as told by clocks
The clock hangs over the mantelpiece, silent and unmoving. An ornament and nothing more with the minute hand stuck at five past and the hour hand broken, hanging loose. Only by chance pointing to the six. The family uses a new clock now, tall and imposing, standing in the corner with its own large body. It ticks in the silence, counting down days. Hours. Minutes. Seconds drip by, and both clocks wait for the night to be over, for the house to open its eyes.
The windows in the house display the darkness outside which by degrees is turning from a deep black to a dark blue, with each movement of the pendulum lifting another piece of the veil covering the sky. Both clock faces are turned toward the windows - they cannot help but observe this occurrence every day. The old broken clock above the mantelpiece can remember this same scene for the past thirty years. The Grandfather Clock is newer and can only recall fourteen or so.
As the moon disappears in the brightening sky, small sounds in the attic tell anyone alert enough to listen that the first member of the household has risen. Another clock is witness to this, a small and unassuming one that ticks quietly in the corner of the attic room. A girl sits up in her bed, causing the old floorboards to sag and telling the downstairs clocks that she is awake. She glances at the time (half past five) and yawns, running her hands through her hair. Swinging her legs around she steps into worn slippers to avoid the chill of the hard wooden floor and rises to begin her day.
The house is otherwise silent. Only the clocks are witness to the lonely girl who sweeps the house, who scrubs and brushes and clears. She frowns as she flicks a duster over the face of the broken clock, and makes sure to clean around and under the Grandfather’s pendulum. As she begins breakfast and the smell rises through the house, others appear. A tall imposing woman strides into the room first and sits at the table where the girl has laid a plate of food. The woman eats quickly and purposefully, and then begins to speak.
None of the conversation reaches the clocks, deaf and dumb. But they watch, and they see the woman’s face, stern and unyielding. And they see the girl, hands twisted tightly in the folds of her dress, shoulders pulled up and forward and her head and neck as close to her body as possible as if holding something in. Or possibly keeping something out. She nods and smiles and agrees and her hands grip her dress so hard that her knuckles turn white. The clocks know how many dresses she has mended late at night after having twisted them apart.
But two more girls appear, jostling down the hallway to the table and diverting the woman’s attention. Two more plates are laid out and they quickly clean them. The girl in the kitchen quietly makes a plate for herself and eats like a prey animal, continually looking around in fear of predators. This girl need not fear predators, but she glances every once in a while at the woman and other girls anyway. Slowly, their conversation gains her attention and she sets her plate down, careful not to attract the woman’s notice. The Grandfather’s slow, measured tick tock takes on a more edged tone. This was different, a break in the morning ritual they had observed for so long. What could they possibly be talking about?
The two girls hurry back to their rooms, where there is a buzz of activity. The entire house appears suffused with a type of frenetic bustling. At one point the kitchen girl manages to stop the woman as she flies around the house and appears to converse with her. Whatever she says, the woman brushes it off and sweeps around her, barking soundless orders at the two girls. The kitchen girl sags and tugs at her skirt, reminiscent of when her hands were twisting it to shreds. She turns and grabs a bucket.
There is a compact, neatly flowered clock in the hallway on which the woman and the two girl’s rooms reside, and through the open doorways it can see a huge amount of activity. Both girls feverishly search through what seems to be miles upon miles of fabric, cutting, sorting, measuring. But at some point one of the girls pauses. She looks around at the cloth that piles on her lap and spills over her floor and begins to pick up certain pieces. A long pink strip. Several strings of beads and pearls. She slips away from her sister and mother and down the hallway. The Grandfather clock does not see her emerge, but the broken one does. She looks anxious and harried. The kitchen girl is outside and through the window the Grandfather clock can see her scrubbing the front path. Her shoulders are taut and there is intent in her every motion. The other girl with the armful of fabric and pearls glances at her too, and her face sets. She rushes up the long, winding staircase that leads to the kitchen girl’s room.
The small clock tucked into the corner of the room observes her entrance. She stops and scans the entirety of the room, where normally there is nothing to see. But today a dress stands in the corner, unearthed that morning in a trunk of old clothes. It is worn and faded, plain and unflattering. The sister gets to work, pinning and cutting and sewing, using some of the material planned for her dress and most of the discarded scraps. Her face is pinched and looks perpetually aggrieved, but in this moment the clock sees the wrinkles in her brow smooth, the frown lines around her face being replaced by the concentrated effort of her work. The dress is transformed, each string of pearls placed with care, each piece of fabric sewed with exaggerated precision. When it is done the sister does not hesitate but grabs the bundle of remaining scraps and rushes down the stairs. The broken clock and Grandfather in the living room witness her flight to her room, and the small flowered clock in the hallway witnesses what happens next. Her mother is standing in the sister’s room, hands on her hips. The sister cringes and for a moment is the kitchen girl, hunched and protective. Then the mother’s hand moves too quick to be seen and slaps her twice across the face. She doesn’t flinch - the clock has seen this often enough. The mother leaves to her room and the sister collapses onto her bed, shaking.
