The Clocktower of Whispering Winds

The clocktower arrived on a Tuesday between breakfast and lunch.

Nobody saw it being built.

Nobody heard a hammer.

One moment, the town square held a fountain, six benches, and a pigeon stealing a cracker.

The next—

BONG!

There stood a crooked stone tower.

It was tall enough to tickle the clouds. Four enormous clock faces stared in four directions, but every one showed a different time.

“That wasn’t there this morning,” said Mara.

Finn tilted his head.

“Maybe we forgot it.”

Mara looked at him.

“How do you forget a tower?”

Before Finn could answer, the tower went:

TICK-TOCK-TIDDLE-DEE.

Then its gears began humming.

Not ordinary humming, either.

They hummed a peculiar tune that sounded like a waltz played by spoons.

That was when time became muddled.

A baker took a bun from the oven, and it turned back into dough.

A dog chased its tail and somehow caught yesterday.

The cracker-stealing pigeon flapped backward through the square and returned the cracker to a very confused man.

Finn’s shoelace tied itself.

“Well,” Finn said. “That part is useful.”

High above them, the tower clock shuddered.

Its hands spun wildly.

Then they stopped.

Eleven fifty-nine.

All four faces showed the same thing now.

Eleven fifty-nine.

A minute passed.

Still eleven fifty-nine.

Another minute passed.

Still eleven fifty-nine.

“Noon is stuck,” Mara said.

A tiny door at the bottom of the tower creaked open.

Warm golden light spilled out.

From somewhere inside came a whisper:

“Wind the hour. Find the key.
Wake the minute. Set time free.”

Finn swallowed.

“Did the tower just give us instructions?”

“I think so.”

“Couldn’t it have written them down?”

Mara stepped through the door.

Finn hurried after her.

Inside, hundreds of brass gears turned along the walls.

Big gears.

Little gears.

Gears with seven teeth.

Gears shaped like flowers.

One tiny gear spun so quickly that it sneezed.

“Choo-tick!”

“Bless you,” said Finn.

The gear chimed politely.

At the end of the room stood a staircase.

Mara and Finn climbed.

And climbed.

And climbed.

At the top, they found—

a broom cupboard.

Finn frowned.

“Ancient magical towers are badly organized.”

Mara noticed a silver breeze curling beneath a shelf.

She pushed aside a broom.

Behind it was a round doorway.

“A secret passage!”

They crawled through.

The passage twisted upward until they reached a stone balcony.

Something moved above them.

Two grey eyes opened.

Then a stone face scowled down.

It had horns, wings, and the grumpiest eyebrows Mara had ever seen.

“I,” announced the gargoyle, “am GRUMBLEGRIT.”

Finn whispered, “The name fits.”

“I HEARD THAT.”

Grumblegrit stretched his stone wings.

“No one climbs the Clocktower of Whispering Winds without answering my riddle.”

He cleared his throat dramatically.

“I have hands but cannot clap.
I have a face but wear no hat.
I tell you something all day long.
What am I?”

Mara smiled.

“A clock.”

Grumblegrit looked disappointed.

“That was supposed to take longer.”

A stone panel slid open.

“Proceed,” he grumbled.

They climbed into another passage.

This one was filled with floating pendulums.

Swing.

Swish.

Swing.

Swish.

Mara and Finn ducked beneath one and stepped over another.

At the far end sat a second gargoyle.

She was small, round, and covered in moss.

“I am MOSSYMOAN,” she said.

“You don’t look very grumpy,” Finn said.

Mossymoan frowned.

“I have been practicing.”

She made her fiercest face.

It looked like a potato trying to remember something.

Mara giggled.

Mossymoan sighed.

“Nobody respects gargoyling anymore.”

Then she gave them her riddle.

“I run but have no feet.
You can spend me but cannot buy me back. What am I?”

Finn scratched his head.

Mara looked at the swinging pendulums.

“Time?”

Mossymoan’s stone eyes twinkled.

“Correct.”

She leaned closer.

