Come sit with me, granddaughter of mine. I want to tell you a story about when I was a young man living in Connecticut in the fifties. As all good stories start, this one begins with once upon a time, but really, it was once upon two times.

When I was in my twenties, television was a relatively new thing, and since I couldn’t afford one, my biggest source of amusement was searching through antique shops on the weekends. You can learn so much about the past by seeing the things people once owned. I could look at a globe and know where its owner had lived from where the paint was worn away from a child putting their finger there so many times. Or I could look at set of carving tools and know which one they had hardly ever used by its pristine handle. Each item told a story, and although I hardly ever bought a thing, I felt like I was somehow a part of a larger history every time I found another ordinary but precious treasure.

There was one treasure, though, that was far from ordinary. I found it on a summer’s evening, just as the sun was beginning to wrap up its journey across the sky.

I was thumbing through some old postcards when I heard the shopkeeper, Mr. Taylor, moving the sidewalk items back inside. I put the cards down, embarrassed. I didn’t own a watch and was always staying past my welcome because of it. I started towards the front of the store.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Taylor,” I said. “I didn’t realize what time it was.”

“You’ve got another minute, Fred,” he said, motioning me to keep looking. He wanted a sale.

I don’t know why, really, but I suddenly felt guilty for never buying anything in the shop when I was in there enough for Mr. Taylor to consider us first-name-basis friends. I went back to the box of postcards, which were only a couple cents apiece. I could afford that. At least it would be something.

As I made my way back there, though, my eye caught an old carved wooden box, its silver clasps and corners faintly glinting in the light of a lamp that sat beside it. I paused. Now that was a beautiful treasure. The sort of box that a Victorian family would keep their heirlooms in. I could imagine my own grandmother opening the clasp and flipping the lid back to pull her long strand of pearls out of a velvety interior.

I reached out to see inside, but when I pulled at the clasp, it didn’t budge. I used my other hand to steady the box as I tried. Nothing. I picked it up and tried again. It was jammed tight.

I was about to put it back when I felt the weight shift in my hands. There was something inside.

The mystery object slid around as I moved my hands like a seesaw. My mind went wild, imagining what it could be. Whatever it was had to be smooth and oblong; it didn’t clatter about like it would if it were a figurine, and it didn’t roll like it would if it were an ivory globe. A ruby could be smooth and oblong, right?

I walked back to the front of the store. Mr. Taylor’s eyes lit up as he saw that I had something in my hands, but his face fell when he saw what it was.

“Oh, that old box. It doesn’t open.”

“I noticed,” I said, pulling it closer to my face to look at the clasp better.

“I’ve had that for probably twenty years. Never been able to sell it. No one wants a box that can’t open.”

I frowned and put the box at arms’ length to admire it. “It’s a nice enough box even if it doesn’t open.”

Mr. Taylor shrugged. “That may be, but you’d be the first who thought so. Everyone else just puts it back after they see it can’t open, or they ask me for its secret.”

Its secret. How fascinating that sounded.

Mr. Taylor saw the look on my face and chuckled, leaning against the counter. “I’ll tell you what. If you can get that box open, you’re welcome to whatever’s inside it. I’ll only charge for the box.”

“What if it’s a ruby?”

He laughed. “Then you’d be getting one heck of a deal.”

“How much for the box, then?”

“Three dollars.” That wasn’t throwaway change back in the day, but I was willing at this point to go for it, even if all I was getting was a mysterious box with a worthless rock inside. I paid the money and examined my purchase.

“Do you have some tools that I could borrow?”

He bent down behind the counter and came up with a box filled with small metal tools. I rummaged through them for a minute, then settled on one with a flat head. I turned the box so that the clasp was facing away from my body, and jammed the flat part of the tool into the tiny lip of the clasp. Then I wrapped one arm around the box and pulled carefully but with all my might.

Pop. The clasp sprung open.

“Well, I’ll be…” Mr. Taylor started, looking about as stunned as possible. “Come on, let’s see inside. What’d you get?”

I set the box down on the counter and drew the lid back slowly for dramatic effect.

