Alice and the Tower of Mislaid Intentions

Alice and the Tower of Mislaid Intentions
(in which hats, spells, and perfectly good teacups go missing)

Chapter One: The Return of the Box

Alice was polishing her teaspoons in alphabetical order when the box came back.

It rolled into the kitchen without knocking, performed a clumsy pirouette, and bumped into the jam cupboard with a quiet thud of mystery. This time, it had four mismatched wheels, three stickers from unknown countries, and a smug little flag that read:

“HANDLE WITH POSSIBILITY.”

Alice dried her hands on her apron and approached it cautiously.

The box quivered.

Then, without warning, the chimney exploded.

A shower of soot, sparking spell fragments, and a startled meatball rained into the room. And from the flue, upside-down and giggling, tumbled Harry Rotter, girl wizard, broomstick botherer, and recurring agent of delightful panic.

She landed in a heap, her scarf wrapped around her ears, and blinked up at Alice.

“I was chasing a hunch,” she said, pulling a soup ladle from her pocket. “It turned into dinner.”

Alice sighed. “Is this going to be another one of those weeks?”

Harry’s eyes lit up. “The very best kind.”

The box burped.

They both turned to look at it. Something had begun unfolding itself from the lid: a map made of folded parchment and possible outcomes, accompanied by a small brass compass with only one hand, which pointed stubbornly to the left no matter how they turned it.

Written on the side of the compass was a warning:

“SIDEWAYS IS FOR THE BRAVE.”

The hat, now shaped like a disgruntled pigeon, flew down from its perch on the coat rack and landed on Alice’s head without permission.

“This feels familiar,” it muttered.

Harry picked up the map. “According to this, we are somewhere near the Edge of Assumption, not far from the Sea of Ongoing Regrets. And this,” she pointed to a red X labelled “Eventually is where we’re meant to go.”

“I don’t remember planning to go anywhere,” said Alice.

“You didn’t,” said Harry. “That’s why we’re perfect for it.”

The box shuddered again and opened like a flower.

Inside was a note, written in curly gold script on a biscuit wrapper:

TO: THE UNQUEEN AND HER UNAUTHORIZED PLUS-ONE
RE: CONTINUED INTERRUPTIONS IN REALITY

The Tower of Mislaid Intentions has begun its seasonal unravelling.
Pigeons have lost their ambition. Clouds are drifting backwards.
Most importantly, no one is finishing anything.

Report to the Department of Abandoned Missions at your earliest disconvenience.

Kindly bring your own consequences.

Alice read it twice. “What’s a mislaid intention?”

The hat straightened itself into something professorial. “It’s when you meant to do something, but the idea wandered off and became a librarian in disguise.”

Harry was already stuffing jam sandwiches and reversible socks into her bag. “If the Tower’s involved, it’ll be serious. Or silly. Or both. Possibly at the same time.”

“Do we have to go immediately?” Alice asked.

“No,” said the hat. “You get to.”

And so they did.

They packed the compass (still pointing sideways), the hat (grumbling softly), a perfectly good teacup (just in case), and the box itself, which now had the words

“IN CASE OF ESCALATION, PLEASE PANIC CAREFULLY”
stitched into its lid.

As they stepped out the front door, the sky rippled gently like it was trying to remember something, and the wind whispered a half-finished poem that ended in a sneeze.

“Which way is the Tower?” Alice asked.

Harry held out the compass.

“Sideways.”

And off they went.

---

Chapter Two: The Department of Abandoned Missions

The sideways compass did not so much point as insist. It dragged them through meadows of dithering, past hedgerows made of half-baked plans, and down a road that sometimes forgot to be there at all.

The wind smelled faintly of forgotten errands.

The first sign that they’d arrived came in the form of a large, tilted door in the middle of a hillside, with no building attached. Painted on it, in looping script:

Department of Abandoned Missions
“Open with caution. Or don’t. Up to you.”

“Well, that’s not ominous,” said Harry, knocking once, twice, and then poking it with her wand. The door groaned, hiccupped, and fell flat with a puff of bureaucratic dust.

Beyond it was a long, dim corridor lined with filing cabinets that twitched when stared at too long. Each cabinet was labelled with things like:

• “Quest to Find the Spoon of Destiny (Misplaced)”
• “Attempt #72: Clean Under the Bed”
• “Operation Save the World, Step 2 (Never Started)”

They were greeted — if that’s the word — by a clerk who looked like she’d once been a brilliant idea and then been put on hold. Her hair was made of paperclips. Her spectacles contained small clocks, both showing different Tuesdays.

“Name?” she asked, not looking up.

“Alice,” said Alice.

“And Harry Rotter,” said Harry, proudly. “Wizard. Girl. Trouble.”

The clerk sighed as if she’d been holding her breath since the prologue.

“Purpose?”

“We’re following a box,” said Alice.

