Cozy Mystery For Sleep: Briar Hollow | Chapter 4

This is a reading of 'Chapter 4: A Clean Tear' from my personal story "The Last Cozy Lantern in Briar Hollow". This is a 31-minute reading with no ambient sounds or music.
Story:
In the quiet village of Briar Hollow, an ordinary autumn evening takes a troubling turn when a familiar light fails to appear. As questions begin to gather around the loss of a respected villager, a careful observer starts noticing the small details others have overlooked.
Settle in for the opening chapter of a gentle, atmospheric fair-play mystery filled with lamplight, village secrets, and the slow unraveling of a carefully hidden truth.
Chapter 4 Description:
Inside the tower, Voss discovers that the village clock is not the only thing slightly out of order. A torn page and the faint traces left behind turn a simple repair into a question that demands an answer.

Transcript

Welcome to Restful Journeys. In this track I will continue reading The Cozy Lantern of Briar Hollow. This will be chapter four. Please find a comfortable place to sit or lie down and relax. Take a few moments to clear your mind and allow yourself to listen to these words. Let's continue with chapter four, A Clean Tear. Voss pressed her palm flat on the winding drum and felt it turning under her hand, Warm as a loaf and no faster than a sleeper's breath. She kept her hand there for a count of sixty, Lips moving. Then she took it away, Wiped it on her coat, And started on the wheels. There were four, And she took them in order, Working her fingers between the teeth the way a woman might test the stitching on a purchase she did not trust. The first ran sweetly. The second ran sweetly with a hitch in it, A tiny drag every dozen teeth, Which she marked with the thumbnail against the brass. The third had a tooth worn to a slope. She laid the nail of her little finger along it. Along its neighbor, And the difference was the thickness of a playing card. The fourth she held until it stopped her, Counted ten, And let go. It crept on again, Unhurried and slightly behind. She told it. Not by much, Just enough to make a village cross. She went back to the second wheel and checked the drag again, In case the first reading had been her own wishful fingers. It was there, Every twelfth tooth, Regular as a cough. She took a stub of pencil from behind her ear, Found nothing to write on but her cuff, And decided the cuff had enough to bear already. The tools lay in a row on the cloth beside her knees. Tweezers, Two files, The small hammer, The oil can with its long neck. The stone floor had gone through her skirt and to her kneecaps some while ago. She shifted her weight and reached for the oil can and something rustled above her. In the top corner of the frame, Wedged between an iron upright and the beam, Sat a nest the size of a hat, Twigs, Straw, A ribbon of what had once been blue wool. A pigeon sat on it and regarded her with one orange eye, Entirely at ease, Like a tenant who had paid a year ahead. You, " said Voss, Have chosen a poor place to raise a family. That is a clock, Not a chimney. The bird shuffled its feathers. She picked up the large file and weighed it in her hand. Is that straw hanging over the escapement? It is. Find a better perch before I drop this on your head. I say it kindly. The pigeon did not move. A single twig slid from the nest and dropped to the floor beside the cloth. Vos picked it up, Considered it, And set it on the seal of the round window. Evidence of intent. She said. I'll keep it for the inquest. She put the file down, Rather relieved. And went on with her suspicion. She went round the room on her knees and then on her feet, Running her hands along the beams where a man might scratch a mark with a nail. The wood was furred with dust and nothing else. She tried the clock's frame, The casing behind the face, The iron of the winding gear. She went over the back wall stone by stone, Up as high as she could reach, And found only limewash flaking off in scabs. There was no slate hung on a nail, No chalk tally by the door, No row of strokes, No date. She stood in the middle of the floor with her hands on her hips. The mechanism went on ticking behind her, Slow and slightly wrong. Weakly, They tell me, " she said to the pigeon. Every week for years, Up that stair, And not a mark to show for it. I could ask you, But you'd only say it was none of my business. The bird blinks. A man who climbed it that often wrote the day down somewhere. They always do. If it isn't in the room, It's in a book. She slid the files into their loops and rolled the cloth around them. And the woman who kept his books