The Chronicles of Widget (Phoenix Rising)

by Angela Timms

  Gadget is here too, in our little house under the stairs. She is sleeping, unanimated and still. It is just me who can’t sleep. I can’t sleep because I am worried about everything.

  A robin fluttered into the front garden and sat on the edge of a flowerpot. His breast so red, he looked around for a moment, pecked at something and then flew off again.

  An idea came to me then. It had been marinating and developing for a while now. Ok lazy bones, get up on your feet and get yourself over to the old wood dresser where the books are. Climbing up onto it isn’t easy but here I go so I can grab myself the copy of a book I want. It is nearly as big as I am, but then I am not that big. It was called “Abbey Lubbers, Banshees & Boggarts”.

  Now back on the window sill I can open the book. Gadget is awake now and has climbed out of our little house under the stairs and has come to see what I am up to.

  As it isn’t easy for both of us to look at the book on the window sill we took the book to the big chairs by the coffee table in front of the ancient legal cabinets which housed most of the books and sitting down together on the same chair we can open the book and read it. The book is on my lap and my hand is on top of it. I am still thinking and I am trying to put my thoughts together. This is important and this is something I need to sort out. Perhaps Gadget can help. “What sort of creature do you think The Toymaker is?”

  Gadget looked mystified. “I don’t know what you mean? Oh you mean The Toymaker who makes the toys that we can become part of? I don’t know. Who made these puppets? It can’t be that he makes all the toys for everyone in the world.”

  I scratched my ear and looked at the book. “We are different, we were put here by the Tavern. We used our own magic for that.”

  Gadget looked down at the book. “So why can’t the take more toys and let our people join with them?” I was stunned by this. “I never thought of that. It would be easy wouldn’t it? We could then go and get a lot of toys. Then again, I think it may have been something to do with the power running down and the Tavern wanting to get us out of the cryogenic unit before we died.”

  Gadget looked down at her hands, opened and closed them. She looked at her legs and her feet. “Well a fluffy bunny wouldn’t be able to do what we can do. I wouldn’t want to be stuck in the body that couldn’t do all the things that I can do. Would you?”

  I thought about it. “You know you are right. We wouldn’t be able to do anything if we weren’t in such useful bodies. So, what shall we do?”

  Gadget looked down at the books. “We could go and find The Toymaker and he could then make the toys that Frixians link with.” I looked down at my hands. “Well, we could do that as well as seeing if it is possible to buy more bodies like this and see if he can make them into Frixian hosts as well. But then we’d all look the same and it would be terribly confusing. I am happy to look like I do and I know this puppet isn’t made anymore. Angel has done some work on it too, new hair, new clothes, that sort of thing. You are using a puppet which Angel and Niall were going to sell and you look the same as Quirky, Creed and Saffy’s friend. All of the puppets will have the same problem though, they are cloth and they look the

  cxxxv same. I saw a message on Angel’s Facebook which was very exciting. I’m getting a new body, a travelling body. Andy Rimmer, a friend of Angel’s is making me this body and he’s going to make other bodies which other people can have so they can have their very own Frixian protector. But these would be useless without The Toymaker to link them. I also can’t link to the new body without him, I’m tied to this one as you are tied to that one. If we can find the Toymaker or get another one all we would have to do is link the puppet to a Frixian and that one could go to other places in the country. Otherwise it would be very confusing as you say. I know you are Gadget, but another Gadget body wouldn’t be Gadget and I’d not know what to do. You look like Quirky but Quirky hasn’t visited for a while so it isn’t a problem.”

  Gadget looked at the book. “Take a look at the book and see if you can find a story or legend about The Toymaker. Someone in this world may have heard about him.”

  I looked down at the book. “He may not be of this world. He could be of any world.” Gadget looked down at the book too. “Well that would make it very difficult to find him. I had hoped that we could find an old folk legend that would bring us to the right sort of place. If he was of this world, where would he be?”

  I smiled. “Well there are a lot of puppet makers out there and toymakers. Where do we start?” “At the beginning, we start where we feel is right and we can wait for the Dream Weaver to send us a dream of where to find The Toymaker. Shush, someone is coming. They are waking up and coming down for tea. Back to the Widgetarium I think.”

  Angel walked into the room and opened up the protective fire guard which stopped the dogs from knocking things over in our house under the stairs. She took our table out as we watched and emptied the stool which had been used as a second table for our things. She moved our things about and moved the third cup and a small tankard onto their table. She moved the stool and set it next to me. As she left the room I looked at Gadget and smiled. “What is going on? Are we getting a new friend?”

  The door to the kitchen diner opened again and Angel came back. She was carrying another puppet. A boy this time. No long faerie ears. He looked like an ordinary boy with a blue stripy shirt and blue denim trousers with three cloth patches for decoration. She carried him as she always carried us, with care.

  She carried him to our house and sat him on the chair. He sat there with us and his hand fell onto my hand. But the shell was empty, he was just a puppet. He was just a toy who sat there. His smile was bright and his eyes were plastic and empty. No Frixian lived there.

  Angel then went and made tea and went upstairs with two cups for herself and Niall.

