The house of Kriselda Kronos was full of clocks. It was an old house. A little crooked in the course of time, it was located a little way outside the small town, which was in a constant hurry, on a hill. A multitude of tiny turrets adorned its roof, bats and black-winged crows nested under its gables. and black-winged crows fluttered around its crumbling chimney.