Apple closed her eyes and clutched the cylinders tightly to her chest protecting them from the chaos around her. She kept walking, willing her legs to move until at last they landed again on something solid. She opened her eyes.
Her feet stood on wooden flooring. She smelled cedar and candles. Slowly raising her eyes, she took in a square room no larger than her living room with walls of the same wood as the floor but no windows. Heavy cedar beams crisscrossed the ceiling above her, supporting a pitched roof from which dangled lanterns that lit the room. Four thick wooden pillars added to the roof’s support.
In front of her, in the center of the room, stood a small round table with an odd sort of antique looking clock. It reminded her of many old tabletop clocks she’d seen before, only this one had no pendulum swinging beneath it, just a face on top of its ornately carved wooden base. The face had more lines dividing it than a normal clock and a fleet of hands whirred around it—some moved so fast as to be barely visible while others barely moved at all.
Behind the clock, sectioning off a part of the room behind one of the pillars stood a large Japanese screen painted with Koi fish. Peeking out from around the corner of the screen, Apple saw the wide-eyed head of a small child with dark skin and thick pigtails. She could see the collar of a brightly colored floral sundress. The little girl’s eyes were light brown like Apple’s, and in her right one, the one to Apple’s left, at about 25 past the hour, she had a small dark fleck.
“You are early,” said the child. She quickly disappeared behind the screen.
Apple jumped a little. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m looking for someone.”
A young woman only a few years older than Apple slinked out from behind the screen wearing a larger version of the same sundress. Only now it hugged her hips and pressed tightly against her breasts. Her eye bore the same fleck. Apple couldn’t help being taken aback by her beauty. This was not how she’d imagined the ‘old lady’.
“You found me,” the woman said, looking Apple up and down, walking around the perimeter of the room. She passed out of sight behind one of the pillars and then emerged on the other side no older than 13, still in the same dress. “Don’t be frightened,” she continued.
“Are you…” Apple wasn’t quite sure how to put it. “Are you the ‘old lady’?”
The girl passed behind another pillar only to emerge hunched over and ancient, her short white hair standing out against the wrinkled black of her skin. “Yes,” she said weakly. “That is what they call me.” She turned as if to deliberately pass behind the same pillar yet again and emerged near the clock no older than Apple’s mother. “You are looking for me?” she asked hopefully.
“Yes,” Apple’s brain raced in a million different directions. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Are you the girl? Are you the girl that man altered my Timestream for?” she asked running her hands affectionately along the top of the clock.
“Yes,” Apple said relieved at not having to recount the entire story. “I need your help.”
“I’m afraid I’m not much help to anyone anymore.” She continued to pet the clock.
“What’s that?” Apple asked mesmerized by the whirring hands.
“This is my clock,” the woman said as if speaking of her child. She moved behind it appearing on the other side as the small girl Apple had seen first. “I built it myself!” she said proudly, now barely as tall as the table it stood on. She danced around the room changing ages each time she passed out of Apple’s view until she stopped again next to the clock as the young woman close to Apple’s age. “This is my clock,” she repeated looking at Apple. “All time emanates from this clock. It is the source of the Timestream.”
“You built it?” Apple asked.
“I did.”
Apple looked at the woman not sure what to think. “Are you… god?”
“No,” she said simply. “I just built a clock.”
Apple persisted, “But what was here before you built the clock?”
The woman answered with a hint of impatience, “There was no ‘before I built the clock’. Before I built the clock there was no time. There was no ‘before’.”
“But-”
“Do not look for answers here, my child. Do not look for god. I know nothing of god. I have a job. I built a clock. I mind it. That’s all I know.” She smiled sweetly.
“Why? Why do you do it?”
“Because it is my purpose. When you find your purpose and someone asks you why you do it, you will say: because it is my purpose. It is what I do. Now,” she said heading back towards the screen, “Would you like some tea?”
“Ok,” Apple replied uncertainly.
