Toyland- the Legacy of Wallace Noel

by Tony Bertauski

  It was empty except for a large snow-white column.

  It was smooth and featureless and went from floor to ceiling. She pushed herself off the floor, no longer numb, no longer aching, as if she hadn’t run through the cold or scaled a metal mountain.

  Her footsteps echoed.

  The column was polished and cold as a winter stream. She could hear it humming. It sounded like water trickling inside a frozen waterfall. There were no control panels to open, no hidden buttons or switches.

  No lever.

  But the plans…

  “I don’t…” Her voice startled her. It echoed unusually loud.

  I don’t know what to do.

  She usually said that to her mom when things seemed hopeless, when there was nowhere else to turn. Now it was just her, all alone. And breathing wasn’t going to solve this.

  She had destroyed Monkeybrain for nothing.

  Gingerman was wrong. She wanted to believe she could make a difference, but she was just a kid dumb enough to climb up a dark metal tower in the middle of the night.

  A little bell rang in her pocket.

  The toymaker’s hat never transported anyone else who put it on. Just her. I didn’t find it. It found me.

  She held it up.

  Why did Wallace turn on the tower? Why did he leave? Who was taking the toys? The answers were in the hat.

  The truth. That’s all I ask.

  She closed her eyes and felt the fabric on her forehead, felt the cold bite on the end of her nose. Suddenly it was freezing cold again. The vibrations were back. She opened her eyes, expecting to see Wallace in the field or at his workbench. But she was alone.

  And in a tiny room.

  The floor was old gray planks. There was a black pipe in the middle—not a white column—and a wooden door was behind her. This was it. This was what the hut on top of the tower was supposed to look like.

  And I’m still wearing the hat.

  She opened the door. The night was still clear and cold, the stars still blurry through the tower’s force field. Her teeth oddly rattled from the vibrations.

  She wasn’t transported to another time and place. She was exactly where she’d been the entire time. But everything looked different. Hesitantly, she reached for the hat.

  The white room was back.

  When she put it on, the tiny room returned. Back and forth she went, putting the hat on and taking it off. The white room came and went each time. That was how it worked. Without the toymaker’s hat, it was the illusion of a large white room. But with the hat on her head, she saw everything exactly how it was.

  This is how it’s protected!

  She had been standing in the hut the entire time but wasn’t seeing it. No one would see the black pipe without the toymaker’s hat.

  Or the lever.

  She grabbed the T-shaped handle with both hands. It took all of her weight to budge it. She leaned back and groaned. The pipe revved up. The floorboards began to quake. The vibrations rattled her vision. She put all of her weight on it. The noises grew louder. She couldn’t hear herself breathing, couldn’t feel her legs anymore. She wasn’t even sure she was still holding onto it. She’d closed her eyes and puuuuuuuulled.

  And then she was screaming.

  All the noise stopped when the lever reached the bottom. The quaking, the vibrations… they were gone. Just her cries of effort broke the silence. She stood up and listened, waiting for something, anything to happen. She pushed on the wooden door. The hinges creaked.

  The stars were back.

  She felt four years old again, waiting for Santa to cross the sky. Her mom and dad in the other room and Tin in her footy pajamas, safe and sound. A special day just hours away.

  She believed.

  The hills were carpeted and the trees frosted. The land undulated beneath a blanket of snow. She circled around the tower, looking across a perfect Christmas Day, wondering what Wallace was thinking when he built this place. He didn’t want to share it, so he made it disappear.

  Not anymore.

  She made her way down the steps, slow and steady. She took her time crossing the beam. It was easier now that the structure wasn’t vibrating. When she reached the ground, she paused to look around. No shadows were waiting in the trees. No mysterious twisters.

  She walked back to Toyland.

  The stars were still sparkling. She didn’t know what would happen next. Maybe everyone was awake and wondering where she went. Mom would be angry and scared, but then the toy room would open and all the toys would march out because somehow the lever brought them all back to life. She hoped that would happen.

