The Bone Clocks

Whenever my mother would announce a trip to Grandma's, my brothers and I would cheer like mad things. Most kids our age hated visiting their elderly relatives, and we weren't that different -- but it wasn't Grandma we cheered for. It was her house, with its winding staircases and trick cupboards, that we really cared for. Many hours were spent discovering forgotten treasures, hunting for Narnia, or just playing hide and seek in the most interesting house we'd ever seen.

My mother would always expect us to sit nicely through the boring adult conversation, but Grandma didn't mind us exploring. There was only one exception - just one room we weren't ever allowed into. "Stay away from the bone clocks," she would say, cautioning us with her sternest voice and her pointer finger raised. We were curious, but the house offered many distractions, and we never failed to obey, until the year we discovered the secret passage.

If it had led anywhere else, it would have been fine, but of course it led us straight to the one room we weren't supposed to be in. We didn't realise, at first, because there were several rooms we hadn't yet explored thoroughly, so we just figured it was one of them. We worked out where we were when we saw the clocks, of course, but by then it was too late.

There were about fifty of them, all different shapes and sizes. Some were freestanding on the floor, and others were on shelves or encased in glass. Not all of the clocks worked, but enough did that there was a soft ticking sound in the room. Some of the clocks had intricate designs carved on them and others were sparse and plain, but one thing they all had in common was a shiny metal plate engraved with a name. Not the same name, of course, but different names. Names we knew.

My oldest brother was the first to notice that little detail - his eyes picking out his own name almost immediately, and his mouth running along behind the observation. "Kevin James Churchill", he read, his eyes widening. "Hey, that's MY name!" That did it. We were off and racing, trying to identify the clocks of family members we knew. Mum's was ticking, and so were all of ours, like they'd been wound recently, but we couldn't see any winding places on any of them. Even our baby cousin Xavier had one, a tiny thing, easy to miss in the scattering of clocks -- but his was silent, like the one marked with our grandfather's name (and may he rest in peace wheresoever he went after he died).

It was while I was trying to find the winder on Xavier's clock that it happened. My hands grazed the shelf, knocking a clock down. At the same moment as its impact on the floor, my brother cried out in pain. I looked up and saw his arm. Hanging by his side at an angle that seemed entirely wrong, it was limp, and his face above it was ashen.

Torn, I left him to our older brother's ministrations and hurried to right the clock, lest our rule-breaking be discovered. Quickly pocketing the broken-off hand, I hurried the boys back through the secret passage and down to mother. Grandma took one look at my brother and scowled.

Looking right at me, she asked for the broken piece. I handed it over without a word. It wasn't until much later that I realised two things. The clock I'd broken was my brother's...

...and we hadn't told Grandma about the broken clock or where we'd been.