Toyland- the Legacy of Wallace Noel

by Tony Bertauski

  “It’s here.”

  Tin traced her steps back to the entrance, fingers crawling over animal skulls and dusty oil paintings, tipping over tripods and wicker chairs and brittle wreaths. Corey followed like an eighty-year-old man afraid of snapping a hip. She was never much of a skater, but here she glided down the aisles, holding large objects along the way.

  She shoved toward the tree and bounced her way toward the front of the room, items rattling an obstacle course for Corey to step over and pick up. She took the steps up to the desk. The rack of scrolls. Most were yellow with age, some blueprinted. She reached for one in the center.

  The yellow ribbon.

  She threw it on the desk. The scroll was tightly wound and took some effort to lay flat. The smell of old paper crept over her.

  “This is it,” she muttered.

  Corey shuffled around the bend and stepped onto the non-slick treads. “Thank you,” he panted. “Who puts ice on a floor—hey, is that Pando?”

  The plan crackled. She was afraid it would explode into dust. It freshened the memory of when she was in the forest. The lines were sharper then, and the plan was cleaner. Now there were hand-scrawled notes and arrows and question marks, areas on the house circled, and interconnecting lines. Most of it was illegible, but she read the one label she remembered. It was in big block letters in the lobby. Only it didn’t say lobby.

  Toy Room.

  “Look.” She dropped her finger on the arc-shaped room. It was penciled in. “This is where we are right now.”

  “Looks like it wasn’t part of the original plan.”

  He was right. The lines were sketchy. It didn’t go with the rest of the architecture, either. It looked more like a loft thrown against the building.

  “What’s up with the walls?”

  He traced lines throughout the building. They were double lines with a gap between them. But not all the walls were like that. She’d heard Mom talk about load-bearing walls when they were remodeling. Tin didn’t know what that meant; she just assumed load-bearing meant thicker. These double-lined walls were something else. They traversed Toyland.

  “What do you think this is?”

  He slid his finger to the outside of the plan and tapped a circle that went around the entire building. She couldn’t remember if it was there in the forest. It wasn’t exactly centered on the plan, either.

  “Property line?” she said.

  “That’s not ten thousand acres.”

  They weren’t seeing something. She felt her back pocket. The fabric was warm again. When she had put the hat on, she didn’t just see things. She went there. The bell rang when she pulled the hat out of her pocket.

  Pando tipped over.

  “Ho.” Corey jumped back. “I almost had a heart attack.”

  The panda bear crumpled forward. It was wedged between the ornate armrests, the green button eyes staring at the floor. It startled Tin, too. She pushed the big bear upright. The fur was soft. It didn’t look anything like the zebra, no leaves or debris or spiderwebs.

  “What happened here?” she mused.

  “Are you asking the bear?”

  The answers were right in front of them. They just couldn’t see them. There were too many pieces from too long ago. If only Awnty Awnie were here to ask.

  “Put it on,” Corey said.

  “Huh?”

  “The hat. Put it on.”

  The hat had been telling her what happened. Was that a good thing? Mom wanted a normal Christmas. This wasn’t it so far. Maybe it would have been normal if she never found the hat. But they did find it, she did put it on, and now they were in a secret room with a map.

  “I can’t,” she said. “The noise.”

  “Noise?”

  “Both times I put it on, there was a noise. My mom said we were going home if it happened again.”

  “Put it on. Now.”

  She smacked his hands. “We need to find out what happened.”

  “Why? I thought we were here to open presents and then go home, not solve urban legends.” He slapped the hat’s bell. “Put it on and get this over with.”

  “That’s why you want me to put it on, so we can go home?”

  “Hey, you get what you want; I get what I want. We’re all winners.”

  Tin studied the hat. The answers were in her hand. There had to be a way of getting to them without scaring Mom. She went down the steps and somewhat gracefully slid down the aisle. She was going to get the answers.

  Just not here.