In another part of the house, the mother’s clock watches her. The clock is wooden and unornamented, austere but not beautiful. It cannot give testimony to the fact that the mother collapsed, sobbing onto her bed, and yet it saw. Everything that occurred in that room is its story to tell if it could.
The living room clocks watch the sky grow dark again, just as they have many thousands of times before. But this time is different. No one is slowing down, heading to their rooms. The living room and kitchen area is still heavily trafficked, by all of the family but most often by the kitchen girl who with tight little steps goes back and forth cleaning, rinsing, scrubbing, mopping, and clearing with that same intensity and focus that she had earlier that day. Occasionally Grandfather sees one or the other of the sisters looking at her with a curious, almost compassionate expression. They always stops when their mother arrives.
Through the window is movement - a carriage appears. There is a last bustle of activity, and finally the two sisters and the mother stand in front of the door, about to leave. The kitchen girl clears the last pot from the table and rushes up the stairs, where the living room clocks lose sight of her. Her small bedroom clock watches her enter, is witness to when she catches sight of the dress. A sob of relief escapes her lips and she rushes to touch it, to convince herself that it is real. It is real. She puts it on and nearly skips out of the room.
Skipping for earnest now, she enters the living room. Her face is impossibly bright and her eyes sparkle. When her family sees her they go absolutely still. The sister who helped her, frozen rigid with fear. The other, unable to move out of some strong emotion that comes across as rage. And the mother, back so ramrod straight as to be bending, bowing under the pressure of holding itself up. The second sister acts first. The clocks watch as she grabs a handful of beads and tugs, sending them scattering to the ground, and only they know how the other sister stiffens even more at the sight. Only they know that the kitchen girl’s mouth quivered as if biting back an aborted sob. And only they know how the mother’s hands twitched as if, just for a moment, she had the urge to grasp her skirt tightly.
The moment is gone and the other sister reaches out to tug at the lace that she had just hours before sewn on. The mother watches outwardly impassive and the kitchen girl stands stock still, feeling the bruising impact of her siblings’ hands. The second hand ticks by, and the minute hand has only moved twice before the dress is completely unrecognizable, ripped beyond repair. Only three more minutes and the mother and two daughters are gone, whisked away by the coach which disappeared from the window and therefore from the clocks’ vision.
The kitchen girl stands there for so long Grandfather’s minute hand makes its way nearly half way around the face. Then, without warning, she stumbles through the door, trailing rags like ribbons. She goes the opposite way of the coach, away from the windows. The clocks tick in the darkened house, waiting and waiting. When aren’t they waiting? But she doesn’t come back in.
There is another clock, embedded in the top of the coach. It is small and elegant, drawing attention to itself with the quiet, expensive accents that allow it to blend in to the coach drapes. Out hurry the two sisters and the mother, clad in bright and festive colors. Behind them a small figure can barely be seen through the windows of the house, standing perfectly still.
The two sisters get into the coach, and the clock notices that their hands are shaking slightly. The clock’s hands tick onward smoothly and silently, counting down the time until it is time to start counting down again. The minute hand gets nearly a quarter of the way around the face before the mother appears inside the coach. She offers no explanation to her daughters, and indeed barely acknowledges them. Her face is set and her hands are twisted together.
The mother’s clock is positioned better than any clock in the house to look out on the small plot of land that lies around the back. The clock has seen a forest of freshly sprouted flowers, a tangle of fruit vines. For many years now it has been nothing but bare ground and patches of scrub. Rarely does one of the family venture there, and then it is almost always the kitchen girl. Tonight however, the mother appears carrying a medium-sized box. She sets it down on an ornately carved but faded and peeling bench, and begins to leave. As she turns she catches sight of the kitchen girl by the corner of the house, frozen and ghost-like. The clock does not know what the mother says, but she points to the box and words are exchanged. Then she is gone, back to the coach with her daughters, and the girl takes the box where the clock cannot see it.
