The clock went to the library in a crate lined with felt, and Margit went with it, and Mr Pemberton went in a basket on her knee, because she would not leave him in the garden to grow any younger without her. The reading room was tall and quiet and faced north, which she had not expected, and which the clock did not mind.
She hung it, set it, and watched the second hand begin its slow walk backwards. The librarian watched too, and after a while asked, carefully, whether that was intended. Margit said that it was a thousand-year clock, and that in a thousand years nobody would remember which way the second hand was supposed to go.
On the train home the cat slept, and she drew. The next letter, when it came, would ask for a clock for a garden, and she would know exactly what to charge.
The code word on this page is velvet-1914.
The Clockmaker's Garden | Chapter one | Chapter two | Chapter three | Chapter four | Chapter five