While I’m on a roll here, let me tell you about the time it decided to rearrange the staircases while I was carrying every single book from Father’s library. And before you ask, yes, I was doing this willingly. Father needed them organized for a big project, and I thought, “Why not be helpful for once?” Big mistake.
Picture this: me, arms stacked with books so high I could barely see over the top, making trip after trip up and down the stairs. Everything was going smoothly—almost suspiciously smoothly, now that I think about it. By the time I was on my fifth trip, the pile of books was wobbling precariously, and Blizzard was following me, her little paws pattering behind like a tiny, ice-blue shadow.
I was halfway up the staircase when the tower struck. One moment, I’m climbing the stairs like a responsible helper, and the next, I’m standing in the middle of a spiral staircase to nowhere. I mean it. Nowhere. The stairs just stopped—no landing, no door, no nothing. Just me, a teetering stack of books, and Blizzard staring up at me like, “Well, this is dumb.”
“Very funny, tower,” I muttered. “Could you maybe not?”
Of course, the tower didn’t answer. It never does. But then the staircase started moving. Yes, moving. The whole thing shifted beneath me, spiraling upward like it had somewhere urgent to be. Blizzard yelped and scampered back down, leaving me clinging to the railing for dear life.
The books, however, weren’t so lucky. As the stairs jerked and spun, they toppled out of my arms, tumbling down in a loud, chaotic cascade. I winced as one particularly heavy tome smacked into the stone steps and landed with a thud at the bottom.
“Great!” I yelled. “That’s just great! Are you happy now?”
The tower, apparently, was not happy. The staircase finally stopped, depositing me in front of a door I’d never seen before. It was tall and foreboding, with intricate carvings that seemed to shift if I looked at them too long.
At this point, I should’ve turned around, gone back down (if the stairs even led back down), and told Father that I wasn’t cut out for library organization. But no, I had to be curious.
I opened the door.
Behind it was… an attic? I think? It was crammed with dusty furniture, crates, and random odds and ends that looked like they hadn’t been touched in decades. And there, sitting in the middle of the room, was a single chair. On it was a hat—a wide-brimmed, feathery thing that looked like it belonged to a particularly flamboyant wizard.
Blizzard, having bravely decided to follow me after all, crept in and sniffed the hat. She sneezed immediately, a puff of frost shooting into the air.
“That’s it,” I muttered, backing out of the room. “We’re done here.”
I slammed the door, turned back to the staircase—now miraculously normal again—and trudged down to pick up the books I’d dropped. Blizzard followed, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe we’d gone through all that nonsense for nothing.
By the time I finished hauling the books (no thanks to the tower), I was exhausted, covered in dust, and absolutely done with the day. When Father saw me dragging the last pile into the library, he raised an eyebrow.
“Did the tower give you trouble?” he asked, all innocent-like, as if he hadn’t built this temperamental monstrosity in the first place.
“Oh, no,” I replied, voice dripping with sarcasm. “The stairs moved, I dropped half the books, and I found a creepy attic with a cursed hat. Totally normal day.”
Father just nodded thoughtfully, like that was the most reasonable thing he’d ever heard. “Ah, the tower does that sometimes,” he said. “You get used to it.”
Used to it?! I’d like to see him haul books through a staircase rollercoaster and then end up in a mystery attic! Honestly, this place…
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