  I sat for a while and then I felt the Weaver of Dreams as I drifted off and images started to come to me.

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  14 The rain hammered down relentlessly on the dirty pavements on a dirty street in a dirty part of town. The houses and flats were shabby. They were crammed together for maximum income for minimum investment. Houses that had once housed large families had been cut apart to become flat upon flat, bedsit upon bedsit.

  In one of these bedsits an old man pushed his hands down on the arm of his winged back chair in front of his two bar electric fire and he stood up. He grabbed his walking stick with his gnarled arthritic hand and used it to help himself to get up the rest of the way.

  He looked around his room. Every chair and shelf was stuffed full of his memories. The ornaments and photographs were all dusty, tired and old as he could not manage to keep them clean and polished as he once had. Then he had once lived in a big house and had a lovely little shop where all the people came. He had never been alone then. Maggie had been with him then. His beautiful wife Maggie. His amazing and kind Maggie. But Maggie had died. Maggie was gone now and he was alone. Their child was gone too. Their beautiful boy Archie had been gone some thirty years. Thirty years since a drunk driver had run him over and in that moment he had been gone from the world.

  The shop had been everything to them after that day. The shop had been full of wonderful children and wonderful parents buying

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  wonderful toys for happy times. He had felt the loss of his own child but the love of the children had in a small way made up for it. His hands were gnarled and arthritic now. So he could no longer make the toys. But the children didn’t want them now anyway. They wanted computers, phones and other things. They had no place for puppets, dolls, teddies and wooden trains. They had no room for toys of the imagination. They didn’t want toys who could be imaginary friends or real ones. They had no room for that in the consumer packaged rush towards the developing technological age.

  Then his Maggie had got sick and he needed to look after her. So he sold the shop, he sold his house and he spent the last of her days caring for her.

 
He forgot his toys, he forgot his shop, he forgot. But not today, today he remembered. His chest felt tight, he felt sick and dizzy but he had no tea. He had had no tea for days now but today he wanted tea. It was New Year’s Eve and he knew if he didn’t get tea today he could not have tea tomorrow. Not that he couldn’t do without tea tomorrow but he wanted the option to have a cup of tea in the morning. He had wanted a cup of tea on Christmas morning. Not that Christmas morning meant much to him. He had had no tea that day.

  Yes he had received his expensive printed card from his brother and sister in law. It was smart but impersonally printed with their name and address rather than a personal message. They had included their address in case he forgot to send them a card to add to their huge stack of appreciation which would deck their halls. Or just to remind all their friends that they lived in a smart part of town.

  As he had sat down to his microwave turkey dinner and Christmas pudding for one he had thought back across the years. Back to when Maggie had been here and the huge plump bird had steamed invitingly, filling the room with the aroma that only a roast dinner can do. They had danced together to the amusement of their little boy. Waltzing crazily around the table to land exhausted in their chairs and raising a glass of champagne to the joy of the season.

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  His glass was empty that day as there was nothing to toast. He remembered the months running up to Christmas where he sewed, glued and stuck the toys together. Those were long days and short sleeping nights. Just so that Santa and his elves could deliver the toys on Christmas morning to children who had been good and a little bad.

  He smiled as he thought of the wooden rocking horse in the shape of a goat. Or should he say rocking goat he had made specifically for a lovely little girl. He wished he could have seen her bright face on Christmas morning after Santa had delivered it.

  All ghosts in the ether now, all memories. The television in the corner was blank and dead. It had broken sometime in November. He missed the sound of the Christmas programs. He’d seen them a hundred times, or it felt like it but it would have been something cheerful.

  He shuffled slowly across his room and picked up his threadbare coat from the hook on the back of the door. Balancing with his stick in one hand he put one arm through it, swapped hands and put the other arm through the armhole and pulled the coat on. He had to do it slowly as his painful joints made every action a chore. He was old now, eighty seven at the last birthday. A birthday he had spent alone, his company the cards thoughtfully sent via Moonpig or some other such internet card manufacturer, delivered promptly on the day so that they could bring some brightness to his lonely hours.

  He had sat near the phone, moved his old wooden chair to the small table where the phone sat. Just so that he wouldn’t miss any calls from his family. But no calls came. He had his cards, their duty was done.

  He put his old flat cap on his mostly bald head and wrapped his old knitted scarf around his gnarly neck. He smiled as he remembered the click, click, click of the knitting needles as Maggie had knitted it. She had always sat in the same chair, looking up occasionally to smile at him. All gone now but the scarf remained to keep him warm, both with the memories and the physical protection from the storm out

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  there. He opened the old door, its paint peeling off and stepped out into the dusty corridor. His old shoes making no sound on the threadbare carpet as he shuffled to the stairs.

  He gripped the handrail with all of his strength. He used his stick and tortoise like he crept down the stairs one by one. He carefully put foot before foot, hand slipping down the rail to where it needed to grip again.

  The vast expanse of the hall seemed like an impossible hurdle. Nothing to hold onto and the tiles were slippery under his stick. He put a cautious foot on the floor and put weight on it. Then another foot down and he shuffled without raising his feet across the quarry tiles to the old glass paneled front door.

