That was when Dad left.
Awnty Awnie wrapped both arms around her. Little Tin sucked her thumb as she spoke hoarsely.
“He has a great big sleigh with special reindeer that can fly. The one in front is the biggest and baddest of them all. He’s the one who guides them, who protects them.” She squeezed and whispered, “Ronin.”
Tin had forgotten these stories. Awnty Awnie told them to her when she was little. Tin thought she was just making them up because no one ever sang songs about them. There were no cartoons, no movies about a reindeer named Ronin or Flury the Snowman or an elven named Jack .
“There’s a special tool on the sleigh that Santa uses to stop time. That way he can get around the world in one night. He stops at every house with his bag of gifts. It’s not like other bags, though. When he gets to the Christmas tree, he reaches in and pulls out just the right present for the children who live there. It’s not always what they want. It’s what they need.”
“Is it heavy?” Little Tin asked without taking out her thumb.
“That’s a good question. Santa has many, many helpers for heavy things.”
“Elfs?”
“There are elven, yes. But the real heavy things are taken care of by the abominables. These big, burly snow creatures.” Awnty Awnie’s voice turned gruff. “They’re more like snowmen, but not men or women or the kind with three snowballs. They have a heart right here.”
She tickled her chest.
“It’s round and metal and special. It’s really who they are, because it makes a snow body. They load up the sleigh and protect the elven.”
Little Tin watched the sky with big eyes, hoping to see the sleigh streak past before she fell asleep. Awnty Awnie hugged her tightly and rocked side to side. They both watched.
“Hynie?” Little Tin said. “Do you think he’s real?”
Hynie, Tin thought. I used to call her Hynie. Always thought she was trying to say ‘Honey.’ Awnty Awnie was her Hynie.
“What do you think?” Awnty Awnie said.
They kept watching. Little Tin’s eyes grew heavy. Tin remembered that feeling, of sinking into Awnty Awnie’s lap all warm and safe. Sometimes falling asleep as she hummed a song.
It was the best place in the world.
“Bedtime,” Mom announced. “Teeth brushed and in the covers, little girl.”
“I want a story.”
“Hynie already told you three. Come on, the sooner you’re asleep, the sooner Santa gets here.”
“Let’s go, little chicken.”
Awnty Awnie laughed her high-pitched laugh that made Tin smile. Tears immediately welled up. Little Tin scooted across the room in footy pajamas without taking her thumb out. Awnty Awnie held onto the chair a minute longer.
Mom was keeping busy.
Sweeping the floor and straightening stockings, arranging Santa’s cookies on the plate. She wasn’t smiling, not that year. Awnty Awnie just watched until she was close enough to reach out.
“You all right?” she said.
Mom nodded grimly. They hugged for a long time. Awnty Awnie rocked back and forth. Her love was endless.
“I’ll check on Tin,” Awnty Awnie said.
Gingerly, she slid on her black and white striped slippers and walked out of the room. Mom sat in the warm chair and looked up at the sky. Tin wondered if she was watching for the sleigh, hoping to see it deliver hope. Or if she was just waiting for this Christmas to be over. Tin wished she could hug her, but it just wouldn’t be the same as Awnty Awnie’s hug.
Nothing ever was.
In the back of the house, Little Tin was in bed. She was lying on her back. Her eyes were barely open. Tin knew she was trying to stay awake, hoping to hear the reindeer land on the roof. Awnty Awnie used to say that if she listened carefully, she could hear their bells before they arrived.
“Hynie?” Little Tin said. “I’m scared.”
Awnty Awnie closed the bedroom door. She carried a bag to a rocking chair. It creaked under her weight.
Little Tin didn’t know why she felt scared. It was just a feeling in her stomach. A feeling that stayed with her a very long time after her dad didn’t come back. She was too little to understand what that meant or why Mom was so sad.
She just felt scared.
“I have something for you,” Awnty Awnie said. “Santa said I could give it to you a little early. I don’t think Mom will mind.”
