The Owner

Alex nibbled at his wedge of pie, but he didn't have much appetite for it. Something gnawing at his insides didn't want to make room for pie. He tried to shave off as thin a slice as he could manage with his fork, but the exercise failed to distract him. He would never have played the lottery himself. It didn't seem entirely honest. Why that might be was a question he didn't particularly like to dwell on.

He let a bite of pie melt in his mouth. Probably blackberry.

He hadn't thought the old woman would come back. He hadn't expected the card to be waiting for him. It would have been easier to forget the whole thing. Simpler. He really had no need for the money. Not a need. Not really.

If it was a creme pie he could carve out thinner slices.

April knew about the lottery ticket. He couldn't explain his discomfort to her. He'd had a sure hope that the lottery lady was poor--. But she wasn't. Evidently not.

"Do you like the pie?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Blackberry?"

"Fresh picked." Catherine dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. "I'm no pastry chef, but I can follow a recipe. That much I can do."

Alex took another bite of his pie and smiled.

"It's delicious," said April, setting down her empty plate. "Alex brings me cake from his work sometimes. Trying to make me fat." Alex blushed and the girls laughed at his discomfort.

"He's a sweet one." Catherine placed her plate on the table edge and settled back into her seat. "Ow-!" She jerked around, teetering on the corner of her chair, face twisted in pain. "Drat!" She picked a sewing needle from the cushion, focused a scowl on it and jabbed it into a pincushion on the side table.

"Are you ok?" April asked.

"Yes." Catherine rubbed at her rump, scanning the chair seat suspiciously before setting back down. "I've still some meat on these old bones."

April poured some coffee from a small pot on the table and served it to the old woman.

"Thank you, dear."

April returned to her place beside Alex, sitting close.

"Do you play the piano?" April asked.

Alex turned to look at the piano standing frozen in the corner. It looked as if it hadn't been disturbed for a long time. It belonged to the ghostly portraits on the wall.

"No dear. I did once, but I'm afraid it's been years." Catherine sipped her coffee. "I confess I took my music for granted. They say you don't know the value of what you have until it's gone, and that's the truth."

Catherine grew quiet. A passing cloud dimmed light from the window and the piano retreated into the gloom. Silence settled over the room.

Alex let his eyes wander in the silence and they settled on a tall grandfather clock looming stiff against the wall. A long pendulum measured out the passing seconds. Alex could't recall hearing any chimes. He squinted at the delicate hands, but the time didn't appear to be correct. The clock read-. Alex frowned. His brain translated the roman numerals. The topmost number was not a twelve--it was a thirteen. Thirteen. A skin of ice formed on his insides. A sudden realization sent that ice plunging in his guts. The hands were creeping around the clock face in the wrong direction. He turned to Catherine and found the old woman's eyes locked on him.

"I see you've noticed the clock."

April studied the clock. Her eyes narrowed. "It's running backwards. How is that?"

"I'm no clockmaker, but I'm sure it runs like any other clock, with gears and such, round and round, only in reverse." Catherine spun a bony finger one way and then the other. "Why is it made that way? That's what you're wondering."

"It has thirteen numbers," said Alex. He looked at the clock, certain that his senses betrayed him.

"Yes." Catherine nodded. "It's a queer old clock." She rocked gently in her chair. "Truth be told, this is a queer old house." She had the youngster's attention now. "Very old, I suspect." The house, silent and still, was like a thing poised. It seemed the dark corners concealed secrets and at any moment the tall, thin windows might snap shut, plunging the room into sudden, terrifying darkness.

"This is my son's house. Or was. Or so I thought. Earl, my youngest." Catherine didn't look at the photos gathered on the table beside her, but Alex felt her attention on them all the same. "He wasn't ever a bad boy. Trying though. Lord, he could be trying. I never expected him to rise far in life. It might seem unkind to say, but it's the truth. He did have ambitions though. Ambitions but no discipline to achieve them. Reality dealt him some harsh lessons as a youngster. As a mother, you hurt over the mistakes your children make, but you hope they learn lessons. And it seemed that he did. He married a nice enough girl and got himself a respectable job. More than respectable. And then he gave me little Elliot. Nothing like a grandson to make an old woman lose her sense." Now she did allow her gaze to focus on a picture of a young boy.

"He had his faults, Earl did, but they didn't seem to keep him from success. He moved into this house and insisted it was big enough for my husband and I to come live here. Help look after little Elliot." Catherine rocked in her chair. "Well I saw only what I wanted to see. A funny old clock is a simple thing to look past when life is sunny enough to blind you."

Catherine took down at the picture of the young boy and held it in her lap. She blinked back tears as she looked down at it. Alex felt himself anchored in his seat, the bits of pie turned to cold stones in his stomach.

"One morning, very early, I was in the kitchen when I heard a deep chime, like a gong at the bottom of a well." Catherine cocked her head as if listening. To Alex it seemed her cheeks had lost all their color. Then she faced the clock and pointed. "It never made a noise before, but when I heard that sound, I knew where it came from. I knew." Catherine pressed her hand to her mouth in a worried fist. "I can't describe for you the dread. It occured to me then that the clock had been counting back--for who knew how long--and now it called out, 'Time is up!' I expected an angel or devil come to collect my soul. A devil to be truthful, and if you heard the sound, you'd have thought the same."

Catherine forced her hand into her lap and rocked back and forth.

"I was terrified. First of the chime and then the silence following. I dragged in here against all sense, prepared to find Death itself standing before that clock. It was like a dream or a nightmare. I thought I was prepared to see the Devil, but I wasn't. I collapsed against the wall when I saw him seated in that chair."

Catherine's eyes were wide, staring unfocused on the red leather chair. It was uncomfortably easy to imagine a man sitting there, where anything but a devil would look out of place. Alex shuddered at the figure his imagination conjured up.

"He didn't speak. He didn't rise nor smile. He sat there as comfortable in that chair as if he owned this house. With good reason. He does." She waved a hand weakly around at the house.

"It felt an awful dream, but I wasn't alone in it. Earl and his wife, Helen, came down the stairs stumbling out of their sleep, summoned by the same sound that had called to me." Catherine pointed at the blood-leather chair. "He did smile then, the devil did, when he saw Earl. Earl didn't smile back. He didn't smile but he didn't look surprised neither. Worried and afraid, but not surprised. And that scared me worse than anything. When I looked at Earl on the stairs that morning, I glimpsed a terrible secret at the heart of all his success. All along I hadn't the courage to question what I wanted to see. The terrible truth is the clock chimed and the Devil came, but it wasn't for me. God help me, if there was justice it'd have been for Earl. But it wasn't for him neither." Catherine had the picture clutched tight to her chest, knuckles white on the frame. "It was for Elliot. And that's why I need your help, Alex."

wc: 1463/3375