The woman returned looking to be in her seventies carrying a tray with a teapot and two steaming cups. She walked right up to Apple. “Please, take one.” Apple obliged. Then the woman dropped the tray, managing to grab the other cup with her hand before the tray crashed against the floor, sending hot tea flying into the air out of the now shattered pot. “How can I help you?”
Apple looked down, but the tray and the pot had vanished. When she looked back up at the woman she had grown about forty years younger.
“I…” Apple held up the cylinders. “I’m trying to save them.”
“How do you mean ‘save’?” the woman asked, sipping her tea and walking back towards the clock. Apple again found herself transfixed by the whirring hands. An idea popped into her head.
“If I were to stop the hands of the clock and turn them backwards, would time move backwards?”
The woman sipped her tea and considered Apple’s question. “If you attempt to turn that clock backwards one of three things will happen. Would you like to know what they are?”
“Yes,” Apple said quickly.
“The universe may end.”
“What!?” Apple nearly dropped her teacup.
“You see, all matter and energy are connected to time. You cannot change one without changing the other two. If you try to turn the clock backwards and the clock breaks then there would be no more time or matter or energy. The universe would simply cease to be, in theory. I am not sure.” She took another sip as if chatting about the weather with an old friend.
“Fuck.”
The woman continued, “The second possible outcome is that you might not be able to move the clock backwards. The problem is, being so close to the source of the Stream as we are here,” she looked down at the clock, “time works differently. Max often likens it to a garden hose, but it is really more like a nuclear explosion. If you are close to a nuclear explosion, far closer than you want to be, it makes no sound. The sound waves move so fast they are no longer sound waves. They become a shock wave until they slow down enough to become sound again. Time moves so quickly past us here that it is not really time until it slows down out there at the Works.” She gestured behind Apple. “That barrier you passed through to get here is where time slows down enough to be time again, but here it almost misses us. You see if it really does miss us than the third option is possible, that you could turn the clock backwards and on the other side of the barrier time would move backwards until you stopped it and sent it forwards again.
“I imagine at that point either the universe would end again because you have created a paradox that violates the fundamental law of conservation of matter – you cannot be both here and where you were at that point in time at the same time, which could rip the universe apart – or you could be instantaneously transported from here to that point in time.
“But if time does not miss us entirely, then as soon as you started to turn the clock back you would immediately turn time back to the point at which you had attempted to turn the clock back. Thus you would either effect no change at all, which wouldn’t end the universe but also wouldn’t turn back time, or you would simply stop time at this point for all eternity, which would essentially be ending the universe as well.
“So you see, even the second and third options involve the possibility of ending the universe. Thus, in my opinion, if you attempt to turn the clock backwards, you have roughly a sixty percent chance of ending the universe, but only a twenty percent chance of successfully turning back time.” She stopped and took another sip of tea. “Why do you ask?”
“I…” Apple couldn’t quite take in everything she’d just heard. “I was thinking maybe I could turn time back to before all this happened.”
“I am not sure how that helps you my dear. There is nothing to stop all this from happening again.”
Apple considered that for a moment. “I wouldn’t remember any of this.”
“I suppose you might have some residual memory of these experiences and could attempt to change the course of events. I cannot be sure, but Delvin could have the same memories. He could remember as much as you do and change his actions accordingly.”
“Change his actions? I thought you couldn’t change the past.”
“You cannot.”
“But you just said, we might remember things. We might change things, even if only slightly.”
“If you succeed in turning that clock back and returning to a time before Delvin has killed your friends and if you manage to prevent all this from happening again, all those actions happen in the future. That does not change the fact that at one time as the Stream flowed from the clock all of those terrible things did happen. It depends on what you consider the past.”
“What I consider the past? The past is the past.”
“No it is not. The past is a memory that affects the present. More tea?”
“No thank you. I’ve still got some.” She took another sip to be polite.
“I would like some more. I must say, I am really enjoying our chat. I so rarely have visitors anymore.” She headed back towards the screen.
Apple stopped her with a question. “Have I done this before?”
“I’m sorry?” she turned around.
“If I’ve done this before, turned time backwards successfully and ended up right back here because it all happened again, you would know.”
