Destiny

1 The Watch

It was 4am and the small-town lay sleeping as it did so often. A mid-October breeze rattled windowpanes through the streets and rolled across the grass outside in waves towards the somber hills in the distance. Four o'clock, groaned the ancient parish clock, barely more than a shadowy tower over the dark fields. Leaves danced. Winds sang. Clocks ticked.

4:05am, read the great iron hands on the old church steeple. 3:55am, back ticked the pocket watch in Tom Skipper's hands. Backwards. And that, in Tom's head, was exactly when it all began- when the watch had started ticking backwards.

Of course, there had been other incidents before that; several times his desktop had turned itself on, without any outside input, only to be frozen on a blank screen with the text input blinking in random times. Another time, his scale model, and fully automated, WW2 tank motored across his bedroom floor before grinding to a sudden stop. But these things only started happening to him after that pocket watch found its way into his possession. Maybe it had some sort of magnetic power that affected electronic equipment around it... or maybe there was another answer.

Next day, during college hours, Tom told Sarah.

"It's happening again."

Mr Aston's back was turned. He was explaining the most recent Historical Timeline he had illustrated on the board at the front of the class.

"What's happening again?" asked Sarah Campton, as she continued to draw the same timeline within her notebook, concentration clearly evident on her face.

"The haunting!" Tom whispered, quite forcefully, and scanned the room to see if anyone had overheard him. Everyone, save for Tom, was busy copying the sketch on the board. He nudged Sarah.

"Oh." His friend replied. And there the conversation ended, for Aston had turned and told them to keep quiet.

Later, after College had ended, as they ambled along London Road, Tom glanced up from his trainers. He took his pocket watch out of his pocket to idly admire it, as he often did since he had received it, and a few seconds later he remembered what had been troubling him so much.

"It's started again."

Sarah nodded. "You told me earlier."

Tom replaced the watch back into his trouser pocket.

"Don't you believe me?" he asked.

They crossed the road, barely dodging a rogue driver.

"I believe that some dirty old man scammed you for a broken-down watch that sometimes over winds and decided to go nuts."

"Oh, come on! That's such a load of crap! Clocks and watches don't go backwards when you 'over wind' them. If that happens, they just wouldn't go at all!" Tom argued to Sarah, probably a little louder than he had wanted, but he needed her to know that this bothered him. They turned left into Maple Avenue, and Tom began to walk backwards, staring hard at the dark old spire that jutted up over the treetops like the world's first space experiment, left to molder and darken with the soot of a century's autumn bonfires.

That building had become increasingly fascinating to Tom, especially when he noticed that its design closely resembled the engraving on his pocket watch. Was it perhaps built within this very town, engraved with the building's design as a memorial stamp?

"And it's not just the watch. Another one of my lightbulbs exploded yesterday. That makes three, Sarah. Three! In a week! What do you say to that?" he asked, with an almost victorious tone, though he did not know what he would gain from being right.