WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:08.560 Hollo, I molcoed stories all the time. Glad you are here. 2 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:10.039 Let's get into it. 3 00:00:10.880 --> 00:00:13.439 The day I found the ledger, mare Import was waking 4 00:00:13.519 --> 00:00:16.640 gently from winter, the air in the museum's back storage 5 00:00:16.679 --> 00:00:20.239 sharp with salt and dust. I'd volunteered for a season, 6 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:23.079 maybe two, telling myself it would be a way to 7 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:27.399 ease into retirement without quite becoming invisible. My eyes were 8 00:00:27.399 --> 00:00:30.000 still as sharp as ever, or so I thought, and 9 00:00:30.079 --> 00:00:33.320 I liked the feeling of cold brass drawer pulls, the 10 00:00:33.359 --> 00:00:36.679 slow patience of labeling, and the odd privilege of turning 11 00:00:36.719 --> 00:00:41.320 over objects nobody saw, except perhaps their ghosts. I'd begun 12 00:00:41.359 --> 00:00:44.439 the morning by opening the ledgers from the Four Families collection, 13 00:00:45.159 --> 00:00:48.799 all those thick hand bound records from the respected lines 14 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:53.560 who kept our famous clock tower, the reeds, cartwrites, Benson's 15 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:58.039 and Dales. Over the years, their receipts, repair logs, and 16 00:00:58.119 --> 00:01:00.880 diaries had been cataloged as living roof of the town's 17 00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:04.640 unbroken histories. That was why the margins caught me off guard. 18 00:01:05.079 --> 00:01:09.239 Neat little clusters of blankness, precision ruled spaces spanning exactly 19 00:01:09.319 --> 00:01:13.400 nine months, reappearing every seven years, always across the same 20 00:01:13.439 --> 00:01:18.439 set of families, sometimes overlapping, more often staggered, but always recurring. 21 00:01:19.079 --> 00:01:22.799 Not errors, not missing pages or obvious damage, but the 22 00:01:22.879 --> 00:01:27.519 careful silence of omission. I traced three generations of these 23 00:01:27.560 --> 00:01:32.120 absences across two ledgers, pausing first in amusement and then 24 00:01:32.439 --> 00:01:36.560 with a kind of creeping mathematical interest. Something in the 25 00:01:36.640 --> 00:01:41.159 unbroken regularity, each cycle, as clean as the moon's, refused 26 00:01:41.200 --> 00:01:44.760 any careless explanation. Why, if these were gaps of mere 27 00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:49.840 chance or family misfortune, were they so precisely coordinated? Rewind, 28 00:01:49.879 --> 00:01:53.280 say to nineteen twenty eight. The Reeds father and sons, 29 00:01:53.599 --> 00:01:57.400 their signatures missing from the workshop register, no sales slips, 30 00:01:57.519 --> 00:02:00.560 no market debts, signed out on the last day of March, 31 00:02:00.599 --> 00:02:04.680 and back in exactly nine months, not a flicker in between. 32 00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:08.800 Next year's signature flowed in the same looping hand as 33 00:02:08.840 --> 00:02:12.599 if returned after a good night's sleep. At first the 34 00:02:12.639 --> 00:02:16.199 effect was subtle, Then it wasn't. The further I flipped, 35 00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:19.280 the more the rhythm stacked up, ledger after ledger, the 36 00:02:19.280 --> 00:02:23.599 families working for years, vanishing, returning, always leaving tools, laid out, 37 00:02:23.840 --> 00:02:27.800 contracts resolved, clocks wound tight and ticking. There were even 38 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:32.800 reassuring little notes workshop in order, spring chimes wound in 39 00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:36.680 the curator's hand, as if documenting a tradition every one shared. 40 00:02:37.719 --> 00:02:40.919 I made a note in my catalog, vague and self conscious, 41 00:02:41.319 --> 00:02:45.120 recurring nine month gaps in all four Clockmaker families documentation 42 00:02:45.560 --> 00:02:48.520 see page eighty four f F. Perhaps this was some 43 00:02:48.680 --> 00:02:53.000 old time redundancy, like planting fallow fields or once necessary 44 00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:56.479 holiday cloaked in paperwork. But the quiet perfection of the 45 00:02:56.520 --> 00:03:01.560 return benches, dusted accounts clear, every time piece, never gaining 46 00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:04.319 or losing so much as a minute, bothered me more 47 00:03:04.360 --> 00:03:07.520 than if I had found a break in. The Clockmakers 48 00:03:07.560 --> 00:03:10.439 were the last families in town any one expected to 49 00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:13.800 leave loose ends. But nowhere did the official history mention 50 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:17.560 such a rhythm, No reference in the histories, the local 51 00:03:17.719 --> 00:03:22.280 oral collections, or the pile of festival programs. This in 52 00:03:22.319 --> 00:03:25.599 a town so besotted with the poetry of unbroken days 53 00:03:25.879 --> 00:03:30.159 that it published centennial commemorations of the clocks every minor overhaul. 