“Would I?”
“Yes, because the only way for it to work is if we’re not affected by time here. I’d turn the clock back, set it forward, be instantly transported back, and you’d still be here with memories of what had just happened. You’d know.” She looked at her eagerly searching her face for a sign.
“This could be the first time this has happened. Or no matter how many times you’ve done this I could still have the same worries about the universe ending this time. That the strain on the clock would be too much and it would break this time. Or time doesn’t miss us entirely here, but affects me in ways you cannot even begin to imagine. Ways that make it impossible for me to know if the events of my life are happening now or before or in the future. Perhaps Max would know. You should have asked him.” Her features visibly softened as she spoke of Max. “How is he?”
“Good, I guess.” Apple didn’t know how to respond.
The woman got a far-off look in her eye as she stared off towards one of the cedar walls. “I do miss him so.” She returned. “He spends most of his life beyond the threshold of the barrier where time moves more linearly. Here, yesterday is tomorrow and today does not exist.” She held Apple’s glance for a long moment. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I will fetch us some more tea,” she added disappearing behind the screen.
Apple walked up to the clock and put her teacup down on the table along with the four cylinders. She stared at the whirring hands. She had a twenty percent chance, which was better than no chance. She could make herself remember. She reached out with her hand close to the face feeling the breeze generated by the hands.
She stopped, imagining the end of the universe, imagining it being her fault. Delvin was locked up. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. She still had her mom and her sister. She could go back now and live the rest of her life free of him, but would she ever really be happy? Could she ever forget about this 20% chance?
What did she want?
Apple closed her eyes and pushed her hand into the path of the clocks whirring hands. They cut through her skin, but stopped. “Fuck,” she cursed at the pain, opening her eyes. The floor boards shook and rattled beneath her as if being struck by an earthquake. Dust fell down in streams from the rafters. The woman rushed out from behind the screen in the form of Apple’s mother’s age.
“Well, alright then,” she said struggling to keep her feet. “The universe hasn’t ended yet.”
“How far back do I turn the hands? I can’t read the markings.”
The woman rushed around to Apple as fast as she could. She pointed to a spot on the face. “About here, but don’t turn that short hand at all.” She clapped her hands. “This is so exciting. I hope this works. Nothing exciting ever happens to me anymore.”
Apple struggled to pull the hands of the clock back to the point she’d indicated, being sure to leave the small hand where it was.
“Now what do I do?” she asked.
“Here, let me hold them.” The woman reached in and took a hold of the hands letting Apple free. “Write yourself a note.”
“What?” Apple asked not sure she’d heard her correctly. She closed her bleeding hand into a fist.
“Well, it might help. Who knows? Here’s a pen.” She pulled a cheap ballpoint pen out of the pocket of her dress. “Do you have any paper?”
Apple searched her pockets with her good hand and pulled out Wilton & Sun’s missing poster. She folded it over and picked up the pen.
“What do I write?” The room shook harder.
“Hurry, I don’t know how long before it breaks.”
“What do I write?!” she said louder.
“I don’t know. What’s the first thing you can do? The first thing you can change?”
Apple quickly scribbled down a note:
Apple,
Whatever happens, don’t grab Nick’s dad’s arm. Don’t touch him.
Love,
Apple
She thought she’d be more likely to believe it if she signed it formally. Quickly she tucked it back in her jeans.
“Ok, I’m ready. Now what?”
“Take your friends here and go back through the door. Push yourself as far out as you can, and then I’ll let the hands free. That might reduce the chance of the paradox ripping us apart.”
Apple quickly grabbed the cylinders off the table and ran back the way she’d come. She stopped short and turned around. “Thank you. This is going to work, isn’t it?” she said excited.
“I don’t know, Apple. Honestly, to me, the end of the Universe doesn’t sound so bad. I’ll take it either way.” The woman strained to hold the hands in place. “Go!”
Apple pushed herself through the queasiness into the barrier as far as she could, clutching the cylinders to her chest. She’d take it either way, too.
