On Halloween, the town of Przymgórze pretended to be brave, hanging lanterns where lights were usually lacking. Mila corrected her fangs in a rubbery vampire grin and laced up her skate shoes. Oscar, wearing a borrowed bat cape, whistled quietly to chase away unnecessary thoughts. The official school field game had been cancelled, so they decided to do their own, more adventurous one. It was about the clock tower above the cemetery, known by everyone as the House of Winds. Legend had it that the thirteenth bell chooses its listener and does not commit it to memory. In the morning, someone slipped an envelope under Mila's door with a wax seal with the number XIII all the way in red. Inside was a sketch of the town, a thread leading to the burnt-out watchmaker's workshop, and a brass pointer. The card said briefly, "Bring the pointer at midnight, we'll fix the time". Beneath the inscription, someone had inked a small hourglass sign with a pen, strangely glowing in the shadows. Mila thought it was a clever joke by Kai from the film circle, but her heart accepted the invitation. They set off in the dusk, with torches and a quiet plan, gathering curious glances along the way. The main streets rumbled with laughter, but the closer they got to the river, the thicker the silence became. The workshop looked abandoned, but the door gave way with a sound like a whisper, not a creak. The walls were blackened with the imprints of flames, and the shelves bowed with jars full of springs. Oskar found a ledger with brass corners, entitled 'Register of Extraordinary Repairs', and opened it to today's date. Under the index was a line: "Client: Mila Nocula. Service: restoration of missing minute'. Oskar grunted that he was running out of time, but Mila felt that the game was just starting. So they went under the tower, up a staircase as if carved from wind and sand alone. The chain at the gate held a rusty padlock tied with a ribbon like that of the seal. Against the wall stood pumpkins carved into clock faces, each indicating a different, illogical time. As they lifted the doorknob, a single, belated bell sounded in the distance, though it wasn't even past eleven o'clock. A pendulum clock waited in the vestibule, without a minute hand, almost identical to the one in Mila's pocket. When she lifted the brass, the mechanism chimed and whispered in a metallic voice: "Payment in seconds, that's all I ask." The phones simultaneously shuddered, showing the hours from three days ago, and the stopwatch began to count backwards. Above them, a pulsating, pale blue light glowed, as if someone was crushing an aurora in the bell mechanism. Oscar turned abruptly as the gate door behind them closed, triggering a thirteenth sound.