The Chimera

Chapter Seven: The Clockmaker

This is getting ridiculous, Jasper thinks, then amends his thoughts. No, it's been ridiculous from the beginning. 

After his terrifying encounter with whatever that pale, hairless being had been, he had come home in the early evening determined to put the bell away for good now. He had shoved it to the very back of his narrow wardrobe, hidden from immediate sight by his hanging shirts and coats.

Weeks passed, safe in their steady routine.

After those first few days, he is unfailingly punctual. Slowly, the number of confused questions he asks his colleagues diminishes as he familiarizes himself with the office. Every week he receives his payment in a neat envelope, not an impressive amount but enough to get by in relative comfort. His overseer has even given up the pretense of having a personal interest in him, so no more painfully dragged out lunches in which each question Jasper receives somehow always ends up being asked as he puts food in his mouth.

It's all right, everything is going as well as it can. He even finds himself looking forward to a trip home on his next day off.

And in the evenings, Jasper will push a hand through the wardrobe to part his shirts long enough to check on the bell, gauging whether it's still there. Somehow he half-expects whoever gave it to take it away again, after finding it unwanted. It is unfailingly present, though.

There are times when he considers using it again: in the morning when he has a few minutes before needing to leave, or in the quiet evening when the hours turn slow. Then he comes to his senses, remembering that the air may have shone and the sea may have sparkled, but so had that creature's teeth when it came closer, reaching out a grasping hand. It was too high a risk to whirl himself away without any way of knowing where he'd end up, and in what company.

Today, when Jasper does his cursory check-in of the bell, he is startled and irritated to see that a change has occurred, but not the one he has hoped for. The hand-bell is still there, as well as the initial note that had been left with it. However, a third item had materialized some time after the previous day: an even smaller scrap of a note.

He snatches at in frustration. What now?

All it says is, Wanderer.

Jasper is intrigued, wistful, confused, but, most of all, he is seething. He can't remember the last time he was this angry.

What long, drawn-out trick is this? As soon as he finds himself content to leave the matter be, another scrap of intrigue pulls him back in. He really has had enough.

Before someone can say, "impulse control", Jasper takes hold of the bell, ready to ring himself back into that other world, poised to demand answers.

As always, he disappears.

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A sweet summer afternoon, where the day feels never-ending.

In an extravagantly decorated sitting room, the furniture looks like its sole purpose is to appear impressive when glanced over during tours of the mansion. This is reinforced by the fact that it is almost always empty, and today would be the same if not for the clockmaker seated cross-legged on the floor.

Across from the room's entrance stands a pair of doors that open out onto a balcony, which in turn grant a view of the estate's fastidiously-maintained gardens.

In the room itself, the furniture is exquisite but impersonal, as if picked for its beauty instead of an appeal that would actually tug at a person's heartstrings. The seats are a rich purple velvet, cushions gold-tasseled. Lovely, but impossible to feel comfortable sitting on.