THE CLOCKMAKER’S HOME

A crooked timber house sits among twisted trees with clocks hanging from branches and glowing behind the windows. Deviant Cat says a clockmaker once lived here, though she never says whether she met him or simply followed the ticking through the woods. Either way, she rebuilt the place without straightening what made it special.

Inside, warm rooms gather around stone fireplaces, carved beams, old tools, and clock faces of every size. Gears decorate the walls, pendulums mark the quiet, and even the furniture seems arranged around the steady passing of each hour. The kitchen and sitting room are comfortable, but there is always another mechanism clicking somewhere out of sight.

Time has become a loose thing since the war, yet this house keeps counting it faithfully. Deviant Cat tends the machinery and leaves visitors to decide what every chime means. I take it as a reminder that the Lord still gives us another hour to use well, even in a world that has forgotten what day it is.