The ballroom is huge, lit brightly and filled with joy and color. The clock equals or exceeds the room in its grandness, a huge sculpture of gold and marble. It enjoys this night of excitement, knowing that long days of darkness and dust lie ahead. Although it cannot hear the music, the synchronized movements of the musicians give tone and quality to the picture. Brightly dressed figures swirl in the center of the room and even more linger around the edges, mouths moving and hands gesticulating as they talk. From its vantage point the clock can see that there is a purpose to the eddies and waves of people. They move back and forth, up and down, but all inexorably move towards one boy. He dances, and talks, and acts like any other of the guests, but the press of the people in the room is obviously directed at him. He greets two girls, their dresses long and flowing with pearls and beads artfully adorning them. Their mother watches unobtrusively, an expression of forced pleasantry on her face as she leans against a pillar.
The doors open once more and another girl steps in, finely dressed and fashionably late. The clock does not understand, but is patient. It figures out most things with time. It sees how the room clears before her until she is standing in front of the boy, and for an instant her hands reach to grab at her dress, before she stops herself. They talk, so low that people around them lean in to hear. The clock notices the musicians changing, bows moving slowly but distinctively. The ball resumes, and while the girl dances the two others and the mother huddle in a corner, unsure of what to do. The sisters look annoyed, although every once in a while one or the other will seem slightly confused - looking hard at the girl dancing. The mother however is watching the dance with an expression curious to behold. A kind of bitter longing, resignation, and a deep sadness that seems almost older than she is.
They dance and dance, and the second hand ticks and the minute hand tocks and slowly the hour hand creeps toward the beginning of its journey. Slowly, slowly watch it move closer and closer until the final tock.
The dancing girl looks up at the clock and in her face is such a variety of thoughts and emotions that it would take many balls to decipher. She turns, ignoring the boy’s outstretched hand, ignoring the irregular movements of the crowd that mark their confusion. She disappears through the doors of the ballroom, and the clock is disappointed to see the end of the party. The boy rushes to follow and after some moments of confusion the rest of the ball begins to shut down. For several hours there is cleaning, dusting, and packing, and then the ballroom is empty, moonlight lancing down through high windows onto the empty dance floor, and the clock is alone once more.
Grandfather ticks restlessly, both it and the broken mantelpiece clock unsure of this break in the scheduled monotony of the day. Finally the kitchen girl comes in, wearing nothing but the ragged dress she had left in, breathless but seemingly happy. Grandfather has never seen her in this state of mind, although the old broken clock can remember when her mother and father were alive, and she was as bright and shining as she is this night. She immediately walks upstairs to her room, where her small clock sees her change into her tattered nightdress and lie down. But she does not go to sleep.
Quite a few ticks of Grandfather’s minute hand later there is noise outside and the two sisters and the mother arrive, breathless but definitely not happy. The two sisters are outraged and righteously indignant, although occasionally the one that ripped the kitchen girl’s dress first looks with surprisingly quiet, reflective eyes towards the attic. They frequently turn to their mother to back them up, but she is distracted and rarely answers. Her eyes flick often to the attic stairs.
The next morning comes, bright with sunshine and the promise of rain. The promise of something else as well - there is much excited talking among the sisters and mother, and although the kitchen girl is not included she lingers near, listening. The mantelpiece clock sees her suddenly drop her load and disappear up to her room. Both it and the Grandfather clock see her sister quietly ascending the stairs behind her, an iron key in her grasp.
In her room the girl hums as she puts together another dress, using the scraps from the night before and from other dresses and shirts. The small clock of course doesn’t hear anything, but it is obvious that she does because her head jerks up, staring at the doorway. She tries the handle, which doesn’t work. She knocks, but no one answers. In despair she curls up on the floor inside the door and stays there, not crying but indifferent and numb.
The living room clocks see the door open, and an older gentleman walk in. He carries with him an air of importance and a glass slipper. One sister starts to try on the shoe immediately, but the other slips away. She climbs the stairs and disappears into the attic. In the attic room, the girl suddenly uncurls from her position on the floor. Another noise. Cautiously she tries the door handle and it is unlocked. The sister appears in the living room and moves to try on the shoe while her mother and sister watch. Now there is more movement from the attic stairs. The kitchen girl appears, mouth moving. The gentleman nods in acquiescence and steps forward, proffering the shoe. As he does, the clocks see a sister move. Just slightly, she pushes her mother who jabs out her stick for balance. The gentleman trips over it, the shoe flying out of his hand and shattering. He is obviously in despair, the sisters looking respectively horrified and smug, and the mother wearing an expression that the clocks can’t read.
