The Standing Clock And The White Rabbit

The weight of the mahogany desk had always been a comfort to me. For ten years, the thick slab of dark wood, polished to a dull amber glow beneath the green-shaded lamp, had kept the rest of the world at bay. It was a barricade against the noise of the Foundation, against the endless rotation of board members, and against the ghosts of my own private history. The office itself was proportioned with severe classical elegance—white columns rising to meet a coffered ceiling, tall sash windows looking out over the grey expanse of the downtown plaza, and, standing sentinel beside the heavy velvet drapes, the tall walnut grandfather clock.

I was reviewing the quarterly endowment allocations when the sound began. Not the steady, rhythmic tick-tock that I had tuned out years ago, but a sharp, wet sniffle, followed by the soft scuff of small shoes against the herringbone parquet.

I looked up from the ledger.

Standing beside the tall walnut grandfather clock, framed against the dark wood grain, was a little girl no older than four. Her hair was a cloud of wavy brown, catching the warm amber light of the desk lamp. She wore a simple pink dress with a stiff bow at the small of her back, and in her small arms, she clutched a white stuffed rabbit by one ragged ear. The rabbit's fur was matted around the muzzle, grey with city grit.

The security logs flashed through my mind—biometric gate, private elevator pass-card required on the penthouse floor, sixteen floors of closed-circuit monitors. None of it made room for a child in a pink dress.

She looked up at the towering case of the clock, lifting a small, round chin, and pointed a stubby finger straight at the ornate brass bezel.

"Check that clock, sir. Pretty lady touched it," she said. Her voice had the clear, unhurried cadence of a child speaking an immutable fact of nature.

I stared at her, the pen dead in my fingers. The silence in the office suddenly felt thin, stretched tight like old linen.

"Which pretty lady?" I asked. The words came out lower than I intended, the professional baritone dropping into something raw.

The young girl looked up earnestly with wide, dark eyes, clutching her white stuffed rabbit tighter against her chest, the fabric creaking under her small fist.

"Mrs. Bella. The lady you going marry."

The name hit the quiet air of the office like dropped glass. Bella Sterling. My fiancée. The woman whose portrait was currently framed in silver on the credenza behind me, whose social calendar for the autumn gala was already dictating half my waking life, and who had keys to this private suite, having stopped by just yesterday afternoon while I was downstairs in committee meetings.

I stood up from my desk, the leather chair rolling back against the wainscoting with a sharp hiss. My jaw tightened, the muscles aching beneath my collar. I walked across the room, my shoes muffled by the heavy oriental rug, and came to a stop beside the little girl and the grandfather clock. My expression hardened, the smooth executive mask settling over features that suddenly felt far too fragile.

"Put something inside," I said, looking down at her.

She didn't flinch. She simply tilted her head, her brown waves sliding across her shoulder, and pressed her hand against the carved wooden door of the clock base.

I reached out, my fingers brushing the cool, dark wood. The glass door of the clock face swung open with a faint, oiled sigh, revealing the slow, heavy sweep of the brass pendulum. I reached my hand up toward the ornate clock face, pointing a single finger at the upper dial where the wood met the brass bezel, testing the seam.

My fingertip caught on something wedged behind the decorative moulding—a cold, metallic edge that did not belong to the clock's inner workings. I pinched the piece of metal between my thumb and forefinger and pulled it free.