Even with all the clocks.
So many clocks.
Sometimes I felt like I was trapped in an hourglass, sand continuously pouring over me, until one day it would take me under.
I sighed, glancing up at the many timekeepers hanging on the wall. At twelve sharp, they would all go off at once.
My father was a clock maker, an engineer when it came to gadgets, and a man who still found life fascinating, the wonder of living never lost on him, even at his age. Some peopled called him a genius, and others called him eccentric, but he was mostly known as the man who kept the books for Oran Craig. Mr. Craig was the leader of a ruthless Irish mafia in Boston. The only reason my dad worked for him was because he was forced to. He didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.
The same was going to happen to me. I wouldn’t have a choice when it came to marrying his son, Dermot Craig, when the time came.
For whatever reason, Dermot had set his eyes on me, and they hadn’t strayed since. He wanted to marry me. That was all it took for Oran to hold everything over my father’s head—my life, our apartment, my father’s businesses, his very livelihood—unless I agreed.
The thought sent the sand down even faster, and I closed my eyes, visualizing the moment it covered my mouth and nose.
It would be the moment Dermot held his hand out for mine, and I was forced to take it in matrimony.
I held the little wooden figure tighter in my hand.
My father had taught me how to work with wood, and it was a pastime that allowed me to breathe without usually feeling the passage of time. But it seemed like lately, my father’s clocks were only a reminder of how little of it existed for me.
The Craigs were not known for their patience.
I sighed, releasing the tension on the wooden figurine. I was carving replicas of the cast of a fairy tale. In the story, the beauty fell in love with a beast. I’d sketched out a few of them, bringing them to life in my head. I was smitten with the ones I’d already finished.
If I did say so myself, Belle was coming out fantastic. I was saving the Beast for last.
I hadn’t even sketched him yet because I was having a hard time visualizing him. Fleshing him out. Yeah, I knew how he looked in the movie, but these figurines were for me. For my personal collection.
It was my favorite tale.
That was why I loved working for The Belle of Boston Book Store. I loved to get lost inside a story—an entirely new world. Besides woodworking, it was an escape.
They both were. I’d read and get inspired, and that inspiration would come out through my hands. I had hundreds of little figurines from books that I’d read collecting dust all over the house.
All the clocks struck twelve at the same time.
“Ah!” The knife slid against the wood too fast, slicing my finger, and the figurine dropped from my hands to the floor.
I’d been living with time all my life, the reminder of it, and it had never bothered me before. But the sound had come at me like a strike of lightning in a quiet library.
Blood started to well, and the cut was stinging. I picked up Belle, who was covered in my blood, and set her on the table. I couldn’t relax anyway, so I decided to bandage my finger and get ready for work.
My father, Pauric, knocked on the bathroom door, even though it was cracked.
He adjusted his goggles. There was no telling what he was building. My father was a genius, but he was also eccentric, and it meant he dabbled in a few things, because mentally, he always needed a challenge. “Are you okay, Maeve Rose?”
I lifted my finger. “Just a cut.”
“Let me look at that.” He yanked my finger closer and went cross-eyed, his nose scrunching comically. “Not too bad.”
“No.” I smiled at him, even though he was examining my finger like he could see the germs about to attack my open wound. “It’s too far away from my heart.”
That was his go-to saying when I was little and got hurt. If I’d fall and skin my knee, that sort of thing, he’d tell me I was going to be okay.It’s too far away from your heart.
Maybe that was why this thing with Dermot felt like a death sentence. It was entirely too close to my heart.
It was a dark topic around our house, and it seemed like Dad felt the impending tick of time too. His face became stoic as he took the first-aid kit from the cabinet and started to bandage my finger. “I’m going to find a way out of this. Even if it costs me everything.”
