Chapter 5 Closed Until The Right Time

Chapter Five: Closed Until the Right Time

Elena awoke to stillness.

The sound of ticking was gone.

No clocks. No wind. No rain on the awning above the shop.

She was back inside T. Merrin's Horology, standing exactly where she had been before-only now, everything felt different.

The air was colder. The shelves were bare.

All the clocks that had once filled the room were now silent. The walls, once alive with motion and rhythm, stood hollow. The cuckoo clocks hung still, doors closed. The grandfather clocks showed no hands. Even the tiny watch domes on the counter were empty, their glass fogged as if they'd exhaled their last breath.

Elena took a step forward.

"Tobias?"

No answer.

She moved behind the counter, searching for the man who had offered her the most impossible gift. The little stool where he had once sat was empty. His spectacles rested beside an oil-stained cloth, untouched.

He was gone.

Only the silver watch in her palm ticked once... then never again.

On the door, a handwritten note had replaced the carved shop name. She leaned in to read it:

"Closed. Until the right time."

Her chest tightened. Not in sorrow-but in awe. It was as if Tobias had never existed at all. As if the shop had folded itself back into time, its purpose fulfilled.

Elena stepped outside.

The rain had stopped. The streets of Wren and Alder looked just as they always had-bustling with cars, damp from drizzle. No one else seemed to notice that something incredible had vanished.

She glanced back, half expecting the shop to disappear the moment she turned away.

But it was already gone.

Where once stood a clockmaker's sanctuary was now an empty storefront with dusty windows and a "For Rent" sign hanging crookedly on the glass.

Still, the watch remained warm in her palm.

She walked home slowly, her steps more deliberate. Lighter.

That night, she placed the silver watch on her windowsill and lit a small candle beside it. She didn't cry for Lila. Not this time. This time, she remembered.

The real laugh. The hug on the ice. The way Lila had said, "You didn't push me."

There was peace in that.

And somewhere-far beyond the turning hands of clocks and calendars-Elena knew Tobias Merrin was still listening to time.

Helping it heal.