The Weight of Time
The cold has a color. In my house, it was gray. It lived in the peeling wallpaper, settled in the empty grate of the fireplace, and seeped into the marrow of my bones.
My name is Elara. I am eighty-two years old, and for the last week, I had been living in a refrigerator. The boiler had died with a shuddering groan on Monday, and the repairman—a young boy who looked at me with pity—said the part cost eighty pounds.
Eighty pounds. He might as well have said a million.
I sat at my kitchen table, wrapped in three cardigans and Henry’s old wool coat. On the table sat The Thing.
That’s what I called it. The Thing. It was wrapped in a tea towel that had once been white but was now stained with tea and age. It was heavy, ugly, and blackened with soot.
“It’s my lucky brick, Ellie,” Henry used to say, his eyes twinkling. He had brought it home in 1941, his face smeared with ash from the Blitz. He’d found it in a pile of rubble near the Palace, burning his hands to pull it out. He swore it was a clock, though it never ticked. He swore it was special.
Henry was a dreamer. I was the realist. But Henry was gone ten years now, and dreams don’t pay for heating.
I touched the cold metal through the cloth. I didn’t want to sell it. It was the last piece of him I had left besides his wedding ring. But the frost was forming on the inside of the windows.
“I’m sorry, Henry,” I whispered to the empty room. “But I’m so cold.”
I put The Thing in my canvas shopping bag. It weighed my shoulder down, pulling me toward the earth. I opened the door and stepped out into the rain.
Chapter 1: The Walk of Shame
The walk to the high street took twenty minutes. My knees complained with every step, a grinding rhythm of pain. The rain wasn’t heavy, but it was persistent, soaking through my scarf, making the plastic rain bonnet plaster to my head.
I walked past the bakery with its warm smell of yeast. Past the butcher with the red cuts of meat I hadn’t bought in years. I kept my head down. I didn’t want anyone to see me. Poverty is a loud thing, but shame is silent.
I stopped in front of Vane’s Curiosities.
The shop looked like a mouth full of broken teeth. The windows were cluttered with dusty violins, creepy dolls with missing eyes, and chipped vases. A sign on the door read: WE BUY GOLD. CASH INSTANT.
I hesitated. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I was a private woman. I had never pawned a thing in my life.
Do it for the heat, Elara. Just get the eighty pounds.
I pushed the door open. A bell jingled—a harsh, mocking sound.
The shop smelled of mildew and secrets. Behind the counter sat a man who looked like he was made of grease and sharp angles. Silas Vane. I knew of him. People said he would steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes.
He didn’t look up. He was scratching a lottery ticket with a dirty fingernail.
“We’re closing,” he grunted.
“I… I have something to sell,” I said. My voice sounded thin, like paper tearing.
He looked up then. His eyes slid over me—my wet coat, my plastic bonnet, my shaking hands. He dismissed me instantly. I was just another old biddy with junk.
“Make it quick,” he said.
I lifted the heavy canvas bag onto the counter. I pulled out the bundle. My hands trembled as I unwrapped the tea towel.
There it lay. The black, battered lump of metal with the shattered glass face.
Silas looked at it. He snorted. “What is that? A paperweight from a trench?”
“It’s a clock,” I said, trying to channel Henry’s confidence. “My husband found it in the Blitz. He said it was… special.”
“Special?” Silas laughed. It was a cruel sound. “It’s scrap, love. Look at it. The glass is gone. The metal is corroded. It looks like it’s been through a war because it has. And it lost.”
“It’s heavy,” I offered weakly.
“So is a brick,” he countered. He poked it with a pen. “The mechanism is seized. To fix this would cost more than a new car. It’s garbage.”
I felt the tears pricking my eyes. I knew it. I was a fool. Henry was a fool.
“I just need eighty pounds,” I whispered. “For the boiler.”
“Eighty?” He looked at me as if I had asked for the moon. “Darling, I wouldn’t give you eight. I’d have to pay someone to haul this away.”
He paused. His eyes narrowed. He picked it up. I saw his gaze linger on the back of the clock. A strange look crossed his face—like a fox scenting a rabbit. But it vanished instantly, replaced by a sneer.