Inside, the box was lined with fraying but lovely red velvet, and in the top left corner sat a beautiful, shiny gold pocket watch.

Mr. Taylor let out a low whistle, and I echoed the sentiment with a nod. The watch had no cover; the glass and the gold seemed to mesh into one, inseparable. Polished gears were visible through cutouts in the watch face, and the three hands were cut in graceful, delicate lines, stuck at four seconds past 9:32. The numbers were still clear and dark, written in a romantic calligraphy by a well-trained hand. The bow at the top had no attached chain nor catch release, but was decorated with a petite golden rose.

With a gentle hand, I lifted the treasure out of the box and turned it over to see the back. It was engraved with a name in the same graceful calligraphy: Edyna. I ran my finger over it. It was as though the watch was in as good of shape as the day it was made.

I flipped the watch back to its front and tried to find some way to open it, or even wind it. Besides the engraving, there was nothing to catch your finger on as you stroked it. Though it shouldn’t have been possible, it was one solid piece.

“Never mind that, you’ve got yourself a real treasure there, Fred,” Mr. Taylor said.

“Are you sure you don’t want this back? You could probably get a lot for it.”

“A watch that doesn’t wind has about the same value as a box that doesn’t open for these people. Keep it. All you have to do is come back to the shop every now and then.”

I smiled and turned the watch around again in the light before setting it back in the box.

When I got back to my apartment, I set the box on the mantle and peered inside once more. I wondered about Edyna, whoever she was. What was her story? Why did she have such a lovely gold watch? Maybe it was the best Christmas present she’d ever gotten. Maybe she gazed at it every day thinking of the loved ones who had bought it for her. Old things told stories, and this one told a thousand, all of which were unanswered mysteries. I closed the box and went to sleep.

For the first few days, I’d look inside the box once or twice daily to admire the watch again, but as the weeks went on, I thought less about it. I still enjoyed seeing it on my mantle as I passed, but it simply became a part of my apartment. A pleasant thing I owned that sat on a shelf.

It was early autumn when I went to clean off one tiny spot on the table beside by armchair and couldn’t find a logical point to stop. An hour had passed when I got to the mantle with my rag and paused at the beautiful old box.

I grinned. “You could use a shine, too,” I said aloud to myself, and I took it with me to the chair so I could give it a thorough cleaning.

My rag went over the metal clasp and corners, the old wood, then inside to the fraying velvet. I carefully ran the rag along the wooden edge where the velvet was attached, trying not to harm whatever was holding it there, which seemed from the looks of it to be some sort of adhesive.

It was inevitable that something was going to go wrong, all that crazed cleaning. One corner of the velvet lost the will to stay glued to the lid as my rag nicked it, doubling over and revealing the more unattractive part of the box lid, yellow on the edge from the dried-up glue.

I cursed myself for being such a klutz, but as I looked at where the velvet had fallen down, I saw something pale peeking out.

Moving the velvet around carefully, I saw that it was a folded piece of paper. The frustration from harming the box completely went away. Maybe the paper told how to wind the watch!

I took a deep breath and winced. I hated to destroy any more of the box, but to get at that paper, I’d have to pull some more of the velvet down. I felt along the center of the velvet to try and determine how much would have to come off. It wouldn’t be too bad, I thought. And I’d have to get the velvet reattached anyway.

I pursed my lips and started to pull off one side of the velvet lining, wincing every time a thread stayed behind on the glue. But I got it open, and was able to remove the folded paper inside.

Unlike the watch, the paper had aged. It was brittle in my hands as I opened it and read the message, handwritten in a masculine hand:

Please return to Edyna Fairchild, Massachusetts. This is borrowed time. – J. Fairchild

A chill went through me, even though I didn’t understand the riddle. Borrowed time? Perhaps they were being silly, making a pun. But “borrowed time” was something one said about cheating death, which sounded darker than a simple borrowed watch.

I shook off the strange feeling and made myself acknowledge how great the discovery was. I had a last name and a location for my watch-owner. If there was family alive, they should be the ones to keep this beautiful treasure. They might have been wondering where it was for years.