is across the square, So I had better go and ask her. The pigeon blinked once more. Vos took that for agreement, Shouldered her satchel, And went to the stairhead. Vos started down the stair with one hand on the iron rail, Counting underneath her breath, Because the steps had a habit of changing their minds. Eleven, And then the twelfth, Which she took slowly and with her eyes on her boots. It was worn into a dish deeper than the treads either side of it. She said so to the empty stairwell and went on down past the window slits where the light outside had paled to the color of dishwater. Weakly, She said again, Because the stairs seemed to want an audience. A man who climbs 40 steps every week writes the day down somewhere. Chalk, Slate, A notch and a beam. I looked for all three and found a pigeon. The ground room smelled of old stone. She crossed to the front door, Pulled it shut behind her as she stepped out into the threshold and fitted the iron key into the lock. It turned twice with a clink that carried. She tried the handle, Found it fast, And dropped the key into her coat pocket, Where it knocked against her knuckles with every step. The fog had lifted off the square and lay in a low band over the cobbles, No higher than a man's knee. Above it, The lantern-post stood dark, Fourteen of them, Each with its glass door shut. A cat sat on the church step with its feet tucked under it and watched her cross, And the only sound was her own tread and, Faintly, A shutter being opened somewhere behind the shop. She went straight to the van's cottage and knocked twice, Not loudly. Footsteps, A bolt drawn back, And Ellara opened the door with her hands still in her apron, Wiping them dry. Out of oil and tallow, And of something recently scrubbed in. You've locked it. Alara asked. I heard it from here. That luck has a voice. Twice round as instructed. The key is safe. Voss patted her pocket. I've been through the clock room from top to bottom and found a good deal of dust, One pigeon, And no record of when the clock was last wound. Your uncle climbed up there every week. I'd like to see where he wrote it down. The Rounds book, I think. It would have the winding days. Oh, He wrote it in every day. Alara said. Every single day, Rain or not, Even when there was nothing to put. Lamps trimmed, Lamps lit, Wick changes. Who complained about what? He was a terror for it. She stopped and a smile came and went. Come in, You're letting the cold in. It's on the shelf. I'll fetch it. Voss stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind her. Allara was already crossing the kitchen towards the shelf by the door, Her skirt brushing the table's edge as she went. The ledger came down off the shelf with a small puff of dust from its top edge. Allara carried it to the kitchen table, Set it square in the middle, And flipped the cover open with her thumb. There, It's only the dull book, She said. End. Oil, Wicks, Who paid their penny to the fund and who forgot. I never read the back of it, So don't expect a secret. I've never expected secrets before dinner. " Voss pulled out the nearest chair, Then thought better of sitting and stayed on her feet, Bent over the page. The leather cover was worn smooth as a river stone along the spine, Where a hand had held it for years. The pages smelled of old ink and faintly of the tallow that hung about the whole room. The window over the square gave a flat gray light, No sun in it, But plenty to read by. Each page was rolled into columns, A date, A count of lanterns, A measure of oil and pints and gills, Then a few words in a cramped upright hand. Glass cleaned. Mill Lane. Wind from the East. Penny from the banker, Two from the widow-pell, And a lecture. He wrote that last bit himself? Boss asked. He wrote everything himself, Wouldn't let me touch the pen. Alar leaned in at her shoulder, Close enough that Foss could hear her breathing. The winding days will be in the margin, A little mark like a cross with a tail. I used to tease him that it looked like a bird's foot. Vos ran her fingers down the margin and found it at once, The small tailed cross. There on one line, Then seven lines on, Then seven again. Pencil or ink. Allura asked. Ink and the same as the entry. He did it at his desk then, Not on the stair. Vos turned back her left cuff and began to write the dates on the white linen in figures no bigger than grains of barley. The cuff was already grey from earlier work and she did not mind adding to it. That's your good cuff. Alara said. Is the only cuff that's clean on the inside. I'll turn it. Boss kept writing, Then kept the pencil. Never mind, I'll sort it out alone