“Tell you what,” he said, sighing as if the weight of his own charity was crushing him. “It’s raining. You look like a drowned rat. I’ll give you twenty pounds. Cash. Consider it a donation to the ‘Help the Aged’ fund.”
Twenty pounds.
It wouldn’t fix the boiler. It would buy maybe three days of electric heating and a loaf of bread.
But twenty pounds was better than nothing. It was better than walking home with the heavy, dead weight of Henry’s foolish dream.
“Okay,” I whispered. The word tasted like ash. “Okay.”
He opened the till. He pulled out a crumpled twenty-pound note. He slapped it on the glass.
I reached for it. My hand was shaking so hard I could barely aim for the money. I felt small. I felt worthless.
“DON’T TOUCH IT!“
Chapter 2: The Angel in the Trench Coat
The shout made me jump. My heart gave a painful lurch.
I turned. I hadn’t noticed the man standing in the shadows of the bookshelf. He was tall, wearing a wet trench coat, and he looked angry. Not at me. At Silas.
He marched over. He looked like a schoolmaster about to cane a naughty boy.
“Who are you?” Silas demanded, trying to cover the clock with his arm.
“I am Arthur Pendelton,” the man boomed. “And you, Silas Vane, are a thief.”
I shrank back. I just wanted to leave. I wanted to take my twenty pounds and run.
“This is a private deal!” Silas yelled.
“It is a swindle!” the man, Mr. Pendelton, said. He turned to me. His face softened. He had kind eyes behind his glasses. “Madam, please. Step back. Do not take that money. That man is trying to rob you of a fortune.”
“A fortune?” I blinked. “It’s… it’s just junk. Henry’s junk.”
“May I?” Mr. Pendelton pointed to the clock.
I nodded. I was too stunned to speak.
He took a pair of white gloves from his pocket. He put them on. He picked up Henry’s “lucky brick” as if it were a newborn baby. He pulled out a little magnifying glass and peered at the dirty, black face.
“Incredible,” he breathed.
“It’s broken,” I said, feeling the need to apologize for it.
“It is not broken, Madam,” he said softly. “It is sleeping.”
He turned to Silas. “Give me a light.”
Silas, looking terrified, handed him a flashlight. Mr. Pendelton shone it into the side of the clock.
“Just as I thought,” he whispered. “A tourbillon. A stylized ‘B’ on the bridge.”
He looked at me. “What is your name?”
“Elara,” I said. “Elara Higgins.”
“Mrs. Higgins,” he said, and his voice was shaking with excitement. “Your husband was a hero to save this. Do you know what this is?”
“A clock?”
“It is The Clock,” he said. “This isn’t brass, Elara. This is solid gold, blackened by the fires of 1941. And underneath this grime…”
He rubbed the back of the clock with his gloved thumb. He showed me.
“Do you see those letters?”
I squinted. My eyes weren’t what they used to be. I saw two curly letters.
“V… R?” I read.
“Victoria Regina,” Mr. Pendelton said. “Queen Victoria.”
The room spun. I grabbed the counter to steady myself. “The Queen?”
“This clock,” he announced, looking at Silas with pure contempt, “was a gift from Queen Victoria to Prince Albert in 1851. It has been missing for over a hundred years. It is the Holy Grail of horology.”
“You’re lying!” Silas screamed, sweat beading on his forehead. “It’s a fake! She agreed to twenty pounds!”
“She signed nothing!” Mr. Pendelton roared back. He turned to me. “Mrs. Higgins, Silas offered you twenty pounds.”
“Yes,” I said. “For the boiler.”
“Mrs. Higgins,” Mr. Pendelton said, looking deep into my eyes. “If we auction this… if we clean it and present it… I estimate it will sell for five million pounds.”
The world went silent.
Five… million?
I looked at the crumpled twenty-pound note on the counter. Then I looked at the dirty lump of metal.
Five million.
That wasn’t a number. That was a galaxy. That was a different universe.
“I… I don’t understand,” I whispered. “I just want to be warm.”
“You will be warm,” Mr. Pendelton said, his voice thick with emotion. “You will never be cold again.”
Chapter 3: The Battle
Silas Vane moved then. He was desperate. He lunged across the counter, his greasy hands clawing for the clock.
“It’s mine! She brought it into my shop!”