I looked over at the clock on the wall – how nice it would have been to find a working watch – and saw that there was still time to visit the library. Maybe I could find an address for a genealogist in Massachusetts, just a state away.

I found someone listed in Boston, with a phone number, too, so I went down the street and gave them a call.

“Hello?” a tired female voice came from the other end.

“Hi, I have a name that I’d like some information about.”

“No kidding. What is it, then?”

“Edyna Fairchild. I don’t know what town she lived in, but – ”

“Lexington,” the genealogist said, the sarcastic tone changed for breathless surprise.

“You know about her already?” I asked, excited. I readied my pencil and notebook.

“Yes,” the genealogist said, her speech slowing. “Yes, Edyna Fairchild is one of my greatest mysteries.”

“Why?”

“I’ve never been able to find a death date for her.”

The words “borrowed time” ran down my spine again.

“Who was she?” I asked.

“The daughter of a wealthy politician named Atlas Fairchild. He served in the House for several years in the 1900s. Died when Edyna and her twin brother were seventeen, right after their mother passed. I know she lived a couple years longer, until at least 1908, but then her brother moved away and all record of the sister stops. I tried to find family to contact and update the records, but the brother died childless in the twenties.”

“The brother, did he move to Connecticut by any chance?” I asked.

“Yes,” the genealogist said excitedly. “You know something.”

I pursed my lips together, then decided to tell her. “I found a box at an antique store with a watch and a note inside.” I read it for her, and she gasped.

“J. Fairchild, that’s him. His name was John.”

“It’s such a shame there’s nowhere for me to return the watch to,” I said.

The genealogist snorted. “Well, there’s a place. Only no one lives there.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The house hasn’t been touched. I noticed that the records for the house state that it was taken over by the town shortly after the brother died, but even though it’s been on the market ever since, it’s never sold. I drove up there one day to take a look at it. Quite a nice looking house. Mid to late eighteen-hundreds. There’s a short brick wall all around it with an iron gate at the front, and there’s still a plaque that reads ‘Fairchild.’ Besides the ivy, it’s like nothing changed since 1908.”

“That’s odd.”

“Extremely. You can see furniture behind the curtains from the street. I wish someone would look around inside to try to put the puzzle together.”

I was quiet for a few seconds. Was that it? Did my mystery simply end with an even bigger mystery? I felt even stranger than before.

“It’s well worth the look, if you’re ever up in Lexington,” the genealogist said. “Do you want me to give you the address?”

“Um…sure. Thank you.”

She told me the street and how to get there from the center of town. “And hey, if you ever find out anything more, give me a ring, will you?”

“Of course. Thank you.”

My hand stayed on the phone after I’d hung up. I looked down at the little notebook in my hand. I’d planned on answers, not what I got.

I made my way down the street slowly, listening to the cars and watching kids run around. I didn’t feel like stopping for a bite to eat and wandering through antique shops. I wanted to drive to Lexington.

When I made it back to my apartment, I didn’t want to look at the box still sitting open beside my armchair with one side of the velvet lining pulled away. Now it was a forgotten box, a sad thing to see. Worse than confirmed sadness, though, was the unconfirmed sadness. What happened to this Edyna Fairchild? If she was dead, why did her brother have her watch with a note saying to give it back to her? Why didn’t she have a death date? And what was the story of this old, forgotten house? I shuddered. The box had been so exciting and curious before.

Angry, I scooped the box up from the table, stuck the old note inside, and took it into the hall to stash away in the closet. I never wanted to see it again.

Days passed, and the rainy weather seemed to match my mood. I told myself constantly that I was forgetting about the box and sarcastic genealogist and the whole ridiculous mess, but it was all I could think about. I saw an imaginary Edyna in an old woman walking down the street beside me, a ghost in the window of an old mansion. I even took an instant suspicion to a man I met named John. The box might have been hidden away, but it was never more visible to me.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. During my perusal of the antique shops that Friday, I marched through Mr. Taylor’s door, determined and irritated.

“Hi, Fred,” he said, oblivious. “How’s the watch?”

“Where did you get it?”

“The box?”

“Yeah. Did you buy the estate of the man it belonged to when he died?”