  A Christmas miracle.

  She crossed the front porch. Gingerman’s footprints dotted the snow. She paused with her hand on the door and muttered her wish again.

  It came true.

  The toys were on the floor—Piggy and Clyde, sitting there with arms out, waiting for her. Just sitting there. Pando, too. He was in front of the sad little Christmas tree. He stood up when she closed the door.

  “Hey,” she whispered, “you’re never going to believe what I did.”

  Something crunched under her boot. The floor was scattered with gingerbread crumbs. A broken arm was the only thing still intact. Then she heard a voice in her head. It wasn’t Gingerman.

  Pando walked toward her on two legs.

  I know exactly what you did.

  Part IV

  TADOULE LAKE, Manitoba, Canada – Thomas Kramer, 63, has lived in the country all of his life. This past Christmas, he saw something he’ll never forget.

  “I thought maybe I was dreaming,” Kramer said. “I was pouring coffee and someone was skating across the lake.”

  It’s rare for Kramer to see anyone in the middle of winter. It only happened once in his life, and that was a lost hunting party. After following the sighting on a snowmobile, he found a man on the shore.

  “He was setting up camp,” Kramer said. “The fool had on a T-shirt and strange boots, said his name was Mr. Doe. I figured as much, people out here are private. But I still don’t know how he got that far in winter dressed like that.”

  Kramer brought him back to the cabin, where he and his wife and their newborn shared Christmas dinner with him. The man said his name was Pan and that he was searching for someone.

  “He spoke of reindeer that could leap great distances and that, soon, one of them would find him because of a hat or something.”

  Kramer had intended on him staying the night so that he could give him a ride into town. The next morning, he was gone. But before he left, Kramer saw something else he’d never witnessed. His newborn had been suffering from colic for months.

  “We just couldn’t get him to sleep,” Kramer said. “And then this hairy little man just sang this song and we all got tired. Next thing, the baby’s sleeping.”

  Any information regarding someone who matches this description, contact the local authorities.

  20

  Something was wrong.

  It was how quiet the lobby was, the silence too complete. Nothing moved. Piggy and Clyde stared like empty toys.

  Pando was on his back legs, standing almost six feet tall, his stubby arms at the sides of his big belly. He walked through the shadows, stopping in the moonbeam that spotlighted Piggy and Clyde.

  His stitched mouth wasn’t smiling.

  A chill gripped her. One of fear and dread. Pando fixed a dull stare on her, the big green button eyes waiting. And it all came crashing down, the realization of what had been happening all this time. It was right in front of her.

  “You,” she said.

  No smile, no wink. Not a word in her mind.

  Tin approached under his watchful button-eyed glare. She swept up Piggy. She was firm, the fabric soft and the eyes empty. Just like a toy should be.

  An ordinary, lifeless toy.

  “Why would you do this?” she said.

  A grin finally broke Pando’s muzzle. It curled with the sardo
nic leer of something that crawled out from under the bed or hid in the closet.

  They have something I need.

  “You took their-their—”

  Life?

  She couldn’t say it. He took the life from the toys. They didn’t talk, but they moved and felt. They loved. And he took it from them.

  He studied Corey’s bear. Do you think they care? Mmm? That’s what they’re for. They were made to give.

  She snatched Clyde from him, closing her eyes, wishing her love would somehow bleed into them and wake them up again. She’d done it before. And Pando, too. He was nothing but a stuffed panda bear the first time she saw him in the loft.

  Or was he? she thought. Maybe they were all alive this entire time.

  “You got the key from the balloon. That was you, I saw it. I saw what you did to the toys.”

  And ever since Pando woke up, the toys had been shivering. She felt Piggy’s fear. Clyde’s too. All of them were frightened, but she didn’t know why.

  “They’re scared of you. And so was Wallace.”

