Clocks
Jesse Lee Kercheval
Jackie was my new best friend.
She lived in a ranch house at the end of the block. On the outside, it looked just like the house my parents had rented.
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But inside . . .
Clocks. Some so valuable they arrived from museums in armored cars.
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Jackie lived with her Uncle Otto. She told me he was a horologist.
Uncle Otto was actually Jackie’s great uncle.
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Her father died in a war but Jackie never talked about him.
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Her mother lived in Japan. Every year on Jackie’s birthday, she told me, Her mother sent her a doll. My favorite looked like Jackie.
But that year on her birthday no doll had arrived.
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Uncle Otto gave Jackie a clock.
And to cheer her up, he arranged with my mother For me to spend the night.
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It was hard to fall asleep with clocks chiming every five minutes but eventually I did
and slept until midnight when the house shook with bells.
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Jackie woke up.
“Come with me,” she said.
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We went down to the basement. There was a safe and she opened it.
I expected there would be clocks inside. Gold ones. Or ones with jewels.
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Instead, when we stepped through the door, we were outside,
but not in Jackie’s backyard,
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in a forest
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with animals.
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Jackie pointed.
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Through the trees
I saw a woman.
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Jackie ran toward her, “Mother!,”
leaving me behind.
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I was alone in the forest. Absolutely alone.
Then I wasn’t.
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I was in an old inn and Otto was there. “It won’t make her happy,” he said and I knew he was talking about Jackie.
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“They have the best strudel here,” he said.
And they did.
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Then we walked back to the house.
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“What about Jackie?” I asked. “I’ll leave the door unlocked,” he said.
“She always comes back.”
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And he was right. When I woke up in the morning Jackie was there. Before I opened my eyes
I could hear her crying.