Time and Its Little Secrets

The ‘Unpredicted’ series finally continues (sorry to have kept you in the waiting room all these days!) with this Picture it & Write:

My mother used to tell me that I got my name from my great grandmother, Clare. I also got her watch.

It was an intriguing watch, a very old-fashioned one, which was worn as a pendant around the neck (or discreetly in my coat’s pocket), made of dull bronze (maybe it dulled with time, I don’t know) and with a strange design: that of a sort of insect which seemed to be wrapping its feet around the clock, as if to protect it at all cost. That particular last detail annoyed me as it was then more difficult to read time.

Of course, I never dared to wear it out.

It was beautiful in its own way, I admit, but it was heavy and my digital watch on my phone was a much better alternative. Thus I let it to rest in a drawer, or at times, I would try to pretend to hypnotise Shadow, my little black cat, with it, balancing it in front of her just for fun.

In truth I found it totally useless.

Yet. as I went back home after discovering the truth about Caleb’s true nature, of being a vampire, the words that came out of my mother’s mouth as she was giving me the watch swirled around me over and over again…

“Clare, this is a very special watch which has been passed on from generation to generation in our family. You have to take care of it very well. It holds the truth. It keeps you safe.” She had then winked. “It keeps magic secret.”

I would never have taken these last words seriously. Until today. I was just a child at that time and we loved to play and make as if we lived in an enchanted forest. What if all the stories she had told me, everything she had showed and taught me… were true?

And what was that mysterious aura around this watch?

When Caleb had insisted on the fact that her mother was a witch, she had protested: “So you believe that I descend from a family of witches? We’re not in a fairy tale!”

He had then stood up, his shirt still stained with blood. “If there is no fairy tale, then what is this? What am I?”

I had discarded his question. “How do you know that this… ‘witch’ was my mother anyway?”

“Your mother knew a lot about the future, you know…”

I only shook my head in disbelief and turned away. “I won’t listen to any of your shit anymore, bloodsucker.”

He had not moved but his sharp voice made me halt. “Wait! She told me about a special watch she had given to you on your fifth birthday…”

How did he…? “I’m NOT listening!”

I walked away without turning back, yet I could not miss his last words: “She told me to tell you to open it, now that you have found me, my true self, I mean…”

That was how I was now crouched on my big green old sofa next to a sleepy Shadow, holding a stupid vintage watch and actually believing everything Caleb had said. Deep inside, I wanted all of this to be true in fact, as I was an actress, and I loved stories and dramas…

Anyway, what could happen if I dared to remove the cover of the watch? I didn’t think that it would have any harmful effects.

Thus, unable to wait any longer, I snatched the insect away from what it was trying to protect. I uncovered the truth.

An Evil Nymph.