  Wallace? Pando tilted his head and chuckled. You still don’t get it? The hat decided not to tell you? Then let me. He was scared, true. But not of me, silly girl.

  “Scared of what?”

  Of what we’d become.

  He paced toward the front door. A draft was leaking in. He quietly closed it, walking so fluidly, so humanlike. He picked up the gingerbread arm and broke it in half, letting the pieces bounce on the floor.

  “You’re the dangerous one.”

  He shook his arm. If he had fingers, he would’ve been shaking one at her.

  I’m not a monster! I’m not. I’m better than them. He waved at Piggy and Clyde. They could’ve all been like this, but he was too scared to let me do it. He’d seen what I created.

  “What are you?”

  I’m not a stupid toy.

  His smile sent shivers across the room. He tipped his head and leered darkly. If that stitched mouth could open, a tongue would wickedly flicker out.

  I’m just like you.

  “Me?”

  No, he didn’t mean her. He was walking on two legs, spoke so fluently, his gestures so natural. He didn’t mean her. He meant human.

  “Wallace was lonely,” she muttered.

  The amused smile grew to absurd lengths. His green button eyes partially hid in the black circles of fabric.

  The hat saved his life. He was a desperate man, a good man. He didn’t deserve to die alone on the North Pole. So the hat healed him, saved him, let him return. He made the world a better place, you can’t deny that. All these toys going out into the world to spread love, that was because of him. But do you think anyone understood that? Did they appreciate him?

  No.

  So he made Pando, the perfect companion. Better than human, better than you. Think of it, house after house, family after family, with a Pando to watch over them, to love them, to know them. Think of it!

  His voice left traces of a high-pitched squeal.

  But he played some tricks on me. Oh, yes he did. A lot smarter than I thought. Yes, indeed. He played tricks. He couldn’t see the wisdom of what we could do, and he left me here all alone! All alone in my Toyland! He thumped his chest. He locked them up, but he couldn’t stop me. That was his mistake, leaving me with all his powers.

  “What powers?”

  I need what they have because I’m not like them. He moved closer to Tin. I’m like you.

  She went around the sad little tree. The bell on the hat rang in her back pocket. There was laughter. Strangely maniacal and very human.

  He left to tell on me. Can you believe that? He thought the only way to make things right was to find the toymaker and give back the hat. The toymaker would put it on and make all of this go away, he thought. So he left me here, and look where we are, all these years later. No toymaker.

  “You took down the steps, didn’t you? You didn’t want anyone climbing the tower.”

  She had seen it in the vision, when Wallace launched the balloon and walked into the trees. The steps were still there. Wallace had even tried to turn off the tower. Pando once said the dangerous one had chopped down the stairs. She thought he was talking about Wallace.

  The dangerous one never left.

  We need the tower, silly girl. It was made for us, so we could live. But he couldn’t take the hat with him, so he hid it from me. He thought it would somehow protect the toys until he got back, but then these little ingrates tried to climb the tower. They even tried to burn it down.

  He went to the couches and pulled the blanket up to Pip’s chin.

  “What do you want from us?”

  I’m not going to hurt you. He left, didn’t he? So will you. The tower goes back on, and then you and Mommy and little girl here and all the rest can go home and never come back. But first, give me the hat.

  He sat on the armrest and held out his arm, patiently. Pip didn’t move. Tin noticed her thumb had fallen out of her mouth. Her lips quivered with each breath.

  “The hat,” she said, “it won’t work for you.”

  He couldn’t use the hat or he would’ve already done it. He said the hat chose to be found not the other way around. Why did it choose me? But still he wanted the hat. And she knew why.

  So I don’t have it, she thought.

  She started backing toward the door. He didn’t get up to stop her, simply lowered his beckoning arm and nodded, as if sighing.

  Do you want them to wake up?

  “What?”

  They’re nice people. I can see why you love them. He smacked Pip’s leg then shook Mom’s shoulder.