  Part II

  CALGARY, Alberta, Canada – Patricia Shephard, 37, owner of Patty’s Diner, reported an incident that occurred the morning of Christmas Eve.

  “He really, really liked fish,” Shephard said. “Ate everything I had in storage.”

  The stranger, who introduced himself as Mr. Doe, arrived on foot when Shephard opened in the morning. She was a little concerned at first, given his disheveled appearance. Given the long and bushy beard and the fact that he wasn’t wearing a coat would give anyone concern. But he looked hungry.

  “He wasn’t skinny,” Shephard said. “He had these wild green eyes that I couldn’t say no to.”

  They spent an hour in a conversation about Christmas. Mr. Doe appeared to be quite knowledgeable about the history and mythos surrounding the holiday and insisted he knew it firsthand.

  She grew concerned for his mental health when he insisted Santa Claus lived with elven on the North Pole. When asked why no one has ever seen them, he said they lived inside the ice and had technology that kept them invisible.

  Shephard called the authorities to check on his safety when he left on foot. He left Shepard with a Christmas present before suddenly leaving. “He fixed the coffee machine,” Shephard said. “So he knew something.”

  Any information regarding someone who knows of someone matching this description, contact the local authorities.

  6

  Tin and Corey were in the kitchen, coats on. Mom’s cheeks were smudged with flour. She licked icing off her thumb.

  “You two all right?”

  “Um.” Corey pointed. “Is that…”

  “Oh.” Mom laughed. “Yeah, we were just going to make a gingerbread house, but there were more boxes in the pantry. We just couldn’t stop. Like it?”

  They didn’t know what to say. It was like the world champion of gingerbread houses—three stories tall and spread across the long dinner table. Pip was on a stool, icing shutters on a wall. Monkeybrain hung on her back and looked over her left shoulder.

  “Your dad needs help,” Mom said to Corey. “He’s out back.”

  Tin studied all sides of the gingerbread monstrosity. It had odd angles that went in several directions with blackened squares on parts of the roof.

  “It’s Toyland,” Tin said.

  Mom pasted a wall in place. “What?”

  “Toyland. You guys just built a model of this building, Mom.”

  She stepped back and tipped her head. It hadn’t occurred to her. “It does sort of look like it.”

  “Sort of?”

  “Come on, it’s not hard. Just glue a bunch of weird angles and it looks like it,” Mom said. “Where have you been?”

  “We thought, um, we would hike down the driveway and pick up a bar of reception, check email, you know.”

  “Oh, don’t do that. We’re camping, hon.”

  “I promised Corey I’d text someone for him. It’s just a short hike, Mom.”

  “All right. Want to help while you wait for him to come back?”

  Pip was singing to herself, tongue between her teeth with one eye closed. The Santa hat kept sliding over her eyes. Tin peered into the open gingerbread rooms where the floors were checkered with colorful squares of candy.

  “You’re not supposed to be up there,” Pip said.

  “Where?”

  Pip just shrugged. Monkeybrain’s head nodded on her left shoulder. She was hyper-focused on getting a section of the roof just right. The
gingerbread man was leaning against the front door. His body was more icing than gingerbread. It looked like Pip had mixed icing with shattered crumbs to mold him back together. The head was pasted on top, the eyes round, the mouth a flat line. Tin reached for him.

  “Put him down!” Pip shouted.

  “Pip,” Mom said. “No, ma’am.”

  “Gingerman didn’t say she could pick him up.”

  “Tin’s just looking, hon. You need to apologize.”

  “It’s all right,” Tin said. “I’m still sorry for throwing Monkeybrain. So we’re even.”

  Tin put her arm around her little sister. Pip put the gingerbread man in a large room where the roof was off. Candy canes were used as posts on the front porch, which meant the room was the lobby. She had used red gumdrops for the fireplace.

  “Cool name,” Tin said. “Gingerman.”

  “He said he’s OG.”

  “Original gangster?” Tin laughed.

