Clock City Read online

  Clock City

  Realm of Elestra, Volume 2

  Rebekah Dodson

  Published by Rebekah Dodson, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  CLOCK CITY

  First edition. May 10, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Rebekah Dodson.

  Written by Rebekah Dodson.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Book I: Clock Queen | Chapter One: The Girl

  Chapter Two: The City Gates

  Chapter Three: Sebastian Cross

  Chapter Four: Timekeeper

  Chapter Five: The Prison

  Chapter Six: Running

  Chapter Seven: Fire

  Chapter Eight: The Night

  Chapter Nine: Truths

  Chapter Ten: Sleep

  Chapter Eleven: Coward

  Book II: Clock Prince | Chapter Twelve: Sebastian

  Chapter Thirteen: Quod

  Chapter Fourteen: Decisions

  Chapter Fifteen: Delilah

  Chapter Sixteen: Home

  Chapter Seventeen: Victor

  Chapter Eighteen: Edwin

  Book III: Clock Princess | Chapter Nineteen: Mines

  Chapter Twenty: Family

  Chapter Twenty-One: Musings

  Chapter Twenty-Two: A Way Out

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Freedom

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Disaster

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Escape

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Traitors

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Encounters

  Book IV: Clock Face | Chapter Twenty-Eight: Innovators

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Power

  Chapter Thirty: The Face

  Chapter Thirty-One: Love and Loss

  Chapter Thirty-Two: The Price of Freedom

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Light and Fire

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Escape and Endure

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Courtyard Chaos

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Quandaries

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  Further Reading: Timekeeper

  Also By Rebekah Dodson

  About the Author

  To my booger. I hope you continue writing and expressing yourself no matter what you do.

  Prologue

  MOST EDUCATED PEOPLE would say our DNA, the building blocks of our existence, only carried physiological traits and characteristics. How we look, the color of our eyes, our bodily proportions, even the proclivity for certain ailments and medical conditions. But a few researchers would have told you it went beyond those attributes and our DNA carried knowledge and experiences passed through generations.

  Parker H. Whipple might just be a body of proof to this theory. Growing up as an orphan, young Whipple was discovered by a groundskeeper outside a novelty clock factory. The orphanage couldn’t locate his parents and named him for the last names of the clock shop owners—George Parker and William Whipple.

  He was a quiet and shy young lad, avoiding the rough and physical contact games his peers at the orphanage engaged in daily as they grew. Instead, he passed his time tinkering and creating intricate do-dads. He seemed to know what they did, at least in his mind, but they made no sense to anyone else.

  The night of Winter Solstice of his eighteenth year, he was assembling something which appeared to be an intricate timepiece stuck into a locket.

  Several of the children who had been taunting him reported when he inserted a key into the locket he simply vanished, a jeweled dagger at his side.

  When the shining silver gates of Clock City greeted him, Parker wasn’t surprised. Instead he glided through the gates which were welcoming him, as they did thousands of travelers from around Elestra.

  The sights greeting him were wonderful to behold, yet he had multiple other things on his mind. He gazed at the towering palace, one hand wrapped around the dagger, the other touching the locket at his neck. His journey had finally taken him to where he knew would be his final destination.

  It was time to confront a task far more daunting than any he had endeavored in the past. For this time, there was a personal cog in the gears of this challenging quest. His locket contained the only picture of his sister, the one he never knew.

  “My time will come, they will see. No more will the children torment me, and no more will they see the light of day.”

  Parker left his mortal name behind that day. He was now the Timekeeper.

  Book I: Clock Queen

  Chapter One: The Girl

  IT WAS JUST AN APPLE.

  A Red Delicious, the kind my mother used to buy. I remembered the pies and pastries she used to make and set on the windowsill of our kitchen to cool. We were the perfect nuclear family, after all, and wouldn’t be complete without the pie.

  My father would come home and swing her around by the waist, and she would laugh and hug him. He’d pick me up and squeeze me to his chest and present me with a new doll.

  My stomach rumbled as I stared at the apple. Glossy, plump, rouge. It was beautiful. I could just imagine crunching right into it and feeling the sweetness roll around my tongue. I was starving, and the apple looked like the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.

  I slipped it in my pocket.

  I’d done it a dozen times before. Apples here, some string cheese there, but candy bars were the easiest to hide most of the time. The trick was not to act nervous or guilty, and they’d never ask you why you were staring at the fruits and vegetables.

  Cool, calm, and collected, I made my way to the exit. The doors swished open, beckoning my escape. Close, so close. Freedom. And that juicy apple would be mine. If only the fantasy of my father and mother was too.

  “Hey! I saw you grab that!”

  I froze.

  “Get back here, Alayna!”

  I guess my sleight of hand needed some work. I looked behind me to see Francis, a boy I used to go to school with, jogging toward me.

  Being caught wasn’t part of my plan, not today, even if our food budget always turned into my father’s beer budget.

