The City of Clocks had one thousand and one spires with nine hundred and one clocks. There was debate about this figure, some people insisting the precise number of clocks was exactly nine hundred, and others insisting it was nine hundred and two. There were some who believed there were actually nine hundred and twenty-three clocks, but they were considered mad radicals, and very few people paid them any attention.
What everyone agreed was that it was impossible to know the number of cats in the City of Clocks. In fact, many a visitor said the city had been misnamed. Never had there been a place so congenial for cats. The Mabanquo River fed the city by a series of pumps and tanks, bringing not only water but fish up into the town. Residents thought it good luck if a fish came out of their tap. So wide-mouthed taps were an enduring fashion, and no effort was ever made to change the plumbing. There was plenty for everyone to eat—and lots of bones.
Cats had come from far and wide to live in the City of Clocks. And as you know, where there are two cats, soon enough there are seven, then forty-seven, then one hundred and seven. Stalking along every roofline. Stretched out upon every sunny doorstep, sitting on every sunny corner, by every fireside, on every fence post. But these were not just any old cats. The cats of the City of Clocks were the most beautiful cats in the world. In any world. They were sleek and shiny, with beautiful eyes and perfectly shaped ears. They had deep, rumbling purrs, and if they had white patches, these were always perfectly placed: on their paws or under their chins or angled exquisitely across one eye. The cats were smoky gray, polished brown, dappled tortoiseshell, rippling orange, pristine white, and midnight black: every one of them as beautiful as a drawing.
You can probably imagine that these superb cats were not pleased when they spied a dog entering their city. Some of the most well-traveled cats remembered wilder lands where Winged Dogs had once flown. But the existence of dogs lurks in the knowing of all cats, as does the existence of mice.
Some of the cats raised their hackles at the sad brown dog trudging beside the small, wild-haired girl. The day had already brought them so many surprises and terrors. At dawn that very morning, it had become obvious to everyone in the City of Clocks—human and feline alike—that another world had collided with theirs and was spilling its freezing ocean into the Mabanquo River. Then the City of Clocks had been attacked by giant birds who had perched on some of the city’s very finest spires and screamed such terrible things to everyone below that many people had taken to their beds and were yet to rise again. Not only that, but the birds had done untold damage when they did what birds do on many significant clock faces, leading to a rush of concerned citizens carrying ladders, buckets, and cloths up all those stairs.
When Baxterr saw the first cat, his whiskers prickled. He did not as a rule like cats, but he was a dog of manners. He had learned that cats, being creatures of overwhelming self-importance, were best ignored. When he saw the second, third, fifth, and fifteenth cats, a shiver ran down his spine. Something twitched in his brain. Then one of the cats on a nearby wall arched its back and hissed at him.
Maybe if the day had not gone from bad to worse. Maybe if he hadn’t nearly drowned in a freezing rush of water from above, then been attacked by vercaka. Maybe if his beloved Tuesday hadn’t been snatched from him, without his being able to do a single thing about it, things might have gone differently. But to have one of these cats hiss at him after all that! Baxterr took a flying leap at the cat on the wall.
Startled, the cat attacked, jumping onto Baxterr’s shoulders and digging in its claws. Baxterr howled with pain and took off down the street, attempting to shake the cat from his back. He spun about corners and rolled into walls, but the cat held on, and every cat Baxterr passed was excited into pursuit. Soon there were cats leaping across fences, bounding along awnings and gutters, scampering down laneways, and racing down roads. Despite his best efforts, Baxterr could not unsettle the feline on his back.
Faces were appearing at every window; people were stepping out of their doorways, all of them wondering what on earth was causing this hullabaloo.
Vivienne had been hoping to make a very discreet entrance to the City of Clocks, to locate this door that supposedly led to a gardener—who could apparently solve the whole mess with the vercaka and the mountains and the colliding worlds. She hadn’t wanted anybody in the City of Clocks to even know that she was here. Instead she was sprinting through the streets and winging her way around lampposts, down alleys, past people selling fabrics and fruit, herbs and hanging lamps, paintings and potted plants, bottles and bath salts. Most people were cheering for the cats, but some were rooting for the dog. At last Baxterr ran out into a huge square, in the center of which was a towering statue of Letitia Mabanquo. Her long hair flowed like sculpted liquid around her shoulders. One massive, stony arm was pointing to the sky, and a mighty jet of water arced high above her from one side of the fountain to the other, creating a permanent rainbow. Vivienne knew, almost before Baxterr did, what he was about to do.
“No, doggo!” she shouted.
