Abruptly, Vincent took another step and reached toward Anne, closing the distance between them.
At first, she thought he was going to touch her face, but just as her chin jerked away, his fingers landed on the clock pinned to the front of her blouse.
“You wear this every day,” Vincent said. “It means something to you.”
“I don’t see why—” Anne began, her guard starting to rise again as she realized that Vincent had been observing her closely enough to notice such a thing.
But before she could say anything more, Anne sensed that the scent of myrrh was growing stronger.
“What are you doing?” Anne grumbled, repeating the same question he’d asked her only a few minutes before.
They were always doing that, it seemed: making it impossible for the other to know for certain what would happen next.
“Shh,” Vincent hissed back, his eyes falling closed as he seemed to concentrate on something beyond what Anne could sense. “Just listen.”
Anne huffed as she tried to think of something to say that would end this absurd situation, but then she heard it.
The soft ticking of her own clock, so familiar and reassuring that she couldn’t help but feel the tension between her shoulders relax just a fraction. It was the sound that always steadied her when the tearoom was at its busiest, the gentleclick-click-clicka reminder that time always moved forward at a slow and even pace even when it seemed like the seconds were whirling away.
As her attention grasped on to that reassuring thought, the other clocks in the room began to tick to life as well, their hands shifting to the same beat, though it seemed impossible that they could have all been set to the exact time.
And then Anne began to hear the whispers again, the sound as subtle as a breeze brushing against the hillside on a sunny day. She could sense the loneliness still, a heavy weight that made her own heart ache, but there was something else curling at the corners of the noise now. It was the same sound that crept into Violet or Beatrix’s voices when they had a secret to reveal, their words laced with excitement and expectation.
Instead of wanting to share the worst of their grief, as Anne had feared, the spirits seemed kindled by curiosity, the feeling that they were about to encounter something new overpowering any desire they had to express their sorrow.
“Can you hear what they’re saying?” Vincent asked, causing Anne to jump.
The sensations pressing in on her from all directions were so strong that she’d nearly forgotten he was standing there.
Vincent seemed to realize that he’d startled her and began to take a step back, but Anne surprised them both by grasping his wrist so that he would remain exactly where he stood.
“I hear them whispering,” Anne murmured, letting the steady beat of Vincent’s pulse orient her as she tried to speak above the eager voices. “But I can’t tell exactly what’s being said.”
Vincent took another step forward then, slow enough that all it would take to keep him back was the slightest pressure of Anne’s fingers. But she remained still, letting him draw so close that she could hear him clearly in the chaos of hushed confessions and feel his jaw graze against her curls as he parted his lips to speak.
“And what do you feel?” Vincent asked, the answer that instantly sprang to mind causing a blush to burn Anne’s cheeks.
“Longing,” Anne answered honestly as she was struck once more by the note of yearning that weighed down each and every whisper.
“Anything else?” Vincent asked, as if he could sense that she was holding something back.
“Curiosity,” Anne finally confessed. “And excitement.”
“They’re memories,” Vincent explained, his words coming faster now. Anne recognized the urgency that radiated from his voice. It was the same feeling that emerged whenever an unexpected twist of magic made her believe that she was about to discover something no one else had seen before. “They want to show you how it felt to be alive. The sensations tied to moments that seemed simple but in the end were everything.”
Anne’s heart was racing so rapidly now that she should have had trouble hearing the clocks, but they continued to click at the very front of her consciousness, each tick making the hairs on her arms stand on end in a way that reminded her of the blood pulsing beneath her skin.
“Start drifting back,” Vincent said, his free hand moving to her shoulder, as if he intended to ensure her feet stayed on the ground while her mind faded beyond the current moment.
“No,” Anne whispered, understanding exactly what he was telling her to do.
He wanted her to slip away from the present and into the past, but her powers couldn’t be harnessed as well whenever she toyed with the boundaries of what she was capable of. In the safe confines of the Crescent Moon, where the scent of cinnamon buns and cardamon laced the edge of every indrawn breath, Anne was willing to test these lines, pushing just a bit further every time to see what would happen.
Letting go now, when the pounding clicks of the clocks and the alluring scent of Vincent’s magic were causing her to forget why she wanted to stay in control, was beyond impossible.
Anne’s magic seemed to have an entirely different opinion in the matter, though. As soon as it heard Vincent’s suggestion, it started tingling against Anne’s skin, begging her to let it take the reins.
The house began to shake then as Anne grappled with her power, the gears of the clocks screeching as they rattled against the walls.
