Today's Reading
CHAPTER ONE
They call you odd, and perhaps you are. Or perhaps...perhaps the scope of normal is wider than any of us believed.
—Sophie's letters to Emmett
Grafton, Shropshire, England, 1901
It was a strangely calm morning in March, with no wind off the dales, when the woman I assumed to be my mother slipped into the shop. She hovered in the back like a wraith, peering at me through the dangling pendulums, gears, and clock springs, her veiled face wide-eyed and lovely.
She pretended to peruse the merchandise, gaze slipping my direction from time to time, observing me. Appraising. Looking for the maker's mark she'd left on my soul.
I steeled myself. Yes, I received your letters.
No, I haven't money to lend you.
Her requests over the years had come with different forwarding addresses, from Australia to the United States, and now after nearly two years without a letter, she'd come in person.
I was of a mind to begin the conversation with a refusal, but then I spotted the little wooden box tucked beneath her arm, and I couldn't get my mind off what it might contain. My imagination fixated on it. And once fixed, my foolish mind would not be moved.
The bell above the door jingled, and a man in cheap gray serge glanced quickly around before approaching the counter and doffing his derby hat. I pressed my lips together in polite welcome, still eyeing the woman in black. And her box.
I forced my attention to the only paying customer in the shop.
"Is Mr. Lane available?" He slid a midsized clock loosely wrapped in soft linen onto the countertop.
"What a beautiful clock. A Vienna Regulator with the most lovely enamel dials." I peeled back the linen, turning the clock over and springing open the back. "Looks to be a standard two-train movement with—"
He pulled it back and smoothed it shut. "Mr. Lane. He's in, I hope? The sign on the door. It says Mr. Daniel Lane, proprietor."
"So it does." I offered a warm smile. He must have traveled from another hamlet to see us. This was a curiosity shop, filled with all manner of trinkets and wonders, but word had spread of our repair work too. In this part of the country, there were few skilled in clock repair. "I can assist you, though."
"I'd rather see Mr. Lane."
I pressed my lips together. People take one glance at a book's cover, half a glance at the title, and decide in that instant if the words inside are worth reading. I was a book whose library card stood nearly empty. "Of course you would."
If the man had been a local, he'd realize I was far better equipped to repair his Vienna Regulator than Daniel Lane. Mostly because Daniel Lane was dead. Had been for many years.
I held out my hands. "I'll take it right back for assessment. Mr....?"
"Morgan. Henry Morgan." He hesitated but passed the swaddled clock to me. It had a surprising weight to it—the clock's movement must be solid metal, in the way of older pieces. I carried it behind the curtain, into the back room filled with the scent of lathe oil and lavender. "Mr. Lane, are you in?"
Aunt Lottie crossed the space in three quick pecks of her boot heels, fists on her pert little waist, and flashed that dimpled smile. "Another one?"
"He insisted. Mr. Lane only."
She rolled her eyes as she retrieved a metal file and turned back to the lever escapement she had taken apart. Her file and polisher whipped over the tiny teeth with precision. "Well then, shall you be Mr. Lane today, or shall I?"
Mr. Lane, Aunt Lottie's late husband, had owned the curiosity shop for a mere two years before succumbing to apoplexy. It had been in Lottie's capable hands for twenty-three years and our joined hands for nearly ten.
...
