A Curse with Excellent Timing

How it begins

There were seventeen minutes left in the marriage buying a carriage clock.

Nora wrapped the clock in tissue anyway.

The husband wanted silver ribbon. The wife wanted none. Above their joined hands, the little red figures changed to sixteen.

"Would you like the receipt inside?" Nora asked.

The wife shook her head. The husband said yes.

Nora gave them two receipts.

After they left, she turned the sign in her workshop window and sat very still until the market lights came on across the river.

Knowing did not mean helping. She had learned that early. People could forgive almost anything except a stranger arriving with accurate bad news.

Someone knocked.

A man stood outside holding a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato. His apron was dusted with flour.

"We're closed," she said through the glass.

"I know. I'm next door, and this has become philosophical."

She opened the door a little.

He showed her the timer. Its red casing was intact. Its face was blank.

"It rings whenever it likes," he said. "Yesterday it announced the end of something at half past two. Nobody knows what."

Nora took it from him.

The familiar numbers should have appeared above his shoulder. Four months. Nine years. Once, very sadly, eleven seconds.

There was nothing.

She looked behind him.

A delivery rider wheeled a bicycle past the window. Six weeks glimmered over the rider's phone call.

The curse was working.

"Are you all right?" the man asked.

"Yes."

"You've been staring at my ear."

"I'm a clockmaker. We notice irregularities."

He considered that, then nodded as though she had given a perfectly reasonable explanation.

"I'm Samir. I make the dumplings that smell good at midnight."

Nora looked down at the blank timer in her palm.

For the first time in twenty-three years, she had absolutely no idea what would happen if she invited someone inside.