54 00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:33.879 And so I left the ledgers open and walked back 55 00:03:33.919 --> 00:03:37.280 past the grandfather clocks crowding the main room, thinking, as 56 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:40.479 any teacher might, there must be something here. They're not teaching. 57 00:03:41.159 --> 00:03:44.719 I told myself I'd ask missus Avery before shelving the question, 58 00:03:45.080 --> 00:03:48.919 but not yet. The best curiosities, after all, do not 59 00:03:49.080 --> 00:03:53.639 tolerate tidy answers on demand. The next morning, I found 60 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:57.000 myself returning to the ledgers before clocking in, this time 61 00:03:57.039 --> 00:04:00.520 with a cup of coffee and more deliberate intent. I'd 62 00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:03.599 been back in Merinport three years, long enough to be 63 00:04:03.639 --> 00:04:07.039 tolerated as a familiar face, too short to stop being 64 00:04:07.080 --> 00:04:09.680 the new miss fern March. Even if I wore my 65 00:04:09.800 --> 00:04:13.800 family name like the sea worn pebble, it was retired. 66 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:17.079 From thirty years of high school mathematics. I was used 67 00:04:17.079 --> 00:04:20.800 to routines, rules, and the sorts of small rebellions that 68 00:04:20.879 --> 00:04:24.959 passed for excitement among teenagers. Maybe that's why these nine 69 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:30.120 months silences, regular as eclipses, unsettled me so much. Their 70 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:35.439 neatness was the opposite of randomness. Merinport, four thousand souls strong, 71 00:04:35.720 --> 00:04:38.120 pressed its way into the world where New England's rocky 72 00:04:38.199 --> 00:04:42.079 coast dips toward islands and maritime fog. The clock tower 73 00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:45.839 was the town's defining feature, visible from every street, even 74 00:04:45.879 --> 00:04:49.360 from the harbor, where lobster pots stacked in impossible. Pyramids 75 00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:52.439 and crews swapped. The old war stories now faded to 76 00:04:52.519 --> 00:04:56.759 familial myth. The clock gives us our pulse. Missus Avery 77 00:04:56.839 --> 00:05:00.120 liked to intone, mostly for the benefit of tourists, but 78 00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:04.399 I found the phrase endearing. It was true. The clock 79 00:05:04.519 --> 00:05:09.560 marked everything, noon lunches, fish market auctions, curfews for bored 80 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:13.040 teenagers who broke them anyway, and the sevens chime, the 81 00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:16.680 festival that once every seven years reset the local fishing 82 00:05:16.759 --> 00:05:21.879 calendar with general jubilation. Nowhere was this routine more visible 83 00:05:22.040 --> 00:05:25.040 than in the subtle choreography between the clockmaker families and 84 00:05:25.079 --> 00:05:28.360 the rest of us. Their houses, always a bit grander, 85 00:05:28.639 --> 00:05:32.560 always perfectly maintained, stood in a long curving crescent near 86 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:35.800 the old church, gardens clipped in patterns older than any 87 00:05:35.800 --> 00:05:40.160 living gardener. Each family supplied a roll read for winding, 88 00:05:40.439 --> 00:05:45.000 Benson for repairs, Dale for calibration, cartwrite for tending, chiming 89 00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:48.920 sequences no one else would touch. Their names were printed 90 00:05:48.920 --> 00:05:53.439 on plaques and street signs, immortalized in plays and birthday cakes. 91 00:05:53.839 --> 00:05:56.079 But I'd never once heard more than a sentence or 92 00:05:56.120 --> 00:05:59.839 two slip from their private routines. I liked to watch 93 00:05:59.839 --> 00:06:02.920 the clockmakers at dawn, sipping my tea by the cracked 94 00:06:02.959 --> 00:06:06.759 window as sealers read, always in a blue coat, passed 95 00:06:06.759 --> 00:06:09.639 with his keys, head down, faced too somber for a 96 00:06:09.680 --> 00:06:13.839 man starting his day. He never waved, but always nodded once. 97 00:06:14.600 --> 00:06:17.839 The tower, even at its quietest, pulsed with the sense 98 00:06:17.879 --> 00:06:22.319 of things in order. In contrast, my neighbor Lars Jensen, 99 00:06:22.759 --> 00:06:26.800 retired fishermen, some blackened and prone to