  Unfortunately, running head long into Mrs. Smithe and her followers, all decked out in diamond rings and hot pink polyester jogging suits, wasn’t part of the plan either. They whispered behind delicately manicured hands; a technique they had no doubt perfected in high school some twenty odd years before. “That poor, dear Winston girl, all alone in this world.”

  “Tragic how her mother, Lydia, died.”

  “Her father is a no-good alcoholic, I heard.”

  “Can you blame him, after what happened to his wife?”

  “Can’t say I do...”

  I was too busy making sure my coat covered my other “purchases” to worry about them at the time. Beside that apple I couldn’t resist, I had managed to wedge four snickers, three bags of beef jerky, a block of cheese, and some root beer under my torn, down jacket.

  The apple fell and rolled to the floor, right into Mrs. Smithe’s manicured, sandaled foot. She stooped to pick it up and sneered at me.

  “Missing something, Alayna? Did you pay for this, Miss Winston?”

  “Stop her!” Francis called from behind me again.

  Forgetting the apple, I just pushed past her and the two crones circling her back. Once in the parking lot, I had to make a snap decision—run for the woods and unload the food I’d lifted or go home.

  A gust of wind blew my blonde braid over my shoulder as a few drops of rain fell on my face. There was a storm coming. My father’s shift wasn’t over for a few more hours, and I had to stop at home to get my journal. I couldn’t imagine if he’d found it.

&
nbsp; My life would be over. Probably, quite literally. And who wanted to be caught in this rain? Not I, that’s for sure. The woods would have to wait.

  I could imagine Francis was calling the police as I stood there indecisive. Good, I slowed my pace as I reached the park, I hope my father answers. Holding my coat tightly to my chest, I ran for the side of the building, down the back, and cut through the field that led back to my neighborhood.

  Cutting out of the field through Emily Stone’s backyard, I hit the sidewalk running, my chest heaving, but I was sure I’d left the grocery store far enough behind. Two more blocks and I’d be home. Kicking rocks idly to the side, I strolled as if I wasn’t laden with stolen food under a woolen coat in eighty-degree Texas weather. My chest burned, and my forehead beaded with sweat from jogging like a crazy person. I just hoped I beat my father home.

  The wind kicked up, blowing dust and tumbleweeds into the street. I shielded my eyes and gazed at the quickly disappearing sun to the west. The clouds were dark gray without the familiar twinge of green, and I knew it was just a typical Texas thunderstorm. No tornados would be in the forecast this night.

  Sometimes I wished they would be, though. Being taken away to a magical land like Oz, with no drunken fathers, no crumbling trailer, and no empty cupboards sounded like a dream.

  Except those things didn’t exist, and I was plain ol’ seventeen-year-old Alayna Winston, high school drop-out, and probably soon to be another statistic. It’s not that I wanted to drop out. I used to get good grades. I loved school.

  But after Mom, well, somedays it was too much to explain to my homeroom teacher why my arm had welts, or my eye was just a little purple. There were only so many times I could fall down the stairs in a one-story trailer before the words “credit deficient” got thrown around, and finally I was too far behind to catch up. Whatever. They didn’t care about me, no one cared about me. I was invisible.

  I played my fingertips along the fence next to me idly. Francis and I used to be friends. Spotting the swings swaying slowly in the storm’s gusts of wind made me smile sadly.

  He pushed me on those swings when I was in fifth grade. We played games on those monkey bars and hid under the oak trees and told secrets. Now he was a cashier at Jack’s Grocery, and I was just Alayna the shoplifter.

  By the time I reached my block, I skidded to a stop three doors down when I saw my father’s cruiser in the driveway.

  No, no, no, my mind raced a mile a minute. He can’t be home yet. It’s too early.

  I had no choice. I had to cut around the back, sneak in my window, and try to leave without him noticing I was gone. It was half past seven or so. Maybe him and his Heineken had checked out for the night.

  I cut between our house and the new neighbors’. Dad would probably hate them, though. They were gay and that wasn’t okay with him. I couldn’t wait to have a bar-b-que with them.

  Reaching our backyard, I shimmied down the side of the trailer’s faded blue painted wall and around the abandoned steel swing set leaning precariously to one side. The back screen door banged freely open as the rain began to drizzle.

  I knew I’d be stuck here with the rain on the way soon to be pelting everything in sight. Securing the door so it didn’t wake my father, I slipped to the wooden window just beyond the back door, hoisted it open, and pulled myself over the edge into my room.

  “Alayna.”

  My coat snagged a corner of the peeling wood on the window frame. His voice startled me. I tumbled into my room, my coat ripping open and spilling my stolen contents on the dingy shag carpet.

  My father reached down and grabbed an orange. He threw it up in the air and caught it, swaying slightly as he did.

  Not only was he home early, but I could smell the acrid booze on his breath from here.

  I froze as always, wrapping my arms around myself, looking down. My hair was damp, my braid partially undone and disheveled.

  “You look like a tramp.”

  I didn’t answer. To answer was a mistake.

  “Where you been, girl?”

  I focused on my sneakers. They were a few years old, scuffed, grass stained on one side. Grass. I loved grass. I missed my mother. She used to let me play in the grass. In her garden.

