The Clock
They opened the box on the kitchen table, with Lina's grandmother present and the family who owned the cottage on the phone, watching by video.
Inside the box, packed in straw, was a clock.
It was small. Beautiful. Brass. The face was pearl, with tiny inlaid numbers. The hands had not moved in eighty years, but the workmanship was — even an eleven-year-old could tell — extraordinary.
There was also a note.
The note was on a piece of folded paper, dry and small, with the same kind of handwriting Lina had seen in the village register-book.
*To whoever finds this,*
*This is the only thing I made that I was proud of. I tried to give it to the village three times and was turned away because I was the eccentric clockmaker. Now I am old and I think I will not live to be respected. So I have put the clock here. Whoever finds it: please give it to the village hall. Tell them it was made by Anton Tarvik. Tell them I am sorry I was strange. I made one good thing in my life and this is it. — A. T.*
Lina read it twice. Bo read it once. Lina's grandmother had to find a tissue.
The family on the phone said, very quietly: "We'll come up at the weekend. We'll all take it to the village hall together."
That weekend they did. The clock went into a glass case in the village hall, on a small table next to a printed copy of Tarvik's note. Underneath was a small label that said: *Made by