CHALLENGE POSED BY WIRROWAC's PLAYGROUND
Ms. Kittie and Lucy
Ms. Kittie reached the attic first, materializing on the last step. Head, then body, then tail unfolded from the shadows. Lucy barely blinked; she was used to it by now and barreled past her companion. “We’re not all evil.” A voice, disjointed and echoing, sprang from behind her. It came from Ms. Kitty. Lucy stopped mid-step. “What did you say?” “It’s important you know—before we go any further. The Elsewhere Folk… we’re not all evil.” Her throat tightened as the revelation hit her. “You’re…
“You’re…” Lucy whispered, her throat as dry as a biscuit.
Ms. Kittie’s tail swished like a punctuation mark. “Elsewhere. Technically, I’m on parole.”
Lucy stepped back. “Parole from where?”
“The Department of Narrative Disturbances. I may have bent a few plotlines. Nothing serious. Just a misplaced prophecy, a stolen moonbeam, and one incident with a flying squirrel.”
Lucy opened her mouth. Closed it. Then: “You talk.”
“I also knit,” said Ms. Kittie. “And break into attics with questionable teenagers.”
“I’m twelve.”
“Exactly. Prime age for meddling with ancient interdimensional forces.”
Just then, the attic creaked, not a normal, house-settling creak. It sounded like someone trying to sing underwater. A pile of antique hats in the corner began to rotate slowly, as if stirred by an invisible spoon.
Lucy pointed. “Why are the hats moving?”
“They’ve sensed your presence,” Ms. Kittie said. “They think you’re the new Keybearer.”
“I’m wearing flip-flops!”
“Fashion is irrelevant to hats. Come. We must enter the hat portal before it closes.”
Before Lucy could protest, Ms. Kittie leapt into the spinning pile of hats and vanished with a pop.
Lucy stared.
A top hat hiccuped at her feet.
She sighed. “Of course. Talking cats, sentient headwear, and I haven’t even had breakfast.”
And then she jumped.
The Hat Portal and the Department of Mild Confusion
The first thing Lucy noticed was the smell. Not brimstone, not roses, not even an old attic. It smelled like... warm woolen mittens and crisp apple strudels, and also of forgotten library books.
She landed with a flump on a gently wobbling beanbag, surrounded by what looked like filing cabinets on stilts. They scuttled about the room, opening and closing themselves with great self-importance.
A plaque overhead read:
Welcome to the Department of Mild Confusion
Please take a ticket. Wait to forget why you came.
Across the room, Ms. Kittie sat on a desk, sipping something pink from a martini glass.
“You made it,” the cat purred. “Excellent. Any broken limbs or lingering existential dread, Lucy?”
“I feel like a spoon that’s been licked by a ghost.”
“Standard side effect of interdimensional hat travel,” Ms. Kittie said. “It’ll pass by lunchtime.”
A raccoon, in a little pope hat, emerged from behind a pillar humming tunelessly. It waved at Lucy.
“New arrival?” it asked, its voice layered like it had swallowed a stack of newspapers. “Name, purpose, and current sandwich preference?”
Lucy stared. “I, er, I’m Lucy. I don’t have a purpose, and I’m twelve. I don’t do sandwiches. I do noodles.”
The raccoon gasped. “No purpose? No mission? No pre-approved destiny?”
Ms. Kittie cleared her throat. “She’s the potential keybearer. The hats spun for her.”
A murmur passed through the cabinets; one dramatically fainted.
The raccoon, with a bunch of Post-its, fluttered. “In that case, she’ll need Form Noodle and a guide. Preferably something with legs and emotional baggage.”
Ms. Kittie groaned. “Fine. I’ll do it. Again. But I want hazard pay this time, especially as I shall miss bingo night with the goblins. And a packet of those crispy lentil puffs.”
Lucy stood up, wobbling slightly. “Okay, someone tell me what’s going on. What is this place? What’s the Elsewhere Folk? And what does any of this have to do with me?”
Ms. Kittie raised a single brow-whisker. “You, my dear, are about to embark on a quest to save the Elsewhere Realms from narrative entropy.”
“Which is…?”
“Total story collapse. Nouns go missing; verbs rebel; characters forget what they’re for. It’s chaos. Ducks become metaphors; metaphors become ducks.”
Lucy blinked. “That sounds—”
“Amazing,” said Ms. Kittie, hopping onto her shoulder. “And completely ridiculous. Which is why you are perfect for it.”
A trapdoor opened under their feet with a polite ding, and they fell into Chapter Three.
The Forest of Misplaced Sentences
Lucy landed with a whump on a bed of scrambled punctuation; somewhere nearby, a semicolon tried to bite her ankle.
“Where are we?” She groaned, brushing off a clingy exclamation mark.
Ms. Kittie emerged beside her, utterly unbothered; now she too was wearing a tiny pope’s hat. “Welcome to the Forest of Misplaced Sentences. Watch your language; some of it bites.”
Lucy looked around. The trees were tall and brittle, their bark made of old receipts and bad poetry. Hanging from the branches were torn phrases, dangling like wind chimes:
“Never trust a crab with secrets.”
“The toaster screamed at dawn.”
“It was the best of slimes, it was the worst of slimes…”
“What is this place?” Lucy whispered as a tree sneezed out a limerick and a bush sulked in a corner.
“This is where all the forgotten, misplaced, or edited sentences end up,” said Ms. Kittie. “Every time a writer gives up mid-thought, or someone types ‘duck’ instead of, well, you know…, this is where it lands.”
A squirrel with spectacles and a clipboard scurried up, huffing. “Name?” it demanded.
“Lucy.”
“Purpose?”
“She’s the potential keybearer,” said Ms. Kittie, yawning. “Here to rescue the Narrative Core before it unravels.”
The squirrel frowned. “Oh. In that case, mind the saplings. The ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ tree has been reproducing again.”
Lucy ducked as a branch slapped down and muttered, “Suddenly, a shot rang out!”
“We have to reach the edge,” Ms. Kittie said. “There’s a forgotten punctuation pond. If we make an offering, the Guardian Comma might grant us a Map of Clarification.”
“I feel like I’m failing grammar in five dimensions,” Lucy muttered.
“You are. That’s why you’re perfect for this mission.”
Just then, a rustling came from deep within the grove. Sentences began to flutter from the trees. Leaves whispered.
Out of the shadows emerged a figure cloaked in footnotes and carrying a red pen like a sword.
“The Editor,” Ms. Kittie hissed. “Run.”
This story was conjured up in response to a prompt suggested by Wirrowwac’s Playground.
It was the best of slimes, it was the worst of slimes....