The elderly woman didn’t answer Thalia’s question immediately.
She lowered her eyes to the silver pocket watch on the table, her fingers lightly rubbing the edge of the old cloth as though she were recalling something that had happened a very long time ago.
After a while, she finally spoke.
“This pocket watch belonged to my husband.”
Thalia kept her pen in hand but didn’t rush her, waiting quietly for her to continue.
“He loved collecting old things when he was younger.
He bought this watch himself, and after we got married, he carried it with him everywhere.
He used it for more than twenty years.”
The woman reached out and lightly touched the edge of the watch.
“Thirty years ago, after he died, the watch stopped working.”
Thalia looked up.
“It stopped after his death?”
“I believe so.”
The woman thought for a moment before adding, “There was so much happening in the family at the time that I can’t remember exactly when I noticed.
I only remember that by the time I’d finished sorting through his belongings, the watch had already stopped.”
“Did you ever have it repaired?”
“Twice.”
The woman nodded.
“The first time, it worked for less than a day before stopping again that night.
The second time, the watchmaker replaced some of the parts, but the same thing happened.
He told me that some of the mechanism was too badly worn and that there wasn’t much point in repairing it again, so I left it alone.”
“And you’ve kept it ever since?”
“Yes.”
The woman sighed softly.
“It was something he left behind.
I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, so I kept it in a drawer at our old house.”
Thalia wrote down a few important details on the registration form.
“When did it start working again?”
“About five days ago.”
The woman answered without hesitation, clearly having thought about it many times.
“I went back to the old house to sort through some things.
That night, just as I was getting ready to leave, I suddenly heard a ticking sound from somewhere in the room.
I looked around for a while before realizing it was coming from the drawer.”
Her expression grew slightly uneasy.
“When I opened it, this watch was running.”
“What time was it?”
The woman shook her head.
“I didn’t notice.
I just thought it was strange.
When I went back the next day, the watch was still broken during the day, but that night, it started running again.”
Thalia’s pen paused.
“Does that happen every night?”
“It has for the past few nights.”
“What time does it usually start?”
“I haven’t kept track exactly, but sometime after eleven.”
Ivan had been standing nearby listening.
At this point, he finally spoke.
“How long does it run?”
The woman turned toward him.
“Less than ten minutes.”
“About the same amount of time every night?”
“More or less.”
Thalia nodded thoughtfully.
A pocket watch that had been broken for thirty years remained completely still during the day, only to start running by itself for several minutes late at night.
It certainly wasn’t normal.
Still, there wasn’t enough information to tell them why it was happening.
Thalia set down her pen and finally reached toward the watch.
“May I take a look?”
“Of course.”
Only after receiving permission did Thalia put on a pair of gloves and carefully pick up the silver pocket watch.
The moment it touched her hand, she heard nothing.
It rested quietly in her palm, the metal cool against her fingers, no different from any other old pocket watch she had handled.
Thalia lowered her eyes and examined it more closely.
The front cover wasn’t heavily decorated.
Only a few olive branches had been engraved into the silver, their outlines worn shallow with age.
Fine scratches covered the edges, making it obvious that its former owner had used it regularly.
She pressed the button at the top.
With a soft click, the cover sprang open.
The glass had yellowed slightly over the years, and the white dial showed clear signs of age.
The black hands remained perfectly still.
The time was eleven forty-seven.
Thalia studied it for a moment before looking up.
“Has it always been stopped at this time?”
The woman leaned closer.
“Yes.”
“And when it starts running again, it begins from here?”
“Yes.”
That was unusual.
Thalia looked down again and gently turned the crown.
The hands moved normally.
They weren’t completely jammed.
She turned the watch over and soon noticed marks along the edge of the back cover, most likely left behind when it had been opened for repairs in the past.
“I’ll need to open the back and check the mechanism.”
The woman nodded.
“Go ahead.”
Thalia took the watch to the nearby worktable, selected the appropriate tools, and carefully removed the back cover.
The mechanism inside was old, and several parts were clearly not original, most likely replacements from the earlier repairs.
After examining it closely, she soon found that the mainspring had lost most of its tension and that one of the gears showed significant wear.
In its current condition, the pocket watch shouldn’t have been able to run properly at all.
Thalia lightly touched one of the components with a pair of tweezers.
Nothing happened.
She checked several other parts and still found no mechanical explanation for why it would start running on its own.
“Well?” the woman asked nervously.
Thalia set down her tools.
“Mechanically, it is broken.
Even if it managed to run occasionally, it shouldn’t be starting by itself at roughly the same time for several nights in a row.”
The woman’s expression became complicated.
“That’s why I thought something was wrong.”
Thalia didn’t answer immediately.
She picked up the watch again and took another careful look at the mechanism.
Just as she was about to close the back cover, a faint chill brushed across her fingertips.
It wasn’t coming from the metal.
Thalia’s movements slowed.
A second later, a faint voice passed by her ear.
It was so quiet that she almost missed it.
“…go back…”
Thalia froze.
Ivan noticed immediately.
“You heard something?”
Thalia didn’t answer at once.
She simply held the pocket watch and listened.
There were people talking elsewhere in the gallery, and she could hear staff moving around the ground floor, but those two words had been completely different from every other sound around her.
They had come from the watch.
She waited.
No second voice followed.
Only then did Thalia raise her head.
“I heard something.”
The elderly woman’s face changed slightly.
