The clocks were pointing at 12.
Every single one of them—on the walls, the mantle, the tall grandfather clock by the window—silent and still. The ticking had stopped, the rhythm gone. They all froze the moment Nora stepped through the door.
It wasn’t the first strange thing she’d seen in the old house, but this was different. She dropped her duffel bag to the floor, its heavy thump swallowed by the dense silence. Light streamed in through the dusty windows, casting golden rays on the antique furniture, the woven rugs, the bookshelves filled with stories she never dared read. Her grandmother’s house had always felt a little out of step with time—now it truly was.
Nora crossed the room, eyes flitting from one unmoving clock to the next. Each face bore the same expressionless time. Noon. Or midnight. She couldn’t tell. She reached for the mantle clock, brushing off the fine layer of dust.
Then came the whisper.
“Welcome back, Eleanor.”
Nora froze. Her heart stumbled. Eleanor—no one had called her that since she was ten. Not since the summer her grandmother vanished. That year, her parents had dragged her away from the house, refusing to speak of what had happened. She had begged to stay. She remembered the sound of her grandmother’s voice, calling her by her full name with love and mischief laced into every syllable.
“Who’s there?” she said, though her voice came out barely a whisper.
The air shifted. The light bent.
In the mirror above the fireplace, a figure appeared. A reflection that wasn’t hers.
It was her grandmother.
Not as she had last seen her—wrinkled, frail, laughing in a rocking chair—but younger, vibrant, ageless. Her silver hair was swept back, her eyes burning with the intensity of someone who understood more than they let on.
“You’re the one who stopped the clocks,” Nora whispered.
Her grandmother smiled. “No, child. You did. By coming back. You’ve reawakened this place.”
Nora felt her knees weaken and sat on the old armchair without thinking. The house groaned softly, as if exhaling.
“But… what does that mean? Why now?”
“Because it’s your time. I kept the house waiting. I taught it to listen, to remember. You were always meant to return.”
Nora looked around. The place pulsed with strange warmth, like it was alive. Familiar, yes—but now breathing, watching, waiting.
“What happens now?” she asked.
Her grandmother’s smile faded, replaced by something more solemn.
“You choose,” she said. “To keep the clocks stopped and step into the in-between—or wind them forward and let time carry you away.”
Nora looked at the mantle clock again. Her fingers trembled as she reached for the small brass key resting beside it. She could feel the weight of the choice in her bones.
She turned it once.
Tick.
A single, resonant beat.
The house sighed.
Nora closed her eyes.
The clocks began to tick again, each second unfolding like a page in a story yet unwritten.
Therapy Bits 
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