Chapter 1:

An Odd Disappearance

Edgar woke up and looked out the window. Shifting his eyes to the nightstand, he was surprised to find that his clock was missing. His mother was shouting his name, so he hurried to dress. 

When he arrived downstairs, Edgar saw that Mother's face was white with shock. 

   "What's the matter, Mother?" he asked quietly. "Did something go wrong?"

   "Yes," she stammered, "yes, Edgar, yes! There isn't any clock to be found in the house and my timer is vanished! Now I am not sure how long my bread has been in the oven." She sat upon a low three-legged wood stool and buried her face in her hands. Edgar put an arm over his mother's shoulders to console her.

   "Don't worry, Mother. Maybe Father took them to the clocksmith."

   "He surely did not," she huffed indignantly. "Edgar, are you out of your mind?!"

   "Hush," he soothed, confused at her outrage, "I'm going to visit Zi-Zi and see what she knows about this." And with that, the boy retreated back upstairs. He wetted his sleek brown hair and parted it decently with a comb. Whenever he went to see Zi-Zi Mosley, he wanted to look his best.

   Softly hurrying downstairs, Edgar slipped out of the house by way of the back door. His feet were dancing, but his mind was preying on some fact that he hadn't one clue about. As he surveyed the small town, he noticed that the clock tower of the library was clockless. The same was true for every building, and people were huddled in large masses, whispering in awed tones about something. From within one crowd outside the general store, Edgar's friend Steven Kennedy came running. 

   "Edgar!" He panted. "Did you hear? All the time-keeping devices have suddenly disappeared! Just vanished! Nobody knows how or why and there are all sorts of dandy speculations, only it seems most are dominated by fantasia. Edgar—"

   He was not paying attention to Steven's frantic breaths and dramatic vocabulary. He pushed Steven away and shoved on through the gatherings despite his friend's pleas to stay. He made it to the walkway outside the storefront and disappeared to Zi-Zi's house, where he rapped loudly on her door. With a window for a mirror, he did his best to recompose his somewhat haggardly appearance, given to him by his escape from Steven and the townspeople.

   Shifting on his feet, he waited quite anxiously for Zi-Zi to answer. She did not. Edgar felt a bit disappointed, and scratched the back of his head, bumfuzzled . Where could she be?

   Suddenly, he heard a soft, sweet voice floating from someplace; humming a tune dizzyingly rich as honey.

   Edgar felt more hopeful and wandered to the backyard. To his dismay it was bordered by a high fence, but he was tall enough to peer over it. Looking into the garden, he sighted a familiar floppy straw sunhat from which flowed masses of thick, wavy, richly tinted auburn hair.

   "Zi-Zi!" Edgar called out. "Is that you?"

   The girl turned her face to him and smiled. Her pale complexion was clear apart from the faint pinkness of the cheeks and lips, and her eyes were a bright, springy green like the leaves of newly budding violets. 

   She rose from the garden she had been kneeling in prior to his call, and came to the fence.

   "Oh, Edgar," she breathed, "isn't it horrible? We don't have a single way to keep track of the time, apart from watching the sun, but you see now the sun has gone behind a cloud. What will we do?" 

   He shrugged and began hoisting himself up a nearby tree—this was the only way to get over the fence, for it had no gate.

   "Edgar Glen, are you insane? Just what do you think you're doing, climbing Ms. Flora Poplin's rose-tree in such a fashion! Come down this minute!"

   "Working on it." Her exclamation had caused him to lose concentration, and he pricked his finger on one of the rose-tree's thorns. 

   "Ouch!" He whipped the injured digit to his mouth to suck the wound, and that was the moment he was startled by yet another shout—which came from behind him.

   "Get out of my tree, young man, or I'll see to it myself that you do!"

   Edgar gulped. Ms. Poplin had seen him. He swung out of the tree with the agility of a monkey and sailed over the fence, landing safely on his feet in Zi-Zi's well-attended backyard while still assuring himself that he hadn't torn his pants. Facing Zi-Zi, he grew suddenly worried. Her face was so much paler than he remembered, and she had dark spots beneath her eyes as if she had not been sleeping well. Her hands were clasped, and she was evidently much troubled.

   "What has happened to our world, Edgar? And just overnight? What will become of us?"

   "Zi-Zi, you're tired. How about we go sit in the shade?"