humor, kept his 100 00:06:26.879 --> 00:06:30.759 windows open all hours, running his dog and trading stories, 101 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:34.079 as if daring the clock to keep up. It was 102 00:06:34.120 --> 00:06:37.519 an odd thing, being welcomed and never quite invited. In 103 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:41.759 the fishermen spoke of tides and winds. The clockmaker families 104 00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:45.680 floated in rumor and correctness, and the new folks built cafes, 105 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:49.040 ran the school board, and attended costume balls in the 106 00:06:49.079 --> 00:06:53.600 civic hall. Most days, such boundaries were only faint, but 107 00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:56.439 the museum's quiet rooms made it clear how the old 108 00:06:56.480 --> 00:07:02.439 lines endured. Missus Avery, our white head Eaglide director, bestrode 109 00:07:02.480 --> 00:07:05.800 these lines as if she'd invented them. She edited every 110 00:07:05.800 --> 00:07:10.920 display placard, recited every former museum volunteer's birth date, and could, 111 00:07:10.920 --> 00:07:14.079 if pressed, recall the exact placement of a bucket in 112 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:17.720 photographs up to eighty years old. She liked to patrol, 113 00:07:18.079 --> 00:07:21.360 her voice a stage whisper, even when alone, as if 114 00:07:21.399 --> 00:07:25.079 the past might escape from its casings. It was missus 115 00:07:25.160 --> 00:07:29.399 Avery who summarized the town's relationship with time, saying to me, once, 116 00:07:29.879 --> 00:07:33.120 some places keep their ghosts in the attic, mare import 117 00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:36.639 keeps them wound inside the clock. I laughed, but she 118 00:07:36.720 --> 00:07:42.000 barely smiled. Near By, the spring's largest project, curating the 119 00:07:42.040 --> 00:07:46.839 Seven's Chime exhibit, had begun. On alternating mornings, I'd catch 120 00:07:46.839 --> 00:07:49.920 a glimpse of Seala's Reed unlocking the clock tower's battered 121 00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:54.120 green door, vanishing inside with his toolkit, serious as a doctor. 122 00:07:54.680 --> 00:07:58.920 Cela's daughter Mabel, sometimes danced behind him, a flash of 123 00:07:58.959 --> 00:08:03.160 sneakers and wire hair. Otherwise, the families kept to themselves. 124 00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:08.879 The festival calendar marked another point of curiosity. Every seven years, 125 00:08:09.160 --> 00:08:13.000 the whole town celebrated a fishing bonanza, the chime Bonanza, 126 00:08:13.360 --> 00:08:16.160 as everyone called it. Its date set not by the 127 00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:19.680 tides or government decree, but by the clock towers twelve 128 00:08:19.720 --> 00:08:23.839 part chiming, a sequence passed only from one clockmaker generation 129 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:27.199 to the next. It was regarded with both pride and 130 00:08:27.279 --> 00:08:31.759 a ritual seriousness out of step with modernity. I'd seen 131 00:08:31.839 --> 00:08:34.840 children tiptoe pass the tower during the week of the chime, 132 00:08:35.279 --> 00:08:38.440 and some said the fishing boat's luck depended on hearing 133 00:08:38.559 --> 00:08:42.639 every note. No more, no less. All of this I 134 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:46.480 considered normal, or perhaps faintly odd, part of the subtle 135 00:08:46.519 --> 00:08:50.919 mythmaking that pervaded old New England towns. The seriousness with 136 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:54.919 which people took the rituals fascinated me, but their longevity, 137 00:08:55.440 --> 00:08:59.559 how such customs endured unbroken seemed less suspicious to me 138 00:08:59.639 --> 00:09:04.000 than from remarkable. Yet the nine month absences echoed in 139 00:09:04.080 --> 00:09:07.840 Ledger after Ledger would not leave me alone. Such precision, 140 00:09:08.159 --> 00:09:11.120 carried on for generations, was not the stuff of lost 141 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:15.320 holidays or clerical fancy. Why in a town obsessed with 142 00:09:15.399 --> 00:09:20.440 continuity and documentation, were these repeating silences never noticed, let 143 00:09:20.480 --> 00:09:24.799 alone explained? The real oddness began, as most does, with 144 00:09:24.879 --> 00:09:28.279 a walk. I taken to strolling early, cutting across the 145 00:09:28.320 --> 00:09:31.519 green and past the clockmaker Crescent. One morning, near the 146 00:09:31.559 --> 00:09:33.600 end of April, in a year that should have seen 147 00:09:33.639 --> 00:09:37.080 every house bustling with festival errands, I found the entire 148 00:09:37.080 --> 00:09:41.480 block of clockmaker homes for in a neat row, strangely silent. 