  “Original gingerbread,” she snapped.

  “Watch your tone, young lady.” Mom shook her head. “Someone might need a nap.”

  Pip didn’t look tired. She was focused on another panel of roofing, tongue out and eye closed. Monkeybrain was staring over her right shoulder.

  “Imagination is working overtime,” Mom said, then whispered, “Just do what she says.”

  Pip stood on the stool. Tin held her while she leaned over to slide a wall in place. Pip hummed that familiar song as she glued the seams. Monkeybrain was pressed between them. Tin tried not to look him in the eye.

  “Got to pee.” Pip climbed off the stool.

  Tin stood back while Mom prepared more gingerbread. They’d been at it all day.

  “Do you realize how amazing this is?” Tin said.

  “She became obsessed, our creative little monster. You should’ve heard her earlier, giving me instructions on how to put this section together then that one.”

  “How is she doing it?”

  She stood back and shrugged. “I don’t want to stop her. She’s been making up songs and telling stories about Gingerman and Gingerann, where they were going to live happily ever after.”

  “Gingerann?”

  “His girlfriend, I guess. Pip said she doesn’t live here anymore.”

  Gingerman looked like he’d been run over by Santa’s reindeer a dozen times. Tin put him back in the lobby before Pip caught her. Mom moved him against one of the walls.

  “She’s particular about where he goes,” Mom said.

  She started wiping the table. Flour dusted the floors, and globs of icing needed to be scraped off. There were still more boxes of gingerbread in the pantry, Mom told her.

  Pip skipped into the kitchen and counted her steps in singsong cadence then climbed on a stool to finish the wall. Monkeybrain was still looped around her neck.

  “If you want to play, and stay out all day, I know the place we can do it…” And then she hummed, bobbing her head. “La-la-la-lal-lahlala.”

  Tin had heard that song before. Those were the words.

  “She’s in a flow state,” Mom whispered. “Be back before it gets dark, all right? We’re going to eat dinner in the front room and tell Christmas stories. You have to make up your own story and tell it in front of the fire, so be thinking.”

  Tin washed her hands. “I’ll tell one about Gingerman and Gingerann.”

  Mom wiped the end of Tin’s nose. “You’d better not.”

  “Finished,” Pip announced.

  Tin helped her down. She stroked Monkeybrain, relieved he didn’t feel warm or squirm. He wasn’t even looking at her. Mom said it was time to start cleaning up, and Pip didn’t argue. Tin kissed her on the Santa hat and wagged the white fuzzy ball.

  “See you at dinner,” she told her.

  Pip was already singing. Tin was on her way out.

  “Oh, hey,” Mom called, “where’s the hat?”

  “Hat?”

  “Yeah, the one you were going to give to, uh…”

  She secretly pointed at Pip. Tin had taken it out of her back pocket and put it in her backpack before they came into the kitchen. She thought her mom had forgotten about it.

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  Mom pointed again. Pip, standing on a stool at the sink, stopped her song and spoke without turning.

  “Monkeybrain wants to know.”

  7

  “It’s like one degree out here,” Corey said.

  Tin had paced a rut across the front porch. Corey was wearing every bit of winter gear—coveralls, coat, ski mask and fat padded gloves. Tin was overheating.

  She started down the road.

  The car had been half-buried in a drift that Corey and Oscar dug out. The tracks of their arrival had been scrubbed and filled by snow.

  “What’s the hurry?” he said.

  “Let’s get to the end, come on.”

  “The end? That’s like a mile.”

  “Not all the way. Just come on.”

  “Oh, hey. Let’s catch a bar.”

  He had his phone out. If he was going to lag, she was going alone. The driveway was level and made for an easy pace. By the time she reached the fourth turn, he was nowhere in sight. The sky was already dusky. She would have to jog back to be in time for dinner. She unzipped her backpack. The green hat was warm.

  This won’t take long.