later. Alar bent lower and read the figures upside down, Lips moving. You've dropped a stroke in the 24th. That's a four, Not a one. So it is. Boss licked the pencil and fixed it. You have good eyes. I have a good uncle's eye. He used to say a lamplighter who can't read his own sevens will light the wrong lamp. Allara paused as if she had heard what she said, Then reached over and flattened a page that had begun to curl. Go on. Voss turned back further, Ten weeks, Twelve, And the crosses kept their places in the margin like fence posts. Every seventh line, The same day of the week, A fortnight before and a fortnight after the quarter day with the heavy rain, And not a single skip. Weekly, " she said. Same day each week, No gaps. It was more regular than the clock itself. The clock's not regular at all. It loses. Alara said it with a sniff. Eldred used to say it lost a quarter hour between windings, And he'd set it right with his own watch. Which I want to see. Boss tapped the margin. Is there a note about oiling? He'd have oiled the bearings at some stated interval. A line? Even a smudge? Allara bent again and ran her own fingers down the column, Slower than Voss had. Her lips pressed thin. Nothing I can see, " she said at last. Uncle kept the oil can on the stair in a niche. He just did it. He'd say, A clock tells you when it's thirsty, And that was all the record you'd get. Then the clock will have to tell me. While straightened, One hand pressed to the small of her back and looked at the cuff. Nine neat rows of tiny figures, Dry and legible. That's all I wanted, Truly. You might have saved yourself the climb to the shelf and just told me, Thursdays. Was it Thursdays? Alar looked genuinely surprised, Then laughed quick and a little embarrassed. Well, It's Thursdays. I've been fetching his tea on Thursdays for six years and never once put it together. People seldom see their own weeks. " Voss ran her thumb along the page edge, Feeling the paper's soft nap, And left the ledger lying open between them on the table. Voss turned the pages toward the back, Past the columns of oil measures and the penciled tallies of subscribers, To see where the entries stopped. They ran to the very back. A line about Wicks, A line about the lamp by the pump, And then the binding. She ran a finger down the inner margins of the last leaf. There was no last leaf. A narrow stub stood close against the stitching, Its edge straight and even, As if a rule had been laid along it and the paper drawn away in one pull. Fingernail and bent over the sheet beneath. Faint strokes lay on it, Some longer than others, A scatter that might have been figures or might have been words. She tipped her head one way, Then the other. The window gave the thin light of a kitchen at noon in the fog's last hour, And the strokes stayed exactly where they were. She counted the leaves ahead of the gap, Then the stitched gatherings. To be sure, The book had not simply been bound short. It had not. The thread ran on past the stub, And the stub was the end of a leaf, Not the start of one. The book seems to be short of its last leaf. She said. Allara had been standing at her shoulder with her arms crossed, Rocking a little on her heels. She stopped rocking. She leaned in, Looked at the stub, And went on looking at it. Is it? She said. I hadn't noticed it was gone. Her voice was level. Vos glanced up and found she was studying the book, Not the woman holding it. You said you never read the back. Boss said. I didn't. I never do. Why would I? Alar's hand twitched towards the page and settled again against her sleeve. Go on, You were counting. Vos let a breath go through her nose, As near to a laugh as she cared to come, And pressed the stub flat with her thumb. Out in the square, Somebody dragged a barrel over stone. The sound went by and was gone. Scrap paper, Perhaps, " she said, And shrugged to make it small. A man wants to leave a note for the baker, Or work a sum, And the nearest paper is the back of his own book. I've done worse to a good manual. I once used the fly-leaf of a Harrison treaty to wedge a palette. Uncle wouldn't have. Alara uncrossed her arms and flattened one hand on the table beside the ledger, Not touching it. He kept a slate for that. It hung by the door for years. Notes, Sums, What the baker owed, All of it on the slate. Ah, " said Vos, A man of method. Yes. Neither of them said anything more. Vos rubbed a cut edge between her finger and thumb, Felt how clean it was, And waved asking when the leaf had gone, Or who had last had the book open. She asked neither. Did not offer. Over by the door the slate hung on its nail, Gray with old chalk, A