“Well, you have a point there,” Savino agreed, delighted that this girl had hung around to discuss this with him – although she had caught him rummaging and caught onto his next move as well.
“I don’t know if we’re, ahem, really supposed to sample the lots before we bid,” he said, tone low and conspiratorial, hoping that she wouldn’t care enough to get him thrown out of this auction for it or make him buy the clock if he broke it or anything – “but I’d like to know if it works.”
He contemplated the clock again, uncertain whether a coin would be connected enough to him personally to have any power, or whether he could think of a question that was not too open-ended; so instead Savino pulled out a business card for the family company, running a thumb over the embossed Z and shifting forwards to open one of the clock’s compartments. Hoping it would be significant enough, he slipped the business card in, chose his question and focused expressly on it, as he might have when making a Tarot spread: When will I take over the company?
One of the clock’s hands clicked into motion, spinning faster than clock-hands usually did, as if it were thinking – and he was trying to approach it from a skeptical standpoint, but Savino still caught himself holding his breath as it slowed. It ticked past imminently and he let out his breath, watching as it finally fell to a stop pointing at never.
He had wanted to ask a question about the future he was mostly certain of, as a test, and that was as true an answer as anything Savino knew. He was sure of his death, that he wouldn’t outlive his grandfather or father; and he had no interest in making a career in business either, so would not inherit it sooner than never as long as he could help it. It did fall under the category of bad news he wanted to hear, of course, but that was not the sort of thing the clock could have just guessed at if it had just been an impersonal, rudimentary party trick. It was much more than that, then.
Savino nodded thoughtfully at the clock, and glanced across at his companion with a smile. “Well, I’m satisfied there’s something to it, at least,” he admitted.
“I don’t know if we’re, ahem, really supposed to sample the lots before we bid,” he said, tone low and conspiratorial, hoping that she wouldn’t care enough to get him thrown out of this auction for it or make him buy the clock if he broke it or anything – “but I’d like to know if it works.”
He contemplated the clock again, uncertain whether a coin would be connected enough to him personally to have any power, or whether he could think of a question that was not too open-ended; so instead Savino pulled out a business card for the family company, running a thumb over the embossed Z and shifting forwards to open one of the clock’s compartments. Hoping it would be significant enough, he slipped the business card in, chose his question and focused expressly on it, as he might have when making a Tarot spread: When will I take over the company?
One of the clock’s hands clicked into motion, spinning faster than clock-hands usually did, as if it were thinking – and he was trying to approach it from a skeptical standpoint, but Savino still caught himself holding his breath as it slowed. It ticked past imminently and he let out his breath, watching as it finally fell to a stop pointing at never.
He had wanted to ask a question about the future he was mostly certain of, as a test, and that was as true an answer as anything Savino knew. He was sure of his death, that he wouldn’t outlive his grandfather or father; and he had no interest in making a career in business either, so would not inherit it sooner than never as long as he could help it. It did fall under the category of bad news he wanted to hear, of course, but that was not the sort of thing the clock could have just guessed at if it had just been an impersonal, rudimentary party trick. It was much more than that, then.
Savino nodded thoughtfully at the clock, and glanced across at his companion with a smile. “Well, I’m satisfied there’s something to it, at least,” he admitted.