“No; I don’t know who it belonged to. I got it from another antique dealer in New Haven. His name was Mr. Brighton. I can tell you where his shop was, but I don’t know if it’s still there or anything.”

Mr. Taylor gave me directions to the shop, but I still wasn’t sure that I was going to New Haven until I got the box out of the closet, put the watch in my pocket, and got in my car.

A half an hour later, I was there. The sun had started to set and I worried that I would be too late if the shop was even still there, but as I pulled down the street, I saw an old man smoking a pipe in a doorway with a sign that read “antiques and oddities” above him.

I pulled the car in front of the shop and ran up to the man, out of breath and excited.

“Are you Mr. Brighton?”

He stared up at me for a few seconds, puffing on the pipe, before giving a fast nod.

“An antique dealer named Mr. Taylor directed me to you,” I said, and he made a face acknowledging that he remembered the name. “I wondered if you could tell me a little bit about John Fairchild, who owned a wooden box that you sold to Mr. Taylor twenty years ago. I know it’s a long shot.”

Mr. Brighton slowly took the pipe out of his mouth. “I remember John Fairchild. What do you want to know about him?”

“Well,” I started, thinking. “Anything that you can tell me, really. I know he was from Lexington and had a sister and a political father.”

Mr. Brighton took another puff from his pipe. “I didn’t know he had a sister, or that his father was political for that matter. He never talked about his past.”

“Well, what did he do in town? Did he have a job?”

Mr. Brighton laughed. “John Fairchild was a rascal. Always seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, but he was a rascal nonetheless. All I ever saw him do was gamble. One time he held a craps game in the alley over there and tried to get my son in on it, my little boy. I told him to take his game elsewhere. I didn’t want my boy wasting all his money like that. John was always broke and coming into the shop trying to sell this or that to get enough to win back what he’d lost. Then as soon as he’d be better financially, he’d come back in and buy whatever it was back.”

“Is that how you got the box?”

Mr. Brighton shook his head. “No, I got the box when he died. Poor kid. No matter his morals, it’s a shame for a young man to die. He had to have been in his early thirties.”

It matched the timeline the genealogist had given. “Did he die suddenly?”

He nodded. “It’s a sad thing to say. A couple of men found out that he was cheating at cards. They kicked down his door, stabbed him, and left. He was trying to open the box when the police came in, but the latch was stuck. He died within minutes.”

I covered my mouth with my hand and tried not to look too horrified, but I couldn’t get the image out of my head of a man who just wanted to hold his sister’s beautiful watch again before he died.

“His belongings were auctioned off since he didn’t have any relatives, and I got the box, along with some furniture that sold quickly. But no one wanted the box until Mr. Taylor. Do you have it now, then?”

I nodded. “I’m trying to piece together its mystery.”

Mr. Brighton shook his head and grinned. “It’s a dangerous business to chase a mystery. It can consume you. But it’s awfully fun when it all comes together.”

I nodded and sighed. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Brighton.”

“Not at all, sonny. Good luck with your search.”

So, I was back in my car again, and although the sensible thing would have been to drive back home in time for dinner, I found myself turning North.

After spending the night along the way, I was pulling into Lexington, Massachusetts midmorning.

I got lost twice trying to remember the genealogist’s directions, but all of a sudden, the houses started looking more Victorian and I rounded the corner to see a large brick house with a little wall around it.

There was no doubt that it was the right house when I pulled up to it and got out, transfixed. It was something out of a storybook, ivy growing up the walls and ferns covering the lawn. But it still had a charm to it, and I had the overwhelming feeling that it would have been a very lovely place to grow up. I could see a large tree with a swing in the backyard, one end of the seat on the ground with the chain waiting above it. There was a birdbath under one of the front windows, and I could imagine Edyna as a child sitting at the window and watching the robins splash about.

Just as the genealogist had said, there was furniture visible through the windows. I could see a large china case through a faded lace curtain in the bay window that must have held the dining room, and there was a vase with wilted flowers on the sill of a second floor bedroom.

I was just taking a look at the metal plaque that read “Fairchild” by the gate when someone laughed beside me on the sidewalk, making me jump.

