Pocket watch tattoo on a wrist

The watch came back from the tide-station on Tuesday, wrapped in the same oilcloth your grandfather used, and the hands had stopped at twenty to four again. I told the clerk it was the damp. He said the damp was not the cause, and that the Ministry of Hours had logged the drift in the lower spire for six years running. You will laugh at me, but I have decided to wind it myself.

Here is what I know. The dial has its twelve numerals worn pale on the left side from your great-grandmother's thumb, and the ring bow is cracked where it caught on the hook of the scullery door in the year the river came up. Each morning I open the case and listen. There is a tick beneath the tick, a smaller sound, like someone counting stairs in the next room. I have not mentioned that to the clerk.

Last night I held it against the window while the lamps of the lower ward came on, one row at a time, the way they do when the grid is sure of itself. The minute hand jerked once, forward, and the whole mechanism seemed to lean into the glass. I thought of the morning you left for the northern academies, when you asked me the time and I said it was too early to say. I should have told you it was already later than you thought.

Come home at the spring tide. Bring your calipers and the good loupe. We will open it together on the kitchen table and see what has been counting. Mind the step by the boathouse, it has not been mended since your grandfather fell.

Yours in all weathers, Nan