few smudged figures down one side. Vos noticed it and noticed too that Allara was careful not to look at it. Vos said and tapped the page with one finger. That's the trouble with a ledger. You go in for a date and come out with an argument. With whom? Alara asked. With the paper mostly, It never loses. That got half a smile out of her, Thin and quick, Gone before it reached her eyes. She pulled out the other chair and did not sit in it, Only gripped the back. Is there anything else you need from it for the winding? The days, I have the days. Voss held up her cuff with the small penciled column of Thursdays running to the button. She turned the ledger over in her hand. May I look at it a little longer? Look at what? It's columns? It is, " Voss agreed and turned the ledger a quarter turn on the table so the window fell across the open page at a better angle. I am a woman who reads columns. It's a sad trade, But there's no helping it. Vos lifted the ledger off the table, Opened at the gap, And carried it to the window. The glass had gone the color of pewter. She held the sheet beneath the missing leaf, Up to it, And tilted it one way, Then the other, Until the ruled lines swam and the faint marks slid in and out of the paper's grain like fish under rice. A smudge, Possibly two. Boss brought the page nearer, Then took it as far from her face as her arm allowed. Or a thumb? It's the sort of light that makes a liar of a pencil. Then stop asking it questions. Allura had gone to the dresser. A moment later something thumped on the table and Vos turned to find a round loaf on the board. The crust cracked pale along the top and a long knife lay beside it. That's from the Square Shop. This morning's. Eat before your eyes give out. I'll not have it said the clockwoman went blind in my kitchen. Is that a village rule? It's mine. Allara sawed off a heel thick as a hymnal and pushed it across the board. Sit. Mind the crumbs on the book. Vos set the ledger down at the table's far end, Still open, And sat. The bread was warm in the middle and the steam came up smelling of yeast and a little of smoke. She tore a piece, Ate it standing at the edge of her chair, And gave up standing. The knife scraped across the board as Lar cut again. I came, " Voss said with her mouth not quite empty. To restore a clock. Wills, Pinions, A very root pigeon. Instead, I found a hole in a book. She brushed a crumb off her cuff where she had penciled the dates and tiny figures. It isn't the trade I signed up for. Allara snorted before she could stop it and covered the sound by reaching for the buttercrack. What trade did you sign up for? One where the things that are broken stay in plain sight. A cracked wheel on a tooth doesn't pretend it was never there. Allara spread butter in short, Hard strokes. I suppose it doesn't. She cut another piece, Longer than the first, And laid it on Vos' side of the board without being asked. At least the clock isn't on fire, She said. There's that. Vos picked up the slice. I'll put it in my report. Mechanism sound. Pigeon hostile. No flames. You'll put the pigeon first. Naturally. They ate. Then I flee between them with this edge turned toward the wall. Outside someone dragged a barrel over the stones of the square, And the wheel squealed on every turn until it faded out towards the church. Allara got up, Poured water from the kettle into two cups without asking whether Vos wanted any, And set one at her elbow. Boss drink. It was weak and hot and tasted faintly of the pot. Her eye kept sliding down the table to the ledger. The window light lay flat across the open page and did nothing for it. The ruled lines were clear enough, And the neat columns above them. Below, Where the missing leaf should have been, The paper looked bare and a little grey, As though the room's own colour had settled into it. You'll wear a hole in it, " Allara said, Not looking up from her cup. I'm only checking that it hasn't changed its mind. Books don't. Clocks do, Constantly. I've spent a career being lied to by brass. Vos broke the last of her bread in two and offered half across the board. Yours is a better class of company. Alara took the piece. For a moment it looked as if she might say something else and her thumb pressed a groove into the crust. Then she ate it and wiped the knife on a cloth. There's a pot of plum jam in the cupboard. She said instead. Second shelf. It's not good, But it's there. I'll take not good. Boss crossed to the cupboard herself. The jar was stiff at the lid and she wrestled it with both hands while Alar watched, One eyebrow lifted, Offering no help at all. It gave a small wet pop. Voss held it up