  The hand that gripped the door knob wasn’t the hand he wanted to see. That hand was old. It was liver spotted and paper fragile. Those gnarly knuckles would never make toys again, never bring happiness. But he sighed looking at the single piece of tinsel hanging over a wooden framed mirror by the door. That was Christmas now for him and the five other people who took rooms in this establishment. He didn’t know them personally. He had vaguely passed and ignored them on the stairs. He didn’t even know who lived there. He almost smiled as he tucked his scarf into his coat, pulled his coat up against the cold, opened the door and stepped out onto the empty street.

  Cars lined the road as those who drove them were not at work today. There were a few gaps left by those who had gone shopping. He didn’t know who they belonged to. Like everyone else he kept himself to himself and that was how people liked it. He longed to speak to them. He had tried but all he got was a polite “good morning” and they went on their busy ways.

  He passed the gates which led to the doors where some had hung wreaths for Christmas. They made him smile but they made him sad too. Wreaths reminded him that people died, many at Christmas. There were so many he had known who were now gone. The

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  children were grown and he was no longer required. That was sad he thought but that is the way of life. Life is for the young. He shuffled down the road slowly, his stick tapping on the wet pavement as the rain hammered down on him. He had no umbrella but then he had no hand strong enough to hold an umbrella up in the wind which dashed the rain against him. He could feel it biting his face, running down his neck, soaking him. It pushed through the fibers of his coat, making it wet and through to his clothing beneath. But he shuffled on, he wanted his tea. That was the most important thing to him.

  He got to the shop and the bright lights inside and sparkling Christmas decorations reminded him that life went on. The family sized boxes of biscuits that had been stacked before Christmas were now gone, sold to those who would be sitting with their tea, their biscuits and their family. He looked at a small pack of biscuits and reached into his pocket. He pulled out his half moon wallet and opened it up. He slid the change out of the closed part of it into the cup made by the opened lid and he counted the money he had. He had enough for tea, but not for biscuits. No biscuits for him today. Then biscuits were for when people called so that they could be put onto a saucer to be offered with the tea. Nobody would be calling on him, so he didn’t need biscuits.

  He picked up a very small pack of value tea and took it to the counter. He had gone to that counter a hundred times at least but still the shop keeper merely smiled, took his money and the “kerchiiiinnnng” of the till was his friendly greeting.

  “Good afternoon Mr Jones.” The man behind the counter spoke, which almost made him jump.

  Frederick smiled. “Good afternoon Mr Patel. Did you have a good Christmas?”

  Mr Patel looked up. “Yes thank you Mr Jones. And yourself?” Frederick thought about his Christmas but he knew that the question was merely a polite one, spoken with no real interest in the actual

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  answer to the question. So he smiled, his eyes slightly watering. “Yes thank you Mr Patel.” He then took his tea and shuffled to the door. He pulled the door and the bell rang as he stepped out into the rainy street and shuffled back to his bedsit.

  He climbed the stairs slowly and opened his door. As he stepped inside he pulled off his coat which was dripping a puddle on the floor. He pulled off his scarf and squeezed the water out of it. He squeezed the water out of his flat cap and went to the fire. He was cold, beyond cold. He needed to dry off as his clothes were soaked to his underwear.

  He put his finger onto the switch, anticipating the red glow on the two bars, and pushed it. But nothing happened.

  His jaw dropped in horror as he shuffled to the lamp. He touched the switch with awful dread, it didn’t work. He went to his coat, there were no coins in the wallet that would make that fire light again. Tonight the light would bring no golden glow to his sparsel
y furnished room. He would have to make do with a single candle, the only one he had left from the glorious silver candlestick that had graced their twenty foot dining table.

  He went to the bathroom and grabbed his shabby threadbare towel and began to dry himself off as he shivered uncontrollably. Dry, dry, dry, he knew it was going to be important as tonight there would be no warm fire to sit beside.

  Frederick Jones pulled the thin duvet up over his thin bones. It afforded little comfort as the biting chill of the room nibbled at his old bones. He grasped an old book in his hands and the single candle offered him a little heat and a little light.

  He turned the pages one by one, looking at the pictures and the designs. His old toymaking journal was all that he had left of his old life. He hadn’t looked at it in years but tonight it brought him comfort. His little stories were scribbled around each of the toys.

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  Every toy had its past and present, its own little story of how it had come to be and what had happened to it. He picked up his old pencil, half the length it used to be. It had been sharpened again and again to write more and every scrap of the lead used had written something. It was sharp, he had sharpened it the last time he had written. He began reading what he had last written. It wasn’t at the end of the book, there were still a few pages left. His handwriting was now a shaky travesty of his neat Copperplate script of latter years. There were crossings out where before he had written good and true. But the words were readable.

  Firelight, candles, mince pies alright Are what is needed on just such a night When toys are completed

  And to Santa they are sent

  To be given to children

  That is his intent

  Holly and Ivy

  Yule log it is lit

  No time for depression Well perhaps just a bit

  As toys now are different No imagination they do need And a bright sparkly mind Their ownership to feed

  Wooden trains now lay unpainted Trapped in the box