The Patchwork House Read online

  And so, wordlessly, we turned from the front door. I glanced into the drawing room in case our equipment had mysteriously returned. It hadn’t. So we moved on to the front room. Upon entering, we stood still by the door. I lifted my lantern so that it cast an eerie glow into the room without dazzling our eyes.

  It was no surprise to see the dust cover had returned to the piano. The stool Beth had sat on to play was back to its original position against the wall, and the shutters I had opened were now all closed.

  At least this house was being consistently weird.

  “I guess Percy’s grandfather was a neat freak,” I said.

  “It’s more than that though. It’s like everything is back how it was before we arrived. Like we’d never even been here at all.”

  I shivered. Maybe that was our fate now, to wander the corridors of this house like ghosts ourselves, never able to leave. If we tried to change anything it would reset like a video game, back to the start of the level. I wondered if the grounds still lay out there beyond the black windows, or if instead there was now just infinite nothingness.

  Beth moved over to the piano and uncovered it again. She lifted the lid and gently plink-plinked the highest key.

  “Come on, we need to find Chloe,” I urged her. Why was she wasting time?

  “I’m just seeing if the room resets again. Okay, let’s go.”

  We pushed through the door into the dining room. We had barely spent any time in this room so it was hard to tell if it had also changed. We were looking around for any possible hidden doors when a distant banging stopped us dead. It was coming from beyond the conservatory, probably in the ballroom. Beth and I stared at each other for a good twenty seconds, listening. Whatever was causing it, Derek was likely involved.

  We rushed from the dining room, past the back door corridor and on through the conservatory. We didn’t stop, hurrying onwards to the ballroom at the end of the house.

  “Where have you two been?” Derek asked. I could see his torch was perched on a table, its beam aimed at one of the two locked doors on either side of the stage. In his hands was a fire extinguisher.

  “We’ve been looking for Chloe,” I said, making my way over to him. “What are you doing with that?”

  “Trying to break the door down.”

  “That’s a really bad idea. That thing could explode.”

  “I couldn’t find anything heavier.”

  “Did you hear her behind the door?” Beth asked.

  “No, but it’s the only place we haven’t looked. You checked the living and dining rooms, right?”

  I nodded.

  “And I checked every inch upstairs. So this is the last place she could be.” He raised the extinguisher over his head.

  “Wait,” I called. Derek paused. “Let me try.”

  Derek backed away and I took his place. Holding up the lamp I could see the lock was dented but not wrecked. I paused, pretending to be thinking. In my mind I could hear the ticking again. I glanced at Beth and she was recalling it too. I didn’t want to open the door but if Chloe was behind it, I didn’t have a choice.

  I made a show of pulling out the ring of keys Arthur had handed to me earlier that day.

  Derek let out an anguished sound. “Fuck me! You had them all this time?”

  “Just remembered,” I said weakly. I put the lamp down next to the torch and tried to remember which key opened this door. On my fourth attempt the lock sprung and I opened it.

  Beyond was total darkness. I grabbed the lamp and Beth and Derek shone their torches into the short corridor. The door to the right was still open and already we could hear the ticking. Drawing near, we paused at the top of the stairs that led down towards the noise that made my brain itch.

  “I didn’t know this house had a basement,” Derek said.

  “Dad didn’t mention it. I suppose this must be fairly new too.”

  “I don’t want to go down there,” Beth said, clutching my arm nervously. I agreed with her. But I knew we were out of options. There was nowhere else to search.

  Derek pushed past us but he too paused before descending. “What is that ticking? It’s doing my head in.”

  “A clock, I guess…”

  But he was already descending, crouching low and shining his torch underneath the floorboards of the ballroom.

  “We should go with him,” I said. I grasped Beth’s hand and down we went.

  What we found was something of a disappointment. It was obviously a wine cellar. One entire wall of the space covered by a built-in wine rack. Clearly Percy hadn’t got very far with his hobby because there were only around twenty bottles in one bunch in the middle of the racks. If we survived until dawn I might just grab a bottle or three and get completely hammered by lunchtime.

  There were a few other items in the room: a chair on the far side, a pile of dust sheets in either corner opposite the rack-wall, and a small pile of bricks behind the stairs. But our eyes were drawn to one object in the middle of the room, covered in a dust sheet. For a moment I thought there might be someone underneath the cover, standing motionless, waiting for our arrival. I was startled for a moment by its incongruity. What was it doing here? What was under the cover? It was the right height and the right width to be a person. But whatever was under the sheet was far too broad and round to be human.

  Unmistakably, it was the source of the ticking.

  Derek was ready to leave. “She’s not here,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait,” I told him. “Don’t you want to see what’s under there?”

  “I’m guessing it’s not my fucking wife, Jim.”

  Yet he stayed, hovering at the bottom of the stairs. Beth wanted to know what was making that incessant noise too. I held up the lamp as she approached, obviously fascinated by the strange item in the middle of the cellar.

  Gingerly she took hold of the sheet and pulled it off. It fell to the floor like a lover’s discarded robe, ignored and forgotten. All eyes were on the naked object underneath.

