Page 20 of The Nook for Brooks (Mulligan’s Mill #6)

CODY

The morning sun spilled over the trees by the time I coaxed the little fire back to life and set my trusty old billy to boil. The woods smelled like pine needles and dew and smoke from our campfire.

Brooks hadn’t stirred. I’d left him curled in his sleeping bag when I woke up. I figured he’d had an anxious night and needed as much sleep as he could get before we packed up camp. Yet by the same token I was eager to get moving, to find out who it was calling out in the night.

When the water bubbled, I tossed in a handful of tea leaves, gave the billy a swirl, and poured two steaming mugs.

“Rise and shine,” I said brightly, sticking my head back inside the tent.

He cracked one eye open, holding his head like my voice hurt. “I don’t shine,” he croaked. “I barely even rise.”

I grinned and waved a mug under his nose. “Tea’s ready. It’s ginger and lemongrass. These leaves came all the way from Cambodia. Trust me, it’ll work miracles.”

He sat up stiffly, like every joint had been welded in the night, and accepted the mug with both hands, his hair sticking up at odd angles.

“So how did you sleep?”

“I think the question is, did you sleep at all?” He took a sip of tea and his face softened. “Ooh, that’s good.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Drink it down. We need to get a wriggle on.”

He blinked at me over the rim of the mug. “A wriggle on? What does that even mean? Are there worms out there? I hate worms!”

“No, I mean, we need to get a move one,” I answered. “Up the ridge. We need to head up the ridge.”

His shoulders stiffened, the mug frozen halfway to his lips. “What do you mean… head up the ridge? That’s where the scary voice was coming from last night?”

“I know. We need to find out who was making it.”

“Are you serious? Are Australians actually attracted to danger? If you jump in the ocean and see a shark fin, do you swim toward it? Surely not!”

“Brooks.” I crouched to meet his eye. “If someone was calling out, they could need help. We can’t just pack up and leave them.”

He let out a low groan, tipping his head back like he was bargaining with heaven. “We most certainly can. That’s exactly what we should do. Head straight down this mountain, back to town, and let the forest keep its spooky secrets.”

“Or,” I said gently. “We could find out what’s really going on. It’s the right thing to do.”

Brooks pressed the mug to his chest like it might shield him. “No, no, no. Doing the right thing is heading back to town and telling Sheriff Gates there’s a banshee in the woods. That’s the right thing. That’s our civic duty.”

“Brooks,” I said softly. “What if it wasn’t a banshee? What if it was someone who’s lost, or hurt, or in desperate need of help? If we walk away now, and they don’t make it… could you live with that?”

His eyes flickered, and for a moment the panic gave way to something else—guilt, maybe, or reluctant reasoning.

“Of course you had to make this about morality,” he sighed defeatedly. “Camping was already hard enough—now it’s a rescue mission? Don’t you know nobody comes out of a Bronte novel with a smile on their face?”

“I knew you’d say yes.” I leaned down and kissed him. “Think of it as part of the adventure, handsome.”

I pulled the campsite down swiftly.

Brooks did his best to help, wrestling with tent poles that seemed determined to spring in every direction.

He shot me bewildered looks as the canvas folded in on itself, but he never stopped trying.

Every rope he coiled was wound a little too precisely, every buckle clipped with a kind of grim determination. And yet, we got the job done.

Soon we were headed higher up the mountain.

The trail climbed steadily. Roots and stones made the ground uneven, and the air grew cooler as we pushed higher.

Occasionally Brooks lagged behind, at which point I held his hand tightly and pulled him up beside me, helping him over every fallen log and split boulder.

It took the better part of an hour, but eventually the trees began to thin.

Ahead, the ridge opened onto a dirt road cut into the slope, little more than a scar through the trees, narrow and rutted, the kind of place you only find if you’re not really looking for it.

My boots sank in mud, my shirt stuck to my back, and the cicadas were buzzing like an orchestra of chainsaws.

Then, tucked into the slope ahead, I spotted it.

A cottage crouched back from the track, crooked and tired, as though it had been sitting there so long the years themselves had started leaning on it.

Ivy crawled across the walls, the roofline sagged in the middle, and a letterbox stood at the roadside with its little door flopped open, revealing a network of spiderwebs inside as if it hadn’t seen any mail since last Christmas.