  Crack.

  My lip trembled when he slapped me, but I knew whimpering just meant I was asking for it again, so I inhaled instead.

  “Where you been, girl?” He demanded this time, his face an inch from mine.

  “Out,” this time I answered because not answering would be a bigger mistake.

  “I though they was lying when they called me, telling me you ripped of Jack’s again.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  Crack!

  I could taste the blood on my lip. My stomach rumbled and all I could taste was copper. It was a terrible combination.

  “I’m sick of this, Alayna!” He shouted, and he turned away from me, leaning his head on the door. “You’re a good for nothing thief, and if you mother was here, she’d—”

  “She’s not here, is she?” I managed to mumble. “Because she died.”

  “What was that? What did you say?”

  “N-never mind. N-nothing sir, I said nothing.”

  He turned back to me. White t-shirt tucked into the blue slacks he wore to the force every day. Heavy black boots finished his look of menace, but it was nothing compared to the wide belt around his waist, which he loosened.

  “I hate to do this girl, but I’ve no choice, none at all. It’s time you learned you can’t steal.”

  Tears spilled out of my eyes. I wanted my mother. “No, father! I swear, it was the last time. The last time! I won’t ... never...” My stomach rumbled harder this time and I felt like I was going to puke. “Please, please don’t...”

  With a whip of his hand, lightning fast despite his intoxication, the belt came down against my shoulder and I didn’t have time to get my arms up. When I did, he brought it down again, the black leather stinging against my pale skin, drawing blood.

  Two more times he brought it down, careful to avoid my face as his blows landed against my shoulder, side, and legs. I cried out each time, begging him to stop, but it was like he couldn’t hear me. He never heard me.

  Panting, he slid his belt over his shoulder. “I’m gonna call Robert and have him take you to the station. I’m sick of this, girl. You gotta learn sometime. Maybe a night in jail will change your mind about being a goddamn thief.”

  He stumbled out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him with a bang.

  I hugged my knees, rocking there for a minute, tears running down my cheeks, trying to will away the pain. For some reason it was harder this time.

  My journal. Where was my journal?

  I scrambled for it under the bed mattress, just between it and the box spring, and finally grasped it. Ripping it open, I ran my hand over the drawing. The one from my nightmare last night.

  A red sun with black lightning shooting from the corners, green flowers in a yellow field, and a giant wheel. I supposed it was more like a cog with the squared edges, but what it meant I didn’t know.

  It was the same dream I’d had every night this week.

  The thunderstorm pounded outside, crashing against my window as the wind picked up. I flipped the page to the scary little monster I’d drawn this morning. I hadn’t dreamt of him before, and his face was a blur. All I knew was he had stringy hair, beady black eyes, and he was no bigger than a dog. I wondered why I dreamed of him.

  He scared me in a way, but part of me wanted to meet him. Anything terrifying like that was better than the hell I was living.

  As I ran my hand over the painting, the creature’s eye blinked.

  Wait, what?

  Blinked?

  I tossed my journal away from me, staring at it.

  I’d finally cracked. I’d finally gone insane.

  Just what my father wanted.

  Maybe I did need a night in a jail cell like he wanted.r />
  I shook as I thought of the confines of those little concrete cells. I shook so hard I couldn’t even cry. I just felt the rage building in me suddenly. I had nowhere to release it, nowhere to go.

  Thunder boomed then, rattling the window, and shaking our little trailer.

  Maybe this was my Oz moment, after all.

  Snatching my journal, I opened my door an inch and peered into the living room just outside my door. There was my father, passed out on the couch.

  You can do this. Run for it. You can do this, Alayna!

  I heard my mother in my heard. My sweet mother, who made the best apple pie. She wanted me to escape, but I could never come back.

  I was Alayna the thief, the drop out, not the run away.

  I didn’t even care.

  Knowing my father could shoot awake at any moment, I rushed past him and to the back door, not caring that it banged loudly when I ran out of it, not giving a single care in the world if he heard, if it woke him. Screw this place. Let a tornado take me away, or better yet, kill me. It was better than being here. Better than feeling his belt across my skin.

  The rain pelted my skin, stinging with each drop as I raced away from the only home I’d ever known. I slipped my journal under my thin cotton shirt, hoping I could protect its fragile ink from the wet weather. Frozen for a moment at the edge of the driveway and stretching out my arm, I watched the rivers of droplets cascade down my fingertips.

  It was a short-lived moment of wonder.

  “Alayna, get your ass back in this house!” His voice, raw and violent, sent a shiver down my spine, colder and crueler than any rainstorm. He’s heard the door. He was awake. He was after me.

  I had to get away from him. I couldn’t take it anymore. I ran.

  “Alayna Winston, you good for nothing brat, you’ve earned the end of my belt across your back again!” His slurred voice boomed in the back of my head, fading like a nightmare I couldn’t wake from. This one didn’t have creatures and suns and flowers. This one was dark, deadly, disastrous.