The holidays had been rough, and not just because of the weather. The repeated beatdowns she’d gone through really had done a number on her to the point she hadn’t gotten the time to do what she’d wanted to for about a month now.

So tonight, after Luciana closed the shop, she gathered her materials together. Last time she’d been up there, she hadn’t checked to see if she had cell service so just in case, she downloaded the videos Aaru had mentioned about clearing up and repairing broken tiles and masonry. It wasn’t something that she knew a lot about at first but she was ambitious and felt confident about things after going to one of the local hardware stores and getting everything she needed.

The only thing she knew she might not be able to tuck into subspace was the broom so she would have to carry that as she made her way there. It wasn’t the worst, considering all the heavy stuff was in her subspace and she didn’t have to lug it all that distance. Something that Aaru had mentioned was that she would be able to bring along a pal or two in the future, something she was greatly looking forward to because hell if she wanted to do all this dirty work till whoever the ******** knew when. It would be different when she got to the machinery, to the gears and clockworks that she knew even without having been there more than once.

At least tonight there wouldn’t be any visitors, she’d warned Kinsley ahead of time that tonight she would have to head out of the city to do some work on a project. It wasn’t a lie, not that she really cared if she lied to that puppy of hers, but she did feel like it wasn’t something she could really explain either.

Stepping out of her shop onto the sidewalk, it was quiet as the snow fell. She’d chosen this area because of the lack of night time foot traffic as well as the overall design of the buildings, something that reminded her just the smallest bit of her home before Versailles - the one she actually missed.

Once she was far enough away, broom and now pendulum in hand, she thought of that string of words. The ones that had pulled her there before and did so again now as she focused on them and the intent behind them. Out of habit, she closed her eyes, only opening them once the sounds of the city had vanished, replaced by the silence that had greeted her last time. The air felt stale, stagnant, and was still full of dust as she walked the path from the border of her wonder to its main feature. The clocktower and its stone walls stood just as ominous and patient a last time, almost as if it waited for her to start the hands of time up again.

The repair on the main archway she had done last time still held up even if it hadn’t been great. That was one thing she wanted to work on but without someone gifted with a few more inches than she had, it wasn’t going to be possible for a bit longer.

“Maybe with Aaru… he knows how to mason at least…” Mumbling as she pressed on and into the central hall where the broken stones and clock stared up at her from beneath her feet. The time was now so she started pulling things from her subspace. A big battery-powered lamp came out first and she set it nearby to help provide a bit more light to work by since the holes in the ceiling only did so much. That in itself wasn’t a problem she quite knew how to deal with because how the ******** was she supposed to get all the way up there alone? Build some sort of scaffolding? No. Plans to get this up and running were one thing but she wasn’t delusional about what she could do on her own.

Shaking her head, she took the broom with her and started sweeping up the loose debris and dust first, being mindful of the hands of the in-floor clock face while making sure she didn’t dislodge anything new if possible. The main thing the video said, which now played through one of her earbuds, was that the area needed to be clean so all the broken pieces could be put back together with grout or mortar.

Falling into a rhythm, one that had her humming and thinking of some of her skating routines, it took her more than a moment to realize that everything seemed to shift again. It was like last time, even if it wasn’t the same.

Below her feet, at least whoever’s feet she was looking down at, the clock face was in motion. It was being built this time, not quite finished but the last few tiles were being settled into place as gears were calibrated, and the whirring sound of a mechanism being wound echoed in the empty space.

“It took a lot of work to get here, a whole lot of paperwork on top of that.”

The voice that spoke was welcoming but tired, one that had been through a lot of turmoil or at least one that had been deprived of rest. It was a voice that felt familiar, even if she couldn’t place the raspy sound of it to anyone she knew.

“Just need to add the schematic to the archives alright? Then the next batch of watchmakers can get this working again if it decides to kick the bucket.”

The voice seemed to shift, as did her viewpoint. Looking towards the far back corner, she could barely make out a door. The candlelit lanterns that hung near it could not pierce the darkness that lay beyond the threshold.

Another shift and she felt something moving, more than just in the dream.

Cursing, Spasskaya snapped out of the reverie as she stumbled over the threshold of an old doorway, her foot catching on the lip and keeping her from tumbling down what she now realized was another set of stairs going deeper into the structure.

Her voice echoed against the stone walls, seeming to go on much farther than she wanted to deal with for the moment. But the curiosity was there, something about this new area made her wonder if it led to more of those odd blueprints like the one she saw upstairs where the main mechanism for the large clocktower was.

Shaking her phone to turn the flashlight on, she muttered to herself about the endless headache this was giving her already. Was this place trying to push her forward to help or forward to an unfortunate accident because of poorly planned stairs?

Her heels echoed as she moved down the steps, keeping the light pointed downward as she watched for loose stones or if the stairs might decide to stop being stairs and send her plummeting down to wherever the hell this was going.

Soon enough she had an answer, though it wasn’t what she wanted. Instead of ending up in a room, she stood facing a thick wooden door with rusted iron brackets. Flashing her light over it, she could tell the lock was rusted in place and she didn’t plan on needing a bolt cutter for something. How the hell was she going to explain buying one of those anyway? It wasn’t like she worked in a field that could explain that away… Maybe something that she could get Aaru to buy or.. Hell, maybe he had one. She’d have to ask him the next time they met up because if her wonder had locked doors who’s to say other ones didn’t have that problem as well.

With a sigh and a huff, she trudged back up the stairs and returned to the main task at hand. With the debris and dust cleared, she had a full picture of what she was working with. With a jug of water and some of the quick-mix mortar, she prepped the area and started working slowly. It was easier to get the larger pieces back together, fixing almost half of the clock face after a few hours of shifting and moving things until they went back together nearly seamlessly.

The hardest part was the center around where the hands of the clock were driven through the face and through the floor where they connected to the rest of the gears. That whole process had her double and triple checking the work as she went, having her mix more and more mortar as she worked too slowly and had batches solidify into useless blobs one at a time.

Cursing more and more, she was more upset with herself for not getting it right the first time than she was at the clock she was working to repair. She wanted to get it fixed, wanted to see it work again and do what she could to make it look like the quick blips she’d now seen twice. Something felt close, motivated her as she worked even though it was hard and at this point a thankless job it seemed. Nobody would pay her but she wanted to do it, she could imagine how beautiful this place would be. And she wanted to do it because nobody else was good enough, things like this clock face and the gears, those were the things nobody could fix besides her. With that reassurance, she dipped her head back down and got to work on the puzzle of broken stone that she was sifting through over a small towel on the floor.


WC: 1,626