Omens

The Clock

Catherine was not sure how long she had been staring her bedroom's mantle clock. She wasn't sure, because the hands weren't moving.

The clock had been ticking steadily ever since she had entered the room...what, half an hour ago? More? But the hands had remained frozen to the same time ever since she had entered. They read 11:40.

For some reason---even Catherine wasn't entirely sure why---this small error had transfixed her instantly. It was such a minor detail, and yet...there was something so wrong about it.

The thing was, she couldn't for the life of her figure out how the clock had come to be frozen so. She had had many a clock stop, or break, or begin to slow down. But this clock was still ticking, yet was frozen...and more than that, was frozen at a time more than an hour ahead.

Catherine had left her granddaughter in the dining room no later than ten, she was sure of it. Now, she supposed, it had to be around ten-thirty. So how did the clock come to freeze at a time an hour late, when it had told the right time earlier that evening?

A door slammed a little ways away, then the doorknob of her bedroom rattled, and suddenly Elena burst through her musings.

"Grandmother!" she cried breathlessly. "I've just...I've just met the strangest man, the very strangest! We danced together, but...oh, you wouldn't believe!"

"Believe what, child?" asked Catherine, not taking her eyes off the clock. She was afraid that if she did, somehow it would change suddenly.

"Well, after you left me with that awful man, I...well in truth, I ground my heels into his feet to make him stop dancing with me. But just after he left, another man came up. I hadn't seen him on the ship before. He was dressed all in black, with a cloak, and I couldn't see his face."

"He wore a cloak to the dining room?" Catherine murmured distractedly.

Elena bit her lip impatiently. Leave it to her grandmother to be more interested in breaches of manners than mystery. "Yes, a cloak. So he offered me his hand to dance, and naturally I accepted, but Grandmother...his hands and his back were like ice. Just being near enough to dance with him nearly froze me. Look, my fingers are nearly blue!" She thrust her hands forward, and indeed, they were a stark blueish-white.

"We danced two waltzes, and I tried to make him speak, but he wouldn't say a word. Finally I got impatient, and I reached up to pull the hood of his cloak back and see who it was that might be pranking me so. But before my hand even reached his hood, he jumped back and ran out to the deck!"

"To the deck?"

"Yes! I tried to follow him, but I was slow; I called to waiter to follow, and he chased the man onto the deck...but Grandmother!"

"What, child, speak!"

"Well, when the waiter returned, he said he had watched the man climb onto the rail of the deck and jump! But listen, listen: he heard no splash!"

"No...splash?" Catherine finally tore her gaze away and looked at Elena, her face pale and drawn.

"No! So...he couldn't have really jumped, could he? But then how did he disappear? It's not...it's not right. I never heard of such a thing." Catching her breath, Elena turned towards the mantle suddenly. "Grandmother, what happened to the clock? It's wrong, you know."

"Yes, child, I know." Catherine stared into the bright fire as the flames leaped playfully. The room was so elegant, so cheery, so warm...all she wanted was to stay and pass a comfortable evening with her granddaughter, safe and snug, with the door locked tight...

But the blasted clock. Its insistent ticking, its blatant wrongness...it jarred her. It was so incongruent, so out of place...

"Elena dear, get a shawl and take me to the spot on the deck where the waiter saw this fellow jump," Catherine murmured, suddenly anxious. "Right away."

When they left the room a few moments later, the clock inexplicably began to chime.