Danny’s father used to say the most interesting sights in the world were right before your eyes. That was just his way to keep Danny from looking down, but Danny always did anyway. He snapped his eyes back to the rope and swallowed a small gasp. You didn’t see it. There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re not dangling helplessly in the air.
The boards groaned. He worried the structure might not bear their weight, but by some miracle, the scaffolding held. The wind tugged at their clothing, pressing Brandon’s shirt against his slim torso.
“One thing down,” Danny said, trying to sound hopeful. “Hold this, will you?” Danny passed him the Roman numeral and laid out his tools. The scaffolding was positioned directly under where two o’clock should have been. He put a hand against the empty patch and flinched as the pull in his belly turned into a hollow, aching emptiness. He closed his eyes to better focus on the image that his normal vision couldn’t conjure.
It was as if someone had burned a hole in a woven tapestry. The fibers of time were all attached to one another, the golden threads weaving in and out in the natural flow of time that only the clock tower could produce. It spider-webbed across all of Enfield like a blanket. But there, in the corner, was a hole. The fibers were broken, and without that connection, time distorted around them.
Memories crept in. Smoke, blood, a gaping void in time.
Danny’s eyes shot open and he snatched his hand back. He was breathing fast again, and Brandon eyed him warily.
“H-hand me the micrometer, please,” Danny said, but his voice cracked on the last word.
Brandon shuffled on his feet and looked at the tools. At first Danny thought he was dawdling on purpose, but the pained look on the apprentice’s face revealed the truth.
“You don’t know what a micrometer is,” Danny said flatly. The memories, the missing hour, the height, the incompetent apprentice at his side—it all rose like an ocean swell within him, crashing up his throat, and the words poured out before he could stop them. “Great. Bloody brilliant. You don’t know a thing about clock repair, do you? You don’t dress properly, you don’t talk, and now you don’t know what a micrometer is. What the hell kind of apprentice are you?”
Brandon lowered his eyes. Danny looked down as well, ashamed of himself as his frustration began to ebb.
While he struggled to word an apology, Brandon knelt beside him. One of his hands hovered over the tools as Danny looked on. The apprentice tentatively grasped the steel caliper used for measurements and held it up, hopeful as a puppy learning its first trick.
The anger that had seized Danny quickly let go. “Yes, that’s a micrometer,” he said, pleasantly surprised. “Well done.” The apprentice grinned, and blood rushed to Danny’s face.
Danny took the proper measurements and made small marks for the repair, explaining each step. Brandon seemed to have moved on from the outburst, nodding with interest at everything Danny said. Danny had to admit that perhaps his first assessment had been unfair. Here, for once, was an apprentice willing to learn. It eased some of the strain in his limbs.
Tongue poking out between his teeth, Danny focused on the frayed threads attached to the clock tower. He grasped them carefully, using not his hands, but his innate ability as a mechanic to touch time. The fibers were alive and pulsing in his grip, confused and directionless.
This was familiar. This was what he had missed most in the months he’d been away: the thrum of time, the beating of clocks. He used to spend hours in clock rooms before the accident, syncing his heartbeat with that of the clock tower. There was something else, too—a surge of power that felt like sunlight on skin, warming him from the inside out. Time grew stronger all around them, thickening the fibers.
In fact, the power was so strong he faltered. The fibers began slipping away, sensing his uncertainty. Before they fled his grasp, Brandon put his hands on the numeral and something jumped like an auto backfire. Danny jumped with it, eyes wide. Brandon focused only on the numeral, adding his power to Danny’s, to the clock’s. The fibers rushed back, stronger than ever.
Danny attached the broken ends of the fibers to the numeral in his hands, allowing the unremarkable slab of metal to join the connective web of time created by the tower. Then he asked Brandon to hold the power-infused numeral up to the clock face. His pale, thin hands looked even paler next to Brandon’s bronze skin.
Tools in hand, Danny fastened the numeral to the face. At first nothing happened, and he worried it hadn’t worked. Then, gradually, the fibers attached to the numeral filled the hole until it sealed. Time shivered, then relaxed; or maybe that was his own body’s reaction.
The tower bells rang in a sudden frenzy, calling out the hour of two before the hands moved to the correct time on their own. Danny tensed, momentarily deafened by the clamor. When his hearing returned, he could make out the crowd cheering in the street below. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“You’re all right now,” he murmured to the tower, pressing his fingers to its face.