Dai Stihó

But she was curious, if nothing else; her teachers had learned to lock all of their cabinets and drawers after finding her poking in them once or twice. She didn’t usually get in trouble for it – she could talk her way out of almost anything – but there was that one time where her quiz grade was much better than normal...and a copy of the answers just managed to vanish from her fifth grade English teacher’s desk. Being called into the principal’s office and getting a ‘we’re almost positive you did this but have no proof’ was still bad enough of an experience that she stopped cheating, but nothing could stop her curious spirit.

So she pulled on the door, first with one hand and then with two. After a couple seconds of it resolutely refusing to open, swung wide so quickly she fell, injuring her dignity if nothing else. But she scampered to her feet and caught the door before it closed again, squeezing inside and taking a look all around her.


She finished walking through the two shelves and approached the back of the store, finally catching sight of the register (and thought, what if someone just hopped in and stole something? What naïve storekeeper had register at the back instead of the front?). There was an owl sitting on a hanging perch next to the register, and she marveled at the work that must have gone into the stuffing and balancing of the owl so that it didn’t fall — until it hooted at her, making her jump and almost crash into the shelves behind her in shock.

“Peace, Adrienne,” an old, gravelly voice called out, and while she tried to figure out from the voice whether crying or being a brat would get her out of trouble, the old man came out from behind what she could’ve sworn was a wall…but no, it was just a trick of the light, she saw that they were just curtains.

“Well?” the old man asked crankily, scratching at his chin.  He had the long ears that she could’ve sworn were pointed and a nose that was longer than anyone she had seen – in fact, she thought, if he had a long floppy hat and dark blue robes, he could be a stand-in for Merlin.

“Well, don’t just stand there, what are you looking for?” he asked again, sounding twice as impatient as he gently ran a finger down the owl’s side, eliciting a much softer hoot.

“Ah, just...well, I’m not really, I just wanted to look around.” She mumbled, unsure of how he would take that.

“You’re just looking around?” He asked incredulously, as if no one ever came into his shop to do that, and stared through her.

“Well, yes, I’ve never seen the shop before and it looked interesting and…” she trailed off as he turned to look at the owl, clearly not paying attention to her. The owl hooted softly again, and the old man sighed.

“Very well,” he said, answering a question that was never asked, and slowly drew back the cloth that was covering the display case. What was underneath convinced her that this was no ordinary antique or Halloween shop, because none of the antique stores had anything like this. In fact, even the jewelry stores that she had been to with her mom had nothing like these.

In the display case were five pocketwatches made out of five different materials, each one clear glass on the front and the back, showing all the gears. The gold one had a large intricate butterfly knob on the side to wind it up; the silver watch had no knob at all. There was one made of obsidian and shaped like an arrowhead, it was darker and almost reddish at the bottom, and clear on top…and one of gleaming platinum, most like a regular pocketwatch, complete with chain and small knob to wind. How someone could carve wood into such precise gears for the final watch was a mystery to her, but it looked it like it was designed to be worn as a pendant, with a string passing through the top, and she reached for it, forgetting that there was the glass in the way.

The old man smiled…but not kindly, more the smile of a teacher who is giving a test he knows you will do poorly on. Without saying a word, he took the case holding the pocketwatches out and set it on top of the counter, letting her take a closer look.

“I am a collector,” he said, pausing until she looked up at him. “And in my collection I have acquired these timekeepers. Each one is different, each one has the power to change your life. I will not tell you what the others do, only the one that you choose. I will, however, tell you one more thing, and answer one question. The one thing is this: the gold and the obsidian can only be used a limited number of times.”

She looked at each of them set out before her, staring at the faces and watching the second hands turn, and began to notice small details. Tiny buds on the wood, the sweeping motion of the platinum arrows moving much more smoothly than the precise ticking of the needle-like lines of silver. She looked over each one for quite some time, and the old man and the owl watched patiently, knowing that some things were not to be rushed. She did not touch them; he did not offer to let her.

“Some of them have marks, does that—”

“Some of them have been used,” he answered, and said no more.

Finally, she pointed at the deep brown-red of the mahogany, and he gestured for her to take it. Slowly, hesitatingly, she reached out and took it from the case, marveling at how snugly it fit in her palm, and at the loop of cord that had no beginning or end, and looked like the wood had grown around it. She looked up at him, waiting to hear what it was her choice did, and was surprised to see what almost looked like a smile on his face, though it quickly disappeared.

“The living wood; the only piece that was not fashioned with tools and heat. Be strong…but allow yourself to bend sometimes. Allow yourself to be uprooted sometimes, so you can taste new soil elsewhere. And let your friends be the wind and sun; although they may not be near you, they will be with you.”

She stared at him, waiting for more, until he snorted grumpily.

“Well, off be with you, unless you intend to pay me with confused looks.”