I turned and saw the postman watching me with an amused face.

“Have you heard the legend of the Fairchilds and want to see it for yourself?” he asked.

“The legend? I don’t know that I have. Tell me.”

He chuckled. “The house was abandoned for years, and after news came that the owner died, the local police went in to check out the place so it could be readied for sale. But when they went in, our toughest men, they came back out, white as sheets, and refused to ever tell what had made them so scared.”

I whipped my head to look back at the house. “What?”

The postman laughed again. “It’s just a silly ghost story, mac. Some people put stock in it, say they knew the policemen personally and knew they wouldn’t lie about a thing like that, but really, I say. It’s just an old house that no one wants. Good Halloween story, if nothing else.”

“Yeah. I suppose you’re right.”

The postman slapped my arm as he walked past. “Well, you have a good one, mac. Try not to spook yourself over it.”

“Thanks.”

I stood there staring at the house for a minute more, but the postman’s words which should have scared me more than anything else I’d heard up until then only intrigued me. Okay, so what if they were lying? Why didn’t they sell the contents of the house? It must have been worth a pretty good penny. And with the Depression just a few years later? People would have raided the house to find things to sell if they didn’t have a good reason not to.

But what if there was something frightening inside the house? I could give myself some sort of trauma by walking in there.

For whatever dumb reason, though, I couldn’t make my feet take me back to the car and drive away. Heart pounding, I opened the gate and started up the path.

The walk was overgrown almost completely, and vines continued onto the porch, wrapping around a porch swing with rusting chains. I pulled a vine off of the door and took a deep breath before trying the handle. It was unlocked. I looked back to the street; there were no onlookers. Another breath and I pushed the door, letting myself be swallowed inside.

Blinking, I looked around the entryway. It was as if I were looking through tinted glasses. Everything was in place just as if a family were living there, but it was covered in a layer of dust and the occasional cobweb. A few sets of footprints dotted the wood, dusted over but not as much as the rest of the floor. They must have been from the policemen thirty years ago.

I closed the door behind me and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dimmer light. There was a staircase in front of me with a pink and yellow stained glass window at the landing, painting faint colors on the dusty mahogany steps. A glass case was at my right with some knick-knacks displayed inside – figurines of pastoral animals, mostly. And to my left, a coat rack with a woman’s coat and hat still resting patiently. I tried not to shiver.

I took a few steps further in, and looked into the room at my right. It was a dining room. I walked in and looked around. There was the big china case that I had seen through the bay window, and a long table with blue upholstered chairs. There were no dishes left out, but a square sat at one of the places. I walked closer and saw that it was a newspaper caked in dust. I reached out and wiped the top of it, revealing the date: April 30, 1908.

A thrill shot through me. Despite the incredible eeriness, the ability to step into another time so wonderfully-kept was fascinating. The pieces of this mystery were falling into place.

I walked back through the entryway and into the room across from the dining room. It was a sitting room with chairs gathered around a fireplace and a piano in the corner, sheet music still sitting in place. I looked around, imagining the parties that must have occurred here. It would have been a charming place.

My eyes widened as I turned and the wall near the door came into view, covered in family portraits.

Stepping closer, I studied them with awe. There were paintings of the older family, but of more interest to me were the few photographs which, judging from their fashion, had to be of Atlas, his wife, and his children. The one I assumed to be Atlas had kind eyes, a large moustache giving him character. The wife seemed a humorous woman, with a tiny smile to her lips despite the long photo exposure. I sighed when I looked at who must have been John. He was young in the photograph, but did seem to have a bit of the word “rascal” in him, as Mr. Brighton had said.

And then there was Edyna. She was beautiful. With her father’s wise, kind eyes and a slight smile like her mother, she seemed to have been the sort of person to lose yourself in conversation with. My heart sank, knowing that this seemingly good person had probably died, maybe by fault of her brother. Those dark eyes looking back at me were of full of life and possibility. I wanted to pull her out of the frame and let her have the life taken from her.