  The trees were dense. A narrow path went into the forest on the right side of the driveway. It arched into the dim shade. The path continued on the other side of the road. It looked a lot like where they had hiked the day before when she found the pig.

  “We’re close.” A patch of Corey’s bright red coat plodded around the bend. “You can send that text, too. To Brenda, remember?”

  She put her hand over his phone. His nose was bright red. She told him about how Pip was the one who built the gingerbread replica of Toyland and there weren’t any directions. And then Mom had asked about the hat.

  “You know what she said?” Tin shook the green hat. The bell rang. “Monkeybrain wanted to know where it was.”

  “She always says that.”

  “No, but this time it was different.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Monkeybrain told her how to build Toyland. A four-year-old can’t do that, Corey. Nobody can.”

  “Can we just do the… the thing?” He doodled at the hat and lifted his phone. “And then send a text.”

  The cold was beginning to seep through her sweatshirt, but her hand was toasty inside the hat. That was why they came out there, to put the hat on, not talk about gingerbread houses and precocious four-year-olds. Or staring monkeys. And Pip always says Monkeybrain wants to know. Corey’s right. Just that it feels different this time.

  “Okay,” she said.

  The hat couldn’t be making the noises in the house, but once was coincidence and twice was suspicious. If it happened three times, Mom was going home. Tin wanted to come outside to try it.

  Just in case.

  “Hey, is that a pig?”

  Corey nodded past her. Just beyond where the trail entered the trees was something pink. Tin put the hat in her backpack. She stepped onto the trail and felt a cold chill on her hand as she reached for it. The pig was in the trees again, like the last time.

  Monkeybrain is worried.

  “Before you go all conspiracy, just know that there’s got to be more than one pig,” Corey said. “Like thousands. And Wallace took pictures with all of them.”

  She squeezed the pig. She was just sitting there, out in the open. She looked down the trail. There weren’t any more stuffed animals like last time.

  Corey stumbled over to look at the pig. He yanked his hand back. “What was that?”

  “What?”

  “Really?” He gently waved his hand like searching for threads of a spiderweb. “Felt like I hit my funny bone. I thought maybe I touched a live wire or—”

  He did it again. This time he threw his glove off and shook his hand
like he’d put it in a beehive.

  “Oh man, oh man,” he said. “You didn’t feel that?”

  Tin stepped closer to where he had been reaching. There was nothing there. No wires, no spiderwebs. She reached out, slowly, and felt a tingle.

  “I feel something,” she said.

  “Something?”

  “I mean, it’s a little cold. Do it again.”

  “You do it.” He put his glove on.

  She moved her hand back and forth and felt the sensation crawl up her arm. She went down the trail. The sensation was consistent. There were no large trees growing along the path. A few saplings but nothing more than a few years of growth. It continued in a long, relatively smooth arc.

  Somebody cut the trail.

  Trails tended to follow the terrain, meandering in a path of least resistance. This was straight as far as she could see. But that wasn’t what was curious about it. No matter how far she went, she could feel the same cold energy just off the path.

  “Look. You see that?” She knifed her hand at the trail. “It’s sort of straight, but bending, right? Sound familiar?”

  “I mean, it, uh…” He closed one eye. “I got nothing.”

  She drew a big imaginary circle. He nodded along and then, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, drew his own circle.

  “Wallace wasn’t just doodling on the map,” she said. “He was drawing a path around the palace.”

  “And made it electric.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” She tapped her chin. “Try it again.”

  “Nope.”

  She put her hand out. It was still strangely chilly. There were invisible fences for pets, but it wouldn’t generate a cold force field five feet off the ground.

  “What are you doing out here?” Tin held the pig out.

  “What’d she say?”

  She shoved the pig in her coat. “It’s getting dark.”

  “She said that?”

  There wasn’t time to put on the hat, but suddenly she had other questions. She wanted another look at that map. If only she would’ve looked back toward Toyland.

  After she stepped through the force field.