The estate's fastidious owner had left an exhaustive guide to the clock. (fastidious: meticulous, particular, exacting; exhaustive: thorough, comprehensive, complete) Its enumeration of parts ran to five pages. (enumeration: listing, count, counting) Exhaustively detailed instructions explained how to abrade a rough pivot, actuate the lever and disengage the striking train. (exhaustively: thoroughly, comprehensively, completely; abrade: scrape, scour, scuff; actuate: activate, operate, trigger; disengage: detach, withdraw, uncouple) Yet the hands had been motionless for years. Lena's first tentative pull on the chain produced a sound that made both women cringe. (cringe: flinch, recoil, wince)
They feared the long period of inactivity had let the inside deteriorate. (deteriorate: decline, worsen, degenerate) A spring might have lost its temper or an integral wheel become disengaged. (integral: essential, inherent, intrinsic; disengaged: detached, uncoupled, disconnected) Nothing in the casing suggested decrepitude. (decrepitude: dilapidation, deterioration, decay) Instead, each polished part looked immaculate. (immaculate: spotless, pristine, unblemished) They peered into the mechanism with the acuity that came from thirty years of fitting watch screws to shafts thinner than a pin. (acuity: acuteness, keenness, sharpness)
A handwritten instruction on the last page told them to listen before touching the weights. They heard scratching. A wren flew out of the open back. The old man had stopped the clock for nesting season, then left it stopped. Lena put the oil away. Her sister took a pencil and added one more instruction, along with the date in June when they might safely wind the chain.