I slowed, grinning despite myself. “Well, well, well… what’s this little treasure?”

Brooks had gone quiet. He tugged at the collar of my borrowed hiking shirt and shifted in my oversized boots. “I think that’s the Timekeeper’s house,” he said, voice tight.

“The who?”

“The Timekeeper… Obadiah Crane.” He kept scanning the windows as though we were being watched. “The whole town knows of him. But hardly anyone has actually met him.”

“Recluse, then,” I said, delighted. “Excellent.” I was about to make some joke about knocking when I heard it—not birds, not the river, but a hush of ticking, faint at first, then everywhere, like rain tapping on a roof. Only it wasn’t raining.

“Timekeeper you say?”

Brooks nodded.

I realized the ticking was coming from the cottage. “That,” I whispered. “Is cool.”

“That,” Brooks muttered. “Is excessive.”

I headed straight for the cottage, boots thudding on the warped boards of the porch steps.

Behind me Brooks hissed, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Knocking,” I said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Before he could stop me, I reached for the brass knocker shaped like a clock face—its hands frozen at midnight—and gave it a firm rap.

From inside I heard the gong of a grandfather clock. Another clock chimed a second later. Then a flurry of dongs and bings and cuckoos joined in, all slightly off-key.

Brooks quickly stepped up onto the porch and stood a little behind me, driven either by curiosity or a fear of being left on the dirt track alone. I couldn’t tell.

A moment later, the door creaked open.

An old man peered at us. He had a shock of white hair, spectacles clinging to the tip of his nose, and a waistcoat sagging with pocket watches. His pale eyes were sharp and busy, like they were staring straight at us… and yet taking in everything else as well.

“You’re late,” he rasped.

I blinked. “For what?”

“For tea.” He turned and padded away, leaving the door open.

I looked at Brooks.

“We weren’t invited,” he whispered harshly.

“We are now,” I said, and stepped inside.

The place was dark and smelled of all sorts of polished wood, but it wasn’t the sights and smells that hit me. It was the sound of ticking all around.

Clocks had taken over every surface—fat mantel clocks, tall standing clocks with pendulums swinging as slow as heartbeats, cuckoo clocks perched along the walls like a row of restless birds, carriage clocks crammed onto end tables, and an hourglass collection on the sideboard.

Sundials sat on windowsills. A skeleton clock bared its brass gears in the corner, cogs turning like working organs.

A ship’s chronometer rested in a velvet-lined case, rocking faintly as though it still belonged at sea, while an entire shelf was dedicated to alarm clocks of all shapes and sizes, wearing their bells and hammers like earmuffs.

“This is…” I breathed.

“Madness,” Brooks muttered, edging around a side table of metronomes ticking like timebombs.

“Magic,” I said.

The old man reappeared, balancing a tray of mismatched cups and a squat iron teapot that looked like it had survived a hundred winters.

Steam curled into the dusty air as he shuffled past us.

He set the tray down on a low table wedged between two chairs, pressed almost knee to knee by the towering clocks around them.

“Sit,” he said, lowering himself into a high-backed armchair on the far side as though winding himself down for the evening… even though it was still only mid-morning. It struck me that old mate lived by his own definition of time.

I perched on the edge of the chair nearest the door, the cushion sagging and springs groaning like they hadn’t met a guest in decades. Brooks lowered himself into the other chair, stiff-backed and gripping the arms to stop them from coming alive and wrapping themselves around him.

The old man poured, his hands surprisingly steady despite the keychains clinking against his waistcoat. The liquid was a pale amber, and the smell that rose from it was smoky and resinous.

“Today’s tea is lapsang souchong,” he said. “You missed yesterday’s tea. Oolong, my favorite. Tomorrow is elderflower infusion if you’d care to drop by again.”

He lifted the cups and saucers, and we took them carefully. God forbid we broke anything in this precious little museum.

The old man’s pale eyes flicked between us, sharp yet distracted, like they saw too much and not enough all at once. “Do you know what time is?” he asked.

I moved to look at my watch and he said, “No, young man. I didn’t ask what time it is. I asked, do you know what time is ?”

Brooks cleared his throat. “Time is a unit of measurement.”

The old man chuckled, low and scratchy. “Wrong. It’s a creature. It slinks. It feeds. It wanders. Sometimes it loses its way.” He tapped one long finger against his temple. “Sometimes so do I.”

