"I shouldn't need that much," I chuckle stepping over the threshold, "I hate to be a bother."

"No bother at all," a smile plays across her face as she shuts the door, "I have all the time in the world."

"You must never run out when you're cooking," looking into her light brown eyes I stop. Golden flecks in her eye sparkle giving the illusion of them travelling from the top of her iris to the bottom.

"I am always running out or I have too much. I know it doesn't go bad. But they say it loses its potency. Who really needs a quart of rosemary? Sure I've run out a few times. I don't know what I was thinking when I bought it. It wasn't even a deal," I babble.

"I'm not sure anyone would," her smiles reached her eyes, the flickering gold increases speed.

"How are you liking the neighborhood? When I moved in I wasn't so sure. I used to live on a farm. Well it wasn't really a farm. But there weren't nearly as many neighbors. At least none you didn't have to drive to get to. Ten houses, all within walking distance? Remarkable! It took me two months before I got used to locking my front door. Not that I didn't lock my door before."

She laughs, the gold slows, it feels like a warm breeze has enveloped my body on a fall day.

"That does sound like quite a change. You should slow down, I'm really in no rush."

"Sorry."

"No need to be," she motions for me to walk beside her into the corridor with her hands clasped behind her back.

"I am finding the neighborhood different then anywhere else I have lived. Yet at the same, it feels as if I have always lived her. How long did you say you've been here?"

"Uh," I run a hand through my hair then start counting on my fingers, "About five or six years I think."

"Yet you don't need much time?"

"No, I only need a quarter. I had some at home but not enough."

"A quarter?"

"Yes."

"A quarter century? Day? Millenia?"

"What?" I stop to look at her. There is no movement of gold in her eyes as she pauses walking too.

"You say you need a quarter. A quarter of what?"

Chimes sound in the hallway around us.

I look around to see we are surrounded by clocks of various sizes and makes. Birds begin to chirp shuddering in and out of their clocks. Wooden figures dance to off kilter music in windows beneath their clocks.

Each clock announcing the hour builds to a cacophony of sound. Six chimes later, what may have been an hour itself, the corridor is once again silent.

"What was that? Why do you have so many clocks?"

"How else would I keep all the time in the world?" Her lips quirk in a grin that does not reach her eyes, "Now how much time do you want exactly?"

"I... I only need a quarter teaspoon," I take a half step back, "I apologize for wasting your time. We were talking about two different things."

I continue to back down the corridor, she follows a couple of steps behind.

"I'll just let myself out. I'm sure Mrs. Johnson on the corner has some I can borrow," I begin to turn as she reaches out and takes my hand.

"You haven't wasted my time. I told you, I have it all," she gives my hand a gentle pull as she turns and grasps a clock with her other hand. The clock turns and a door opens beside us.

"Let's get you that quarter teaspoon. Do you have a preference of region?" She asks pulling me through the doorway. Inside the room is another corridor wider and taller. Plants with grown lights above them make up two aisles down the cleft side and the center. To the right are shelves of hundreds of bottles of dried herbs in jars.

I turn to look at her eyes. They are not brown but a deep pine green. Gold still shimmers within them.

"I did say I have all the thyme in the world."