149 00:09:42.159 --> 00:09:46.159 The curtains were drawn, the gardens immaculate hedges, clipped with 150 00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:49.440 military precision, but there were no cars in the driveways, 151 00:09:49.639 --> 00:09:54.080 no figures moving about. Even the cat that usually prowled 152 00:09:54.080 --> 00:09:58.080 the cartright porch was gone. I circled, feeling for all 153 00:09:58.080 --> 00:10:01.120 the world like a trespasser, peering through the spaces between 154 00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:05.120 drawn curtains. Inside, I glimpsed only the gleam of polished 155 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:08.080 wood and the regular, faint, tic tick of clocks, A 156 00:10:08.159 --> 00:10:12.000 multitude of clocks, each unwound and perfect, their faces shining. 157 00:10:12.440 --> 00:10:15.200 I tried the gate of the Benson House locked, but 158 00:10:15.240 --> 00:10:18.159 the mail box was full, the doormat clear of leaves, 159 00:10:18.759 --> 00:10:23.080 no fliers, no newspapers, scattered, everything in perfect order, without 160 00:10:23.080 --> 00:10:27.480 a trace of occupancy, yet untouched by neglect. That evening 161 00:10:27.519 --> 00:10:31.399 I checked the museum's house registries, full of alphabetized minutiae 162 00:10:31.480 --> 00:10:36.120 and ancient electoral rolls. No interruption appeared, each family listed 163 00:10:36.120 --> 00:10:40.200 as occupied, head present. Even the school's attendance logs, which 164 00:10:40.200 --> 00:10:43.240 I was permitted to review, gave no indication of absence. 165 00:10:43.720 --> 00:10:48.480 Club rosters, church bulletins, volunteer lists, all seamless, not one 166 00:10:48.559 --> 00:10:52.960 reference to a missing family member, no explanations, no on sabbatical, 167 00:10:53.240 --> 00:10:57.279 no visiting kin. Even the birthday column in the town's 168 00:10:57.320 --> 00:11:02.080 weekly rag rattled on like clockwork, congratulating Sealers read on 169 00:11:02.159 --> 00:11:06.000 his fortieth, Mabel read on her sixteenth, all smack in 170 00:11:06.039 --> 00:11:09.159 the middle of what I had observed as a perfect silence. 171 00:11:10.200 --> 00:11:13.320 That contradiction gnawed at me. I could understand, perhaps that 172 00:11:13.399 --> 00:11:17.000 old pattens persisted in records by inertia. But birth days, 173 00:11:17.159 --> 00:11:20.759 church attendants, and school lists the living tissue of community. 174 00:11:21.039 --> 00:11:23.200 Not even a mention of travel, no wish you were 175 00:11:23.240 --> 00:11:27.159 here or away this week. The houses remained unentered, their 176 00:11:27.200 --> 00:11:30.879 absence invisible in public view, as if time itself glossed 177 00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:33.919 over them. I'd watched, I'd checked, and the evidence in 178 00:11:34.000 --> 00:11:37.039 my own mind was clear. Yet on paper they'd never 179 00:11:37.080 --> 00:11:41.399 been gone. I approached missus Avery, hoping perhaps for a 180 00:11:41.440 --> 00:11:46.759 benign explanation, some overlooked clockmaker custom dusted off for every 181 00:11:46.840 --> 00:11:51.159 seventh year. She was hunched over a stack of gallery placards, 182 00:11:51.519 --> 00:11:55.559 pen poised in the preternatural hush of the front exhibit room, 183 00:11:55.840 --> 00:11:58.799 I coughed to announce myself and she patted the seat 184 00:11:58.879 --> 00:12:03.440 beside her. Have you ever noticed, I began, as innocently 185 00:12:03.480 --> 00:12:06.360 as I could manage, that the ledgers are missing entries 186 00:12:06.440 --> 00:12:11.399 every seven years, entire months missing, sometimes whole cycles, with 187 00:12:11.519 --> 00:12:15.480 nothing but silence for a cluster of families. She pursed, 188 00:12:15.480 --> 00:12:17.799 her lips, the tip of her pen resting on a 189 00:12:17.879 --> 00:12:22.320 card describing the annual clock winding. Record Keeping used to 190 00:12:22.360 --> 00:12:25.720 be messier, Fern. But it's the service that matters, not 191 00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:31.080 the paperwork, except the pattern repeats. I pressed nine months 192 00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:34.639 every seventh year, not just in one family, but across 193 00:12:34.720 --> 00:12:38.159 all four clockmaker lines. Have you ever seen a period 194 00:12:38.200 --> 00:12:41.399 when they weren't here? She shook her head, as though 195 00:12:41.440 --> 00:12:45.080 hearing a question in a foreign tongue. Oh, the families 196 00:12:45.080 --> 00:12:48.519 have always been present. Sealers is father before him? The 197 00:12:48.559 --> 00:12:51.720 Benson's even longer. Not a miss day. Since I learned 198 00:12:51.720 --> 00:12:55.919 to tell time by the clock tower, their service is unbroken. 