Chapter Two:

The Whispering Watch

She swung on the swing happily on the playground as the clouds began to block out the sun. “Stupid clouds! Why does it always have to be gloomy when I go out to play?” She thought to herself. Suddenly, she saw the man again, looking at her with those firm, but longing eyes. She slowed as she looked at him. He looked so sad. When he saw she was looking at her, he went to turn away in the opposite direction, and started to walk away. She wondered what she could do to cheer him up. She suddenly saw a group of daffodils near the big tree. She ran over towards them and gently pulled a couple up. She slowly approached him and lifted up the flowers. “Here!” she said, “Will this cheer you up, Mister?” The man looked surprised to see her approach him, but also with a look of panic. Then, he slowly took the flowers and smiled. “Thank you. They’re lovely.”

“Know this, ********: You. Are Not. Alone.”

“The moment is drawing closer. I can feel it. But when? How much longer do I have to wait?”

“What is it that you’re painting, dear?” Piper jumped. She was standing up in a classroom, with an easel in front of her, with a 24 x 24 canvas on it. In her hand, was a paint brush, its bristles recently dipped in a cool blue color. The sun was finally coming out, setting, its rays seeping into the room, warmly. On her left, was Mrs. Nightingale, her art teacher. Piper had finally processed the question and looked at her canvas. She had drawn a hillside with an olive green, and the background was banana-yellow. Then, on the top of the tallest hill, was an all too familiar, blue structure that she had unwittingly recently completed, with a man next to it. Piper sighed, irritably. “It’s…It’s a blue police box…Ms. Nightingale. I meant to draw sheep…” she explained. “It’s quite alright dear,” Ms. Nightingale said, reassuringly, “Sometimes what we start to paint, turns into something different than we expect. Painting from the heart is nothing to be ashamed of.” Piper nodded. “Yeah, unless ‘painting from the heart’ is a form of expressing obsession” said a long, dirty-blonde haired girl named Marianna. Piper rolled her eyes. She put her paintbrush into the water, stirred it around, and dried it off with a towel. “What is that blue box, anyway? Something from television? Are you really an otaku?” Marianna demanded. Piper ignored her as she continued to clean up her workspace. “It would explain a lot,” Marianna continued, “Shutting yourself up from the rest of the world, being a mardy, and obsessing over a dark, brooding, mysterious man that doesn’t exist, off some bozo cartoon.”

Piper then slammed her paintbrushes down. She felt a flash of intense anger inside her. Her chill blue eyes turned to glare at her classmate. “How dare you!” she snapped. She was fuming with so much rage, her heart raced, her breathing turned rapid. Marianna was stunned by Piper’s sudden offense. In fact, she was almost a bit frightened. She didn’t actually expect Piper to react, even though that’s what she fully wanted out of her. Even Mrs. Nightingale was surprised. The room was eerily silent, as if the whole world was shushed by Piper’s rage. She found herself unable to speak. She could say nothing to defend herself. She couldn’t tell Marianna who the mystery man was, because Piper didn’t know. She had spent her whole life not knowing, and yet, she was willing to defend him, whoever he was. She could only stare, fuming. She started breathing so fast through her teeth, she was almost getting dizzy. Finally, the school bell rang. The clock struck three. The students in the art room scrambled to get their things together and out. After one more solitary moment of glaring at Marianna, Piper too, gathered her things, and promptly left the room, without another word. “It’s no use Piper. No use to talk about it. No one will help you.”

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“Piper! We’re gonna leave in two ticks! Come on down!”

Piper put down her tools, and turned off her boom box that was playing 1950s music quietly on the dresser in the other side of the room. She had calmed down a bit once she had completed her homework (which took her less than an hour and a half) and got to work on her side projects at her desk. Most of them were little gizmos, and blueprints of theoretical gadgets. This was the one period of time, where she felt like she could be herself, nearly completely cut off from the outside world, and listening to the Andrew Sisters. Perhaps, in an alternate universe, Piper would have been a very perky, outgoing person, if she went through different channels than what she had now.

