The Curios of Mr Wren

By Alan Jones and Dr Alan B Jones PhD

He arrived, rather than being made. I had sat down to write a small, unpleasant tale about neighbours. The kind of people who measure hedges, guard parking spaces and pray for you in voices like vinegar. I had got as far as needing someone to move in at the end of the row. And there he was. Old. Calm. Already in possession of his curios and his secrets, and entirely uninterested in surrendering either to the man supposedly holding the pen. I have written a good many characters. Most of them do as they are told. He did not, and does not, and I have made a kind of peace with the suspicion that I was less his author than his clerk.

I set out to write a ghost story. But the stories knew what they were about better than I did, and that is what they turned out to be about, and I have learned not to argue with them.

The book begins with the small, unpleasant tale, which became The Weighing, and which is the only one that takes place wholly in the present. After it comes six provenances, the histories of the objects on the old man's shelves, each explaining how a single curio came into his keeping and what it truly is. A pair of brass scales that weigh a soul. A brass orrery that is one world short, on purpose. A black glass that shows you your true self, which is the last thing most of us could survive seeing. A clock that runs backwards and hoards stolen time. A stoppered jar of fine grey sand that is not sand. And, last and worst, a small dark bell on a hook, which does not ring in any draught, and which I would ask you not to think too hard about after dark.

TThe Stories .

The Weighing: In which we met Mr Wren and his neighbours

Now, the provenance of each Mr Wren's curios. Each tale is increasingly disturbing.

The First Weight - The Scales
Nine and One - The Missing Sphere
The Glass That Did Not Lie - The darkest of mirrors
The Hour It Never Reaches - the clock that runs backwards
Fine as Flour - just exactly what is in the glass phial
The Cold Hand - who or what rings the bell?
Now You - Have YOU now been weighed?

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H6FFBCYP
• ISBN13: 9798183842845
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 114 Pages
• Weight: 0.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.5" x 8.5"