199 00:12:57.039 --> 00:13:01.120 But there really were years without their signatures, entire seasons 200 00:13:01.360 --> 00:13:06.600 in every record, Fern. Old books lose pages, secretaries take 201 00:13:06.679 --> 00:13:10.080 short cuts. What matters is that every hour strikes true 202 00:13:10.279 --> 00:13:13.679 and the festival happens on time. That's what town history 203 00:13:13.720 --> 00:13:17.679 records continuity if you want a real mystery, find out 204 00:13:17.679 --> 00:13:21.480 where Missus Cartwright's cinnamon bun recipe disappeared to It hasn't 205 00:13:21.480 --> 00:13:24.759 been seen since nineteen eighty nine. She half smiled at 206 00:13:24.759 --> 00:13:28.720 her own joke, then signaled I'd best move on. I 207 00:13:28.799 --> 00:13:32.679 let her words sit, their smoothness oddly frustrating. I could 208 00:13:32.679 --> 00:13:35.679 not help but sense that beneath her assurance lay not evasion, 209 00:13:35.960 --> 00:13:39.600 but a genuine absence of concern or even of awareness, 210 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:43.639 about the family's periodic vanishings, like a blank spot in 211 00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:47.200 the mind where a memory should be. I resolved quietly 212 00:13:47.480 --> 00:13:50.759 to observe the coming days with a closer eye. Unwilling 213 00:13:50.840 --> 00:13:54.279 to be so easily put off, I began to patrol 214 00:13:54.320 --> 00:13:58.039 the blocks before sunrise and after dusk, nothing overt, but 215 00:13:58.200 --> 00:14:02.159 enough to feel the boundaries of the family curious routine. 216 00:14:02.200 --> 00:14:06.720 Morning after morning, the clockmaker homes remained silent, their order undisturbed. 217 00:14:07.080 --> 00:14:11.559 No trash bins moved, no cars relocated, no garden tools 218 00:14:11.639 --> 00:14:15.679 left out of place. Window boxes bloomed perfectly, as if 219 00:14:15.720 --> 00:14:19.679 tended by a hidden hand. I passed the tower, which 220 00:14:19.759 --> 00:14:24.799 continued its relentless, resonant chiming, exactly on schedule, perhaps more 221 00:14:24.799 --> 00:14:28.840 exact than ever. According to Lars Jensen's running joke, you 222 00:14:28.960 --> 00:14:31.639 could set your heart by the clock, though I wouldn't 223 00:14:31.639 --> 00:14:36.039 recommend it. One day in June, the town's mail carrier, 224 00:14:36.279 --> 00:14:39.720 an older woman who prided herself on her punctuality, grumbled 225 00:14:39.720 --> 00:14:43.360 in the post office entryway. Too many unclaimed packages for 226 00:14:43.399 --> 00:14:47.519 the clockmaker families, year in, year out, the same then 227 00:14:47.679 --> 00:14:52.279 overnight there scooped up every signature, A perfect match, too perfect. 228 00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:56.240 Don't trust something that neat? I asked her if she 229 00:14:56.279 --> 00:14:59.799 remembered any one collecting for them, or if perhaps neighbors 230 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:03.799 get gathered the mail. She scowled. A reed is a 231 00:15:03.879 --> 00:15:06.960 reed they signed for their own, I suppose, and they 232 00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:10.120 never miss a letter. In the end. I walked through 233 00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:13.679 the square and listened to the hour's chime, noticing for 234 00:15:13.720 --> 00:15:16.840 the first time how the bell's echoes seemed to smooth 235 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:20.919 rough corners off. The day that evening, I rifled through 236 00:15:20.919 --> 00:15:25.120 the museum's public copy of school attendance ledgers years on end, 237 00:15:25.639 --> 00:15:30.600 names spelled out in looping, childlike scrawl, and found that, strangely, 238 00:15:30.919 --> 00:15:34.919 the clockmaker children's absences never appeared, not even on days 239 00:15:34.919 --> 00:15:39.480 that coincided with the gaps I had cataloged one year. 240 00:15:39.639 --> 00:15:43.759 A substitute teacher had penciled in absent beside Mabel Reed's 241 00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:47.399 name for three consecutive weeks, only to have the notations 242 00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:51.120 erased and replaced in careful blue ink, ink that was 243 00:15:51.120 --> 00:15:55.159 not her own, as subsequent comments in the teacher's hand confirmed. 244 00:15:56.279 --> 00:15:59.279 I tested the pattern with a simple chart, aligning each 245 00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:02.919 seven years with whatever details I could glean from town life, 246 00:16:03.399 --> 00:16:08.200 festival dates, tax records, shipment receipts, even local weather logs. 247 00:16:08.840 --> 00:16:12.159 Every single cycle, without fail, was nine months in length, 248 00:16:12.519 --> 00:16:16.000 measured to the day before the families reappeared, not a 249 00:16:16.080 --> 00:16:19.480 day early, not a day late, always in late January, 250 00:16:19.799 --> 00:16:23.159 coinciding with the month before the Seven's Chime Festival began 251 00:16:23.200 --> 00:16:26.919 to be planned. The effect stretched back a hundred years 252 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:30.480 or more, linking generations with a precision more common to 253 00:16:30.559 --> 00:16:34.879 automation than to fallible people. Yet the town smiled on 254 00:16:35.360 --> 00:16:40.399 content in its rhythms. Conversations with Lars were rarely fruitful. 