The Chronicles of Widget (Phoenix Rising)

by Angela Timms

  The woman smiled. “Oh well, better that he is out of his misery then.” She walked over to the table and picked up The Toymaker’s book. “What about this? Do you think this would be worth something? We could try it on Ebay.”

  Frederick looked at The Weaver. His eyes were full of tears. “That journal was my life.”

  The Weaver smiled. “Don’t worry, Widget will bid on it and I’ll make sure that nobody else does. We’ll get it for you.”

  Frederick wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “Who is Widget?” The Weaver thought for a moment. “I am telling you this as I am sure you will be the new Toymaker. Widget and Gadget are two of the three Frixians who still have a moveable body here on Earth. They live on a Smallholding in Mid Wales for now and if you agree I will bind you into a puppet there so that you can be with them.

  They have a battle on their hands as the wicked Goblians, aliens from another planet, are many in number. They harm people by making them depressed and angry so that the better parts of their nature like creativity and love cannot develop. They need you.

  They have to open a gateway which allows the spirits through and when they are through they need to be bound into the puppets and the toys.

  Your lifetime of making puppets and toys has made you an unique spirit. You have brought so much happiness to so many by what you have done that the magic created is bound to you. I can offer you this because of who you are and what you have done. So I ask you again, do you accept?”

  The old man laughed. “You mean you are offering a toymaker the opportunity of spending eternity with toys making children happy and keeping them safe. Do you think I seriously have a choice? Of course I accept. So what happens next?”

  The Weaver smiled and the scenery changed. They were standing in

  clv a cave and the old man was faced with a huge red dragon. The dragon reached out a claw and touched the old man and his body evaporated into smoke. The smoke drifted through the ether and its sinuous tendrils percolated through the keyhole of a farmhouse in Mid Wales. The tendrils touched something soft, something miraculous, something new. The tendrils took the shape of the puppet which sat lifeless beside Widget and the tendrils filled the shape with life and form.

  The puppet looked up. He had been put into the “spare” puppet sitting in the Widgetarium, the place where Widget and Gadget sat safely under the stairs on the smallholding in Wales.

  He lifted his new hands and his new eyes looked at them. He looked around the little area under the stairs and he looked out through the grid of the fire guard at the room beyond. He saw the beautiful mirror with the pirate ship on it. He saw the legal cabinets full of books. He saw the speckled floor. He saw the huge German Shepherd dog who was looking at him and he sat very, very still until it wagged its tail, picked up a huge bone almost as big as he was now and trotted off.

  The puppet next to him turned her head, her triangular nose sniffing the air. “Welcome, you are real. That is good. But you aren’t Frixian. Who are you?”

  Frederick couldn’t remember his name, all he could remember was that he was The Toymaker. “I, I don’t know. I think I am The Toymaker.”

  I smiled. “Well, that was easy. Welcome to our home. This is Gadget, she lives here too. We’ll take you and show you our time and space travelling device later. This is very, very exciting.”

  Gadget looked up. “Yes, welcome. It will take you some time to get used to being in that body. It feels odd for a while but remember the rules. You can move only when there is nobody in the room. That is real, you can’t break that rule. Your body literally stops moving when there is someone about. Even Angel and Niall who live here and know about us cannot see us move. So try to be back on your chair when it happens and whatever happens don’t let the dogs get you when you are just a puppet. I’ve seen what they do to their toys!

  You aren’t able to speak but you can form a telepathic link to Angel or Niall and you will be able to speak to them. If other people are around they can then have a conversation with you which will help those who are listening to know what you are saying. Don’t worry about it, it works.”

  The Toymaker took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Alright, now I think I have it straight in my head. I’ve died and my spirit has been put into this puppet so that I can help you to bind Frixians to puppets and toys.”

  I shrugged. “That is about it.”

  The Toymaker smiled but looked worried. “So what do we do now?” I looked down at my hands as I was trying to put it all into order for myself as much as being ready to explain it to our new friend. “Well now we have to go to the Secret Garden and open up the gateway. The trouble is that we don’t have the controls for the TAVERN sorted out yet. We have the crystals to make it work and we borrowed the TARDIS when we went to Cardiff. So hopefully things are all in hand. All we have to do now is solve the problem of the key. We don’t know how to make the key.”

  The Toymaker frowned. “I can see that would be a problem although I have no idea what you are talking about. I’ll just nod my head and pretend I know what this is all about. It has been a very busy day.”

  I was thoughtful as there was so much to try and think about. “Also, we don’t have bodies for the Frixians we can get here yet either. Angel has found someone who can provide some of the bodies. Once they arrive we can put the spirits in there. But we need the spirits to put in there. That is not going well.

  Sarah brought up some spare computer equipment over Christmas.

  clvii You will meet Sarah one day, she likes us and she will like you too. Those bits and pieces will be part of the new controls for our travelling device but we still don’t have it completely made. Do you write?”

  The Toymaker looked sad. “All my stories were in my notebook. I had stories for each of my puppets and toys. It helped me to create them and to know who they were.”

