The Unheeded Warning
By Eunie Jeong
A casually dressed man, with a determined, yet lighthearted grin, skipped along the path. Treading on the invading moss, Christopher Bryant held a well-thumbed slip, and glanced at a certain address. He stopped. He held the map out in the last glimmers of light.
Christopher had circled this area several times, yet had not been able to find the Templewood Villa. Somehow, he had always taken the wrong turning. A crow hoarsely cawed in the distance. Now, when the sun was groping below the shadows of trees, he found a small gate. This led to yet another lane that stretched out to a grainy sand bay, swallowed by waves. With a sigh of satisfaction, and a growing contempt for the maps drawn by local people, he set off along the lane.
Image by Rajukhan Pathan, courtesy of pexels.
In his early twenties, Christopher Bryant, with wealth and leisure time to squander, had channelled his idleness into making a collection. Vintage cuckoo clocks. The room, which he called his cave of wonders, contained a number of old, expensive keepers of time, all with their unseeing faces slowly carved by the shadows of rotating hands. He had devoted the previous years of his life in this way, travelling to secluded towns and seeking out museum collections. Having travelled far and wide, he realised that the place to unearth more of these treasures would be rural parts of Europe. After considerable inquiry, he had set off to the British seaside village of Turningvile.
The Great Britain Guide had said it was a place of “rich antiquity, quiet lifestyles and beautiful views”. Inquiring around the red-bricked houses, he heard that the antique shop was on the other side of the village. Entering the shop, after wiping his muddy shoes vigorously on the mat, he noticed that instead of the usual tinkle of bells, there was the resounding ring of a vibrating skin drum. A sudden creak from the dark corner of the musty shop revealed a wizened man, staring at him with two shrewd, intelligent eyes.
“What do you come in search of?” he demanded.
“I wondered if you had some old clocks, perhaps of a century ago? 19th century clocks are very quaint.”
The man shrank back into the darkness. “Why do you ask about clocks.” It was not a question. It was almost a cry of anguish.
Christopher, rather surprised, felt a slight shiver.
“Why just as a collection? You know, a person must have a sort of hobby.”
The man again informed him that there were no clocks.
“How about in other shops? There must be something!”
“Well, you are quick to anger!” The old man glared, but with a tremor in his voice…. he groaned.
“Stubbornness must come before disaster. Why should I try to help you? I take no responsibility, remember.”
“Yeah sure,” muttered Christopher.
“Fine. A mansion in the outskirts of this village, called Templewood Villa has as many antiques as you will ever need. In fact,” cried the man, with a slight laugh, “the master of the house, is a living antique himself!”
Then the man sank into an absentminded stupor, his face still unsettled.
Christopher, wrinkling his nose, took down the address, helped himself to a map on the table, and hurried away. So that was how Christopher, muttering phrases of contempt, found himself looking across the sheltered bay towards Templewood Villa.
“Strange,” thought Christopher, “wouldn’t the owner be afraid that the house would become submerged during high tide? This is, I believe, in a few hours.”
Reaching the secluded place, he saw with some consternation, that the evening was darker than usual. Superstition was something Christopher did not hold with, but he could not prevent himself from occasionally looking back.
Coming to the front door, he knocked for a considerable time before a wiry, long chinned housekeeper came to answer. Feeling hesitation was quite unnecessary, Christopher stated his purpose, and requested to see some of the clocks. The housekeeper’s thin white lips tightened. She firmly told him that no guests were allowed; her master never needed them. Christopher though, began to raise his voice.
“After all,” he said disdainfully, “you are only a servant. Let me talk to the man of this house.”
The housekeeper turned pale, writhing her fingers, but soon settled into a cold stare. She led him through a winding corridor, too long it seemed to Christopher, to be part of the house.
But it must be my tiredness, Christopher thought. Then he was commanded to wait.
Looking around him, he saw that he was in some sort of a parlour. Christopher had an excited flush on his brown tanned face and began looking around. On a dusty mantelpiece, he found 12 small cuckoo clocks in a row. Then, at the very end, detached from the others, there was the 13th. Engraved on the long-unused fireplace, there was a small poem.
You, my guest, shall soon receive
The gift of innocence, forevermore.
At the 25th hour.
Christopher laughed. Certainly, this man had a humorous side to him. Without warning, the first clock rang.
There was a screech of a cuckoo cry. The bird was made of wood, and Christopher observed how well the springs were made to produce the effect. He was startled by the second one crying out, but this time the bird trilled out twice. The birds thrust themselves out, one by one, and flared their grating voices in the air. Unconsciously, Christopher folded his arms. It was rather uncanny, and the closing gloom seemed like a coarse black cloth, that muffled everything as small waves began to lap the room. Then, the 13th struck. But what a cry! From the clock, there emerged a wooden lamb, and its shrieks echoed through the room, which must have been bigger than Christopher had imagined. An axe swung down.
There was a deadly silence. A void of no sound, broken only by a stealthy step.