The Apothecary at the Last Bridge Part 4

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The Keeper of the Last Hour
The answer came from behind the black door in three slow knocks. Elara tightened her grip on the handless clock. “That sounded remarkably polite,” said the rabbit. “Which makes it worse.” The thirteen silver bells trembled on their steps. None rang. Corin stared at the door as though he recognized the rhythm. “I heard that knocking every year I spent inside Greyhaven.” “Forty years?” Bram asked. “Forty different versions of the same year,” Corin replied. “Sometimes it came from the cellar. Sometimes from the sky. Once it came from inside my own chest.” Their mother descended two stairs, careful not to touch the bells. “The keeper cannot open the door from its side. It needs someone to surrender an ending.” “You delayed its ending,” her mother said. “But the keeper has spent twenty years collecting the hours that followed.” Another knock. The black door bulged outward. A voice spoke through it, thin and surprisingly young. “Please. I have been waiting to finish.” The rabbit looked at Elara. Elara stepped down. She stopped before the fourth. “These aren't bells,” she said. “They're endings.” Her mother nodded. “Each holds an hour that someone refused to lose.” At the bottom, a narrow strip of light appeared beneath the door. Elara smelled bread, woodsmoke and wintermint. From beyond the door came a woman's voice. “Elara, Corin, breakfast is getting cold.” Corin went white. Elara looked up at the woman above them. “Are you certain you're our mother?” The question seemed to wound her more than any spell. She lifted her sleeve. Around her wrist was a narrow band of dark silver, engraved with thirteen tiny bells. “I made a bargain with the keeper before either of you was born. When Greyhaven's last hour arrived, I would open the door and let it end. Then the dragons came, and I couldn't bear to keep my promise.” Corin stared. “So you let Elara carry the choice?” His voice shook. Their mother lowered her eyes. “I thought the fourth drop would save you both. Instead, it bound the last hour to Elara.” The clock clicked. Its missing hands appeared for a heartbeat, both pointing downward. The door spoke again. “One ending. That is all I ask.” Elara knelt beside the thirteenth bell. Unlike the others, its surface was black. In it she saw no face, no dragon, no ruined bridge. She saw the apothecary at the Last Bridge, its shutters closed and its shelves empty. “No,” said Bram. He unfolded his map and held it beside the bell. The third silver circle, the one that had appeared over her shop, was moving. Slowly it travelled across the parchment toward the black door. “It isn't asking you to close the shop. It's showing what happens if you stay here.” “Then every borrowed hour comes due at once,” Corin said. Elara stood. Elara turned the clock over. The circles were not merely colored marks. Each was a shallow hollow, exactly the size of a drop from an apothecary's bottle. Green. Gold. Clear. Blue. “What did the first three do?” she asked. “The green preserved what was living,” her mother answered. “The gold remembered what was lost. The clear revealed what was true.” “And the blue?” “It made an hour refuse to end.” Elara studied the clock. “Then perhaps the first three can tell us which ending belongs here.” Their mother hesitated, then drew three small vials from inside her coat. “I carried these through every repeated morning. I never dared use them.” Elara took the vials. The first drop fell into the green hollow. Every bell rang once, softly. From the black door came the sound of hundreds of people breathing. The second drop entered the gold hollow. Names appeared along the doorframe, written in fine silver script. Elara recognized neighbors, teachers and friends from Greyhaven. One name made Corin seize the railing. “Father,” he said. Their mother closed her eyes. “He died before the dragons came.” “Then why is his name here?” “Because his last hour never reached its end,” said the voice behind the door. The third drop trembled at the lip of its vial. Elara hesitated. Elara let the clear drop fall. The staircase vanished. For an instant they stood in a vast chamber of suspended clocks. At the center stood a figure wrapped in a cloak stitched from midnight-blue scraps. In its hands it held a little wooden box, from which came the three knocks. The figure lifted its head. Beneath the hood was a child's face, pale and solemn, with eyes the color of extinguished stars. “You expected a monster,” it said. “I am the one who closes doors after everyone has gone.” The rabbit swallowed. The figure opened the wooden box. Inside lay a tiny brass bell with a crack down its side. “This was Greyhaven's last hour. Your mother promised it to me. Your fourth drop stole it away before it could ring.” “Their hours are waiting for an ending that never came. They cannot grow into tomorrow while yesterday remains unfinished.” Corin stepped forward. “I grew old.”