Piper quietly walked down the stairs. Her mother was frantically straightening kitchen, while her father, Daniel Dominique, was waiting for her. “Hi dad” Piper greeted, coolly. “Hiya sweetheart” said her father with his clean, clear, American accent. He went over and kissed her on the forehead. “How was school today?” “It was alright” his British step-daughter replied, dryly. Mr. Dominique looked at her, concerned. That was her response everyday. “Are you sure?” he asked again. Piper shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, everything’s great” she said again. But Mr. Dominique wasn’t so sure. Four years. She had been this way for four years. He hardly ever saw her when she came back from school. She would never leave her room, even when Raiden came over (since both him and Carla had known him forever, they trusted him and Piper alone) for homework. She never came down for dinner either. All she would do, was shut herself in her room, and hardly ever came out. Mr. Dominique was going to push it further, until Carla came into the room. “Piper, I need to use the loo, and I forgot my pearl earrings. Could you fetch them for me? They’re in my jewelry box” she asked. “ ‘kay” Piper replied. She walked around the banister, and towards her parents bedroom, leaving Mr. Dominique alone in the front room.

The Dominique parent’s bedroom was much more clean than Piper’s. Carla was very organized, with everything being exactly in its place. Daniel wasn’t sloppy, but he wasn’t nearly as squeaky-clean, and his side of the walk-in closet were slightly more messy. Piper went to her mother’s side. The victorian-style jewelry box was on the second shelf to the right of the closet. Piper quickly opened the top of the box, and grabbed the white, pearl earrings. She started to leave, but then, she paused. She heard whispering. Not just random whispering, it sounded like a conversation. “That sounds nothing like Mum or Dad” Piper observed.

“Dad, did you turn on the tele?”

“No, why do you ask?”

She slowly walked back into the closet. The sound was definitely coming from inside. “N-nothing, just checking!” She called back. Then, Piper quickly realized it was coming from the jewelry box. She opened the other drawers, quietly, as to not raise suspicion. The first drawer had countless broken necklaces and bracelets of all kinds that her mother had been meaning to fix. But there was nothing in there that could have been making a whispering sound. She tried the next drawer, which was at the very bottom. This drawer had many old name tags from various jobs Carla had from years ago. There were also dozens of pins (most were souvenirs from her sister-in-law, Piper’s aunt, from back in the states, who had a job that required a lot of international travel) littered about inside. Still, there was no sign of anything that could have possibly been whispering. “So where in the world is that coming from?” Piper thought. She began to feel around the jewelry box. It had to be inside somewhere, but where? Then, as she went to open the top of the lid again, she noticed something peculiar. The clasp that was on the top for the lid, was moved slightly upwards, out of place; and it didn’t look like to be a sign of wear-and-tear either. Piper slowly moved it more upwards. When she opened the top lid once again, she saw that part of the inside had opened up. Excited that she found a secret compartment, she eagerly opened it further. Finally, she found the source of the noise: it was a fob-watch.

This fob watch, at first glance, would seem plain. It didn’t look from the Victorian-era, nor the 1920s. It was a seemingly-modern designed, silver fob watch. However, once you look closer, you’ll be able to see that the front had many circles, dots, and lines, all precisely woven together like in a advanced clock. Piper suddenly made a connection. The design on this watch, seemed eerily similar to the sketching a she had done on her scratch paper in math class. The whispering was coming from the watch. Piper was tempted to open it…

“Piper!? Did you find my earrings?”

Piper jumped, suddenly in a state of panic. Without thinking, she stuffed the fob watch in the pocket of her black, leather jacket, grabbed her mother’s earrings, and ran back into the front room. “Were they hard to find, dear?” Carla asked. Piper shook her head. “Nope! Not at all! I was just…away with the fairies again. You know how I am. Silly ole me can’t focus” Piper lied, laughing nervously. Carla was going to question her further, but was too preoccupied about getting to their party on time. “Raiden’s coming at six, is that right?” Carla asked as she put the earrings on.

“Yes mum” Piper replied.

“Alright, there’s some shepherd’s pie finished up on the stove that’s cooling off. You can have that for dinner.”

“Yes mum.”

“Remember, you have school tomorrow, so you need to tell Raidem to get home at eight o’clock.”

“Yes mum.”

“And get to bed by nine.”

“Yes mum.”

“Okay, no more lecturing,” Carla joked, “I love you baby.” She and Piper kissed each other on the cheeks. “Love you too” Piper replied. “Be safe, alright sweetheart?” said Mr. Dominique, kissing her on the forehead.  “I will. Bye dad” Piper reassured. Finally, Mr. Dominique opened the front door, and he and Mrs. Dominique were off.

Piper flung her jacket on one of the chairs at the kitchen table, and began to prepare for her best friend’s arrival. Somehow, she had forgotten about the mysterious fob watch, why is was in a secret compartment in her mother’s jewelry box, and why it was whispering. All that was for sure, is that it was sitting in the coat-pocket of that black jacket, and it had stopped whispering.

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