  That made me so sad. “That is amazing, exactly what we want and need. Where is the book?” Then I remembered the dream. I’d seen all of it, all that had been said and done to him and I knew where the book was. “Oh no, I guess that you don’t. You just arrived here as a spirit didn’t you? Bother. That would have been really useful.”

  The Toymaker looked down at his cloth hands. “I’m not sure what good these hands are going to be. They need a human hand in them to make them work. They are gloves for the puppeteer to put his or her hands in. But they are floppy for me, useless.”

  I looked at them and looked worried. “That will be alright when Angel starts making things. Ask her to stuff a pair of gloves for you, sew the top up and then you will have hands you can use yourself. You can then join us with the writing. You can write about your own toys and their stories. Or she will get you another body.”

  The Toymaker smiled. “I would like that. So how do we start?” I thought for a moment. We had to have our adventure but having him writing as well would be fabulous, particularly if he had a book or a head full of stories. “Over there on the desk there is a laptop. You can use that to write your stories.”

  The Toymaker looked thoughtful. “I really wish I had my notes. The Weaver said that if it went on Ebay she would ask Angel to buy it.”

  I hadn’t seen anything that looked like that arrive but Angel did buy books sometimes. I climbed off of my chair and went to look on the bookshelves. I climbed on a chair. I climbed on the back of a chair

  clviii and I looked along the lines of books. “Nothing here. We will have to ask Angel when she comes in. But I think we would have heard about it by now. Can you remember any of the stories?

  Hold on a minute.” Thoughts raced through my head and I leapt down from the chair and went to where Angel’s laptop was on the table. I opened it, I logged in and I went onto Ebay. I’d watched her put her password in and she did sometimes get the odd purchase she didn’t remember bidding on.

  “Ok, what do you think I should search for? Shall I try Toymaker’s Notes.” I clicked in the letters and there it was, a battered n
otebook with a tatty leather cover. It was starting with a ninety nine pence bid so I bid five pounds on it. It only had five minutes to go so I turned the screen so that we could all watch.

  The seconds ticked by into minutes and the minutes ticked by as I refreshed the screen over and over again. Minutes went and we were left with just seconds. Five, four, three, two, one, it was ours! I paid for it and turned to smile at the Toymaker. “It is on its way!

  Do we have to go on calling you The Toymaker? Do you have a name?”

  The Toymaker thought about it. “I can’t remember my human name.”

  I had seen it in the dream but it still stunned me. “You were human once?” The Toymaker smiled. “Yes, I was a human. I was a man with a wife and a child, all gone now. I died you see and here I am. The Toymaker forever.”

  I smiled as kindly as I could. “I like that you are The Toymaker now. You will have such fun. But what do we call you? Of course Widget and Gadget aren’t our real names, those can’t be pronounced. It should be something sewing related.”

  The Toymaker thought about it. “How about Placket? That is a piece of material added in to a garment to make it bigger. I’m being added in to your plan for making Frixians into puppets and toys. It doesn’t sound too bad does it?”

  I thought about it for a little while as I didn’t like Placket. Then it came to me. “What about Tailor?”

  The Toymaker smiled. “I like Tailor. I shall be Tailor then.”

  Gadget smiled at Tailor. “Alright, you are Tailor. Welcome to the crew. Do you want a goat?”

  Tailor looked bemused. “What do you mean? A goat?” Gadget smiled. “We have our own goats we go and ride when the weather is good. You can choose yourself a goat to ride. But don’t choose Frixie Pfriend as she isn’t really a goat. Widget’s goat is Stormcrow. My goat is Darius. You can choose when you meet them. Not tonight though, it is wild out there and the goats will be asleep. They are warm and dry in their houses.”

  Tailor smiled. “It looks as though my life is going to be very interesting here. So, I am expected to write and ride goats. That sounds like fun.” His eyes filled with tears.

  Gadget looked worried. “Tailor, what is the problem?” Tailor smiled and wiped away his tears. “I spent so many years alone and unwanted, feeling I was washed up and useless. This is a huge change. Overnight I have a home and new friends.”

  Gadget looked bemused. “Why were you alone? Did you lose your family? Did you have nobody?” Tailor took a deep breath. “I had family but they had their own interests and life so they didn’t have time for me. They never forgot my birthday or Christmas though. I got cards. So they did care.

  clx I used to go to a Centre where people like me could get together. That was a good time. I had a reason to get up and get dressed. I had a reason to get the bus and go out to meet people. I got to spend my days learning new hobbies and it made me forget that I was old and useless. I became useful as I was able to teach other people to make things. I felt like I had a surrogate family there too. We had parties and we went to interesting places.

  There were some people there who lived with families who needed a rest from caring from them all the time. It was wonderful for us all.” Gadget frowned. “What happened? It sounds like the ideal place.” Tailor shook his head. “Cuts. The Council cut the funding and got rid of our Centre. There are other places like it that have closed. The one in Aberystwyth closed as well and they are now building a Tesco store there. After the places were closed we all had nowhere to go and I suppose it is the same here in Wales. I went from regularly seeing my friends to seeing nobody at all.”