Awnty Awnie bent over and the bag rustled. Little Tin turned her head on the pillow. It was taking Awnty Awnie a long time, but then a little head appeared at the edge of the bed. The eyes were big and the hair wild and frayed. The fabric was purple. Awnty Awnie and Little Tin didn’t hear Tin whisper.
“Monkeybrain.”
Awnty Awnie tucked him into the covers and wrapped the long, gangly arms around Little Tin’s neck, patting the purple monkey on the head.
“He’s special,” Awnty Awnie said. “He’ll keep you safe when I’m not around. When you feel scared or nervous or sad, he will always love you.” Awnty Awnie kissed her on the forehead. “Like I do.”
The pendant around her neck dragged over the covers. She stayed close and began to hum. It was never words she used, just a song she hummed at bedtime. A song Tin had forgotten about.
A song that did have words.
“Goodnight, little chicken.”
Awnty Awnie kissed her again and slowly, carefully, made her way out of the room, leaving the sounds of a sucking thumb behind. Tin stood at the foot of the bed. Monkeybrain was nestled into Little Tin’s shoulder. Years later, she would give the purple monkey to Pip, and she’d tell her the same thing.
When you feel scared or sad…
Tin crawled onto the bed. She put her arm around the little girl. Nothing moved or shuffled beneath her. This was a vision. A memory she couldn’t change. But a memory she wanted to never forget again.
She lay there for a long time. The lights in the house were turned off. Not a creature was stirring. Tin closed her eyes with Pando’s song in her head. And just before she dreamed of sugarplums and candy canes, she heard the bells.
And reindeer hooves.
25
Someone was breathing in Tin’s face.
Her eyes broke the seal of sleep. Pip was tickling her nose.
“She’s awake, Momma!”
Pip scampered off, little footsteps pounding the hardwood. Tin rolled over and hit the back side of the couch, the sleeping bag around her legs. Cotton candy stuffed her head; every joint in her body ached. Her mouth dry as sand.
She stared at a little door on the ceiling.
An avalanche of memories were stuffed in the closet of her mind, hiding in the dark corners while she clawed her way back to the present moment.
Why did Soldier fall out of that door?
A soft lump was beneath her. She reached behind the small of her back. Piggy stared at her with black shiny eyes and stiff legs. Her snout was dirty like she’d been rooting for grubs.
Clyde was on the other couch. He was in the corner, legs out, eyes blank. Just like a stuffed bear should look. Tin sat up, her brain swishing in sand. The room wasn’t trashed. The couches weren’t broken. There weren’t holes in the wall or broken picture frames on the floor.
“Santa came!” Pip skipped into the room. “He found us!”
Monkeybrain’s hands were around her neck. He was bouncing on her back as she danced and twirled. She grabbed a big present and put it on Tin’s lap. Other presents had already been opened. Boxes and shredded wrapping paper were around. The sad little tree was on its side. Pine cones and popcorn were scattered on the floor. Soldier was in front of it.
Scuffed and broken.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Tin said.
Mom put a hand on her forehead. “You felt warm and sounded unsettled. Sleep did you good. How you feeling?”
Tin was sore and sleepy, like she’d been camping for a month. “What happened to the tree?”
“It fell over last night. No one heard it. We were all knocked out.”
“Santa did it,” Pip said. “It was an accident.”
“You opened presents without me?” Tin said.
“Just a couple,” Mom said. “To hold off the restless one.”
Pip was dancing like a girl who’d eaten the entire gingerbread house. Monkeybrain swung behind her like a child just trying to hang on.
“Pretty impressive,” Mom whispered. “Putting Monkeybrain back together like that. I thought maybe you got up in the middle of the night; that’s why you were so tired. Good job. He looks exactly the same.”
A vague memory of Monkeybrain came out of the dark corners, of him ripped from the tower and fluttering stuffing.
Stuffing.
“Where was he?” Tin asked.
“Next to Soldier.”
“Look who else is back?” Pip danced behind the fallen tree. “Baby Doll!”
