Cackle

Annie is the novel’s dynamic protagonist. She changes from a woman who is almost completely reliant on men for her confidence and sense of self-worth into one who is independent and self-assured, aware of the benefits of single life as well as the value of friendship. In the wake of her breakup with Sam, a man she assumed she’d marry after eight years together, Annie’s estimation of her significance in the world plummets. However, after meeting Sophie, Annie’s belief that Sophie is “special” as well as Sophie’s growing love for her convinces Annie that she, too, may be special. Annie marvels that she needed only one person to think of her as unique and worthwhile for her to start believing it too.

Annie’s character’s arc is embodied by the symbol of the psychic’s clock. In the beginning, Annie and her life are like the normal clockface on the timepiece she sees in the New York City shop; by the end, Annie and her life are much more like the clock’s odd, second face. The bottom one tells time, as a clock is expected to do, but Annie cannot read the top face. The bottom, typical face is similar to Annie’s life when she allowed it to revolve around Sam. She says, “When we were together, everything was simple. I knew who I was, what I wanted. I ache for that sense of certainty. With Sam, I know exactly what my future looks like” (274). What that life provides Annie with is a sense of predictability, just like the bottom face of the psychic’s clock.

Likewise, Annie’s life without Sam is unpredictable, tied more to the seasons than the man-made construct of linear time. She is empowered and motivated by whatever brings her happiness. This means her future is less knowable. She needn’t ever compromise; she can do precisely what she wants to do when she wants to do it. Like the top clockface’s swirling mix of colors, which Annie compares to a mood ring, her life can change to suit her mood, her new preferences, or desired routines. This lack of predictability can be scary because it suggests the existential freedom that accompanies a state of isolation. When Annie is willing to be alone—something that scares her deeply at first—taking pleasure in her own company instead of assessing her value based on someone else’s treatment of her, she frees herself from the constraints of time, literally and figuratively.

Thus, in the Epilogue, Madison Thorpe notes that Annie hasn’t “aged a day” (289), though it’s been around 25 years since the text’s main events. Annie even says that she no longer leaves the house without flowers in her hair, an object often associated with Sophie, and which Annie believed she could spot in the top face of the clock all those years before. Her life is now symbolized by that face, in its swirling and exciting unpredictability.