“Is he all right?” Meena asked from the seat across from him.
Daphne wormed her fingers into Danny’s sweaty grip. “It’s all right, Danny. Imagine yourself somewhere else. Think of Enfield.”
As the Silver Hawk leveled out, that’s exactly what he did. He imagined himself in Colton Tower, running his fingers through Colton’s soft hair. His breathing calmed, but he still kept his eyes shut.
Daphne held his hand the entire way. He should have been surprised by the gesture, but he wasn’t. He focused on the illusion of Enfield until the plane came to a jerky landing an hour later.
“Khurja,” Akash announced.
They climbed out of the plane—Danny very slowly—and took a moment to stretch. The foliage was wild and jungle-like here, thick with peepal trees, the grass still clinging to dew around the landing circle. Insects droned among the ferns and Danny had to wave away a few curious flies.
Meena had told them during the flight that Khurja was a small city situated in a swampy land south of Delhi. Danny smelled the malodorous gasses of the swamps nearby and coughed into his sleeve. Inside the city, the odor faded a little, replaced by a musky scent that slapped his senses awake.
A rickshaw rattled by, the driver staring at them as he passed. But Danny and Daphne found their attention wandering from detail to detail: the water buffalo relaxing in the middle of the street, or the brown monkeys that raced across rooftops where patties made from what smelled like cow dung had been stacked to later use as fuel.
“Wow,” Daphne said. Wonder sparked in her eyes, but Danny caught a hint of the same trepidation that rode his shoulders.
Meena and Akash led them past short buildings and huts, toward a widespread bazaar. Wooden stalls with canvas tarps had been erected where merchants sold dates, nuts, cloths, and jewelry. Boxes brimmed with brightly colored powders and spices, a sunset spectrum of yellows and oranges and reds. Danny inhaled the spices in the air as they passed by and stifled a sneeze.
The group didn’t go without notice. Men and women gawked at the two British mechanics. Wide-eyed children scampered up to them and held out their hands, begging in their native language. Danny and Daphne walked close together, arms brushing. All these people watching them was the definition of unnerving. Danny couldn’t imagine being an Indian in London. It must feel exactly like this: exposing and oddly terrifying.
“They hate us,” Daphne whispered.
“They don’t even know us.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re British.” There was a bitter edge to her words, as if she wished she could claim otherwise.
Away from the bazaar, they wandered down narrower streets, many of them crooked. The buildings grew taller, but less sturdy. Trash littered the ground and grubby urchins scuttled down alleyways. They walked by an old man in a lean-to who was naked save for a tattered loincloth, his ribs pressed sharply against his skin, his white beard grown nearly to his chest. Daphne had to avert her eyes.
The books hadn’t described this India.
When they walked through another bazaar, Danny asked how far away the clock tower was.
“Not far,” Meena said, glancing over her shoulder. “Why? Do you want to stop and catch your breath?”
“Pick out a nice pot?” Akash joked, nodding to the admittedly large number of stalls selling ceramics. “Khurja’s known for its pottery, you know. The potters’ families were run out of Delhi and they settled here. You won’t find anything like that in Britain.”
“Maybe later,” Daphne said.
Meena and Akash shared a look, then continued on their way. Danny heard them mumble something in Hindi. Frustrated that he couldn’t understand, he kept his eyes trained forward until they reached a couple of guards.
Meena spoke to them, handing over a message from Major Dryden. While she was occupied, Akash explained to Danny and Daphne, “There was a small riot shortly before the explosion, otherwise you wouldn’t see guards here.”
“I heard there was a riot just before the bombing in Rath, too,” Daphne said. “Do you know what sparked it?”
Akash, hands in his pockets, shrugged. “A protest? Shortage of water? Someone spat in someone’s dal? It’s hard to say.”
The guards gave clearance to approach the wreckage site, and Meena nodded the others over. When Danny laid eyes on it, he curled his hands into fists. Daphne covered her mouth in shock.
The clock tower had stood in a circular area, several feet away from any homes or buildings. All that was left was a large mound of brick, clay, limestone, and wood. A tremor spread across Danny’s chest, the frayed edges of a memory teasing his mind—ash and metal and blood. He focused on breathing, in and out, as if that could expel the panic from his lungs.
When the worst of it had passed, Danny realized he could feel something in the circular clearing, a humming in the air. He waved a hand through it, concentrating. The air felt … sharper. Crisp.
Time was here. Second by second, slipping from this moment to the next, never-ending. The hairs on his arms stood on end.
“My God,” Daphne murmured. She approached the wreckage, carefully lifting the end of a broken beam. “No one has cleared this yet?”
Meena shook her head. “Everyone is afraid to. Even the ghadi wallahs.”
“The what?”
“Clock mechanics, as the British say.”
Daphne carefully replaced the piece of wood. “Why are they afraid to move the debris?”
“We don’t know if time will Stop. When the tower fell, a great feeling passed over Khurja, and time resumed as if nothing happened. If the pieces of the tower remain here, maybe time will go on as usual. If removed … we don’t know.”
Danny kneeled before the mound and touched a loose piece of brick. Nothing happened. He felt no connection, no spark, nothing. But the air remained sharp and sensitive on his skin. He took out his timepiece and saw that everything was normal. Carefully, he reached for the time fibers around him and received another nasty shock.
Time threads were supposed to be a tapestry, weaving in and out of each other in precise, predictable patterns.
Here, they were twisted up like twine. Disorderly. Complex.
Danny looked around and found an even bigger piece of brick. Hefting it, he bore down on the smaller piece so hard it broke. Meena gasped and Daphne winced. When time didn’t jump or shudder, they sighed.
“I have no idea what to make of it. What about the cogs and gears?” Danny asked Meena.
“They’re in the pile. A few may have been stolen by now.”
He didn’t want to think about the implications of that. “No one’s seen anything strange, have they?”
“Like what?”
Danny met Daphne’s gaze, a single thought passing between them: What had happened to the spirit of the tower?
“Like pieces moving on their own, or—”
Meena said something in rapid-fire Hindi. “I should think not!”
“And no one was in the tower when it fell?”