She skipped around the tree. The Christmas spirit had the pedal on the floor and Mom was letting it go. Tin looked around the room. There were no other toys. Nothing bigger than a baby doll.
No life-sized panda bears.
“Where’s Corey?” Tin asked.
“Outside with Oscar,” Mom said. “They’re flying a drone.”
“He was happy,” Pip said. “Almost cried.”
“You sure you’re feeling all right?”
Mom put her hand on Tin’s forehead again. She felt sluggish and stuffy, but not sick. It was just hard to sort out her memories. Like the last couple of days were soup.
“Have I been sick?” Tin asked.
“I don’t think so,” Mom said. “Although you’ve been acting strange.”
Mom looked at her with a penetrating stare that was more concerned than suspicious. Maybe it was Rocky Mountain fever or Lyme disease or some other parasite you could pick up from nature.
Pip dropped a stocking on the couch. “Santa stuffed it. I got Pop-Tarts and licorice and lip gloss and these little things that you put in the oven to shrink…”
By the looks of it, Tin’s stocking had the same things. Slowly, she pulled them out, and Pip took them from her, announced what it was, and put them in a pile by the unopened presents.
“Where’s Pando?” Tin asked.
Mom looked around, eyebrows furrowed. “Who?”
“The, uh…” She pointed at a picture on the wall.
“Oh, the panda. I don’t know.”
Tin reached into her stocking for the Pop-Tarts. They were cinnamon. Pip cheered and started to open them. Mom stopped her. That was enough sugar. Pip trotted around the tree and sang about Pop-Tarts.
A bell rang.
“I think there’s one more thing in there,” Mom said.
Tin felt nervous. The sound of the bell threw light in the closet of memories—the stampede of toys, the whirling storm, the frayed fabric. She looked at the photo on the wall, the one with Pando and Wallace. Wallace’s eyes were still blue.
Was it all a dream?
She reached to the bottom of the stocking and felt the fabric of something wadded up. The stocking folded inside out as she pulled it out. It was green with a white fuzzy hem. And a little bell on top.
“Story!” Pip shouted.
Mom asked Pip to go get her boots and coat. They were going outside to burn off some Christmas spirit. Tin stared at the green hat, the memory of Wallace—er, Pando in Wallace’s body—leaning over to put it on her. The fabric was thin and the stitching coarse. She put her hand inside it. A tag was attached to the seam.
Made in China.
“You all right?” Mom said.
The fog was lifting. She remembered the last gift Pando promised her before putting the hat on her for the last time. The memory she’d never forget.
Tin smiled. “Yes.”
“Good. Well, put some clothes on. Let’s go find Oscar and Corey. I’m sure they want to come open the rest of the presents.”
Mom corralled Pip in the direction of the kitchen. Tin sat for a moment longer. When she stood up, the aches had vanished. She felt lighter than before. The worries gone. She was still wearing cargo pants. Mom hadn’t noticed the dirt stains and the rips in the knees.
There were crumbs in the pocket.
It was just a dusting of gingerbread, the remains of a cookie that she had been toting around. Gingerman, however, was gone. Maybe he fell out.
Run, run as fast as you can…
She picked up Soldier standing rigid at the fallen tree. He was nicked and scratched and half-broken. It wasn’t Wallace who made him. Pando knew someone would have to stay behind and protect the toys. Maybe he was planning to make an entire army before he left. Turned out, one was enough.
He didn’t squirm in her hand or move when she put him back down. She didn’t say anything.
But she did salute.
Pip had already run down the path.
Mom wrapped the scarf around Tin’s neck and zipped up her coat. She felt her forehead one last time. Tin recalled the way Mom looked in the vision, that Christmas night when things were so heavy and Awnty Awnie was telling stories. It was a lot to ask from a single mother. Tin hooked her arm through her mom’s arm.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“For what?”
“For everything.”
Together, step for step, they followed Pip’s footsteps, laughing as they squeezed between trees and slipped in the snow. The stage was still a graveyard of memories buried in virgin snow.