like a trophy. Tolerances, She said. Always the tolerances. It's a jar. It's a jar made by a man who hated me. Allara's mouth tucked up at one side and stayed that way as long as it took her to hand across the clean spoon. They ate jam on the last of the loaf. The gray at the window did not change. When Vos glanced at the page once more, It lay open on the table as before, The lines clear above and the marks beneath no better than a smear, And she let it lie. Alara brushed the crumbs from the table into her palm, Tipped them into the stove, And then picked up the ledger. She closed it with the flat of her hand as one shuts a lid on something that might get out, It to the shelf by the door. There was a gap between a book of almanacs and a bundle of tied receipts. The ledger went into it with a dry, Soft shuffle and the leather spine settled against its neighbor, Flush as if it had never been out. There, " she said. Back with the other dull ones. Boss had wiped her fingers on her cuff over the pencil dates and was now regretting it. She pushed the smear of lead back into something readable with her thumb and gave up. I want the dates again on Thursday. I've got enough to go for on the oiling. Thursday's fine. I'm in and out. Alar straightened the almanacs with two fingers, Though they were already straight. The lamps don't mind the fog, But the lamp glass does. Everything wants wiping. Then I'll knock twice and not be offended if nobody answers. Knocked three times. I'm deaf of twos. " Allara said quickly and then caught herself and looked at the shelf instead. Vos crossed to the hook by the door, Where her satchel hung with the tools shifting in it. She did not take it down at once. About the page. What page? Alar said, And then in a different voice, The sheet underneath has marks on it, Pressed through from whatever was written above. Not much to see in this light, But light changes. I'll have another go with the lamp this evening, And a glass if the inn runs to one. If I can make anything of them, I'll let you know. Whatever it is. Alar's hand was still on the almanacs. It probably means nothing. Probably. A sum he got wrong, A list of oil he wanted from the chandler. He was always scribbling things and then crossing them out, And then writing them again somewhere else. She laughed and it came out a little thin, Like a cord with too much weight on it. You'd have to have known him. Might have liked to, " Vos said. It was true, And she let it stand without adding to it. I've known worse men than one who writes his sums twice. Well, There you are then. Allora had the look of a woman who had set her peace and would be glad to have the room back to herself, And would not for the world have said so. You'll be wanting to get on. The clock won't mend itself. It's got more patience than I have, But not much more. " Vos lifted the satchel from its hook. The buckle clicked under her thumb, And she swung the strap over her shoulder, Where it settled against the old place worn into her coat. The two shifted and found their positions. It's running, You know. That's the odd thing. It's running and it's wrong. It loses a little each day. Something is dragging. I'd like to know what before I touch anything. Is that good or bad? It's a question. I like those better than a clock that simply stops. She put her free hand on the door latch. Thank you for the bread. And the jam and the spoon. Don't thank me. It was the square shop's bread. But Allara's voice had warmed. Vos pulled the door and the square came in all at once, With the smell of wet stone and chimney smoke. The fog had drawn itself down to a band at knee height, A pale tide lapping at the cobbles, And above it the tower stood up clear to the clock face, Small and stubborn and wrong by some minutes. A pigeon crossed in front of the dial and settled on the ledge as though it had never been spoken to. She stepped over the threshold. The air met her face, Clean after the stove heat. She drew breath and held it a moment, Thinking of a torn edge close against the stitching and a faint smear of marks that would not give up their words. Then she let go of the latch. Behind her, The door swung to, Not slammed, But closed, And she heard Alara's step cross the floor to the window and stop there. Boss did not turn round. She walked toward the tower with an iron key in her pocket and nothing in her head but the question of why a good clock should be late. That concludes Chapter 4, A Clean Tear from the story, The Last Cozy Lantern of Briar Hollow. Thank you very much for listening. I do hope you've continued to enjoy this story, Become relaxed and possibly fallen asleep.