The hallway was narrow and painted almost the same shade of blue as the door. The stairs on his left were dark-stained wood, and a blue carpet runner stretched from the front door to a sitting room at the back of the house. The woman showed him to this room before she disappeared into the kitchen.
Danny was slightly disappointed; it wasn’t how he’d imagined the inside of Matthias’s home. For one thing, the man had grossly exaggerated the state of the house’s disrepair. Danny didn’t notice a single thing out of place. He examined paintings of seaside landscapes that hung along the hallway, all quite similar to one another, before he passed a few framed sketches of a clock tower. Matthias’s signature darkened the bottom right corners.
In the sitting room, Danny lowered himself onto a settee and waited for the woman to return. Or does she mean to leave me here? His leg bounced up and down as he eyed the trinkets on the bookshelves and read the spines of the many books collected there. Matthias and his father had loved collecting books. He saw a tome of classical mythology and touched the cog again. It could have been his imagination, but he swore that the small clock on the mantel ticked louder.
He turned and noticed the woman was standing in the doorway, staring at him. She held a tea tray in her hands, her head cocked slightly to one side. The pose tickled something in Danny’s memory, but he couldn’t think what.
“Tea,” she announced with a small smile.
He stood politely when she walked into the room and set the tray down on the low, wooden table in front of the settee. He could see now that she was a tall, willowy woman, with golden hair and sallow skin. Her eyes were a very light brown.
She sank gracefully into the armchair behind her, and he sat as well. The woman was wearing a lavender dress that fell to her ankles, but with no stockings or shoes. Her bare feet were graceful, like a dancer’s. Since she made no move to pour her own cup, Danny sat forward to pour it for her; it was what his mother would tell him to do. The woman leaned forward to accept the offered cup.
“Thank you for the tea,” Danny said. “Are you, um—are you Matthias’s housemate?” She nodded. “I know you’ve been living with Matthias for a while. I had no idea you were a … I mean, I thought Matthias lived with another man. Are you his … companion?”
She smiled, but he couldn’t tell if it was out of amusement or politeness. “I’m a bit of both.”
“Oh.” Danny furtively glanced at her chest. Why would Matthias say “he”?
This was also the first Danny had heard of Matthias having a lover. It shocked him, to be honest. For years Danny had seen the quiet, longing sorrow that dogged Matthias like a second shadow. When had this woman come into his life?
Silence filled the room as they sipped their tea. The clock ticked on in the background. Looking more closely, Danny saw that the woman wasn’t well. Her eyes were sunken, her skin pale like she hadn’t seen the sun in some time. No one saw the sun for long stretches of time in London, but this seemed a different sort of pale, more gray than blue.
“Are you Danny?” she asked suddenly.
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Matthias talks about you. He’s very fond of you.”
Danny smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. I’m fond of him as well.”
“I’ve always wanted to meet you. I’m glad I finally have the chance.” The words struck Danny as odd, but he couldn’t put his finger on why.
Her gaze trailed over his chest and paused on the timepiece chain hanging out of his left pocket. Her eyes flitted to the right pocket.
“You have something there,” she murmured.
Startled, Danny put his hand over the slight lump where the cog rested. Unsettled by her gaze, he drew it out and held it on his palm.
“Are you a mechanic?” Danny asked. “How did you know I had this?”
“Did you steal it from a clock?” she demanded.
He leaned back at her sudden change in tone. “No. The clock … gave it to me.”
It sounded ridiculous, but it was the truth. For some reason, he had no urge to lie to her.
The woman stared at him, then at the cog, then back at his face.
“Why did the clock give it to you?”
Danny wrapped a protective hand around the cog and put it back in his pocket before she could snatch it away. “Because he wanted me to have it.”
He must have sounded defensive, for she eased back in her chair. “I see. That’s all right, then.” She returned to her tea, sipping daintily, as if they had just spoken of crocheting rather than the gifts of clock spirits.
But then, as he watched her, an awareness slid into place. At first Danny dismissed it as impossible, but the thought came creeping back, begging to be looked at. The more the idea took root in his mind, the harder it was to breathe. His skin prickled, the hairs on his arms lifting as if he were about to be struck by lightning.
Danny lined up the pieces: the louder ticking of the clock in her presence, her golden features, the way her voice sounded like slow gears in need of oiling. The way she regarded things, tilting her head in innocent curiosity. He had seen all of that before. In Colton.