She measured it over a month. Each morning she noted the time on the kitchen clock, walked to the sundial, and noted the time there, and each morning the garden was further behind. It was not the sundial. She carried a good pocket watch out and it lost time in the garden and regained it indoors, like a dog that will not come in from the rain.
By the end of the month the garden was forty minutes earlier than the house. Mr Pemberton spent most of his days there now, and came in at dusk with a kitten's appetite. The quince, which should have been dropping its fruit, was in flower.
Margit considered stopping the clock and did not. A library had asked her for something that would last a thousand years, and she had, apparently, built it. The question was only what else it would last for.
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The Clockmaker's Garden | Chapter one | Chapter two | Chapter three | Chapter four | Chapter five