Read Online The Time of the Clockmaker by Anna Caltabiano - Free Book Online

flight, that was exactly what I needed to forget the fatigue bearing down on my shoulders.
    â€œThat would be wonderful.” I wondered if the smile on my face looked strained.
    I spent the entire ride to the hotel trying to look out of the window at England. It was black outside, and the road melted into the sky. All I could see was my pale face staring back at me.Nothing seemed different from New York; it was the same darkness, and the uneasiness had followed me here as well.
    With the hotel also in Heathrow, the shuttle bus came to a stop rather quickly. Soon enough, I was dealing with a sour-looking teenage boy, checking me in.
    â€œHow many nights?” His mouth seemed to be fixed in a permanent pucker even when he talked.
    â€œJust one. I have a connecting flight in the morning. They gave me this voucher because the flight I was just on was five hours delayed.”
    â€œRoom one twenty-five.” He handed me a flimsy plastic key.
    â€œThanks.”
    Room 125 was on the first floor. With yellow wallpaper, a plain window on one side, and not even a single painting, it wasn’t much to look at, but I suppose I should have expected that from a last-minute hotel room near the airport that took airline vouchers.
    â€œWell, I guess this is it.” I tossed my bag onto the bed.
    You’ll be safe here for the time being.
    I was so glad I had Henley here with me. In a completely foreign land, I needed him even more.
    I held my head in my hands.
    How are you feeling?
    I shrugged. “So much has happened so quickly. I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything.”
    With the murder?
    It still felt strange to use that word. “Yeah . . . but also you being here.”
    I could understand that.
    â€œWhy did it take you so long?” It was a question that I’d held since Henley first talked to me. Why did it take him so long to find me? “I thought you were gone for good.”
    When I died . . . I didn’t know where I was. I thought I had reached some afterlife, but it wasn’t exactly what I thought heaven would be.
    â€œWhat was it like?”
    Like watching various scenes projected onto millions of tiny picture frames.
    â€œLike a control panel with lots of television screens?”
    Henley laughed. I’m not quite up to date on all the technology I’ve missed the last hundred years.
    I ignored that and tried to figure out how to phrase my next question. “And . . . where are you?”
    In a dark room watching all this.
    I was surprised by how quick and definite his answer sounded.
    I don’t have a concept of how long it took me, but I started to learn to focus myself into one time and one scene. With everything going on at once, it’s all color and noise, but with focus I can make something of it.
    â€œLike you’re doing now?”
    It took practice to get to this point. It took practice to find you.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    He chuckled. Miss Rebecca, you’re a hard one to find, and you don’t even know it. Henley paused. It’s like watching what you would call a video. Two people would be having a conversation, but where one of them should be standing is just blankspace. It’s as if someone cut you out of a video. A Rebecca-shaped hole. I can hear you, and I can see your outline if I concentrate, but otherwise, it’s as if you’re not there in any time.
    I guess we were almost even, save for the fact that I couldn’t see Henley at all.
    It took me a while to learn how to reach out to you.
    â€œThe typing on my computer?”
    And not just that.
    â€œY-you moved my ring that morning. The ring that you gave me.”
    I learned many things, including that I shouldn’t talk when people are around, because people could hear me when I focused my voice into one place. Henley laughed darkly. I scared many a person that way. Who knew ghost tales could be made true?
    I had wondered if