Let's focus today on something discussed on the podcast I just listened to: personalities! How to differentiate characters and make them stand out and be unique! I gave myself a high-five, which turned out like an awkward clap, when Dan Wells mentioned how characters become more distinct when you see their subtle reactions. Source: Season 10, Episode 7 ~9:45. Oh yeah! I totally said that before he did! ... At least this time! Another achievement earned!
"By now," the clockmaker said, "You will have certainly noticed an odd feeling. Am I right? Can't quite move as well as you once could, hmm?"
"What are you-" Mr. Highwhistle began to ask, but what cut short as a loud noise like wood plank groaning under stress interrupted.
"Filnewood, very nice. You are off to a great start, Mr. Whistle."
"What is this magic? Stop this!"
The stranger chuckled in harmony with the sound of cracking glass. "You assume much. Why should I? Have I not kept my part of the bargain? Now, you are keeping yours."
"I didn't agree to this! Please, just-" More creaking cut him short.
Makos was about to dash out, turning back to make sure his brother wasn't watching, but realized Danos was just disappearing around the clock himself. Makos ran after him.
Both boys stopped in their tracks. Before them stood the stranger dressed in an ornate, purple and black cape with black pants, dark leather shoes, a fancy dress shirt that flared rather far at the collar, and a red hat that was crowned with a circle of feathers from various kinds of birds. He held a red coat beneath one arm, and the other hand was holding a large pocket watch, which was chained to his brown leather belt.
The man stood beside a grandfather clock, which was facing the man, but the direction Makos had run around their cover had brought him to stand where he could easily see the front of it. It was made of a blonde wood with decorations carve up and down it of horses of different kinds all posed as if galloping outward from the glass pane in the center of the door.
Makos was not quite angled so as to see through that pane very well, nor see past the moonlight glare at the face of the clock, but he could see a crack down the center of it.
To his amazement, Makos heard his father's voice yell as if from inside a closed room. "Run!" A loud sound of breaking glass peeled out as the crack in the clock face uncracked, sealing itself up so as to make it impossible to know it had ever been there.
"What did you do?!" Danos yelled. "How did you-" he seemed to not believe he was asking that question, and instead asked another. "Where is my father?!"
The stranger turned his gaze to the older boy and smiled. He spoke up in a cheerful mood. "Ah yes! I was just showing these fine clocks to Mr. Whistle when all of a sudden we came across one he particularly liked. He must have got it into his mind that he would like to buy it. Perhaps he has gone off to the bank to collect some funds so that he might fulfill his desire."
"Wha?" Danos said breathlessly. "At nine-o-clock?!"
The man nodded at the blonde wood clock. "Nine-o-nine, actually, it seems."
"You're a liar!" Makos screamed. "I heard it! You turned him into a clock!"
"I do not lie." The man spoke the words angrily, then continued in a softer tone. "I simply report things as I perceive them, and I say your father is no longer here. As for turning someone into a clock." He sniffed. "What nonsense. I can't do that. What are you trying to say? That you believe in wizardry?" He clicked his tongue. "Unbecoming of a young man if he is to grow up to become a fine horse trainer like his father."
Danos stepped forward, staring up at the clockmaker intensely before stating, "I don't know what you did, but our father is gone, and you are behind the reason." Makos eyed his brother carefully. He had never seen Danos act so serious or angrily before.
"I'd like to see you produce evidence of that." The man snickered.
"What's in the wardrobe?" Danos asked.
"Ah." The man said. "Please, why don't you have a look?"
That's it for tonight, folks. To be continued.
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