Danny’s scream cut off when he hit the floor. Struggling, he realized he was tangled in the sheets. His bedroom was dark.
As he always did when the nightmare came, he fumbled for his timepiece, the one his father had given him when he became an apprentice. His hands shook so badly that he dropped it twice, but when it opened, he made himself stare at the hands going around the clock face. Tick. Tock.
Time hadn’t Stopped.
I was in an accident. I got out. I’m safe now.
He touched the scar on his chin, counted the spaces where the stitches had been. There was another scar on his chest, and one on his right thigh, but this one bothered him most. This was his daily reminder, the one the world could see.
It had been three months. Three months since he had been assigned to a small, out-of-the-way clock tower in Shere, a village outside of London. It should have been easy, quick, uncomplicated.
As he worked on the clockwork for a much-needed cleaning, the mechanism had exploded.
For one hair-raising moment, the village had Stopped.
He still didn’t know how he’d walked away from that place. The Lead said only Danny’s quick work had prevented Shere being Stopped for good. Acting as if someone else controlled him, Danny had reattached the cogs and wound the clock, desperately nudging time to start again.
And it had.
But something else happened that day. The world itself had trembled. An unfamiliar energy had overtaken him, flooding the tower. He couldn’t explain it, but he was sure it had played a part in time starting again.
He crawled back into bed and wrapped the blanket around himself. He listened to see if his mother would come, if she’d heard the screaming, but there was no sound on the other side of the wall. Closing his eyes, he clutched the timepiece to his chest, where it ticked above his rapidly beating heart.
The next morning, Danny woke to the shrill ring of the telephone downstairs.
“’Lo?” he croaked into the mouthpiece, rubbing gritty sleep from his eyes while holding the receiver to his ear.
“Daniel? I’m sorry to call so early, but it’s important.”
The voice belonged to the Lead Mechanic, and he sounded worried. Danny was instantly more awake.
“What is it, sir?”
“Someone’s discovered the missing Enfield numeral.”
The man from Enfield stood clutching his felt cap in a white-knuckled grip. He fiddled with it as the Lead read the report, turning it over and over in his callused laborer’s hands. Danny watched until he was dizzy.
They were in the Lead Mechanic’s office, the Lead seated behind his desk and Danny standing to one side. A beam of sunlight struggled to escape the clouds and shine through the window at their backs. It gleamed on the goggles that hung around the man’s thick neck.
“Tell us again how you heard about the tower,” the Lead said.
The man swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “I ’eard only that the tower was broke, and that the two was missing. Couldn’t tell you how. We all went by to take a peek. I was one of the first, since I wake sooner than most.” He hesitated.
“Go on,” the Lead said.
The man scratched his scalp. From his greasy brown hair to the coal dust on his cheek, he looked like he hadn’t seen the right side of a bathtub in weeks.
“I walked over, saw the tower, and thought it didn’t look right. Others were muttering the same. When I turned to walk back I ’ad me eyes on the ground, and down the street I saw this.”
He crammed the felt cap in his pocket and lifted a large rectangular slab of black metal with a small, barely perceivable slit in the middle. The edges were soft and distorted, like it had been in the process of being melted down.
Danny and the Lead inhaled sharply. A tug of something familiar emanated from the metal, like time fibers around the clock towers. The air around Danny shivered and the hairs on his arms stood on end.
“What have you done to it?” he demanded.
“I didn’t do nuffink! I’m an ironworker, and I look for pieces like this to use in the workshop. When I walked back to the shop, I saw this on the ground, all mangled up and melted. Couldn’t think of what’d done it, and I couldn’t know it was from the tower, could I?”
The Lead rubbed his forehead. “Only mechanics would be able to feel the properties of the clock’s power in that numeral.”
The ironworker’s shoulders sagged in relief. “The London peelers were going about asking questions. So when they came to the door, I showed them the block readily enough and they led me ’ere. ’M terribly sorry if it’s made a mess.”
The Lead glanced at Danny. “The issue’s fixed now, at any rate. Are you quite sure you found the numeral as you’re holding it? You didn’t alter it in any way?”
“No time to,” the ironworker said. “I’d another project to get on with, and the police showed up in the middle. Probably need to start that over, now.”
“I apologize for that, but I’m sure you’ll agree your town’s well-being is of slightly more importance.”