PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
Eleven Forty-Seven
There are some moments in life that never truly end.
They simply become quieter.
They hide beneath birthdays and weddings, beneath ordinary Tuesdays and rainy afternoons. They wait patiently inside old photographs, forgotten letters, familiar songs.
Sometimes, they hide inside clocks.
Lillian Hart knew this.
She knew it the night she gave her granddaughter a silver pocket watch.
Avelin was eight years old.
She sat cross-legged on the carpet in her grandmother's living room, wearing mismatched socks and a yellow dress with a stain on the sleeve. Outside, rain tapped softly against the windows.
Lillian sat in her armchair.
She was old then.
Not as old as Avelin would later remember her.
But old enough that the lines around her eyes had begun to deepen.
She placed the pocket watch in Avelin's tiny hands.
"Take care of it."
Avelin turned it over.
The silver was scratched.
There was a small engraving on the back.
L.H.
"What's that?"
"My initials."
"Did Grandpa give it to you?"
Lillian smiled.
"No."
"Then who?"
Her grandmother's smile disappeared.
Only for a moment.
But Avelin noticed.
She always noticed things about Lillian.
"Someone I used to know."
"Who?"
"Someone from a very long time ago."
"Are they dead?"
Lillian laughed.
"That's a rather dramatic question."
"Well?"
"I don't know."
Avelin frowned.
"How can you not know if someone is dead?"
"Because sometimes people disappear without dying."
That answer made no sense.
Avelin stared at her grandmother.
Lillian reached forward and touched the watch.
"Listen to me, Ave."
Avelin's eyes widened.
Nobody called her that.
Not even her parents.
"Don't let anyone tell you that time heals everything."
"Doesn't it?"
"No."
Lillian looked toward the rain.
"Time doesn't heal anything."
"Then what does?"
Her grandmother looked at her.
"People do."
Avelin didn't understand.
Not then.
She would.
Years later.
Much later.
When she found herself standing outside an antique clock shop in the middle of a storm.
When she met the man who would teach her that broken things could still be beautiful.
When she discovered that the past was never truly past.
And when she finally learned why her grandmother had stopped the clock at exactly—
11:47.