   She seemed to lighten at this suggestion. "I have some lemonade and cake that I could bring out—it must be about noon-time now."

   Edgar's stomach growled, and he realized that he had gone without eating breakfast, and the walk to town was a long one even if he had never noticed it. Still, it could not possibly be noon. Edgar was convinced that Zi-Zi had gotten worked up enough to forget it was morning, that was all. But who could turn down cake? He certainly never could, even if it was not the most wholesome thing to eat for breakfast.

   Zi-Zi brought the cake—a round, beautifully golden angel food cake with little June strawberries freckled upon it. The lemonade was in a tall glass pitcher, sparkling all yellow as if it were there to replace the hidden sunlight, with chunks of ice and lemon slices bobbing cheerily about. Beside the pitcher were two tall glasses, and two plates, forks, and a knife to cut the cake—and all these things were attractively arranged on a silver tray which Zi-Zi carried in her pale, slender hands, and she set it upon an iron lace patio table with grace, gesturing for her guest to sit. Edgar eagerly did so, and Zi-Zi cut a slice of cake for each of them, and poured the lemonade. They ate and drank in silence at first, until Zi-Zi began to think about their missing timekeeping devices again and felt she had to speak.

   "Why did they go missing?" She queried, forgetting to fully explain what her question was about. Edgar laughed at this.

   "What are you talking about, Zi-Zi?"

   He noticed that she hesitated, and it worried him. Could she not explain? Was she not well?

 
   "The clocks, watches, timers, sundials—all of it. Why did they disappear so suddenly? I am lucky to have made this cake last night."

   "It is very odd," he admitted, nodding. "My mother was all in a fluster about it this morning when I arrived for breakfast, but there was none to be eaten—she had burned the bread, and not by her own fault. She did not remember how long she'd had the bread in there, and that's all.

   "Do you suppose this means it will get bad enough to where we have no bread for awhile, Zi-Zi? Or cake?"

   "I'm tempted to lean to the thought, Edgar," she nodded sadly.

   He rose from his seat, suddenly looking very determined. 

   "Unless we can find a way to calm the town, there will be nothing but chaos."

   Zi-Zi instantly looked more tired and weak than ever. 

   "You are saying that we are the ones who can do this. How are you certain?"

   Edgar's cheeks blushed crimson with abashment, for it was upon hearing her words that he realized he hadn't bothered to back up his protest. "Well, you may think this is silly...for all it's really an old myth if it is anything else...but there is a legend of sorts I read about in a very old book. It described a period over a certain town on the earth when Father Time decided to take their time away from them, and the things that helped them keep track of it—as a test."

   Zi-Zi was intrigued, and she leaned forward on her slender arms, looking weaker and still more fragile. "Please, tell me the story."

   And so he began:
   "When it came right for the test to be performed, Father Time sent his Legions—led by his righthand man Fraon—to capture every device used by mankind to keep track of time. And when all had been collected, Fraon and the Legions returned to the mountain where Father Time resides, keeping everything working steadily. But now, the time had been messed up, see. People were aging faster than they should. Some grew up the day they were born. A five year old girl could grow up in an hour and marry a man who could have been her father in a normal world. 
   "But see, Time was irrelevant. Thus, age became likewise—for without proper measurement of time, and with Father Time messing with the world's inner clock, everything was not as it should be. It was chaos. But then, one night out of nowhere, a scroll was left at the doorstep of a young man."

   "What was in the scroll?" Zi-Zi's eyes were like glittering green abysses, so intrigued was she by the myth.
   "It was a special message—one that said the young man had been chosen specifically to lead his fellow humans out of this chaos—but the only way to do that was to confront Father Time."

   The girl's dainty eyebrows lifted in shock. "Confront him? But that's—" 

   Edgar ignored her and continued, "Now, the myth claims Father Time to be a deity—at least, that's how he was depicted—but he was not. He simply ran the clock within the world, and subsequently everything that revolves around time.

   "To confront Father Time would take much strength, courage, and perseverance. But the young man could not come alone, for he had to have a companion along. A companion who held a certain piece of knowledge that the young chap did not know.

   "Which, in this case, was the solution to making Father Time change everything back to normal. The young man had to seek for a person who knew such things. And he did."

   "What did he do then?"

   "Well, after finding his companion, they embarked on a quest."

   "A quest to find Father Time on his mountain?"

   "Yes—and I believe that you and I shall have to do the same."