I walked back into the hall, looking around again. So far, nothing seemed strange enough to traumatize a group of policemen. I glanced up the stairs, wondering if I should go further or leave while I still had nice memories of the house. That irrational, untidy part of the brain that won’t let curiosity go unanswered kept prodding me, though. I peered around the stairs to the adjacent hallway and saw bright sunlight coming through the bottom of a door at the end, that room facing East in the morning sun. I had to see.

Reaching the door, I looked down at the handle. There was a handprint there dusted over, like the policemen’s footprints had been. I grasped the handle warily and pushed the door in.

My fears were quelled as a little library presented itself. Despite the dustiness, bright rays illuminated the room through two windows, one straight ahead that looked out at the backyard, and one to my right, though I could only see its pattern on the floor with the door in the way. Bookshelves lined the walls, and there was a large globe in the middle of the floor. I stepped inside, reading some of the titles on the shelf to my left, like I would at the antique shops I frequented. I dusted off a few of the spines, admiring the titles. Atlas and his family must have had a great thirst for knowledge and exploration.

I started towards the next shelf beside the first window, but as I turned, my peripheral vision caught another shape that I hadn’t been able to see from the doorway.

Unable to even gasp, I jumped back, catching myself on one of the shelves.

On the other end of the little room, facing the second window, was a red armchair. But that wasn’t what made my head spin. There was someone sitting there, a full white skirt spilling around the bottom of the chair, and a graceful hand resting on the chair’s arm, the palm facing up.

I stared for several seconds, unable to speak or move. Then I shook my head, telling myself to snap out of it. Someone – maybe that postman – was making a terrible joke and convincing people to go into this old house so they could see this fake Edyna and get a heart attack.

“Okay, you got me,” I said.

There was no answer.

“The gag’s up,” I said, my voice quivering. “You pulled a good one.”

The only sound was the faint rustle of the wind through the russet leaves of the tree outside the window the chair was facing. A bird chirped pleasantly somewhere in the backyard.

“Please say something,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

I ran a hand over my face to calm myself and felt the dust from the door. My stomach dropped. There had been dust on the door. There was dust on the floor. There was dust on the window sills. How had the prankster gotten in?

It took me another second before I could move, but then I forced my feet – or they forced me – closer to the chair. As I came around the right side, more of the woman came into view. My mouth fell open.

It was the woman from the photograph in the sitting room. It was Edyna Fairchild.

Gently dusted over time like the rest of her house, Edyna sat calm and upright in her chair, her left hand in an open book on her lap and her right hand resting palm-up on the arm of the chair. Her brown hair was grayish from the dust, but still pinned on top of her head. Dust particles frosted her eyebrows and eyelashes, those wise, kind eyes of her father’s closed as if in slumber, not death. It was as though I were looking at an expertly-made wax statue of her, but there was also a tactile life to the appearance of her skin, nothing like the translucence of wax. But her chest didn’t rise and fall with breath; she was completely motionless and soundless.

Despite the unnaturalness of it, I found myself drawing closer, wondering what magic, science, or divine powers could have done this. A young woman, frozen in time. Of course the police had run out traumatized. But I was transfixed.

Like the antiques I loved to examine, I studied Edyna, imagining her story. I couldn’t help it – I reached out with an unsure hand and gently touched her arm. She was neither warm nor cold, but very real. I pulled my hand away.

“Are you alive?” I whispered. I immediately felt foolish, but why? If a human could be frozen without age, couldn’t they be brought back to life?

Then I heard it.

Tick.

I stood up straight, looking to the door, around the room. There was no one. My eyes searched for a clock on the walls, but there was none. Just a lone, solitary tick of a clock in the silence of the frozen library.

Then I remembered the whole reason I was there. I pulled the pocket watch out of my shirt. It no longer read four seconds after 9:32.

It was five seconds.

My heart sped up, though I didn’t know what the change in time meant. I smacked the watch against my palm a couple of times, but that didn’t do anything. Hmm. Perhaps I was remembering the original time wrong.

I looked down at Edyna’s hand, her palm facing up as though waiting for something. Or giving something? I thought back to the words in John Fairchild’s note that had given me chills.

Borrowed time.

