"Passer-by, these are words. But instead of reading
I want you to listen: to this frail
Voice like that of letters eaten by grass…"
- Yves Bonnefoy
With shaking fingers, I held the chain of the necklace in my fingers, and clumsily fastened the chain at the back of my neck. My hands lingered there, at the clasp, and then slid down the
chain. It was room temperature, for all that it had only been around my neck for a few moments at most, and the chain wound fine and thin beneath my fingers, secrets in every interlocked coil.
The whisper of the chain as it slithered down my collarbone and rested around my neck sounded like a snake. It whispered its secrets to me, hushed as a silent cathedral, waiting for the service.
So low I could not hear the words, as if they were only a moment away. As if they existed, spoken, in a time away from here, where my ears could not reach, where I dare not go.
I shook my head. Foolishness. I had no time for it now. I laughed at the thought, amending it bitterly. The laughter tasted bitter in my mouth, like sorrow, like the taste of metal, the smell of fear.
I had all the time one could ever have, all one could ever need. If there was anything I did have, it was time. I had all the time in the world. My hair fell over my eyes, and I jerked my head
sharply to the right so I could see unfettered, turning my gaze once more to the object resting around my neck.
For all of its delicateness, the chain was strong- its fragile gold was bespelled not to break. My fingers traveled down the end of the two strands, to where they joined the delicate rings of the
jewelry. My fingers began to shake, and I willed them not to tremble. One false move, one twitch- every chance would be gone. There would be consequences for my actions at last.
This was madness. It was utter madness. I had the fate of the world in my hands, my dirty, scratched hands that were missing fingernails, lacking warmth. It was resting a few inches below my
collarbone, the gold of its rings delicately cold and icy against my skin. Its cold permeated my heart, filled my body with ice, turned my eyes to steel grey. I had never felt so cold. They had taken
everything from me. Everyone I loved. Everything I ever cared about. I shivered, and my hands, still resting at the base of the two chains, quivered slightly. Then I let my hands trace over the
rings and brought the object to my face, so as to look at it properly with my near-sighted eyes.
He had taken everything from me. They were dead. They were all dead.
"Everything." I said hoarsely, my fingers clutching the rings of gold with desperation, and I pressed the time-turner to my heart, feeling the cold seem to overlap the warmth of my heartbeat. In
my head there were words. I listened closely to them, hearing them louder and louder with every quiet rustle of fabric as I breathed, with every beat of my heart.
They have taken everything from me.
They have killed them all.
********
At around two in the morning, a muggle named Teddy Price came downstairs to make himself a cup of tea. Or maybe something stronger, he thought dourly. He wasn't one to stew, but
something was wrong, terribly wrong, and anyone could see it. The destruction of that bridge in London that'd made the news a year ago- that had only been the beginning. Then there had been
the funny disappearances-he sighed, pouring some scotch into a dusty little glass-and the nasty, horrifying, killings. There had been more homicides in the last few months than in two years
straight, and everyone was afraid. Who could possibly be doing this? And apart from the bodies that were recovered….mangled…the bodies showed no signs of foul play at all. Teddy drank deeply
from the glass, throwing it back if not with enthusiasm, then heartily enough. But how could it not be foul play? Forty-five people killed in one month alone…His family could be next. He thought,
dearly, of his sleeping wife upstairs and his three children, and ran his hand worriedly through his hair. He'd die before he'd let anything happen to them. Dropping his hand onto the counter, he
looked out the window onto the quiet street below.
And stared. There was a girl there. In the street below his tiny little London flat, a young girl stood under the streetlamp. The pavement was dark from rain, wet and glistening, reflecting amber in
a thousand tiny pinpricks from the streetlamp. Her clothes were smudged with dirt- there was a large, jagged rip in her shirt- the collar had been ripped, as if she had been seized violently. Had
she been treated badly? It fell over a white shoulder, black fabric on ivory skin. The rain beat down, soaking her, pressing her hair to her face, where it ran in black rivets down to her shoulders.
She could not be more than sixteen or seventeen years of age, and yet she looked as if she had seen all she wanted to see. Her body told this to anyone that might bother to see it, thin and tired-
looking, but her eyes said nothing at all, glittering like black beetles in the light of the lamp.
In her fingers, she held something golden. The gold shone weakly under the amber of the lamp, and she held it tightly in both hands.
He frowned. What on earth was a child doing out on a night like this? It was raining buckets, for goodness sake! And out at night during these times…it wasn't safe. Maybe she was homeless, or…
more likely, she was a prostitute, he had to think, sadly. But she was not dressed like one- her jeans were modest, though they looked shabby, her shirt long. But why did she not cover herself?
She was getting soaked. She even had a coat, a long black coat, more like a cloak, really, slung over one arm. And what was she holding?
He was roused from his thoughts by a whistle, quickly growing louder. Teddy' turned his head sharply.
He'd left the kettle on.
**********
Perhaps she was crying, but she could not really be sure. There was water on her face already, tumbling down, dashing from the sky to land on her face. It was a storm. She licked her rain-wet
lips, and tasted salt.
They would pay. All of them, every last one. She would find them, and then she would return what they had shown the world of kindness.
The corners of her mouth tilted up, then, her eyes like pitch. The light played over her mouth and nose, bathing half in amber and half in shadow, illuminating her face one last time. It played over
her last, terrible smile. There was no happiness in it, nothing but hysteria and vengeance.
This one, this small girl, smiling, was not afraid of the night tonight. Tonight, the night should be afraid of her.
They had taken everything from her. Everyone.
"I'm going to get them back." She whispered fiercely.
The night made no reply.
""I'm going to get them back." One breath, one last breath of 1997. One last breath of home. She inhaled deeply, and let it out, haltingly. She took one last look at her surroundings- the pouring rain,
the shining pavement, the old muggle apartments, the street corner, the smell of the leaves, the sound of the rain hitting the street. She committed it to memory, willed herself to remember it
always. This night. And then, with one quick movement, she turned the knob.
There was a quiet peal, like the ring of a bell, that issued from the time-turner, at each turn. She could hear it in her head, clear and final. It drowned out the sound of her thoughts.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Her fingers were clumsy from the cold, but she willed them not to stop, not to err. "Forty," she whispered, transfixed. And she turned the knob one more time.
Ring.
The last.
The middle ring of the time-turner began to spin, faster and faster, turning and turning and turning thousands of revolutions. She couldn't take her eyes off the spinning hourglass,
fixed unrelentingly clear and sharp in her eyes; see the miniscule cut out stars in the gold that looked so sharp to her, like celestial daggers that would cut her hands...and she was
flying backwards, and shapes shifted themselves into others, the sounds and smells and colors of fifty years flowing around her, drowning her, moving around her in a terrifying, disorienting
stream at the speed of the revolving hourglass; as fast as the uncaring tick of an accelerated clock.
********
Teddy Price turned back to the window, having looked away for only a second.
The street was aloud with noise, the trees rustling violently in the wind, their leaves torn away from them to be flung across the pavement. The stars twinkled coldly at him from behind clouds,
and the moon shone brightly, ethereal, in the sky; a silver pocket watch on a chain, unmoved by human loves and human pains.
But the girl was gone.