I screamed.
Mr. Pendelton didn’t flinch. He turned his shoulder, shielding the clock, and shoved Silas back with a strength that surprised me. Silas crashed into a shelf of china dolls. Porcelain shattered everywhere.
“Don’t you dare touch her,” Mr. Pendelton snarled. “I am calling the police. And I am calling Sotheby’s security.”
He put a protective arm around my shoulders. “You’re safe, Mrs. Higgins. It’s over.”
I looked at Silas. He was sitting in a pile of broken doll parts, looking at the floor. He looked small. He looked like a man who had held a winning lottery ticket and used it to blow his nose.
I looked at the clock in Mr. Pendelton’s hand.
“Henry,” I thought. “You old fool. You wonderful, brilliant old fool.”
Chapter 4: The Gavel
Two months later.
I was not cold.
I was sitting in a room that smelled of expensive perfume and money. It was the auction hall at Sotheby’s. I was wearing a blue suit that Mr. Pendelton had helped me pick out. I had had my hair done. I felt like an impostor, but Mr. Pendelton sat next to me, holding my hand.
“Just breathe, Elara,” he smiled.
In the center of the room, on a velvet podium, sat The Thing.
But it wasn’t The Thing anymore. It was magnificent.
They had cleaned it. The black soot was gone, revealing gold that shone so brightly it hurt to look at. The shattered glass had been replaced. And the sound…
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
It was a slow, deep, heartbeat sound. It echoed through the speakers.
“Lot 401,” the auctioneer announced. “The Royal Breguet. The Lost Timekeeper.”
The bidding started.
“Two million,” someone shouted.
My heart skipped a beat. Two million.
“Three million.”
“Four million.”
I watched the numbers flash on the screen. They didn’t feel real. They were just numbers.
But then I thought about the boiler. I thought about the drafty windows. I thought about the leaking roof. I thought about the soup kitchen where I sometimes went when the pension ran out.
“Six million.”
I squeezed Mr. Pendelton’s hand. “Is this real?”
“It’s real,” he whispered.
“Seven million!” a voice shouted from the back. A man representing the Royal Family.
“Sold!” the gavel slammed down. “Seven point two million pounds!“
The room exploded in applause. People stood up. They were clapping. For the clock. For Henry. For me.
I started to cry. Not the desperate, cold tears of the walk to the shop. But warm, overwhelming tears of relief.
Seven million pounds.
I could fix the boiler. I could fix every boiler in the neighborhood.
Chapter 5: The Warmest Winter
A week later, I was back in my kitchen.
But it wasn’t gray anymore.
The new boiler hummed a gentle, consistent tune from the cupboard. The radiators were piping hot. I had new windows that didn’t rattle when the wind blew.
On the table, where The Thing used to sit, was a vase of fresh red roses. Henry loved roses.
Mr. Pendelton had come over for tea. He sat opposite me, eating a biscuit. He had refused to take a penny of the money for himself, saying the commission from the auction house was enough. He was a good man.
“So, Elara,” he asked. “What will you do now?”
I looked around my warm kitchen.
“I bought this house,” I said. “I paid off the mortgage. And I bought the house next door for the shelter. For people who are cold.”
He smiled. “That is a wonderful thing.”
I reached into my pocket. When they had cleaned the bag, they found a small, brass key at the bottom. It was the winding key for the clock. I had kept it.
“Arthur,” I said. “I kept the key.”
“Why?” he asked. “The clock is in the Palace now.”
I rubbed the smooth metal with my thumb.
“Because,” I said, looking at the empty space on the table. “The clock belongs to history. But the time… the time belongs to Henry. And me.”
I looked out the window. It was raining again. But I wasn’t afraid of the rain anymore.
“I was walking in the rain to sell my life for twenty pounds,” I whispered. “And now… now I can just watch the rain.”
I took a sip of my tea. It was hot. The room was hot. My heart was hot.
“Thank you, Arthur,” I said.
“For what?”
“For hearing the ticking,” I said. “When everyone else just saw a broken brick.”
He patted my hand. The new boiler clicked on, a sound more beautiful than any symphony.
I was Elara Higgins. I was the widow of Henry Higgins. And I was finally, finally warm.