Baxterr ran toward the fountain, the cat still clinging on for all it was worth, and a thousand cats behind giving chase. Vivienne saw Baxterr leap into the air, she saw his wings spread out, she saw him fly straight for that huge arc of water above the statue. She saw the whole square come to a grinding halt: men, women, children, and a thousand cats all screeched to a stop to watch the dog soar through the pluming rainbow. As they hit the jet of water, the cat gave a tremendous howl and tumbled off the dog’s back into the pool below.
If it had ended there, Vivienne felt sure that everyone would have remembered the wings Baxterr discreetly tucked back into his sides as he landed deftly on four paws, his tongue hanging out of his mouth and a satisfied expression on his face as he turned to see the waterlogged cat clambering from the fountain, looking not the least bit elegant, superb, or dignified. Baxterr might have become the subject of extraordinary scrutiny if something had not happened at that moment to eclipse even the image of a flying dog.
Two of the strangest creatures anyone had ever seen were descending from the sky on what appeared to be very large dragonflies. Both of the riders were dressed in white, with shell-like helmets upon their heads, and everything about them shimmered even more brightly than the rainbow over the Letitia Mabanquo fountain. It was the second time that day that the residents of the City of Clocks had been confronted with unusual creatures in their skies. Nervously they shied away from the winged creatures, the crowd pushing out to the edges of the square.
Vivienne Small stepped forward and waved. Even while the creatures still hovered above the statue, Vivienne heard a musical voice chiming inside her mind.
“We are pleased to see you again, Vivienne Small,” said Harlequin from afar.
The flying steeds came in to land, and the crowd watched in amazement as the two riders alighted from their farouche and stepped across the square to shake hands with a small, blue-winged girl who was known to none of them.
“Harlequin, Tarquin,” Vivienne said.
“Our enemy plagues your skies,” Tarquin said, and Vivienne heard his eerie doubled voice from his mouth and in her head.
“They are even more horrible than I imagined,” Vivienne said. “They took my friend.” Her shoulders sagged. “I think she’s dead.”
“We are here to help, Vivienne Small,” said Harlequin.
Vivienne, sensing the tension in the crowd, fluttered up onto the stone rim of the fountain and called out in the loudest voice she could manage.
“People! Cats! Please don’t be afraid. This is Harlequin, and this is Tarquin. They come to us from another world, where they are the sworn enemies of the vercaka, the terrible birds that attacked your city. These two … they have come to help you rid your city of these birds forever.”
As the people of the city stirred and murmured uncertainly, Miranda Templeton, the mayor of the City of Clocks, swept in from the Town Hall at the edge of the square, wearing a magenta-feathered hat of surpassing elevation. Baxterr emerged from among the legs of astonished onlookers and sat quietly beside Vivienne, while the cats of the city resumed their daily rituals of grooming and yoga and pretended that the dog did not exist.
“Clockians, one and all,” Miranda Templeton said in her compelling yet mellifluous voice. “Let us welcome these newcomers with our usual grace and generosity.” She tipped her spectacular hat to each one of the visitors in turn and invited them to follow her in the direction of the Town Hall.
“I propose that we convene the council at noon precisely,” she said. She turned to Harlequin and Tarquin and added, “And when I say noon, I—as the mayor—take my time from the Town Hall clock, which, as you can see, is mounted on the highest and most elaborate of our dreaming spires and is also the largest and loudest of any clock in the city.”
“I’m sorry,” Vivienne said, craning to look up at Miranda, who would have been tall even without her very tall hat. “Could we have a word in private?”
Miranda leaned down to the small girl with the fierce green eyes and blue wings.
“What is it?” she murmured.
“My name is Vivienne Small,” said Vivienne quietly. “This dog and I, we have our own quest. We have come to the city to find a door that leads to a gardener who is able to stop the worlds from colliding.” She indicated the world above, still pouring its icy waters into the Mabanquo River, although the flow had slowed to a large trickle.
“I do not know this gardener, Vivienne Small,” said the mayor. “But your name is well known to me, and I am sure if anyone can find such a person to aid our world in this time of peril, it will be you. Meanwhile I offer my home to you and your dog, for as long as you remain in the City of Clocks.”
Vivienne blushed a little and thanked the mayor. She said farewell to Harlequin and Tarquin, promising to meet with them later to discuss their plans. Then, with Baxterr at her side, she set off for the largest of the streets leading away from the city square, her gaze already assessing every door they passed.
“Nice job on the cat, doggo,” she said.
“Ruff,” said Baxterr.