  It was indeed a clock, but unlike any I had ever seen. It stood on a narrow column and had a bulbous globe on top with a flat face. At its base the column split into five protruding feet that sank beneath the poured concrete floor. It was beautiful, like something you might see in a palace or a museum. It must have been well over a hundred years old but the wood had been cared for meticulously, as had the brass plating and the iron hands. What was truly unusual about it, aside from its shape, was that it had five faces. They were arranged in a line of four, with the fifth clock face positioned above the others. From the looks of it, the timepiece was capable of keeping track of five international time zones at once. It reminded me of the kind of clock you’d see at airport terminals, where multiple faces would tell you the time in major cities around the world. Except this one pre-dated commercial air travel and possibly pre-dated international time zones too.

  Beth and I gazed at it. Even Derek moved closer to get a better look.

  In my years of assessing houses for my dad I had come across some unusual antiques—and I’d sold many of them on eBay and at auctions. This clock was unique.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Beth said at last. I let my silence convey my agreement.

  “Is it for showing the time around the world?” Derek asked.

  I managed to refrain from telling him that this was obviously the case. On the one hand, it would have needlessly antagonized a man who was at least still speaking to me. On the other, I didn’t want to end up proven wrong.

  Three of the faces were working. They were keeping time and they were all in synch, almost impossibly so. The second hands click-click-clicked in unison. It was almost eerie to watch. The time they were showing was not the right time though.

  The other two clocks were stopped, the one on the far right and the one on top.

  “It’s not ten-thirty, so why do three of the clocks say it is?” Beth asked. Nobody had an answer to that. The answer didn’t s
eem to be that they were running fast or slow, because the three working faces were all equally wrong. The two stopped clocks had frozen at different times, one 10:40 and the other at 12:30. It was impossible to tell whether the time shown was morning or afternoon.

  “Why is it here, in the cellar?” I asked. I didn’t expect anyone to have the answer, I just felt it needed to be said.

  “And why is its ticking so damn annoying?” said Derek.

  We stared at it for some time. Two and a half minutes to be exact. And still none of us could answer the question why three running clocks all showed exactly the same wrong time, or what the clock was doing down here, or why its ticking was so jarring.

  When the clock above the others started moving, we all jumped. Then we stared in fascination and mounting horror. Now the top face was ticking away the seconds at the same rate as the other three. We had no idea what it meant and we didn’t know why it was doing it. But there was one fundamental difference between this clock face and the others below it, one thing that made my heart stop and my mouth go dry and every cell in my body resonate with primal, crawling, fear.

  The clock was running backwards.

  It didn’t make any sense, and as we stood there watching it I had no idea why it stirred such dread within me. I couldn’t take my eyes off it, and I was sure that Derek and Beth were as transfixed as I was.

  What did it mean?

  There was just something about it, the randomness of it starting up while we were watching, the impossibility of clockwork running in reverse without some reason behind it. Clocks didn’t just run backwards on their own, did they?

  A whole two minutes went by, and for a while it felt like we would never be able to tear our eyes away. It was moving faster now, the backwards clock. The seconds were turning back faster than the other three clocks could gain on them. The sound from the clock was almost random now, the rhythm lost in a storm of tick-tocks.

  The trio of in-synch clocks now read 10:35. The backwards clock read 10:37 and it was counting down at a rapid rate. Very soon, all four clocks would say the same time.

  And then they did. At 10:36, the fourth clock stopped for just a moment, and then started moving forward, in perfect synch with the other three.

  “I don’t get it,” said Derek. Nothing had happened. The world hadn’t ended. We were still standing here in a wine cellar in a haunted house, lit by a gas lamp that might die any second, staring at the most bizarre antique clock we’d ever seen.

  “It’s just broken, I guess,” said Beth. I could tell she didn’t believe her own words. “Or maybe it’s measuring something other than time.”

  “We need to leave,” I suggested. It was a little voice at the back of my mind, tiny but very insistent.

  Get out now.

  “I agree,” Derek said. “Something’s not right.”

  We all saw movement in the corner of the room.

  “What was that?” Beth asked. She clicked on her torch. I moved the lamp aside so it wouldn’t obscure our vision of what the torch was revealing. It was pointing at one of the piles of dust covers. It wasn’t moving now.

  “Are you going to take a look?” I asked. I didn’t direct the question at anyone specifically. I was hoping either of my companions would volunteer.

  “I’ll look,” said Derek. He walked between me and Beth and around the clock, keeping his distance from the creepy antique. He clicked on his own torch as he approached the pile. “It’s probably just an animal,” he said. “It’ll leap out at me when I take away the cover.” He’d reached the pile now. He put a hand out to grab the sheet when I realized something that sped me to the edge of insanity.

  “Wait,” I said.

  Derek hesitated and looked back. “What is it?”

  I was staring at the other corner, opposite to Derek’s position. I pointed. I couldn’t formulate words. Beth swung her torch into the far corner to illuminate what had me spooked.

  The pile of dust covers in the other corner wasn’t there anymore.

  “Shit,” said Derek.

  Then the gas lamp sputtered and died.

  I don’t recall exactly what happened next. I remember the flicker of torchlight as Derek and Beth tried to locate the exit.

