The band of heroes crept into the music store. It seemed
quite ordinary. Stacks of music lined the walls while displays of various
instruments – trumpets, fiddles, harps – took up most of the room.
“What are we looking for again?” Rina whispered to Gervas.
Gervas consulted his notes for this particular quest. “A
metronome. Six inches high, wood. Has an eye. Delights in tormenting music
students.”
Rina scanned the musical merchandise. Metronomes had been
one of her stepmother’s favorite tools when she had tried to teach Rina music.
Rina hated the metronomes. She wasn’t surprised that one had gone evil.
They quickly found seventeen metronomes in the store that
fit the description. Well, except that none of them had any eyes. “I think we
should destroy them all just in case. What if it’s sleeping and the eye is
closed?” Rina asked.
Silver laughed while Gervas smiled and shook his head. “I
think we’ll know it when we find it. We’ll just have to search every nook and
cranny.”
And they did. Four hours later the store was a wreck. All
the sheet music was on the floor. They had started out in stacks, but with
everyone moving around and bumping into them, the floor was now a black and
white swamp. Instruments where tilting precariously in their display stands, or
shoved rudely onto the shelves. And a pile of metronomes was in the middle of
it all. They had only found three more. Rina still thought they should burn
them all. When Gervas moved a drum and lost his grip and it fell on him, he
declared a break. Everyone sat down with groans and sighs of relief, or
stretched stiff muscles.
Rina sat down at one of the harps that had been practically
smashed into a shelf. She had never liked her stepmother’s music lessons, but
she had liked the harp. She pulled it back and began playing one of the songs
her stepmother had hated, which was consequently one of Rina's favorites. After a few bars something fell from the top on the
self and crashed into her hands. “Ow!” cried Rina, letting go of the strings.
“You all right?” asked Gervas.
Before Rina could respond, the thing began rhythmically
beating her hands. Jumping up from the harp, Rina finally saw what the thing
was. A wooden ticking metronome with an eye on the pendulum which glared at her as it swung back and
forth. “That’s it!”
Just as Rina dived for it, the band surged into action and
leaped too. Rina didn’t think to brace herself until the band slammed into her.
The harp broke with a deafening bang. Rina lay stunned at the bottom of the
pile, trying to breath. Eventually she heard Gervas and Silver getting the band
into order. Once they got up, the remains of the harp fell on her. Rina didn’t
really care; she was still worried about breathing.
“Are you all right?” Gervas asked her for the second time
his hand on her shoulders.
Rina finally groaned. “Yeah?”
“We missed the metronome,” said Silver. “The rest of the
band will keep looking. We’ll make sure you’re okay.”
“Nobody has to look anywhere,” Rina sat up, revealing the
metronome clutched in her hands, the eye still glaring and trying to swing
against her fingers.
Once Rina got her breath back they took it outside and
burned it. Gervas had offered to let Rina light the fire, but her fingers
weren’t up to it. She assured him that she was content to watch the evil thing
burn. They eye kept glaring at them and Rina had to concentrate hard not to
shiver. The flames danced merrily along the wooden body in orange and yellow
patterns, and Rina grinned at it while the band’s healer made sure her injuries
would heal. Slowly the wood charred the pendulum blackened. At last even the
eye succumbed as the flames surrounded it. The metronome was no more.