“What did you hear?”
“It wasn’t very clear.
Just two words.”
Thalia didn’t hide it from her.
“He said, ‘Go back.'”
The woman went still.
For several moments, she simply stared at the pocket watch without speaking.
Thalia noticed her reaction.
“Does that mean something to you?”
The woman’s lips moved slightly.
“My husband…
used to say those words too.”
“When?”
“Not long before he died.”
She lowered her eyes, trying to remember.
“His health was already very poor by then.
Sometimes he would wake up at night and suddenly say that he wanted to go back.”
Thalia asked gently, “Go back where?”
The woman shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“You asked him?”
“I did, but he never told me.”
After a pause, she continued, “I always thought he was confused because he was ill, or perhaps he meant the place where he’d lived as a child.
I never thought much of it.”
Thalia didn’t press her.
She placed the pocket watch gently on the table and looked at the motionless hands.
Eleven forty-seven.
“What was your husband’s name?”
“Adrian Bennett.”
Thalia wrote the name on the registration form.
“How old was he when he died?”
“Sixty-eight.”
“Did he die in a hospital?”
The woman shook her head.
“No.
At home.”
“What time?”
That question made her pause.
She thought carefully for a while.
“I don’t remember the exact time.
I only remember that it was late.”
Thalia glanced at the watch but didn’t immediately connect the two.
It had been thirty years.
Memories could easily become unclear after so long, and there was no reason to assume that eleven forty-seven had anything to do with Adrian’s time of death simply because that was where the watch had stopped.
She asked a few more questions about the watch, and the woman answered everything she could remember.
Once the form was mostly complete, Thalia closed her pen.
“Would you be willing to leave the watch here for tonight?”
The woman hesitated.
Thalia explained, “I’d like to see whether it really starts running on its own around eleven tonight.
If it does, we can try to work out what’s causing it.”
The woman looked at the pocket watch for a moment before finally nodding.
“All right.”
“We won’t take anything else apart without your permission.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
The woman gently touched the watch.
“I just haven’t left it in anyone else’s care for many years.”
Thalia understood.
To the woman, this wasn’t simply an antique.
It was something her husband had left behind.
She carefully wrapped the watch again and completed the storage paperwork in front of her.
“I’ll contact you tomorrow, whether we find anything or not.”
That seemed to reassure the woman.
She was almost at the door when she suddenly turned back.
“Miss Thalia.”
Thalia looked over.
“Yes?”
The woman stood there for a moment, visibly hesitant.
“If you really can hear him…”
She paused before continuing more quietly.
“Could you ask him where he wanted to go back to?”
Thalia looked at her but didn’t promise something she wasn’t sure she could do.
“If I hear him again, I’ll try to find out.”
The woman nodded, thanked her, and slowly left the gallery.
Once she was gone, Ivan picked up the registration form and glanced over it.
“You’re planning to stay tonight?”
“Of course.”
Thalia picked up the pocket watch again.
“She said it only starts running sometime after eleven.
How else are we supposed to see it happen?”
“I’m staying too.”
Thalia looked at him.
“Aren’t you supposed to catch up on sleep today?”
“I’ll sleep during the day.”
“You’re finally willing to sleep?”
Ivan gave her a look.
“So someone doesn’t stay here alone tonight and mysteriously disappear again.”
Thalia had no answer to that.
Only a few hours had passed since the previous night’s incident.
She really wasn’t in a position to argue.
“Fine.”
She placed the pocket watch in a storage box reserved for items awaiting examination and carefully recorded its location.
Only after she had finished did she notice that the obsidian ring had returned to its usual cool temperature.
It had briefly grown warm when the woman first brought out the watch, but now there was no reaction at all.
Thalia studied it for a moment before dismissing the matter.
So far, aside from refusing to come off, the ring hadn’t interfered with her normal life.
As for why the pocket watch started running at night and why Adrian’s voice remained within it, they would have to wait until evening to learn more.
The rest of the day passed normally at the gallery.
Ivan kept his promise and went to rest for a few hours.
Thalia remained in the restoration room, organizing the photographs she had taken of the markings on the wooden box that morning before moving on to several restoration jobs already on her schedule.
By the time she looked up again, the sky outside had grown dark.
The number of visitors gradually dwindled, and the staff began leaving for the night.
At ten-thirty, the last employee went home.
Ivan locked the front doors and checked the windows, while Thalia brought the silver pocket watch upstairs to the restoration room.
She didn’t open it again or touch the mechanism.
Instead, she placed it flat in the center of the worktable.
Eleven twenty.
Nothing happened.
Eleven thirty.
Still nothing.
Thalia sat at the table with a restoration log open in her hands, glancing at the time every so often.
Ivan sat in a chair nearby, a half-finished cup of coffee in front of him.
“You’re sure she said sometime after eleven?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Then we wait.”
Thalia turned another page.
The minutes passed quietly.
Then the clock on the wall reached eleven forty-seven.
A faint mechanical sound suddenly broke the silence of the restoration room.
Click.
Thalia stopped turning the page.
Ivan looked up at the same moment.
Both of them turned toward the worktable.
The second hand inside the silver pocket watch, motionless for thirty years, gave a slight twitch.
Then—
Tick.
Tick.
The sound of the watch filled the quiet room, each movement of the mechanism clear enough for both of them to hear.
Thalia slowly lowered the book in her hands.
The pocket watch really had started running on its own.