The Clock Master's Apprentice (SAMPLE)

Chapter One

Uncle Drosselmeyer knew his way around a clock. He loved his sister's children so much that he built them a clockwork dog just in time for Winter's Eve. It had a plexiglass coat and brass organs that slid and shifted like the inside of a very old timepiece.

"That's sorcery. Craft." Papa Hoffman muttered, not liking the way his three children chased the artificial husky around on the carpet. He shook his head and furiously thumbed the talisman at his neck.

Marisol went straight to her uncle's defense. "Juju's not craft, Papa." She must have told him a thousand times, but still Papa refused to look at Drosselmeyer's creations with anything but suspicion.

Marisol was the middle Hoffman child and had always admired her uncle. Tonight she believed that this

gift was proof of his genius. If she had it her way, she would grow up to be a clock master just like him.

Mama affectionately gathered Papa's arm and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"Look at how much joy Drosselmeyer's juju brings the children. Can't you give this puppy a chance? Just this one time?"

Realizing that Papa would need more convincing, the youngest Hoffman child, Frix, ran up and began pleading with him.

"Papa, you can't say no. I've already given him a name!"

Marisol looked sideways at her brother. "Who said that you could name him?"

Ignoring her, Frix tugged on the hem of Papa's sweater. "His name will be Zwölf and I promise to train him. He can even sleep in my room."

"Now, wait a minute–" Marisol interrupted, not liking one bit how Frix asserted himself as lead guardian over what was supposed to be the family pet.

These were the least of her troubles because Papa only seemed to double down.

"It doesn't matter whose room it's sleeping in because I will not have some craft-begotten mongrel living in my house!"

"Papa?"

The third and eldest Hoffman child, Lucinda, called from her spot on the rug. There she had the puppy's head resting in her lap. She looked down at the dog fondly as she scratched behind his ears until his neon lantern eyes blinked in sleepy bliss.

"Papa, please."

Very carefully Lucinda rose to her feet, settling the dog's head on the rug without waking him. She moved about with great care, for the doctor had forbidden any abrupt activity during her recovery.

Lucinda approached the rest of her family with the most delicate steps, holding her arms at low, graceful angles.

The child was so light and measured in her skip, as if she hadn't spent the last six months on hiatus from her weekly dance lessons. Marisol and Frix held their breaths as Lucinda Hoffman continued to prance closer and closer.

Papa never stood a chance.

Lucinda balanced on her toes, her nightgown rippling around her knees. She bowed low, arching her wrist with that otherworldly, swanlike grace that Marisol could never replicate in her own dancing, no matter how many hours she practiced.

Still bent over in her bow, Lucinda tilted her cloudy gray eyes upward.

"Can we please keep Zwölf? I feel like he's already ours."

Not knowing how many Winterfests Lucinda had left in her, Mama fought to hold back tears. Uncle

Drosselmeyer grinned knowingly from behind the cracked lenses of his goggles.