The Clockwork Tulip

When I was six, my grandmother gave me a music box. It was a delicate thing, painted with a single crimson tulip, and when you wound the key, it played a tinny, halting waltz. I named it ‘The Clockwork Tulip’ and I loved it dearly. We lived in a small, damp house near the Vesterhavet, where the wind never truly stopped, and the salt ate at the paint on the window frames. My room faced the sea, and on stormy nights, the waves pounded like a frantic heartbeat.”

My grandmother had passed when I was four, and I barely remembered her. But the music box stayed on my nightstand, and every night I wound it and listened to the tune before sleep. It was my comfort, a small anchor in a world of weather and quiet.”

One evening, after the music had wound down, I heard a sound from the box. Not the tune, but a faint scratching, like something trying to get out. I touched the lid, and it was cold, colder than the wood should be. I thought it was my imagination, so I wound it again and listened. The waltz played, but there was an odd undercurrent, a somber hum I had never heard before.”

That night, I dreamed of a tall man in a black coat, standing at the foot of my bed. He had no face, just a smooth, pale void where his features should be. He tilted his head as if listening, and then he raised a hand, and in his palm was a single tulip, the same crimson as on the music box. He placed it on my nightstand, and it dissolved into the wood, leaving a faint ring.”

I woke with a start, and the music box was open. I had not opened it. The key was slowly turning on its own, as if wound by an invisible hand, and the tune it played was a slower, melancholic version of the waltz. I tried to stop it, but the key would not budge. It played until the spring tired, and then stopped with a click that sounded like a latch.”

My mother, a pragmatic woman, dismissed it as a mechanical quirk. But over the following weeks, the visits became more frequent. The faceless man began to appear at the edge of my vision, always near the window. He never moved unless I did, and when I blinked, he would be a step closer. The music box would play at odd hours, even when I hadn’t touched it, and sometimes the tune would be wrong, warped, as if the notes were being bent.”

One night, I woke to hear the waltz, but it was coming from the hallway outside my door. I crept to the door and looked through the crack. The hallway was dark, but I could see a figure standing at the end, near the coat rack. It wore a black coat, and it was swaying gently to the music, its head tilted. I froze. It turned toward me, and I saw that it had no face, but where eyes should be, there were two small, dark hollows like the holes in a mask. It reached out a long, white hand, and in its palm was the tulip again, but this time it was wilting, its petals curling at the edges.”

It spoke, but not with a mouth. I heard its voice in my head, a dry, rustling sound like dead leaves. ‘The last one,’ it said. ‘You are the last.'”

I slammed the door shut and pressed my back against it. The music box on my nightstand began to play, the same slowed waltz, and the key turned faster, faster, until it made a high-pitched whine. Then it stopped. A click, and the lid snapped open. Inside, the tiny ballerina that had once spun on a mirror was still, her painted face staring up at the ceiling. On the mirror, etched in fine lines, was a single word: ‘Wait.'”

I didn’t sleep that night. I huddled in my bed, clutching the music box, which was cold and silent. In the morning, my father found me and asked why I looked so pale. I told him about the man, and he laughed, but his laughter was forced. He told me I had a vivid imagination, and that we should get rid of the music box. But I refused. I felt that if I let it go, something worse would happen.”

Over the next days, I began to see the tulip everywhere. In the garden, a single crimson flower that had not been there before. In the kitchen, a jar of jam that seemed to have a swirl of red in it. In the mirror, a fleeting reflection of a pale figure behind me. The music box would play by itself, and the waltz became faster, more frantic, like a heartbeat racing. I tried to throw it away, but it always found its way back, on my pillow, under my blanket.”

On the final night, the man appeared in my room, standing between my bed and the window. The moonlight was behind him, and his shadow stretched like tentacles across the floor. He held the music box in his hands, and he was winding it. The tune played, but it was the proper waltz now, and it seemed to slow the world. The wind outside, which had been howling, grew quiet. The waves stopped. Even the ticking of the clock on the wall fell silent.”

He placed the music box on my nightstand, and then he reached out and touched my forehead. His hand was ice, and I felt a cold seep into my bones. Images flooded my mind: a woman in a long dress, a man with a beard, children running through a field of tulips. They were all strangers, but I knew them. They were my great-grandparents, my great-uncles, my cousins many times over. They were all turning to look at me, and their faces were blank, smooth, like his. And then they began to fade, one by one, until only the faceless man remained.”

‘The last one,’ he said again. ‘You are the last. And you will join them.'”

I woke the next morning, in my bed, the music box on the nightstand, the tulip painted on its lid now a faded grey. I opened it. The ballerina was gone, and the mirror inside was cracked. I never saw the man again, but I knew he was waiting. The music box still sits on my shelf, and sometimes, when the wind blows from the sea, I think I can hear the faint strains of a waltz, and I know that when I finally sleep, I will be one of them.