  Gadget frowned even more heavily. “That really annoys me as I saw something on the television that said that lots of money has been given to rich people. They don’t need the money and even if it has, why don’t they donate and keep the place open? Everyone who is human will be old one day, or disabled or something. Well you can forget about all that now. You have us and as long as we can find an income we will all have a lifetime home here and we will do exciting things.

  I went to Cardiff last month. That was exciting. I was attacked by a Goblian, that wasn’t exciting, that was horrible. But I won and he died and I lived so that was exciting I suppose.

  Well I suppose you ought to write your first story. What would it be?” Tailor thought for a while. “Well why don’t we try to work out how to find this key that you are talking about. Do you have any keys? Or anything about keys?”

  That was confusing and I really can’t remember that I’d put the key to one side in favour of other thoughts. “I think we should go and see if the Weaver of Dreams has left us any clues. She isn’t allowed to tell us things directly so sometimes she leaves clues.”

  I went to the table and climbed on the chair and reached onto the table where there was a notebook. I looked over to the corner where Gadget and Tailor were sitting watching me. “Sometimes Angel writes words which have clues with them. She may not know what it is all about, she just writes the words down. There may be a clue in a poem. She dreams, the words hang around and then she writes them.” I opened the book and went to the last page. “Yes, here we go. There is something here that might help.”

  As shadows fall as oft they will

  And dreams are filled with madness The gate must open or all is lost Then man and Frixian will feel sadness It will not open sans key Tolyne Forged long ago, last century

  By hand of man for justice’s place To unlock the way to gladness

  Past future linked is what you need And then the gate will open.

  I picked up the book and brought it back to the Widgetarium. I emptied the small table and put the book onto it so that we can look at the writing again.

  Tailor looked at the writing. “Why is there a bit of French in the middle. Sans key Tolyne? Avec key Tolyne? With key Tolyne. My key Tolyne? Mon key Tolyne?”

  I couldn’t help it, I squealed and pointed at the stuffed toy monkey which sat at the chair beside the table where I had got the book. “Monkey!”

  Tailor looked at the monkey. “By heaven! I made that monkey. The Weaver showed me an image of me making that monkey all those

  clxii

  years ago. How did it get here?” Gadget smiled. “That was Angel’s mother’s monkey. She had had a monkey in the war when she was a little girl. The house had got bombed and the people who helped to clear up stole her toys, including the stuffed monkey. So Angel bought it for her on her seventieth birthday. When she cleared away her mother’s things, after she died, Angel kept the monkey.”

  Tailor smiled. “Well I don’t know how these things work but I know that monkey and as I am the Toymaker, perhaps that is the Key Keeper? Now all we need to do is find a key, a very old key, made in the last century.”

  I thought a while amazed in the leap in logic. “There is an old key in the TAVERN. It was Angel’s father’s. It was the key that opened Leyton Police Station. He had it as they pulled the old station down and built another one. So they didn’t want it back. That is an old key.”

  Gadget picked up the notebook and looked at the writing again. “Tolyne scrambled up is Leyton. For justice’s place. We have the key. But surely it is just a key? How can that link to moon rock?”

  I thought about it. “Well if the date is important and what was important about the date was that it was when man went to the moon and discovered that there was a volcano there then that must be important. If this is to be a magical key it would have to be made specially. Things forged in volcanoes are special.”

  Gadget looked at me and smiled. “People don’t make things in volcanoes and we certainly can’t get near one.” I smiled. “We can’t but the Weaver of Dreams can. She is a dragon, she could go and forge a key in a volcano if she knew how to forge a key. Do you think this key was forged in a volcano by her?”

  Gadget looked at the words. “No, it says by hand of man for justice’s place. So no, not in a volcano. But perhaps it could be reforged. Hol
d on a minute, I have an idea.” Gadget stood up and

  clxiii went to the laptop and logged on. She then typed in stolen and missing moon rocks. “Hey look here, there is a section on Wikipedia which says that moon rocks have been stolen. So I suppose we could go and steal some as the Mare Basalts have a high iron values.”

  I smiled wickedly as it did sound like fun and it was a good cause. “We could steal some, as obviously they have been stolen before but why should we? We have the TAVERN, or we will have in the future, and in the future it will be working again. As we are having this conversation and we know that we have to get the iron, take it and make sure it is used to make the key and then we will have the key that can now happen. We don’t have to actually do anything now. We can do it when we get the travelling device sorted again. So if we have to move back in time to now we can hope that we will turn up when we are needed.

  I would say that we have to get to the moon, back in time, and take some of the iron from there. We then have to make sure that the metal is used when the key is forged. That will then be the key for Leyton Police Station. Then we will have the right key. We have a monkey and perhaps the spirit that can be bound into that toy will be the one who can use the key. We then have to make sure that George keeps the key when the Station is rebuilt. Now all we have to do is work out who or what and then go and do it in the future. We may have already done it as we have the key. We just have to do all that when we get the device working so that it is relevant now.”

  Gadget tapped me on the shoulder. “Sometimes Widget you are a complete idiot. Don’t you remember? You went to the moon and you have some of the rock. We have it now so in the future we will have it so we can take it back and it can be the metal to make the key.”