Surprise flashes across the kitchen girl’s face before it is replaced with hope. From her pocket she pulls out another shoe, identical to the first. All present seem surprised by this turn of events, except the mother. The gentleman takes the shoe and it fits on the kitchen girl’s foot. There is quite a lot of talking, and then she is gone. Out of the house and not in the windows, and gone from where the clocks tick.
The gentleman left with her, and as the weeks go by the sisters’ clothes begin to look old and frayed. Their mother cooks breakfast, and they begin to sell things. First a table, and they eat breakfast on the ground. Next is Grandfather, and for a while after that they are happy and well-fed. But money never lasts and soon they sell the chairs. Dresses. The delicate little clock in the hallway. They would sell the mother’s clock, but it is attached to the wall of the house. They begin selling other clothes, going out with bundles of shirts and coming back with a couple coins or a loaf of bread. They find the old clock in the attic and buy fresh vegetables. Finally they take the broken down clock from above the mantelpiece where it has watched from for thirty years. They barely get a handful of beans.
The mother spends more time in her room, skeleton thin under her ragged clothing. Her daughters twist words and snarl at each other, then smile and bat their eyes at others. And the mother’s clock remembers when she made a dress, a dress that was lovelier than both her daughter’s dresses combined. And the clock remembers how she had poured her life into it, and put it in a box and gave it to the thin girl in the rags that floated like ribbons. And in far away places the girl - not so thin anymore - tells the tale of how though her mother and sisters abused her, locked her up, and tormented her the fairy godmother saved her with a beautiful dress and the mice set her free. And what else does she know?
It still stands, that wooden clock. Austere, but not beautiful. Plainly for service only, for the telling of time and nothing else. It saw what happened in that house long ago, and it remembers the heartache and loneliness and sorrow. It is still waiting.
What else can it do?
Provisional Title: Storied Lands
Genre: Magical Realism/Fairy Tales
Age Range: 12-18?
Word Count: ~40,000
Author Name: Jane Farrar (pseudonym)
Good Fit: You came to a free, public writing site in search of authors. To me this means you want progressive, against-the-grain writers who are new to publishing work and I am certainly that.
Synopsis: This is a book of about ten short stories based off of fairy tales but retelling them in ways that make people rethink the assumptions they make about the characters. Think stories like Wicked by Gregory Maguire, in a format like Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo. The stories include Cinderella (as told by clocks), Little Red Riding Hood (what the woods saw) and The Little Mermaid (tales of living rocks). Each story changes the original in a different way. The stories are not interconnected except for possibly Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel which may be connected through the forest.
Hook: Familiar fairy tales, twisted to reveal darkness and pain hidden inside them. No wishy-washy princesses, no power-hungry-for-no-reason villains, no strong and brave saviors. The main characters of these tales are the poor, the misled, the hungry and the desperate and people can empathize with them.
Target Audience: YA readers who are disenfrachised with fairy tales and want something with more substance.
Platform: N/A
Bio: I am a 16-year-old girl who just completed her junior year of high school, on track for an IB diploma. I love to read, write short fiction/poems/bits of books and I run cross country. Quarantine has broadened my skill set, and I’m now a student representative to the school board figuring out how to reopen school and learning how to bake bread.
Education: Two years of high school (I skipped sophomore year), plus a senior IB English Literature class.
Experience: I have never published, but I’ve been writing quite a lot, especially stories for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign I’ve been running for two years now.
Personality: I love to run with my dog and friends, bake treats, think about quantum and philosophy and string theory, learn cool stuff, and bike/hike/swim/run/camp with my friends. I once convinced three people that worker bees are not alive.
Writing Style: I haven’t really thought about this before. When I’m writing shorter works I tend towards broken sentences and formatting that adds to the story. I’m really into description and dialogue is not my forte, although I’m working on it. When I write anything long it’s mostly from the perspective of a teenage girl, and deals with issues that I have/am dealing with (ex. climate change, etc.).
Likes: I love running, reading, chocolate, lemon treats, my dog, the Imperial Radch trilogy, doing things for people, and taking on more than I can handle. Also existential crises and questions like ‘if an indestructable disk were moved closer and closer to light speed, what would happen?’
Hobbies: reading, yoga, baking, running, collecting shells, swimming, Dungeons and Dragons, creating languages and cultures for non-existent universes. Also defining words really exactly while at the same time claiming that no word can have a perfect definition or translation.
I live in Olympia, Washington.