  They jostled about and moaned. Mom smacked her lips and pulled Pip closer. Tin remembered dreaming of snowflakes that sang a song. If you want to play, and stay out all day, I know the place we can do it.

  But Pando was lying. If she turned the tower on, they would never leave. And at some point she’d fall asleep and hear the song again. This time Gingerman wouldn’t be there to wake her.

  I don’t want to hurt them. Pando got up, patiently. I just want to live.

  She grabbed the hat from her pocket. The crumbs of Gingerman crunched under her boot. The door was only another step. He couldn’t get to her in time. The car was down the driveway and past the fallen tree. She could take the hat with her.

  But I can’t leave them, she thought. I can’t leave my family.

  The crumbs of Gingerman swirled into a neat little pile, pieces of his arms and legs crumbled around his flat head. Tin’s ears popped. The ornaments on the tree wobbled. Suddenly, there was a breeze in the lobby.

  The hat was ripped from her hands.

  It flew right to Pando. He stared at her with barely a grin, the hat fitting over his outstretched arm.

  “You.”

  Fear transformed in the crucible of anger. There was someone in the woods when the twister hit the tower. Tin had noticed Pando had a rip on his leg.

  I told you I was special. He stopped in the moonbeam. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to climb the tower again, just like before when the pile of crumbs snuck you out of here when I was busy. I’ll stop singing the song to your family, and they’ll wake up in the morning as if nothing happened. And then we can all have a talk. You, me, Mommy. Just a happy little family.

  He didn’t raise an arm or blink a button eye. But her ears popped again, and this time she felt electromagnetic waves pulse through the lobby. A picture fell off the wall but didn’t shatter. It floated in front of her, the one of Wallace and Pando. Just the two of them.

  How does that sound, Tinsley Ann?

  He knew her name. Her real name. Of course he did. He was in her head. That was how he communicated. If he could put thoughts in her head, then he could see what thoughts were there.

  I know all your secrets. It comes with the package. He opened his arms as if presenting himself. I know how you pick your nose when no one is watching, how you don’t brush your teeth, or
how you wish your sister would sometimes just go away. Or that your Mom would just be a normal mom.

  “That’s not true.”

  I know how you miss your father, but not the one who left you and never calls. You miss the imaginary father you never had, the one you pretend to have. A father who understands you, who has your back. I know that you sometimes put that stuffed dog in the chair, the one your real dad gave you when you had your tonsils taken out, and pretend it’s the imaginary Dad Charming. He gives you advice, tells you that you’re pretty, that he loves you—

  “Stop!” She shook her head, trying to scramble her memories.

  That’s why Wallace left, she thought. It was because of you.

  His mocking grin faltered. He saw that thought too. The picture shattered at her feet. An electromagnetic wave tore Piggy from her arms and into his grasp.

  You really think Santa is real? He shook the hat. The hat lies just like the toys. There is no Santa, silly girl. He’s not going to see us; he’s not going to save anyone. And even if he was, if he floated down here behind magic reindeer, what do you think he’ll do? Think he’s going to bring them all back to life and let you take them home like puppies? No. He gives little kids empty little things like this.

  Piggy flopped in his arms.

  Wallace made us all special, not Santa.

  He stalked nearer, towering over her. It was as if he’d grown since the day she first saw him, the day he trotted on all fours like a real bear. She stared up at his green button eyes glittering with life.

  I will count to three. You choose whether to be a good girl or a naughty one.

  She was trapped. There was no point in grabbing the hat. He could make a twister take it back. Even if she could wrestle Piggy away, she was empty. Her family was asleep. And a magic panda bear was glaring down at her.

  One.

  Something moved on the ceiling. She didn’t look at it directly, just watched it swing in the periphery. Pando didn’t notice because it was directly above him.

  The ceiling door.

  It was in the middle with no way up or down. Now it swung open and silently came to a standstill.

  Two.