255 00:16:40.759 --> 00:16:43.759 He laughed off my questions with a practical air, saying 256 00:16:43.840 --> 00:16:47.559 things like time runs funny here, especially if you ask 257 00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:52.559 a clockmaker, good folks, but don't ask m to explain things. 258 00:16:53.200 --> 00:16:57.039 But not everyone dismissed the conversation so lightly. One old 259 00:16:57.080 --> 00:17:00.120 fisherman offered, over his bottle of dark ale that they 260 00:17:00.440 --> 00:17:03.600 d been one year when the wind sounded different, but 261 00:17:03.679 --> 00:17:07.799 the time was always perfect. He shrugged, leaving the words 262 00:17:07.799 --> 00:17:12.880 to drift uncertainly away, no follow up forthcoming. When I pressed, 263 00:17:13.119 --> 00:17:16.160 did you ever notice a year when the clockmakers weren't around? 264 00:17:16.599 --> 00:17:19.799 He squinted, as if searching for a lost boy. If 265 00:17:19.839 --> 00:17:22.960 the clocks never stopped, does it matter who was minding them? 266 00:17:23.160 --> 00:17:27.000 He replied. I left, feeling both closer and farther from 267 00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:31.400 anything like an answer. The regularity of the family's absences, 268 00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:35.640 never acknowledged in public record, seamlessly erased in the memories 269 00:17:35.640 --> 00:17:38.559 of all but the most skeptical, felt almost like a 270 00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:42.599 secret agreement, the kind everyone accepts because it makes life smoother. 271 00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:46.519 But I wondered, how could four clusters of homes filled 272 00:17:46.519 --> 00:17:50.559 with objects, habits, signs of daily life become invisible to 273 00:17:50.599 --> 00:17:55.279 a whole population and themselves, apparently without even a blink. 274 00:17:56.240 --> 00:17:59.799 I began tracking the cycles in earnest, drafting timelines not 275 00:17:59.799 --> 00:18:04.480 just backward but forward, projecting the next anticipated absence, the 276 00:18:04.559 --> 00:18:08.240 clean geometry of it. Seven years of presents. Nine months 277 00:18:08.240 --> 00:18:12.640 of blankness repeat suggested not merely a habit, but a mechanism, 278 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:17.039 one immune to outside interference. I started to suspect that 279 00:18:17.079 --> 00:18:21.119 the pattern was not simply social or psychological, but rooted deeper, 280 00:18:21.359 --> 00:18:25.599 perhaps in time keeping itself. To probe still further, I 281 00:18:25.720 --> 00:18:29.599 changed my approach. My early assumption had been the town 282 00:18:29.759 --> 00:18:33.119 kept the secret, perhaps out of kindness, perhaps out of habit, 283 00:18:33.559 --> 00:18:37.720 But interviews suggested otherwise, people really didn't register the gap 284 00:18:37.759 --> 00:18:41.240 at all, even when pressed about specifics. Instead of a 285 00:18:41.240 --> 00:18:45.400 conspiracy of silence, it was something more enigmatic, a silence 286 00:18:45.440 --> 00:18:49.000 that nobody even thought to keep. I waited for the 287 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:53.680 eve of the families imminent return. Late January. Mabel, read 288 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:57.000 seventeen and bored at the library, was happy to help 289 00:18:57.039 --> 00:19:00.200 me rochelve returns. Do you ever go away for a 290 00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:05.039 long time? I asked, quietly, as offhand as I could manage. 291 00:19:05.240 --> 00:19:08.920 She wrinkled her nose. Not really. We sometimes visit Aunt 292 00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:13.440 Jean in Hingham, but only on weekends. Why ever been 293 00:19:13.519 --> 00:19:17.000 gone for say, most of a year, maybe with your family? 294 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:20.839 She looked at me with the mild scorned teenager's reserve 295 00:19:20.920 --> 00:19:25.279 for adults. Asking about the Internet, that's a long time. No, 296 00:19:25.480 --> 00:19:29.880 nothing like that. Why did I miss something? I dropped it, 297 00:19:30.119 --> 00:19:34.640 sensing genuine confusion. She really didn't remember, or possibly had 298 00:19:34.640 --> 00:19:38.839 never even experienced a blank stretch. The episode forced me 299 00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:43.279 to reconsider perhaps the clockmakers themselves did not remember leaving. 