Pip came running at them, arms flailing, Monkeybrain bouncing. She slammed into Mom.
“It’s-it’s… you got to see—”
“Slow down,” Mom said. “How many Pop-Tarts did you have?”
“They’re there, Momma!”
Mom let Pip pull her down the path. The clearing was up ahead. Tin slowed down. She didn’t want anything to change, none of the excitement to return. This was perfect as it was.
Something was buzzing.
There was no feeling of magnetism, no swirl. The clouds peeking through the branches weren’t blurry from an electromagnetic field. The tower didn’t look or feel like it was on. The whirring was above her.
A drone.
Corey was shouting for Oscar to watch the landing. Tin stopped on the edge of the clearing. The drone was hovering its way to the ground. Corey landed it near the trees, next to tracks in the snow. They were large for deer or moose. No one seemed concerned by the size, even the ones that were as big as snowshoes.
The biggest and baddest of them all.
The drone revved up again and soared above the trees. Corey watched it with his mouth open. Mom was talking to Oscar in the middle of the clearing. They were staring at the tower. Oscar was pointing, explaining. Something was gathered around the footings. Tin couldn’t make out what it was at first; then a chill swept through her.
The toys.
Hundreds of them were lined up like a photo opportunity. Pip skipped and spun in front of them like she was performing.
Still and inanimate, they watched.
“The weirdness never ends.” Corey wandered over.
He was watching the monitor on his control pad. The drone hovered near the tower. The door at the top was open. There wasn’t much inside, just a post with a lever.
It had been pulled down.
“You left Clyde,” Tin said.
“Who?”
She unzipped her coat. Piggy and Clyde were tucked inside. He frowned in confusion. Why would he drag that outside? It was a stuffed bear. He went back to steering the drone around the tower, his tongue between his teeth, and swung the view over the crowd of toys.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said. “It might sound weird.”
“Weird is the new normal.”
“Did they ever move?”
“Who?”
She gestured to the toys. He did a double take. “You’re weird. Watch this.”
He did something with the drone, but she didn’t ca
re. Mom was calling and waving her arm. Tin went to meet her. Pip was singing a song. The words weren’t familiar, but the tune was. It was the song that was in her dreams, the one that kept them asleep. The one Awnty Awnie used to hum. Pip just couldn’t remember the words.
Tin would never forget.
“Did you bring them out here last night?” Mom pointed at the toys.
Tin shrugged. “Maybe.”
“You are a good sister. No wonder you were tired, putting Monkeybrain back together and then this. Don’t think I forgot you went outside at night when everyone was sleeping, though. This is the wilderness, hon. Strange things can happen.”
Tin smiled. “Yeah.”
“Momma, momma.” Pip came bouncing toward them. “Can we do a picture and put it on the wall like Uncle Wallace?”
Tin’s smile grew wider. She liked the sound of that. From now on, she would call him that too. Awnty Awnie kept a journal about him. She never forgot the man she fell in love with. And he still loved her.
Uncle Wallace.
The stairs had been dragged back to the trees. The tower was safe from an easy climb. The toys watched them approach with empty eyes. Tiny patches of white stuffing were snagged on the ground, but no one seemed to notice. The gorilla and the elephant, the lion and the zebra and hippo and snake and all the rest of them were there. None of them moved, but Tin still silently whispered.
Thank you.
Mom and Oscar stood in the middle. Tin leaned against her mom, and Pip stood next to her. Corey was next to his dad, tongue out and steering the drone. It hovered above them, the camera pointing down.
“You know,” Tin said, “we can stay here as long as you want.”
Mom put her arm around her. This was the weirdest Christmas anyone could ever have. And unforgettable.
“Look up,” Corey said. “Say Tinsley’s a kook.”
They looked up and said Merry Christmas. Then Pip did another dance. Later they would bring all the toys inside and put them around the lobby. They would leave them there when they went home so that when they returned, they would have someone to welcome them.
Toyland- the Legacy of Wallace Noel Page 21