Each cup could hold no more than five minutes. And since there was more tea than sugar, I decided to mix three tea-minutes, and two-sugar minutes together. Five minutes in twelve cups made a full hour.
Divided. As broken up as it could possibly be.
Then I went around the table and poured the minutes as they watched.
Then I grabbed the bowl and poured the sugar with the small spoon—just one spoonful for each.
Then I stopped in front of my chair and I waited.
This time, when the table shook again, the clocks began to groan, too. So many of them, all over the table, like they were suddenlyalive.
I knew what was coming. I knew exactly what to expect—wrinkles, gray hair, possibly a bleeding nose—but I did hope that it wouldn’t be too severe. When I reached to pull my Life Clock out of my pocket, I genuinely thought I would getlessold and give up fewer hours than March and the others had given.
The hands moved as the clocks groaned for one last time. The whole table held their breath, and I expected my hands to start wrinkling any second…
The table stopped shaking.
The clocks stopped groaning.
The hands on my Life Clock moved back—one minute.
The clocks on the table moved back—onehour.
At first, I didn’t really understand what was happening, why my hands were still my hands. Why my Life Clock hadn’t spent at least five minutes. Why the clocks on the table were all back to six.
But the other Hands cheered and clapped and stood up, said the wordsit’s over—again and again. A shadow fell over me and I had to look up—March with his eyes and his mouthand his hair. Dark, without a single silver string in sight. His skin smooth, not a wrinkle anywhere I could see.
He looked likehim. And Levana looked like Levana. And Russ looked like Russ—I knew this because he grabbed me by the shoulders, pulled me toward him, hugged me. He said something in my ear, screamed it, shaking as he was—crying or laughing or both—but I didn’t hear it.
All I could think about was that I wanted him off meright now.
Luckily, he stepped back.
“The hour is unmade. It’s six o’clock again. It’sover!” he informed me, and when I pushed his hands off me, he didn’t react.
“An hour spread thin enough that the game couldn’t keep ahold of it anymore,” March said from my side, arms crossed in front of his chest as he looked down at me.
A little bit of suspicion, a little bit of wonder.
Not a lot.
“Good work,” he added, almost reluctantly.
I nodded, as if I’d been certain that this would happen all along. “It’s over,” I repeated, just to hear those words said from my own lips. “You’re not old anymore.”
“I was never old. Only looked like it,” he said. “Just the game.”
Another nod. “Just the game.” A twisted, twisted game that could add decades to your body in a blink.
I did not want to be part of this game anymore.
“Guys-guys-guys—let’sgo!”
We both turned to the other side of the table, to Reggie, who wasn’t feeling any better, it seemed, though he looked entirely like himself. His eyes were still bloodshot, his hands trembling as he waved for us to follow him. To just go.
I would eagerly follow. I was very ready for this to end, too, and toneverbe back here again.
The others felt the same way. March stayed behind me, his shadow falling over me as we moved around the table, and I don’t know why I found that comforting—maybe because that way nobody could come hug me from behind? Only him, and he wouldn’t hug me.