“And a compass that points sideways,” added Harry.

“That’s not a purpose,” the clerk muttered, shuffling her notes. “That’s a lifestyle.”

She waved them through a rusting turnstile made entirely of tangled red tape.

They stepped into a vast chamber full of unfinished stories, where ghostly outlines of missions hovered mid-sentence. A sword floated without a hero. A half-written prophecy scowled at them from a corkboard. In one corner, a dragon sulked with its feet in a bucket, muttering, “They were meant to arrive last Tuesday.”

A voice echoed overhead, seemingly from the ceiling itself:

“ALL FORGOTTEN PURPOSES TO BE DEPOSITED IN BIN A.
EMOTIONAL RESONANCE MAY BE RETRIEVED WITH A VALID FORM E-404.”

“Where do we start?” Alice asked.

Harry opened a drawer labelled ‘Pending’ and out fell a small, nervous envelope. It unfolded itself carefully and began reading aloud:

“To whomever is temporarily paying attention,

If you are reading this, you may be just foolish enough to take on
the mission we misplaced under the sofa of destiny.

Proceed to the Corridor of Interrupted Outcomes.
Take two lefts and a why.
Watch out for the pigeons of doubt.”

It bowed, politely coughed, and vanished in a puff of helpfulness.

“I like this place,” said Harry. “It’s got character. And vague threats.”

Alice, however, was already watching something strange.

A map, suspended mid-air, had begun shifting. Lines redrew themselves. The compass buzzed. A new route appeared — leading not forward, but down.

Down into the depths of the department, where abandoned things didn’t just gather dust.

They gathered intent.

And somewhere far below, something whispered.

“Not everything forgotten stays lost.”

---

Chapter Three: The Corridor of Interrupted Outcomes

The stairs behind the filing cabinet were far too steep for comfort and far too soft for stone. They squished slightly with each step, as if made from old intentions and carpet samples. The air grew warmer, heavier, and scented faintly of toast that never quite popped.

“I don’t like how everything feels unfinished,” Alice said.

Harry lit her wand. “Unfinished things have a certain charm. Like soup that hasn’t decided what flavour it is.”

At the bottom, they found a corridor so long that it began before it ended. The sign above it blinked in uneven glowing letters:

THE CORRIDOR OF INTERRUPTED OUTCOMES
Warning: Results may occur sideways, briefly, or not at all.

Doors lined the walls — hundreds, maybe thousands. Each had a plaque bearing a phrase that felt vaguely familiar:

• “Almost Graduated”
• “Proposal, Draft Four”
• “The Conversation We Never Had”
• “The Spell That Got Away”

Some doors were open by an inch, others sealed shut with ribbons of indecision. Several were spinning slowly, as if trying to make up their minds.

In the middle of the corridor perched a plump pigeon wearing half-moon spectacles and a small sash that read:

“Advisory Avian — Level Two.”

He squinted at Alice, then at Harry, then at the sideways-pointing compass.

“Ah. Compass people. Lefties,” he cooed. “We don’t get many of those anymore.”

Alice bowed politely. “We’re following a trail of mislaid intentions.”

The pigeon nodded gravely. “A risky path. Full of forks, most of which are spoons. If you get lost, speak a truth you’re not sure about. That often resets the corridor.”

“I’ve never been particularly certain of anything,” Harry offered cheerfully.

“Good,” said the pigeon. “That’s the spirit.”

They walked on, the corridor reshaping slightly with each step. Occasionally, a door would open a crack to reveal an echo: a childhood ambition, an unfinished painting, a song that paused at the second verse.

At one particularly dusty junction, a door swung open wide.

Inside, a scene flickered — Harry, halfway through an unfinished broom-race from years ago, chasing a girl who looked suspiciously like herself. The echo waved.

“I meant to win that,” Harry muttered.

“And did you?” Alice asked.

Harry shrugged. “I got distracted by snacks.”

The compass buzzed suddenly. A glowing thread had appeared, snaking along the wall toward a door labelled:

“INSTEAD OF WHAT WAS MEANT”

Alice placed her hand on the knob. “Do we open it?”

“Of course,” said Harry. “That’s where all the best stories live.”

The door creaked wide, and they stepped through—

—into darkness, then light, then somewhere curiously in-between.

They had arrived in a new place. A different world entirely.

One where everything was vaguely familiar but slightly wrong, where memory swirled with imagination and facts occasionally wore fancy dress.

A sign floated into view, gently spinning.

Welcome to the Kingdom of Somewherelse.
Population: That Depends.

Alice looked at Harry.

“Did we mean to come here?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said, eyes twinkling. “But now that we’re here, let’s mean it.”

And on they went.

---

Would you like an illustration of the Corridor of Interrupted Outcomes, with its peculiar doors and advice-giving pigeon?

Or shall we move on to Chapter Four: The Kingdom of Somewherelse?

To be continued.