The Music Box Chapter 2

Chapter Two.

 

The Clock maker.

 

          Miya could hardly wait for bedtime. As soon as she was tucked in, her mother sat beside her.

“Now,” she said, “remember that Annie only learned these things much later. This part happened while she was trapped in the music box, and she was in it for a very long time.”

Jack Crankin was the finest watch and clockmaker in the world. He never claimed it, but everyone who owned one of his clocks did. Jack worked in the back of his father’s shop; customers were served out front. Jack never came into the shop when people were around.

He had been born with a twisted spine. To look someone in the face, he had to strain his neck painfully, so he usually kept his eyes on the floor. The only place he felt comfortable was perched on his high stool, leaning over his workbench with his eyeglass in place.

In the evenings, when his mother insisted he rest, he kept a pad and pencil beside him and sketched designs for marvellous clocks, ones with figures that danced or bowed when the hour struck.

One day, while he was mending a watch, his father opened the door and bowed a woman into the workroom. Jack couldn’t remember that ever happening before.

He began to climb off his stool, he had been taught to stand when a lady entered, but the woman laid a gloved hand on his shoulder.

“No need to get up for me,” she said. “I am no lady.”

Gratefully, Jack sat again. She lifted his chin with her hand, forcing him to look up at her. She was a youngish woman dressed entirely in black. He pulled his chin away before the pain grew too sharp.

“You may leave us,” she told Jack’s father. “I’ll call when I’m done.”

Jack’s father backed out.

“There are two things you can do for me,” the woman said, drawing a beautifully carved wooden box from beneath her cloak. “This music box is precious to me. Years ago, my maid overwound it, and now it won’t play. See?”

She turned the key, opened the lid, nothing happened.

“I want you to mend it.”

Jack shook his head. “You’d be better off with the toymaker in the next street. He’s more used to these things.”

“I’ve been to him,” she said. “He told me to come to you. It’s clockwork, is it not?”

She set the box on his bench.

Jack sighed, fitted his eyeglass, and opened the box. “You’re right, the mainspring is broken. If I could find another like it, I could repair it.”

“Good,” she said simply.

Jack examined the mechanism further. “This is fine work. I’d struggle to make something this delicate myself.”

“I’ll leave it with you,” she said.

Miya’s mother paused. “You know, I always wondered where the witch got that music box. If it belonged to Mentiri, it should have been in her cottage, and she couldn’t have gone there while Calizone was living in the forest. Witches never meet without falling out. Still… we’ll never know. On with the story.”

Jack eased his aching spine. “You said there were two things I could do for you.”

“Yes.” She smiled. “I want you to make me a clockwork man.”

Jack nearly toppled off his stool. “A clockwork man?”

“Exactly. I’ll bring you a suit of armour. You will make it so it can be wound up, and work.”

“Work how?” Jack asked.

“In the same way any man in armour might work.”

Jack thought for a long moment. “It would be a challenge… but yes. I’d like to try.”

Then a thought struck him. “It could be expensive. Can you afford it?”

He risked the pain and looked up.

The woman snorted. “You’ve no idea who I am, have you?”

Jack shook his head. He rarely went out and knew few people.

“Most know me as the Witch of the Dark Forest,” she said quietly.

“Don’t you mean Mentiri?” Miya interrupted.

“No,” her mother said. “This is a different Witch of the Dark Forest. Annie was in the box for a very long time.”

“Oh. I forgot.”

“On with the story.”

Jack swallowed. Even he had heard of her.

“If the clockwork man works,” the witch said, “you will be paid handsomely.”

Jack nodded, then took a deep breath. “If the stories about you are true… there’s something you could do for me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What?”

“You could take away the pain in my back.”

The witch smiled, not a pleasant smile. “That is what you want? For the pain to be gone?”

“Yes, please.”

“Then so be it. When the clockwork man is ready, I’ll take your pain away. The armour will arrive tomorrow.”

She swept out. Jack heard the shop bell tinkle and let out a long breath.

The armour arrived the next morning, left silently on the doorstep. Jack’s father carried it in. “This should take two men,” he marvelled. “But it’s light, and strong.”

Three months later, after neglecting all other work, Jack had nearly finished the clockwork man. The witch visited every few days, appearing without warning, peering over his shoulder, urging him to work faster. At least she paid in good silver for the parts.

At last, Jack said, “Only one piece left.” He held up a delicate component. “It needs a spring stronger than steel, but as thin as a hair.”

“And have you got one?” the witch asked.

“Oh yes.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“I only have one. And I need the same spring to mend your music box. You’ll have to choose.”

“Put it in him,” she said at once. “I can do without a music box.”

Jack fitted the spring, closed the armour, and handed her a key. “You’ll want to wind him first.”

She snatched the key. Jack showed her the keyhole.

“Ten turns for a test,” he said. “A hundred for a full day.”

She wound it. The clockwork man walked across the room, turned, walked back, and repeated the motion until the spring ran down.

“Is that it?” she asked.

“I suppose so,” Jack said. “The only way it could do more is if it had a real brain, but that’s impossible.”

The witch’s eyes gleamed with sudden, terrible interest.

Jack, still adjusting a screw, didn’t see. “You could even teach it to wind itself if it had a real brain.”

“What a good idea,” she murmured. “I already have a heart for it. A brain would finish him nicely.”

“Pardon?” Jack asked.

“Oh, nothing important to you. Now, how much do I owe you?”

Jack handed her the bill. She glanced at it, snorted, and gave him a heavy purse.

“That more than covers it.”

Jack opened it. Gold coins. Real ones.

“And the pain?” he asked timidly.

“Ah yes. I did promise.” She waved her hands and muttered.

Jack waited for his back to straighten, but nothing changed. He lifted his chin. “But I’m still bent.”

“You didn’t ask to be straight,” she said. “You asked for the pain to be gone. And it is.”

It was true. The ache was gone.

In a cold voice she added, “People should ask for what they truly want. Put the knight outside. Someone will collect it tonight.”

At the door she turned. “Oh, and if the knight is ever destroyed, your pain will return tenfold. So hope your workmanship is as good as they say.”

She left.

Jack wound the knight a little, guided it outside, polished it once more, and returned to his clocks. As his father pointed out, the pain was gone, and that was something.

By morning, the knight had vanished.