The Inventory of Lost Hours

My name is Evelyn, and I’m a thirty-two-year-old archivist at the Meridian County Historical Society. I’ve never believed in the supernatural, not really—not until I started working in the basement of the old Carnegie library, where the society keeps its most fragile collections. I’m not a user of drugs, and I drink only occasionally, but my experiences began innocently enough, with small things I could almost explain away.

It started with a photograph. We had a box of unsorted daguerreotypes from the 1880s, and I was cataloging them when I noticed one was missing from its numbered sleeve. I’d just placed it there, I was sure—the image of a stern-faced woman in a high collar. I searched the entire worktable, the drawers, even the floor, but it was gone. I shrugged it off, thinking I’d made a mistake, and moved on. But the next morning, the photograph was back in its sleeve, perfectly aligned, as if it had never been disturbed.

Then the clock in the reading room began to misbehave. It was a heavy oak regulator, wound weekly by the caretaker, and it had kept perfect time for decades. But one Tuesday, I noticed it was running backward—the second hand moving counterclockwise. I checked my watch, and the time matched the backward reading. I mentioned it to my colleague, Marcus, who laughed and said I must have been staring at it too long. But the clock continued its reverse march for a week, then stopped entirely at 3:47 PM. When the caretaker came to fix it, he found the mechanism jammed with a single, brittle page from a 1920s newspaper—the society’s archive had no record of it, but the article described a house fire that had killed a family of five.

I began to lose things more frequently: my favorite pen, a pair of cotton gloves, a key to the manuscript vault. They would vanish from my hands and reappear in the most absurd places—inside a sealed envelope, under the felt of the map cabinet, once inside a book I had never opened. The disappearances always coincided with a faint smell of burnt toast, which clung to the air for a few minutes and then faded. I told myself it was the old wiring, but the smell never came from the electrical room.

My breaking point came on a quiet Thursday afternoon. I was processing a donation of personal letters from the Whitfield family, who had lived in the area for generations. One letter, dated 1894, was from a mother to her daughter, describing a ‘visitor’ who would ‘borrow’ small objects and return them after a time, always leaving a token—a lock of hair, a button, a piece of string. The letter advised the daughter to ‘keep a ledger of what is taken, for the visitor respects order.’ I dismissed it as superstition, but as I finished reading, I noticed my own car keys, which I had left in my coat pocket, were sitting on the table, surrounded by a small circle of salt that I hadn’t sprinkled.

I decided to test the theory. I wrote in my personal notebook a list of missing items: a silver bracelet from my grandmother, a receipt from the grocery store, a photograph of my husband and me on our honeymoon. The next day, the bracelet was on my desk, the receipt was under my coffee mug, and the photograph was propped against the clock—which had resumed ticking, but now it was five hours ahead. I checked the date; it was the same day, but the clock insisted it was evening. When I left work that night, the streets outside the library were eerily quiet, and I saw a figure in a high-collared dress standing under a streetlamp, watching me. She didn’t move, and when I blinked, she was gone.

I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer. I confided in my husband, Daniel, who, to my surprise, didn’t dismiss me. He suggested I document everything, like the letter said. So I started a ledger, a black leather book, and I meticulously recorded every disappearance and return, noting the time, the item, and the ‘token’ left behind. The tokens grew more personal: a baby tooth (I had none), a lock of hair that matched my own color, a brass button from a uniform I didn’t own. The smell of burnt toast became a constant companion, and I began to feel a presence behind me even when I was alone.

One night, I stayed late to finish the Whitfield collection. As I opened the last letter, I found a page that wasn’t part of the original donation—a handwritten list, in the same hand as the mother’s letter, titled ‘Inventory of Lost Hours.’ It was a catalog of items taken and returned, with dates spanning from 1894 to the present. The last entry was in my own handwriting, though I had never written it: ‘Evelyn’s watch, taken March 12, returned March 13, token: a single pearl earring.’ I looked at my wrist; my watch was gone. I hadn’t noticed. And on the table, beside the ledger, lay a single pearl earring, one I recognized from a photograph of my grandmother.

I felt a cold hand on my shoulder, and I turned to see the woman from the daguerreotype, her face now soft and sad. She said, ‘I’ve been keeping your hours safe, dear. But you’ll soon have to give one back.’ I didn’t understand, but the clock struck 3:47 PM again, and I woke up on the floor of the library, with Daniel shaking me. He said I’d been unconscious for hours, and my watch was gone. He helped me home, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been taken from me—something more than time.

Now, I keep my own inventory. I have a new watch, but I don’t wear it. I’ve left the society, but the ledger follows me; sometimes I find new entries in my own hand, describing items I don’t remember owning. The last entry read, ‘Evelyn’s memories of her childhood, taken July 4, returned July 4, token: a strand of white hair.’ I found that hair on my pillow. My hair is brown. I don’t know how to get them back, but I’ve learned to live with the scent of burnt toast, and I always carry a spare key, because the visitor respects order, and I’ve made my peace with the inventory of lost hours.