  Derek yelled, “Get out!”

  I don’t remember making it to the stairs but I must have done because I don’t think I’ve ever ascended a staircase as fast as I did right then.

  It was the black shape. As I ran, not even caring if the others were following but dimly aware of torch beams moving around me, all I could see was that shape. It had been in the cellar with us, standing right next to Beth for who knew how long? Since we stopped looking at the pile of sheets in the corner perhaps?

  The next thing I knew I was at the top of the stairs, fumbling in the pitch darkness. I wanted to get out, I had to get out of this house, but I was still aware enough to realize that if I turned back towards the ballroom I would have to go through that room, the conservatory, the kitchen and the hall to get to the front door. And that was too much. So I turned right. I went to the door at the end of the short corridor.

  Beth was behind me. Derek too. I fumbled with my keys, relief flooding over me that I wasn’t alone and that I wasn’t the only one desperate to get out of that house.

  “Find the fucking key,” Derek said, his torchlight illuminating the entrance to the cellar. I glanced backwards too but it was impossible to tell if anything was coming after us.

  Beth was whimpering, Derek was cursing. I was fumbling with the ring of keys.

  “I need light!” I yelled, and this snapped Beth back to reality. She shone her torch at the lock and I selected one I’d not used yet. It didn’t fit.

  “Come on!”

  I tried to calm myself, think carefully and choose wisely. If I did this out of panic, I’d never get the right key.

  “Oh please, Jim, let us out!” That was Beth. The light was shaking.

  “It’s coming up the stairs, oh Jesus.” Derek was losing it too.

  And we could hear it now. Slow, steady footsteps ascending the stairs from the basement. It was in no hurry.

  I forced my breathing to calm. I grabbed the torch from Beth who now couldn’t hold the light steady. I chose the final unused key and thrust it into the lock. It fit.

  I turned it, opened the door and the three of us spilled outside into the chilly night air.

  I slammed the door behind us and re-locked it.

  We stood there for a moment, wondering what to do. I directed the light around to see where we were. Definitely outside, but without the torches it would be so dark we might as well have stayed in the cellar. I lit up a door opposite us that allowed access to the garage. But there was no need to look in there. We had an escape vehicle already.

  “We need to keep moving,” Derek said.

  The bang against the door made us jump.

  “Oh God,” Beth said.

  I nearly lost it at that moment. Escape into the open air had seemed the logical way to evade what was after us. But I realized if we were safe, it was only temporary. I doubted a wooden door could stop this thing.

  “This way,” said Derek. He aimed his torch at the path leading to the front of the house and hurried off. I grabbed Beth’s hand and followed him without looking back.

  Our shoes crunched on the gravel driveway as we ran past the ballroom windows. Derek’s light was pointed resolutely at the car, waiting beside the front door. My light was all over the place, fading into nothing as it got lost in the deep, crushing darkness.

  I was convinced we wouldn’t reach the car. I was certain that it was a mirage, or that something would step out of the shadows to intercept us. But it didn’t.

  As we approached, I took out the key and pressed the unlock button. The lights flashed and the car blipped. The internal light came on, a guiding beacon of safety.

  We reached it and threw open the doors. Derek climbed in the back, Beth in the passenger seat and me behind t
he wheel. We slammed our doors and I shoved the key in the ignition. Now I was paranoid that the lights had sapped the last of the battery and it wouldn’t start.

  To my relief, the four-by-four roared into life, automatic headlights piercing the darkness ahead and illuminating the path to freedom. I put my foot on the clutch, shifted into first gear and reached for the handbrake.

  “Wait!” Derek said.

  “What? Fucking what?”

  “We can’t leave!”

  “Chloe,” said Beth. “We can’t leave her.”

  I glanced nervously in the rearview mirror. I could see Derek’s concerned face staring at the house. I couldn’t see anything that might be approaching from behind the car. I was itching to be off. I turned on the high beams and instead of two laser-like columns slicing through the dark, the road ahead was now flooded with light. I still couldn’t see anything behind us.

  “I can’t leave her in there,” Derek said.

  “We’ll come back,” I promised him. “We’ll go get help and come back. We’ll get a search party.”

  “They’ll never believe us.”

  “We’ll tell them she sleepwalked into the grounds and we’ve lost her, and we’re terrified she might wander into the lake.”

  “Then why are all of us leaving?”

  He had a good point. If we wanted to convince anyone to come help us find Chloe in the middle of the night, we would need to explain why at least one of us had not stayed behind to keep looking for her.

  “Derek, we’ll think of something. Let’s go!”

  “You go get help. I have to stay.”

  And with that, Derek got out of the car.

  “No Derek!” Beth pleaded. “Please come back!”

  And she got out of the car too.

  What the hell? Was I the only one left with a shred of sanity?

  I slammed my hands against the wheel in frustration. So close to escape. So close to driving away from this place and not having to spend another second in the dark. So close.

  For a brief moment, I admit I considered leaving them there. If Beth had stayed in the car after Derek got out, I might well have done it. But I couldn’t do that to Beth. I just couldn’t, no matter how much my stomach churned, I couldn’t leave her.