop. The previous occupant, a man named Mr. Abernathy, had been found dead in his workshop, surrounded by dozens of stopped clocks. The village folk said he had died of a heart attack, but they also whispered that he had been trying to fix something that shouldn’t be fixed.

I am a horologist, a restorer of antique timepieces. It was a quiet trade, and The Old Post with its attached workshop seemed ideal. I moved in with my tools, my reference books, and a crate of broken clocks waiting for repair. The cottage had a peculiar atmosphere, a heavy stillness that I initially attributed to its age. The workshop, a dusty room at the back, was cluttered with gears, pendulums, and clock faces. In the center of the workshop, on a workbench, sat a single clock that I had never seen before. It was a tall-case clock, made of dark oak, with a brass face that was tarnished but not unreadable. The hands were frozen at 11:58.

At first, I paid little attention to it. I set about cleaning the workshop, cataloging the items. But I noticed that every time I tried to work on a clock, it would stop. Not just the clock I was repairing, but all the clocks in the room. They would tick irregularly, then halt, as if some invisible hand was stopping them. I would reset them, and they would run for a few minutes, then stop again. It was maddening. I began to feel as though the workshop itself was resisting my efforts, as if the space was charged with something I could not see.

One evening, as dusk settled, I decided to examine the tall-case clock more closely. I opened the glass door and peered inside. The pendulum was still, but the mechanism looked intricate, with gears of a design I had never encountered. The gears were not brass or steel, but a dark, almost black metal, and they were etched with symbols that seemed to writhe when I looked at them directly. I reached out to touch one of the gears, and a jolt of cold shot up my arm. I pulled back, and for a moment, I could have sworn I heard a faint ticking, a rapid rhythm like a heartbeat, coming from the clock.

I tried to ignore it, but the strange occurrences continued. Lights would flicker, shadows would shift in the corners of my vision, and I began to hear faint scratching sounds from inside the walls. My sleep was disturbed by dreams of a man in a long coat, bending over a workbench, muttering to himself. He would turn to me, and his face was gaunt, his eyes hollow. He would hold up a gear and say, ‘It must keep time.’ Then he would point at the tall-case clock.

I decided to research the clock. I found no records in the village, but I recalled that Mr. Abernathy had been something of a recluse, obsessed with time. I managed to locate a diary of his in a box of old papers in the attic. It was filled with rambling entries about ‘the constant’, ‘the great harmonic’, and ‘the endless tick’. The final entry, dated just before his death, read: ‘I have nearly solved it. The clock must strike midnight, but it must never reach twelve. If it does, what was will be, and what is will cease.’

The fear that had been simmering in me began to boil. I wanted to leave, but I had signed a year’s lease, and I was stubborn. I decided that the only way to regain control was to understand the clock. I spent days studying it, trying to map its gears. The symbols on the metal seemed familiar, almost like astrological signs, but twisted. I found that if I hummed a particular low tone, the pendulum would swing slightly. I felt as though I was on the verge of something, that the clock was trying to tell me something.

One night, I was working in the workshop, the tall-case clock ticking softly in the background, though I had not wound it. It had been running on its own since I started my research. I was tired, but I was determined to see what would happen at midnight. At 11:57, I stood before the clock, watching the hands. At 11:58, the clock stopped. The silence was oppressive. I felt a presence behind me, and I turned. Old Mr. Abernathy was there, translucent but unmistakable, his face twisted in pain. ‘You must not let it strike,’ he said, his voice like wind through dead leaves. ‘I tried to hold it back, but I was not strong enough. You must break the mechanism.’

I turned back to the clock. The hands were now at 11:59. The ticking resumed, louder, faster. I saw the gears spinning wildly, and the symbols glowed with a sickening light. I knew I had to act. I grabbed a heavy wrench from my tool bench and brought it down on the clock face. The glass shattered, and the hands stopped. The ticking ceased. But then, from deep within the mechanism, I heard a sound like a great exhale, and the clock began to emit a low hum that vibrated through my bones.

The workshop lights flickered and went out. In the darkness, I could see the clock’s gears glowing red, and the symbols on them seemed to crawl. I felt a pull, as if the clock was trying to drag me into its mechanism. I fought against it, stumbling backward. I heard Mr. Abernathy’s voice again, but now it was desperate: ‘You’ve made it angry. It will always be here. You cannot leave.’ I felt a cold hand on my shoulder, and I screamed.

I collapsed and woke up hours later on the floor of the workshop. The clock was still, its hands frozen at 11:59. I got up, packed my belongings, and left that very morning. I broke my lease and moved away. I have not returned since. But sometimes, at night, I hear a faint ticking from somewhere inside my house, even now, in a different city. And when I look at my own wristwatch, I see that it has stopped at 11:59. I know that the clock is not done with me. It wants me to finish what Mr. Abernathy started. And I fear that one day, I will not be able to resist.