The Cuckoo Hour

The day we arrived in the small Bavarian village of Grünwald, the sky was the color of a bruise, and a persistent drizzle slicked the cobblestones. Our rental apartment was above a bakery that had been closed for years, its windows papered over with yellowed notices. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of dust and old wood. The only light came from a single bulb swinging from a frayed cord in the center of the living room, casting long shadows that danced with our movements. A massive bookshelf dominated one wall, crammed with leather-bound volumes, their spines embossed with Gothic script. I ran my fingers along them, the leather cold and slick. The titles were all in German, but one, slightly larger than the others, caught my eye: ‘Die Stunden des Kuckucks’ — ‘The Hours of the Cuckoo.’ I pulled it out, and a dried flower fell from its pages, crumbling to dust on the floor.

My wife, Lena, and our daughter, Mira, explored the rest of the place. The kitchen was narrow, with a single window that looked out onto a brick wall. There was a pantry, and behind it, a dark passageway leading to a small washroom. That passage always felt wrong, as if the walls were pressing in, and I always hurried through it. Upstairs, there was a bedroom with a sagging bed and a sitting area with a threadbare sofa. A bathroom with a claw-foot tub completed the floor. The whole place had a sense of abandonment, as if no one had lived here for decades, and yet it felt watched.

The highlight of our trip was supposed to be Neuschwanstein Castle. We woke at dawn the next day, the rain still falling, and trudged to the bus stop. The wind cut through our coats, and we shivered as we waited. When the bus finally arrived, it was old, with worn seats and a driver who didn’t speak English. We showed him our tickets, and he grunted, closing the doors.

The castle was as magnificent as we’d hoped, rising from the mist like a fairy-tale fortress. Our tour group was led by a stern woman with a monocle and a voice like a rusted gate. She spoke in rapid German, then translated with obvious reluctance. As we moved through the halls, I noticed that the tour guide kept glancing at me, and once, when our eyes met, she stopped mid-sentence, then continued.

In the throne room, with its massive chandelier and gilded columns, I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. The guide was explaining something about King Ludwig II when I saw a door behind a tapestry, half-open. I knew I shouldn’t, but I slipped away from the group and through that door. It led to a narrow spiral staircase descending into darkness. My heart pounded, but something pulled me down. At the bottom was a study, completely unlike the rest of the castle. It was cluttered with papers, old instruments, and a shelf of the same books as in our apartment. On the desk, there was a clock, but instead of numbers, its face was marked with strange symbols. As I leaned closer, the clock began to whir, and a small wooden cuckoo burst out, but its beak opened and closed silently. It had no face; just a void. I stumbled back, and the cuckoo’s head turned to follow me.

I ran back up the stairs, joining the tour group as if nothing had happened. But the guide was staring at me, and she said, ‘You found the study. No one has found it in over a hundred years.’ Her voice was not angry, but amused.

That night, back at the apartment, I couldn’t shake the image of that faceless cuckoo. I took out the book ‘Die Stunden des Kuckucks’ and began to read, even though my German was poor. As I struggled with the words, I felt a draft from the passageway to the washroom. I walked over and peered into the darkness, and for a moment, I thought I saw a small figure standing at the end, just beyond the washroom door. When I turned on the light, there was nothing.

Lena and Mira were asleep upstairs. I sat alone in the living room, the lamp buzzing. I heard a faint ticking, coming from the bookshelf. I pulled away some books and found a small door, hidden behind them. I opened it, and inside was a cuckoo clock, identical to the one in the castle, but its face was blank. As I watched, the hands began to move by themselves, and a tiny cuckoo emerged, also faceless. It opened its beak, and a high-pitched sound came out, like a song, but wrong. It was a melody I partially recognized, and then I realized it was the lullaby I used to sing to Mira when she was a baby.

I slammed the door shut and backed away, but the ticking continued, louder. I felt a presence behind me. I turned, and there was nothing, but the air was cold. From upstairs, I heard a thud, then Mira’s voice, calling out in a language I didn’t understand. I ran up the stairs, and found her sitting upright in bed, her eyes open but unseeing, speaking in a guttural German that I couldn’t follow. Lena was shaking her, trying to wake her.

Then Mira turned to me and said, in a perfect, adult voice, ‘Die Stunde hat geschlagen.’ — ‘The hour has struck.’ She fell back into a deep sleep. Lena and I were terrified. We tried to rouse her, but she wouldn’t wake. In the morning, she was normal, but she said she had dreamed of a bird with no face, telling her to leave.

We decided to leave the next day. But when we tried to pack, our belongings seemed to move on their own. The books on the shelf rearranged themselves, always with the ‘Die Stunden des Kuckucks’ facing out. The cuckoo clock in the hidden compartment chimed every hour, but the number of chimes never matched the time. And each time it chimed, Mira would go to the wall and press her ear against it, saying, ‘It’s coming.’ We didn’t know what to do.

On our last night, I couldn’t sleep. I went down to the living room and saw that the cuckoo clock was open, its door hanging off its hinges. Inside, instead of a pendulum, there was a piece of paper, yellowed with age. It was a letter, written in a shaky hand. It read: ‘The keeper of the hours must feed the cuckoo. I could not. I am sorry. Do not listen to the chime, or it will take your hours.’ I threw the letter into the fireplace, but the fire had gone out. The paper smoldered but didn’t burn.

Just as the clock struck midnight, the front door swung open, and a gust of wind swept through. I saw a silhouette in the doorway, small and birdlike, with no face. It stepped inside, and the lamp went out. I screamed, but no sound came. The thing moved toward me, and I felt a cold hand on my chest, and then everything went black.

I woke up on the floor, the morning light filtering through the curtains. The clock was gone. The bookshelf was bare. My family was packing, and Mira seemed fine. She said she had slept well. But I noticed a small, wooden cuckoo bird sitting on the windowsill, its carved eyes staring at me. When I picked it up, it felt hollow. I put it in my pocket without telling the others. We left, and as we drove away, I could have sworn I heard a faint ticking, coming from my coat.

We’re home now, in America. I tried to throw the bird away, but it always reappears. And every night, at the exact hour we left the apartment, I hear a cuckoo, chiming, but I can’t find the source. Sometimes, I catch Mira staring at the empty bookshelf in our living room, and she says, ‘The hours are counted.’ I don’t know what it means, but I know we brought something back with us, something that measures time in ways I am afraid to understand.