“What was that?” Max asked, eyes wide.
“I think it was the doorbell.” Her hand was shaking, but she pressed it again.
The voice spoke again, and it was like listening to a clock talk, and every syllable was a tick.
“What. Can’t. Be. Touched. Or. Taste. Ed. Or. Held. But. Can. Be. Broke. En?”
“It’s a riddle,” Astrid said. “We can’t get in unless we answer the riddle. What can’t be touched or tasted or held but can be broken? Think, Max!”
But Max wasn’t thinking. He was shaking. “Astrid, I want to go home. You promised if it was scary, we could go home.”
Then it hit her. She knew the answer.
Astrid called out to the door, “A promise!”
After a long pause, the mechanical voice said, “Tick. Tock. Wel. Come. To. The. Clock.”
The door creaked open.
—From The House on Clock Island, Clock Island Book One, by Jack Masterson, 1990
Chapter Seven
Hugo was in exile. His own fault. Three stories up in the air, he stood at the railing of the widow’s walk and watched as the boats and ferries came and went, bringing boxes and grocery bags, even temporary household staff to handle the cooking and cleaning. A small army of staff had been temporarily enlisted by Jack to put on this insane contest of his. So far only one priceless marble bust made by a dead artistic genius had been broken. Jack had laughed and said, “That’s why we have insurance.” Hugo’s head had nearly exploded, which was when Jack sent him to the widow’s walk to “supervise the boats.”
Hugo protested. “Supervise the boats? Someone has to make sure nothing else gets broken down here.”
“Hugo,” Jack said with a large and rather terrifying grin on his face, “your bad mood is scaring the children.”
Hugo waved his arms around the room. “There are no children here.”
“Weren’t we all children once?” Jack said.
Point taken. Hugo retreated to the roof.
But even up here, he couldn’t find peace and quiet. His pocket began to vibrate. Yet another phone call from yet another unknown number, no doubt. Who was it this time? TMZ? The New York Post? National Enquirer? Out of pure spite, he answered the call.
“Yes?”
“Hugo Reese? This is Thomas Larrabee with Shelf Talker.”
“Never heard of it.”
“We’re a renowned literary blog.”
“What’s a blog?” Hugo asked with pure unadulterated spite.
“It’s a, well, it’s a—”
“Never mind. What do you want?”
“We were hoping you’d answer a few questions—”
“I have a one-question limit.”
“Oh, well, all right,” he said. Hugo heard pages flipping in a notebook. “What’s the real Jack Masterson like?”
“Good question,” Hugo said.
“Thank you.”
“If I ever meet the real Jack Masterson, I’ll tell you.”
Hugo hung up. How were these people getting his phone number? Because he was on the roof, he could get just enough cell phone reception to google Shelf Talker. No surprise, this renowned literary blog had all of seventeen followers, most of which looked like Russian bot accounts.
It wasn’t a bad question, though. What’s the real Jack Masterson like? Hugo wished he knew.
Suddenly last year, out of nowhere, without warning, and with no explanation, Jack got out of bed one day and started writing again. And then, again with no explanation, without warning, out of nowhere, and all of a sudden, he decided to throw a contest in his own house on the island?
The old man loved routine, loved his privacy, loved peace and quiet. Social butterflies did not live on private islands. No, Jack was whatever you called the opposite of a social butterfly—an introverted moth, maybe. Yet for a whole week, the house would be overrun with strangers. Why?
When Hugo tried asking him that, Jack simply said, “Why not?”
Maddening. Absolutely maddening. But that was Jack for you—a living, breathing riddle. Had Hugo ever met the real Jack? Maybe once. Maybe a long time ago.
After Hugo won the contest to be the new illustrator, Jack Masterson himself had rung him and invited him to spend a few months on Clock Island, staying in one of the many guest rooms or even taking over the guesthouse if he preferred. At twenty-one, Hugo had never even left the UK much less crossed the ocean. How could Hugo have said no? Davey would never have forgiven him.
The first time he flew in an airplane was the day he left London’s Heathrow for New York’s JFK. A black Caddy had picked him up at the airport, driven him to Lion House Books in Manhattan to meet Jack’s editor and the art team. One night at the Ritz—Jack’s treat—and the next day another plane to Portland’s Jetport. Another car service. Then a ferry. Then he was standing on the dock of Clock Island, a place until the week before he would have sworn existed only on the pages of the books he read to his brother every night.
He’d expected a servant, a butler in livery maybe, to greet him, but no. No servants. No entourage. Just Jack Masterson himself waiting for him all alone. If he’d imagined Jack as some sort of posh wanker, he was surprised to find a normal-looking bloke about fifty in a navy-blue cardigan, and a light blue button-down shirt with ink stains on it, as if he’d gone ten rounds with a fountain pen and lost.
“Nice to meet the man in person,” Jack said to him, acting as if Hugo were the famous one, not him. “Welcome to the Clock.”
Hugo didn’t even remember what he said in reply. Nice place? Or Thanks? A classic You all right? which seemed to massively confuse Americans when you said it to them. Maybe he didn’t say a thing, overwhelmed as he was, except for a surly Hey.
After that, he remembered Jack offering him something to eat and Hugo being too proud to admit he was famished. He told Jack they should probably get straight to work if they really wanted forty new covers in six months’ time.
Young idiot he was, pretending to be all business. Meanwhile, Jack walked him around the clock that was Clock Island. The Five O’Clock Beach, and the Southernmost Six, a great place for a cookout, Jack said. Hugo would be staying in the Seventh Heaven Guest Cottage, but he could work in the main house if he preferred. Plenty of empty rooms and cake in the kitchen.
Jack showed him the white Alpine strawberries he was growing in his greenhouse (“Try one, Hugo. They taste like pineapple!”), the tide pools (“If you see a starfish, detain it. I have some questions I’d like to ask it.”), the widow’s walk where you could stand and see a 360-degree view of the island (“You could sleep out here if you like to stargaze and don’t mind bats shitting on your face.”). Weren’t they supposed to be working on some massive project?