“And between us, Grumblegrit’s riddle is much too easy.”

“I HEARD THAT!” boomed a voice from below.

Mossymoan rolled her eyes.

Another door opened.

Beyond it was the highest chamber of the tower.

In the middle stood a gigantic golden clockwork machine.

But it had stopped.

Its gears were still.

Its pendulum hung crooked.

And in the center was an empty keyhole.

Perched above it was the third gargoyle.

This one wore tiny stone spectacles.

“I am Professor Craggle.”

“Are you grumpy too?” asked Finn.

“Extremely.”

“You don’t sound grumpy.”

“I am grumpy on the inside.”

Professor Craggle pointed toward three objects on a shelf.

A golden feather.

A glass marble.

A small silver key.

“One will restart the clock. Choose wisely.”

“That’s easy,” said Finn. “The key.”

Professor Craggle shook his head.

“Not until you answer this:

What can fly without wings,
whistle without lips,
and turn a still clock
without touching its hands?”

Mara looked at the feather.

Finn looked at the marble.

Then both children heard it.

Whoooooo.

A breeze slipped through a crack in the tower.

It circled Mara’s ankles.

It fluttered Finn’s hair.

It passed through the giant gears.

And the gears hummed their strange little tune.

“Tiddle-dee…”

Mara gasped.

“The wind!”

Professor Craggle smiled.

For a gargoyle, it was a very small smile.

But it was definitely there.

“Precisely.”

The silver key rose from the shelf.

It floated into Mara’s hand.

She placed it in the clockwork machine.

Finn grabbed the handle beside it.

“Together?” he asked.

“Together.”

They turned.

CLICK.

Nothing happened.

Then—

WHOOOOOOO.

Wind rushed through the chamber.

The golden feather flew into the air.

The glass marble rolled in a perfect circle.

Professor Craggle’s spectacles spun around his head.

“MY SPECTACLES!”

The wind poured through the gears.

One gear turned.

Then another.

Then twenty.

Then a hundred.

The whole tower began to sing.

Tickety-tock,
whisper and wind,
minutes ahead,
hours behind.
Round goes tomorrow,
away goes before—
set every second
in place once more.

The great pendulum swung.

Eleven fifty-nine.

Mara held her breath.

Finn watched the clock hands.

TICK.

Twelve o’clock.

From outside came the biggest—

BONG!

—the town had ever heard.

Time rushed forward.

The bun became a bun again.

The dog let go of yesterday.

The pigeon stole the cracker for a second time.

And Finn’s shoelace untied itself.

“Oh, come on,” he said.

Mara laughed.

The tower doors opened.

Sunlight poured in.

Grumblegrit, Mossymoan, and Professor Craggle gathered on the stairs.

“You reset the hour,” said Professor Craggle.

“You answered our riddles,” said Mossymoan.

“Far too quickly,” muttered Grumblegrit.

Mara looked at the clockwork key.

“Should I leave this?”

Professor Craggle shook his stone head.

“The tower keeps no key.”

“Then who does?”

All three gargoyles smiled.

“The wind.”

A breeze swept through the chamber.

The silver key dissolved into a swirl of sparkling dust.

It danced around Mara and Finn, slipped through the window, and vanished into the blue.

When the children stepped back into the square, they turned around.

The clocktower was gone.

No stones.

No clock.

No secret door.

Only the fountain, six benches, and one extremely suspicious pigeon.

Finn stared at the empty space.

“Do you think it will come back?”

A breeze rustled through the trees.

From very far away came a faint sound.

Tick-tock-tiddle-dee.

Mara smiled.

“Maybe when time needs us.”

The wind spun around them once, carrying a whisper no one else seemed to hear:

“Not yesterday.
Not tomorrow.
Find the wonder
in the hour.”

Then the town clock struck twelve.

Or perhaps it struck nowhere.

Or perhaps, for one silver second, every clock in every hidden corner of the world stopped to listen.

And high above the rooftops, where the wind keeps its oldest secrets, three stone gargoyles began arguing about who had the best riddle.