300 00:19:43.960 --> 00:19:47.799 Maybe their absence belonged to some other continuity parallel to 301 00:19:47.839 --> 00:19:51.400 the one all around us. A maintenance job performed on 302 00:19:51.440 --> 00:19:55.240 a plane inaccessible to the rest of the town. I 303 00:19:55.319 --> 00:19:58.799 diverted myself that evening with the comforting dullness of the storeroom, 304 00:19:59.079 --> 00:20:03.039 putting away seven chime memorabilia and artifacts from the tower itself. 305 00:20:03.640 --> 00:20:06.559 As I polished old brass finials, I came upon a 306 00:20:06.599 --> 00:20:09.799 cog thicker and heavier than the rest, engraved with pared 307 00:20:09.880 --> 00:20:14.519 years always seven years apart, spanning almost a century. On 308 00:20:14.559 --> 00:20:18.440 one rim in fine, almost secret script, ran an inscription 309 00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:23.079 kept for both, kept for both. The phrase sent a 310 00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:25.880 pulse up my spine, A riddle as plain and as 311 00:20:25.920 --> 00:20:30.640 cryptic as the absences for both what or whom, both cycles, 312 00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:34.079 both communities, or both sides of a divide, hidden by 313 00:20:34.119 --> 00:20:38.400 something as ordinary as a clock face. This, combined with 314 00:20:38.440 --> 00:20:42.839 the mechanical regularity of the phenomenon, the ticking ever renewed order, 315 00:20:43.240 --> 00:20:46.319 I realized, might mean that the clockmakers were not acting 316 00:20:46.400 --> 00:20:50.160 in secret, but in service to something unseen and essential, 317 00:20:50.799 --> 00:20:53.599 keeping time not just for mere import, but also for 318 00:20:53.680 --> 00:20:58.920 some alternate order or memory or place. My unease, previously 319 00:20:58.960 --> 00:21:02.839 irritation shift did to wonder. Suppose I thought that time 320 00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:05.319 in merimport was not an arrow, but a paired process, 321 00:21:05.720 --> 00:21:09.640 one visible, one invisible, both wound and tended, their consequences, 322 00:21:09.720 --> 00:21:13.440 drifting into the subtle fabric of daily life without conscious notice. 323 00:21:13.839 --> 00:21:16.640 If this was true, and my heart beat faster with 324 00:21:16.720 --> 00:21:20.440 the thought, the secrecy was less about hiding and more 325 00:21:20.480 --> 00:21:24.839 about sustaining something so basic, so fundamental, that nobody could 326 00:21:24.880 --> 00:21:28.000 see it at all. That night, I set a plan 327 00:21:28.119 --> 00:21:31.960 in motion from the first moment the clockmaker families reappeared. 328 00:21:32.279 --> 00:21:36.519 I would follow record and note every observable detail as 329 00:21:36.559 --> 00:21:40.440 a mathematician might, as a newly minted volunteer might, as 330 00:21:40.480 --> 00:21:44.160 any human facing the unknown might, by looking for patterns 331 00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:47.440 and by refusing to let the oddity slip quietly back 332 00:21:47.480 --> 00:21:50.960 to sleep. But the clues gathered faster than I could 333 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:54.519 dissect them. The next week, rain pummeled the streets, and 334 00:21:54.599 --> 00:21:57.680 the wind rattled loose slates from the hall. The clock 335 00:21:57.720 --> 00:22:00.480 struck twelve, a minute ahead of my kitchen wristwise, a 336 00:22:00.519 --> 00:22:04.680 happening so rare. I recalibrated both instruments twice. Was it 337 00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:08.359 my error or the clock s that was the town's joke? 338 00:22:08.759 --> 00:22:12.240 The clock was always correct, even if everything else was wrong. 339 00:22:13.319 --> 00:22:16.759 Emboldened by my string of petty discoveries, I resolved to 340 00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:19.359 breach the invisible wall and see what else might hide 341 00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:22.839 behind the clock tower's green door. It was open for 342 00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:25.440 the first time I could remember, and no one seemed 343 00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:30.200 to notice or care. Inside, an iron staircase rose in silence. 344 00:22:30.680 --> 00:22:33.920 At the second landing, the sound of gears, the living 345 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:38.039 heartbeat of the tower grew louder, reverberating through my shoes 346 00:22:38.079 --> 00:22:42.400 and up my spine. A door presented itself, usually locked, 347 00:22:42.640 --> 00:22:47.039 now unsecured. Within was an alcove, spare and cold, furnished 348 00:22:47.039 --> 00:22:51.079 only with a battered desk and a dusty, high backed chair. There, 349 00:22:51.200 --> 00:22:54.359 bound in cracked black leather lay a set of log books. 350 00:22:54.759 --> 00:22:58.400 Their edges were worn and smoothed by generations of hands. 