*** CLÍODHNA AND THE CLOCKMAKER’S SECRET ***


The rain had just begun to whisper against the cobblestones of Larkspur Lane when Clíodhna arrived in the village of Killeigh. She wore a sheer blue and gold dress that shimmered like starlight caught in water, its hem trailing whispers of forgotten songs.

Around her neck hung a gold and emerald necklace, an heirloom from a time before time, pulsing faintly with protective magic, a gift from Sinéad, exactly like the one she gave Róisín the day before she disappeared.

Killeigh was a place of peculiar charm: crooked chimneys, moss-covered sundials, and a clock tower that hadn’t chimed in seventy-five years. Clíodhna had come not for rest, but for riddles. The village’s timekeeper, Master Óisín, had vanished, leaving behind a workshop sealed with seven locks and a note that read: "To those who seek, beware the hour that never was."

Inside the local tea shop, The Bramble & Brass, Clíodhna sipped nettle brew and listened. The villagers spoke of Óisín’s obsession with "temporal echoes," of clocks that ran backwards, and of a young girl who once aged ten years in a single night. Most dismissed it as nonsense. Clíodhna didn’t think so.

That evening, she stood in front of the clockmaker’s door, the emerald in her necklace glowing faintly. One by one, she solved the locks: a puzzle box carved with constellations, a cipher hidden in a lullaby, a key made of frozen light. The final lock was a question: "What is the one thing time cannot touch?"
She whispered, "Memory’s."

The door creaked open. Inside, the workshop was a cathedral of gears and glass. Clocks of all shapes and sizes, ticking away in chaotic harmony. In the centre stood a mirror, its brass frame gleaming atop an ornate easel like a relic from a forgotten opera. Clíodhna approached, and the mirror shimmered.

She saw herself, older, wiser, standing between Sinéad and Róisín in a world rebuilt. She saw Master Óisín, trapped in a moment, his eyes pleading. And she saw the hour that never was: 13 o’clock, a time outside time, where forgotten things waited to be remembered.

Clíodhna reached out. The mirror pulsed. She didn’t step through, but she left a mark. A sigil etched in light, a promise to return.

When she emerged, the clock tower chimed once clear and true. Killeigh would never be the same again...



To be continued.



Óisín... pronounced Ush-een