Before I could respond, the front door opened again and someone said, “Uncle?”

A man our own age appeared, perhaps mid to late twenties. He wore a neat jacket despite the heat, and his dark hair was swept back from a sharp brow. In one hand he carried a leather satchel, bulging at the seams. His other hand hovered on the doorframe, knuckles white, as his eyes landed on us.

He froze. His whole posture tightened—not fearful, but protective.

“Who are you?” His voice was even but carried an edge, his gaze flicking distrustfully between me and Brooks. “What are you doing here?”

The old man barely glanced up from winding a clock. “Nephew… manners. These are my guests,” he said vaguely. “They’ve dropped in for a spot of tea.”

The younger man stepped further into the room, setting the satchel down on a table of clocks but never taking his eyes off us. “Uncle, you’re not supposed to let strangers in.”

“We’re not strangers,” I offered with a grin. “Just travelers. I’m Cody, this is Brooks. We were out camping last night and—”

“We heard something… someone… calling out in the night,” Brooks cut in tightly, clearly sensing the man’s suspicion. “We thought someone might need help.”

The younger man’s gaze stayed on us a moment longer before he gave the smallest nod. He moved to his uncle’s side, resting a hand lightly on the old man’s shoulder.

Brooks lowered his voice. “You must be Heathcliff.”

The man took a breath, then gave the faintest nod. “Yes. That’s me.”

Heathcliff’s hand lingered on his uncle’s shoulder, a tether as much as a comfort. “You heard him last night,” he said finally, his tone clipped but calm. “In the woods.”

“Yes,” I said. “He was calling your name.”

For the first time, Heathcliff’s eyes softened, though his jaw stayed tight.

“He wanders,” he admitted. “Sometimes he gets confused. When he loses himself, he calls for me. That’s why I come up as often as I can.

I live in Milwaukee, but things need to change.

I’ll be packing up my things and moving here permanently in the next few weeks.

Uncle Obadiah needs full-time care and I’m all the family he’s got. ”

Obadiah hummed as though the conversation wasn’t about him at all, his fingers working the winding key of a longcase clock. “He always finds me,” he murmured. “He’s very good at that.” He looked at me and asked, “How’s the tea?”

“Tea is over,” Heathcliff said. “My uncles gets confused easily. Having strangers invite themselves in for tea will only unsettle him.”

“All we wanted was to make sure no one was in trouble,” I said. “We didn’t invite ourselves in.”

“Perhaps not,” said Heathcliff. “But I’m happy to invite you out .”

He turned the old man. “You need to rest, Uncle. It’s time for your nap.”

Obadiah glanced toward a wall of clocks, half of them insisting it was mid-morning, the other half stubbornly chiming midnight.

“Is it?” he asked. His fingers hovered over the nearest dial as if the answer might be written there, then he gave a wistful smile.

“I’m not sure if it’s ten-thirty in the morning or the midnight hour.

I suppose it must be both. Time doesn’t always agree with itself.

That’s why I keep so many clocks… I like to hear them argue. ”

We didn’t finish the last of the smoky tea before setting the cups carefully on the tray.

As I stood, I said, “It was lovely to meet you, Obadiah. And thank you for the tea. It was delicious.”

“Remember, tomorrow is elderflower infusion.”

“They won’t be here tomorrow, Uncle,” Heathcliff said bluntly before walking us to the door.

On the porch, he paused. “If you hear him again,” he said, eyes fixed on me. “Don’t go looking. I’ll make sure he’s safe.”

Behind him, Obadiah had drifted to the door, his pale eyes restless but clear for an instant. “Mind Winnie’s Wishing Well,” he said softly. “Old wishes don’t stay buried.”

“Uncle, you need to go lie down,” Heathcliff said. With one last turn to us he added, “Thank you for your concern, but this house isn’t meant for visitors. Please don’t come back.”

As the door shut behind us and the ticking dulled to a whisper in the trees, I glanced at Brooks.

“Well,” I said, half smiling. “That wasn’t spooky at all.”

He shot me a look. “You are never dragging me up here again.”

“Tomorrow’s elderflower infusion,” I teased. “We’d be rude to miss it.”

Brooks rolled his eyes and grabbed me by the forearm. “Time to go!”