The Ticking of the Barn Clock

Aunt Helena’s farmhouse had always been a world away from the gray terraces of Manchester. For the children, it was a wonderland of haylofts and muddy boots, but for my mother, it was a chance to breathe. The summer I was expected, she’d taken my brother Tom and my sister Alice to stay for a fortnight while my father worked on a stubborn contract. The days were warm and lazy, filled with the sounds of swallows and the creak of the old windmill. But by evening, a peculiar quiet settled over the place, as if the house itself was holding its breath.

That particular night, my mother’s growing weight had made her more tired than usual. She’d retreated to the spare bedroom early, leaving Aunt Helena and the children to their game of cards. The room was simple: a double bed for her, and a set of wooden bunk beds against the far wall, where Tom and Alice now slept. The window faced the orchard, and through the lace curtains she could see the moon tangled in the apple branches. She hadn’t meant to sleep so deeply, but when she surfaced, the clock on the mantel read a little past midnight. A strange heaviness pressed down on her, a fatigue that felt like a blanket of lead.

She heard a rustle from the bunks. Alice, a restless twelve-year-old, was climbing down the ladder, her nightgown a pale ghost in the dim light. Thinking her daughter was off to the bathroom down the hall, my mother closed her eyes, willing sleep to return. But instead of the sound of a door opening, she heard the soft thud of Alice’s feet on the wooden floor, followed by a dragging sound, like she was pulling something. My mother’s eyes snapped open, but Alice was gone. The bedroom door stood ajar, and from the corridor came a rhythmic, muffled ticking, like a clock, but slower, heavier.

Concern prickled her skin. She called out softly, ‘Alice?’, but there was no answer. She struggled to her feet, her swollen belly making the simple act laborious. The corridor was lit by a single, weak bulb swinging from a cord. At the end, the door to the kitchen was closed, and the ticking seemed to come from behind it. She pushed it open. The kitchen was dark except for the moonlight streaming through the high window, illuminating a figure hunched over the large farmhouse table. It was Alice, but she was not moving in a natural way. She was on her hands and knees, her head bowed as if in prayer, and the ticking sound was coming from her mouth, a steady, unnerving click.

My mother’s breath caught. ‘Alice, love, what are you doing?’ Alice turned her head, but her eyes were black, twin voids that swallowed the light. She smiled, a wide, stretched grin that was not her own. ‘Counting the ticks,’ she said, her voice a dry rustle. ‘The barn clock is hungry.’ Then she crawled forward, off the table, and out the back door into the yard, still making her ticking sound. My mother, driven by a primal fear, followed, her bare feet cold on the dew-damp grass.

The barn loomed ahead, its rusted iron weathervane creaking in the breeze. The barn clock, which had not worked for years, now read 12:13, its hands ticking audibly, each tick like a stone dropping into a deep well. Alice entered the barn, and my mother followed, her heart hammering. Inside, the hayloft was dark, but she could see Alice standing beneath the clock, her arms stretched out, her fingers twitching. The clock ticked faster, a frenzied rhythm, and the grime on its face seemed to shift, forming a mouth that opened, revealing rows of small, sharp teeth.

My mother grabbed Alice’s arm, pulling her back. ‘No! That’s enough!’ But Alice turned, and in a voice that was not hers, a voice that seemed to come from the very walls, she said, ‘She is ours now. She came to us.’ The clock’s mouth began to suck in the air, and the world seemed to tilt. My mother, in a desperate act, began to sing a lullaby, an old family tune that her own mother had sung. The notes were shaky, but they cut through the ticking. Alice’s eyes flickered, a moment of confusion, then she collapsed. My mother carried her back to the house, the clock’s ticking slowing to a stop behind them.

They left early the next morning. Alice had no memory of the night, only a sore throat and a strange affinity for clocks. My mother never spoke of it, but she knew that something had been waiting in that barn, something that fed on the time of little children. And she was never quite sure if she had rescued her daughter, or merely borrowed her back. For on the drive home, as they passed a distant farm, Alice looked at the clock tower and whispered, ‘It’s still ticking, Mum. It says it will see me again.’