The Clockwork Tree

The night air had a quality I can only describe as ‘wrong’. It was the summer of 2003, and I was housesitting for my aunt in her old Victorian home in the hills of Vermont. The house was a labyrinth of shadowy hallways and rooms that smelled of dust and mothballs. My room was at the end of the upstairs corridor, with a window overlooking a garden dominated by a massive, gnarled oak tree that my aunt called the ‘Clockwork Tree’ because of the way its branches seemed to twist like gears.

I had been reading a book about lucid dreaming, trying to understand the strange occurrences I’d had as a child—those moments when I’d wake up floating above my bed or walking through walls. My aunt had warned me that the house had ‘layers’, but I dismissed her as an eccentric old woman. That night, I fell asleep with the book open on my chest, the lamp still on.

I woke to the sensation of falling. But instead of hitting the bed, I passed right through it and found myself standing in the middle of the garden, the moon casting long, distorted shadows. I knew I was dreaming, but it felt more real than any dream. The grass was cold and wet under my bare feet. I touched the bark of the Clockwork Tree, and it felt like wood, but the patterns moved—like the gears of a clock turning slowly. I pulled my hand back, startled.

Then I heard a sound—a rhythmic squeaking, like old machinery. It came from the porch. And there, on the wooden swing, sat a figure. He was an old man, frail, with a face so wrinkled it looked like a map of dried riverbeds. His eyes were the worst part—not just sunken, but deep black pits with tiny pinpricks of red light at the center, like dying embers. He wore an ancient, moth-eaten suit, and his hands clutched a pocket watch that was too large for his grip.

I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t open. The old man tilted his head, and the gears in the tree began to grind louder. He spoke, but his voice sounded like it came from under the ground, through layers of dirt. ‘You’re late,’ he said. ‘The tree has been waiting.’

I took a step back, and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I spun around. It was my aunt, but not my aunt—her face was smooth as porcelain, and her eyes were like the old man’s, red pinpricks. ‘Don’t be rude,’ she said in a voice that was not hers. ‘The Master of the Clockwork has come to collect your time.’

I wrenched myself free and ran. But the garden stretched and warped, the tree’s branches reaching out like grasping fingers. I dove into the house, slamming the door behind me. But the house was no longer my aunt’s. The walls were covered in ticking clocks, each with a different time, all wrong. My heart was pounding as I raced up the stairs, but the corridor kept lengthening, and the doors were all sealed shut.

Finally, I burst into my room. The lamp was on, the book was closed on the nightstand. I was back in my body, drenched in sweat. I looked at the clock—2:00 AM, exactly. I tried to laugh it off as a nightmare, but something was wrong. The window was open, and the screen was bent outward, as if something had pushed through from the outside. I closed the window and pulled the curtains, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.

The next morning, I called my aunt. She told me that the old man who used to live in that house, a watchmaker by trade, had died in the garden under that oak tree back in 1985. They never found the body, only his pocket watch, still ticking. She said, ‘You must have had a dream about him. He appears to those who sleep in that room, especially when they dabble in the astral. He’s not malicious, but he’s incomplete. He needs to finish, and he mistakes visitors for his apprentices.’

I moved out the next day. But I still have that pocket watch. I found it on my nightstand when I woke up. I’ve kept it in a metal box in my closet, but every night, at 2:00 AM, I hear it ticking. And sometimes, when I close my eyes, I feel that smooth porcelain face of my aunt leaning close, whispering, ‘The tree is still hungry.’

I haven’t astral projected since. But last night, I saw the clockwork tree in my bedroom mirror—its branches moving like gears, turning. And I realized the watch in my closet has stopped at exactly 2:00 AM. And the ticking I hear isn’t the watch; it’s coming from inside my own head, counting down to something I don’t want to know.