Time went on, and the mystic admitted to me that she had been warned of what was coming. She could see the darkness growing within the boy, even though he dreamed only of a brighter future for himself. Signs and warnings appeared to her, echoing her incantations, and haunting her sleep. However, for once she shrugged it all off for what most people saw it as: harmless superstition.

     She had grown immune from the superstition herself as she grew ever closer to the boy. She was blind to the hate that burned in his eyes. The hate that he met everyone besides her gaze with, for it was how most had thrown their glances at him. She was deaf to the threats and the curses he made, binded by his passion to serve others the pain he himself was afflicted with. She could not see the evilness of his heart, which she alone held in her hand. This was all invisible to her, for he treated her like his guardian angel, and thus she ignored his fall from Heaven.

     As the years passed, what she could see was that he had grown into a strong man. But the strong man still took the beatings of his master. The passage of time had not made better his position. As he ran to her, his face still mutilated by the same bruises he had come to her with as a boy, and with his spirits still broken like a soul in Hell, she could stand it no longer.

     When he arrived that night, as he always managed to, she had more than just support for him. He sat beside her and let her comb through his hair as if he were still a child. He lavished what he could of her love, for it remained a rare feeling for him, even grown as he was. With the mirage of him still being a helpless, innocent child with potential from her motherly perspective, the mystic grew only steadier in her decision.

     After some time, she pulled a trinket from her rags. It was a curious object long in her possession, but never made use of. It was a mystical relic, a part of the many oddities acquired through her trade. Nevertheless, this one was different. It was not some simple toy that she used to draw in customers and dazzle the deceivable, but rather a dangerous power she had sworn to protect.

     She had been warned of its destructive nature, but as she had ignored the warnings she had seen of this moment, which had shown itself in her crystal ball the night she had seen the boy’s future, she ignored the trinket’s alarming lore. She would follow through on the unspoken promise she had made to her boy, who was now a young man. She would help him end his torment once and for all. She gave him the gift, a silver ornate pocket watch.

     I watched the clock face gleam in the crystal ball, then was momentarily withdrawn from the narrative. The mystic had dangled my own watch in front of my eyes, as if helping to illustrate how she had given the gift to the young ringmaster. As it swung on its chain, I reclaimed it from her. While I am grateful, I have not only walked away from this affair still living to tell the tale, but also with the stolen pocket watch that had drawn me into the mess in the first place, I shall return to the story.

     I was drawn back into the crystal ball, no longer within my body and the constraints of time, but rather an observer of another’s past. I remember the old woman’s narration growing at this point. Her words became clearer. They painted elaborate pictures, and the mystical mirage around me drew me in deeper. This was when the story grew eccentric. The part where the mystic almost lost me, and I am sure I am to lose you, if you indeed have believed me long enough to have gotten to this point in my recollection.

     As she told the tale, and I watched it unfold before my very eyes, I continuously interrupted her. The confusion I had! I remember accusing her of being a crazed old con. Of trying to fool me into believing in the spectacular. In fact, I had spat quite the insults and accusations in my disbelief, and with the experience and confirmation I have now gained, I hope only for the forgiveness of the old woman for my brash behavior. However, I believe she had expected it, and I had not yet gotten to my part in the magical matter. Her narrative continued.

     It was almost dawn when the young man left the mystic. He carried his new pocket watch in his jacket. Though it could very well have been the case of his imagination, the watch was heavier than most. And while it ticked like any other with the time, it seemed almost as if those ticks rang in reverse. He made sure never to draw it out in front of the others in case they might steal or break it. Interacting with the mystic alone was a punishable act that he had to hide from the troupe, let alone keeping a possession of his own, and from the “cursed witch.”

     The shows were over for the night. While the other circus members had retired to sleep, in the shadowed corner of the tent he remained. When he was utterly sure he was alone and as free as he ever was in his enslaved life, he let his hand slip into his pocket. He drew out the watch and ran his fingers reverently over the intricate design. It was embedded with runes and carven images, but they made little sense other than to prove this commonplace pocket watch was not so common at all.

     Even with its humble (and somewhat ominous) appearance, the man held it as if it were made of pure gold. It was the only vanity he had ever owned, and even now he speculated how it had to be the most beautiful object he had ever held. He watched as the thin clock hands ticked rapidly behind the glass face.

     As they flitted on their journey, he realized they were on the wrong trail. They indeed were travelling backwards, counterclockwise, around the ring of numerals. He was heartbroken for a moment. Of course, he could only be afforded a watch that couldn’t tell time. As it ticked away the moments, but ridding of them rather than recording their passage, he thought of the irony of the watch. It mocked him; the hands ever stuck in the past. Would he never reach the future and what it might hold for him? He would always be stuck in this wretched place, and in his wretched position of the lifeless slave of the showrunner!

     In sudden frustration, he gripped the little dial that controlled the hands between his fingers and wound it. Even if he could not make them spin right, he could not stand the incessant ticking. The hands that never break from their backwards movement. Never making any progress. Something had to change. But nothing did. No matter how he meddled with the delicate device, it remained ticking as it did in its peculiar way. The hands continued moving along, no matter that they were wrong. With dismay, he finally glanced up from the glass and back into the world around him. However, that world was ending.