The Awkward Love Song of Abigail Archer

Chapter Two

CHAPTER 2

After a night of practiced excuses, Marcus’s hands dampened with uncertainty. He stood wordless before an obscure Lower East Side shop with a neon light flashing ‘Watch Repair’ into the waning night. Mid-breath, he curled his fingers around the rusted doorknob. It was almost over. However, through the constant stream of cars sloshing puddles, the hinges moaned as he opened the door and reminded him that it wasn’t over yet.

Display cases cast lengthened shadows and veiled Marcus’s entrance into the damp store, where endless ticks and taps splintered the stillness. He stiffened. Of all, this was the most dreaded part, the list of souls waiting in the stackable letter tray beside the cash register, and with the list, came the promise of another night.

Determined, he paced to the metal contraption. The tempo of his steps slowed to a stop, as did the beats of his heart. In the letter tray, under his name, there was no list. There was only one reason his list wasn’t there.

“Abigail Archer,” he breathed, dragging his hands over his face. Yes, there was one reason his list was missing, and only one way he would get it back.

He paced down the poorly lit hall, eyes focused on the shadowed silhouette in the back room. Beneath a solitary orb of light, the Timekeeper arched over a large magnifying glass. A narrow screwdriver trembled in his wrinkled hands that hovered just above the open body of a silver pocket watch. With measured breaths, the Timekeeperhe removed one screw from the broken timepiece and dropped it into a rusted dish at his side.

“You do know the reason you’re here,” the Timekeeper murmured frailly from his splintered workbench. A hollow ding resounded as another screw fell into the dish.

Marcus leaned against the doorframe and folded his arms tightly over his chest. “Yes, Timekeeper,” he said, and nothing more.

Without taking his sight from the patient beneath his fingertips, the Timekeeper adjusted his light source, drawing it closer. He set down the screwdriver and retrieved tweezers in its stead. “Then you know He will not be pleased.”

Marcus’s lips tightened into a thin, white line. “I know.”

“Then why am I now sitting here, before Abigail Archer’s broken clock, without her soul?” The Timekeeper ticked the tweezers irritably on the silver watch before him. Glacial gray eyes finally lifted toward Marcus.

Marcus paused. He opened his mouth, but found no sound.

The Timekeeper sighed and lowered his tools to the wooden table. “What is it that you seek, Marcus? I thought your arrangement with Him was quite clear. I trust you remember it very well. Are you not reminded of it every day?”

The Timekeeper reached down, anger and irritation flashing across his normally vacant face. The subsequent scrape of an opening drawer tore through Marcus. He pushed off from the doorframe as gradually the Timekeeper revealed a thin, tarnished chain at whose end dangled a golden watch. A clock whose owner Marcus knew all too well.

“I must say, your presence here has surprised me. You of all collectors have the most to lose. Maybe we should discuss the terms of your agreement so that there is no confusion,” the Timekeeper said, and dangled the golden watch in the air. His gray eyes trailed it like a pendulum.

“For your service, I keep Margaret’s clock safely tucked away. The moment you fail to offer that service, the contract is void, and her clock destroyed.” The gilded pendulum swung to a stop, as did Marcus’s breathing. What did the Timekeeper mean to do?

The Timekeeper sighed. “It’s of little importance to me whether you decide to continue collecting souls or not. You can simply be replaced. You do know there are others willing to take your place for much less.”