351 00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:03.640 I opened the cover. The inside revealed pages meticulously inscribed 352 00:23:04.039 --> 00:23:07.599 ledgers of absence for each family, each gap marked neatly 353 00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:10.960 in red ink, pairs of dates columned side by side. 354 00:23:11.319 --> 00:23:13.759 It was not just one year or a decade, but 355 00:23:13.839 --> 00:23:17.119 a record nearly as old as the clock itself. The 356 00:23:17.160 --> 00:23:20.559 next set of pages displayed dates in pairs, always a 357 00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:24.920 current year than one seven years distant, alternating forward and 358 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:30.799 backward through the margin. Cryptic notations, dual winding restore for 359 00:23:30.839 --> 00:23:35.160 the other cycle not to be broken. Mechanical diagrams appeared 360 00:23:35.160 --> 00:23:39.440 in red and blue, mysterious as sea charts, symbols reminiscent 361 00:23:39.519 --> 00:23:44.079 of leap year algorithms and tidal puzzles. There were references 362 00:23:44.079 --> 00:23:48.119 to events I'd never heard mentioned, Bonanza of the Other Side, 363 00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:52.519 Storm of the Missing May, the Hidden Festival, dated only 364 00:23:52.559 --> 00:23:55.319 within the cycle gaps, with a commentary that they had 365 00:23:55.319 --> 00:23:59.359 been kept from the waking town. I pieced together with 366 00:23:59.480 --> 00:24:03.559 relentless careful effort that the clockmaker families were absent, not 367 00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:06.519 as a ruse or a vacation, nor as a result 368 00:24:06.519 --> 00:24:09.799 of some hereditary malaise, but as part of maintaining a 369 00:24:09.920 --> 00:24:15.359 second calendar, a calendar concurrent, parallel, perhaps even interwoven with 370 00:24:15.400 --> 00:24:19.519 the daily clockwork. Mere import knew and loved it. Was 371 00:24:19.559 --> 00:24:22.759 no longer clear even to me what was real and 372 00:24:22.799 --> 00:24:26.200 what was maintained only as a shimmer of practiced routine. 373 00:24:26.720 --> 00:24:29.559 If the families left, they did so in service to 374 00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:33.799 something both more abstract and more immediate than tradition, the 375 00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:37.279 upholding of a world that flickered between presents and absence, 376 00:24:37.599 --> 00:24:41.799 each supporting the other in turn. Emerging from the alcove 377 00:24:41.920 --> 00:24:44.920 log book pages burned into my memory, I felt less 378 00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:48.039 anxious than charged, a kind of fascination humming at the 379 00:24:48.119 --> 00:24:51.400 edges of my thoughts. If there was another cycle, what 380 00:24:51.720 --> 00:24:53.880 or where was it? What did it mean for the 381 00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:58.640 town's fishing bonanzas, its uncannily flawless weather, its near legendary 382 00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:04.000 avoidance of disaster, What exactly did the clockmakers absentee labor produce, 383 00:25:04.319 --> 00:25:07.000 and for who or what did they keep the time 384 00:25:08.119 --> 00:25:11.799 My steps led me almost automatically back to the museum. 385 00:25:12.039 --> 00:25:15.960 I scoured the oral history archives for legends, stories, anything 386 00:25:15.960 --> 00:25:17.920 to ground what I was learning in the soil of 387 00:25:17.960 --> 00:25:21.160 shared myth. Beneath a pile of faded recipe cards and 388 00:25:21.200 --> 00:25:25.599 headless wooden dolls, I found a sealed envelope, unsigned and undated, 389 00:25:25.920 --> 00:25:29.880 containing a single page in spidery cursive to be preserved 390 00:25:30.400 --> 00:25:33.880 in the cycles drift, keep the chimes bound for both shores, 391 00:25:34.200 --> 00:25:38.160 lest the current carry fortune away. Missus avery, when I 392 00:25:38.200 --> 00:25:41.160 pressed her, leaned on her cane, and hesitated so long 393 00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:45.759 I almost retreated. Finally she spoke, voice suddenly small. Once 394 00:25:45.839 --> 00:25:47.720 as a child, I woke up in a house empty 395 00:25:47.720 --> 00:25:51.400 for days. Couldn't say how long My parents, my brother's gone. 396 00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:54.480 The clocks all ticked, every bell in place. A week 397 00:25:54.559 --> 00:25:57.160 later they were there again. Nothing changed, and I I 398 00:25:57.240 --> 00:25:59.440 remember less than a fog, except for the ache that 399 00:25:59.519 --> 00:26:02.880 something was very wrong. She shook her head, surprised at 400 00:26:02.880 --> 00:26:06.599 her own admission. I must have dreamt it. I don't 401 00:26:06.680 --> 00:26:09.880