I chuckled to myself and furrowed my brow. No, that was silly. But then again, wasn’t all of this a bit out of the ordinary? I moved the pocket watch closer to Edyna.

Tick………tick………tick.

Like a train leaving the platform, the second hand slowly made progress – not at normal speed, but definitely getting there.

I brought the watch a little closer still.

Tick……tick……tick…wheeze.

My eyes widened, and I looked from the watch to Edyna’s face. There was a soft wheezing sound, nearly imperceptible, coming from her nose.

Gently, I placed the watch in her waiting hand, and stepped back.

A sharp breath entered her body like someone waking from a deep sleep, and her shoulders rose with it before slowly falling in an exhale.

Tick…tick…tick. The watch maintained a correct and steady pace, falling into a heart rhythm. Her breathing did the same.

I watched, amazed, as her fingers flexed and closed around the pocket watch. Her lips twitched, her brow furrowed and calmed, and her eyes fluttered open, disoriented from her long sleep.

Those wise and kind dark eyes looked blindly ahead for a moment, then focused ahead on me. She looked up and met my gaze. Goodness knows what I looked like, a stranger standing there with his mouth hanging open. She looked down at the watch in her hand, then back to me.

“Hello,” she said with a look of embarrassed amusement. “I don’t believe I know you. Did John send you?”

Shoulders falling, I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry,” was all I could say.

She looked around the room, then, and gasped.

“Everything’s dusty,” she said. She looked down at her dress and the book in her hand. “I’m dusty. How long did John have my watch?”

It took me a moment to find words. “It’s 1954.”

She met my eyes, her own wide and alarmed. We were both quiet for several seconds.

“My brother?” she asked quietly. Her tone suggested that she had already guessed.

I folded my hands in front of me. “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but he died about thirty years ago. I’m sorry.”

Edyna closed her eyes and shook her head, drawing her hand with the watch close to her heart.

“He lied, then.”

“About what?”

She opened her eyes and looked out at the tree, more disappointed than sad. “He became reckless after our parents died; he was only ever well-behaved for father. After breakfast this morning, er, that day, he came in here and asked if he could borrow my watch. He said that he’d lost his gambling and that he could get it back, but it had been too long since he’d last had it to last long. I told him that I’d only had mine on me for a few minutes and that I’d fall back asleep as soon as he took it, but he said he’d hurry. I guess part of me knew he wouldn’t return. But I didn’t want to believe it.”

She closed her eyes again, and a tear escaped her eye, running a dirty trail through the dust on her face. I pulled a handkerchief out of my pocket and offered it to her. She thanked me and wiped her eyes, then laughed when she saw the dust.

“Goodness, what a fine mess I’ve gotten myself into,” she chuckled, and I joined in. “And how do you fit into all this? Are you my nephew?”

I shook my head. “No, I found your watch in an antique shop several months ago. It was stuck inside a box with a note from your brother saying to return it to you, that it was ‘borrowed time.’”

She smiled and rolled her eyes at the last two words. “That sounds like him. How melodramatic. But it brought you here.”

I nodded and put my hands in my pockets. She blew some of the dust off the book in her hand and closed it before setting it on the arm of the chair. Then she got up and tried to brush some of the dust off of her.

“This must all be very confusing for you. And scary, to find a dusty woman sitting dead in a chair.”

I chuckled. “I’ve been waiting for a few months to wake up from this strange dream.”

She stretched and walked to the window, looking outside. “What is the world like in 1954, then? Have we mastered the aeroplane? Do women have the vote? Is there a wonder drug that cures anything?”

“Yes, yes, and no.”

“Intriguing,” she said, voice like a chime. “Let’s explore it.”

“There’s a lot more to fill you in on before you go out there. Two wars, an economic depression, cars everywhere, shorter clothes.”

Edyna looked back at me with an excited smile, both her hands clutching the pocket watch eagerly. “Oh, it’s all the same, whatever setting. Life.”

And that’s the end, dear girl, or should I say, the beginning. The rest I’ll tell you another day, but look: here’s your grandmother with some lemonade. Would you like to hold her watch?