She scampered off, then, slipping the cord around her neck and tucking it under her shirt, practically running out the door in her haste to get out before he changed his mind and had her pay for something she certainly would never be able to afford. Her mind refused to stay on anything as she headed home, calling up the strangest memories (first time she tasted berry sherbet, seeing who could jump farther off the swings and breaking her ankle but winning!, seeing her dad leave home again for another three month deployment). She didn’t even realize when she got home, and immediately fell into bed, into a dreaming sleep where experiences kept turning into other ones.

In the morning, she found a tiny flower growing right out of the wood where none had been the night before, a flower she isn’t sure what to do with. But a letter on her desk is addressed to her, and it tells her to save the flowers and smell one when she feels like time has been cruel.

And she does, and it saves her more often than once.


The next eight years passed as they did for all teenagers: with heartbreak and happiness, confusion and determination (even if wrongheaded, sometimes). But throughout it all, she maintained a quiet aura of strength about her. She became the supporting trunk of her group of friends, always there for them, and yet never seemed to need it herself; whenever she was in trouble, she simply paused, a tree letting the wind pass through her branches. They didn’t know of the pendant that she would look at every night, watching as it somehow grew tiny buds and flowers, as it grew as she did, and strengthened as she became strong. The times were not all good for her and not all the flowers blossomed, but the pendant and her lived and grew.

But what happened in those eight years are her life, and we do not belong there. Our story ends, then, when the pendant shatters.


She comes back the night that it breaks, her mind whirling and confused, and he comes with her; his name is Jessie, and they have been seeing each other for a year now.

She runs along the sidewalk, trying to find the shop. It’s one of these, she says to herself, it has to be, please let it still be here. Jessie doesn’t know why they’re here, but he doesn’t care – it’s important to her, and so he won’t question, only support.

“There!” She yells, finding an old shop, and yanks hard on the door. And again, like eight years ago, it resists her until Jessie touches the handle; then it springs open as if greased. She almost runs through the store – but checks herself, remembering the precious items; even in a situation like this, she knew that breaking anything in here would probably be unwise. So she shuffles sideways between the shelves that she could have sat down crosslegged between all those years ago, and finally comes to the register.

Adrienne doesn’t need to hoot this time, for the old man is already there, looking exactly like he did all those years ago, a fact that does not surprise her...but his face is kind, a look that does surprise her.

Though she could say a thousand about how it happened and how sorry she was and how she would do anything to get it back, she only says three words; they are the only important ones.

“I broke it.”

And he nods solemnly, responding with two.

“Show me.”

She reaches towards her neck unconsciously until she realizes that it is no longer there, and then jerks her hand back down towards her jacket pocket, fishing out a plastic ziplock with the shattered remains of the pendant inside. Its gears no longer mesh, the second hand is bent, and the hour hand is snapped off halfway; the wood around the outside has warped and the glass seems poised to pop off, ready to shower the bag with wooden shards.

She sets it on the display and he looks at it critically for a moment, and then up at her…and then past her, at Jessie, who has come to stand beside her and hold her hand. Again, a brief flash of what she now recognizes as a smile, though she does not understand what could possibly be happy at such a time.

He motions for her to open the bag and dump the contents on the display and she does, her hands trembling and recoiling as she touches an edge of the timepiece. He nods, looking over them, and then takes out a small hammer from behind the display.

“Wha—” she almost shrieks, cut off as he brings the hammer down on the pocketwatch. Adrienne hoots reproachfully from her position, but the old man motions everyone to silence, taking what she could swear was a wand and lifting the cord away from the absolutely shattered remains…

And as the cord untangles from the dust and remains, Adrienne gasps, seeing a solid knot of wood at the end of the cord.

“The mahogany timepiece grows with its keeper, reminding you of what is important in your life until it is no longer needed. I don’t need to ask how it broke; you decided that that he should see what it was…and it shattered the moment he touched it. The gift only stays with you as long as you need it; you have learned from it, and it needed to shed all the particular branches and flowers that you had given to it. Now it can grow anew, and help someone else the way it helped you - and you have another tree to lean on, another's branches to be cradled in.”

He does smile now, but it is a smile directed at Jessie, who can't help but smile back. He doesn’t understand all of it, and on some level doesn’t want to – but he understands the compliment he has been paid and his smile is an affirmation of the responsibility he has been given.

“Let it go….”

She nods through her tears, finding the strong pillar of support within her even without the pendant, and turns to the old man. “Thank you,” she says, trying to communicate a thousand different things she is thankful for, but he waves towards the door, never one for too much emotion.

“Live well and remember what it has taught you,” he says, and then grins, and she sees a bit of his spirit underneath the gruff exterior. “Well, off be with you, unless you intend to pay with your confused looks. I don't believe we will ever meet again...but perhaps a child of yours, one day, if he or she is in need.”

And they smile at him and take their leave as the knot slowly unfolds to show a new timepiece, small and yet as strong as its previous owner.