When a magician (second class) chooses to do Christmas duty in the City of London, it's because he's hoping for a nice, quiet, seasonal time, not for ancient magic to break loose and the enchanted city to be filled with ghosts, monsters, wonder and danger. Not on his watch. Not when he's going to have to deal with it all on his own. That would be an all too magical Christmas.
An All Too Magical Christmas is a seasonal adventure story of magic, mayhem and mystery told in 24 instalments. It is written by Tobias Sturt and read aloud by Jon Millington.
Incident report YUL-XX/12
Section Eleven
It is odd how under the right - or wrong circumstances - the most ordinary thing can seem strange. No queue in the post office at lunchtime. An office chair sitting alone at the top of a distant hill. A white Christmas.
I mean, picture a typical Christmas card scene: snow is falling on a Victorian city street. The air is full of fat, drifting flakes as it piles up in the corner and on lintels and window ledges. The windows themselves are hung about with greenery and ribbons and there’s a holly wreath on every door and a miniature fir on every step.
On the pavement stands a brazier, stacked with glowing coals and topped with popping chestnuts, while at the ruddy bullseye panes of the bay window of Drosselmeyer’s Wooden Toys, a gaggle of children in scarves and hats goggle at the display inside.
Seasonal, isn’t it? A veritable Christmas card. The sort of thing you’d find on a jigsaw bought by sentimental grandparents at a garden centre. A tired old cliche, perhaps, by a reassuring one. A jolly one. A Christmassy one.
Until you turn a corner out of an unexpected blizzard in Aldersgate Street and there it is. That scene. Cloth Fair, a dim and damp little alley at the best of times, suddenly a snowdrift of seasonal symbolism.
And your hair is full of snow and your shoes are leaking and the cold is seeping up your shins and you’d like to think that that brazier looked warm and the glowing shop window looked welcoming but all you can think is: uh-oh. That doesn’t look good.
Because it doesn’t.
Christmas isn’t supposed to be white. I mean sure it is on the cards and advent calendars and catalogues, but not for real. December in London is a grey month. Sometimes a warm, damp grey, like the clouds need another turn in the tumble drier, sometimes a cold, damp grey, like someone’s left an ice box open. But not white. Not snowing.
And if it is snowing, no matter how pretty it might be, it doesn’t look good. Because snow is weather. And weather is big. Weather is mountains and ocean and sky and space. It is big. And if the magic seeping out into London has got to the stage that it’s changing the weather, then it has got too far.
It looked even worse as I got closer and realised that the children huddled at the shop window, gawping at the display inside were the kids who had been shouting up at my window only the day before. These were traditionally unpleasant teenagers, all attitude problems and skin outbreaks. The only things they were supposed to be gawping at were their phones. There was no natural force in the world that could make them stare at wooden toys unless it was to make fun of them and, eventually, to set them alight. Certainly not to gaze in slack-jawed wonder. This was powerful magic indeed.
Closer still and I realised that what they were gazing at in the window was not any ordinary toy, but rather a miniature wooden model of the street itself, complete with a miniature wooden models of the kids, all staring into a miniature wooden model of the shop window and I had the horrible, vertiginous sensation that if I looked closer I would see in that model window a model shop with its own model of a model of a window and so on and so on in an endless descent. Powerful magic, and weird.
On the other hand.
On the other hand it was undoubtedly true that it was snowing when I had not been expecting snow, ie at Christmas, and I had not, therefore, dressed for snow, which meant that my shoes were leaking and my hair was icy and the cold was seeping up him shins to the extent that I now had frozen kneecaps, and the inside of the shop was aglow with light and jollity and, most notably, warmth.
What I’m saying is: I went in.
I am pleased to report that it was warm inside. It was also, frankly, cosy. Not to mention cheery. And the bell over the door jingled a merry little welcome, and the shelves were full of brightly painted animals, and the floor thronged with wooden soldiers and the ceiling hung with puppets. And it all smelled of wood, of cedar and fir, and wax candles and varnish and cinnamon and cloves and Christmas.
What I’m saying is: I not only went in, I stood in the middle of it, breathed in deep and luxuriated in it.
And as I did, in trotted the owner, in from some back room, a door hidden away behind a counter and a forest of musical trees and a fully rigged toy sailing ship (was that a tiny wooden Dick Whittington on the deck?).
If you’ve already pictured the perfect Christmas jigsaw scene outside, then you’ve already pictured the toy maker, haven’t you? Let’s see how you did.
Size? Small, yes, but… fat. Spot on. And bearded but… bald, of course, a pink pate shining in the lamplight and a long - that’s right: white - beard spreading down over his? Well, it was leather, but yes: apron. And you’re right about the half-moon glasses perched on on the end of a button nose and you’re also right that the eyes behind them were a clear, bright blue, but I’m afraid that the smile hidden away under his curling moustaches did not quite reach them and that the twinkle they twinkled was not quite jolly.
“Good afternoon, sir!” he said, as he wove between the soldiers on the floor, “And, if I can make so bold, a Merry Christmas to you!”
“And to you,” I said, “I have to say it feels a lot merrier, and a lot Christmasier in here. This is a lovely little shop. Quite magical.”
I tried the last word to see if I got a reaction, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Well, we are a Christmas shop, sir, really,” he said, clasping his hands and gazing round contently at his work, “All perfect presents, you see, for Father or Mother, or Grandfather, or Uncle, or Aunt or Grandmother.”
“Not children?” I said, “They are all toys, aren’t they?”
“Well, children,” said the little man, and there was a distaste in his voice as he said the word, “Don’t always appreciate the craft that goes into something hand-made, do they? Don’t always treat them with respect. Or you.”
“I don’t know,” I said, gesturing to the teenagers gathered outside the window, “You have admirers.”
“Oh, they were a little rambunctious at first,” said the shopkeeper, “As children are wont to be at this time of year, but yes, they’re quite enchanted now.”
Enchanted. Under a spell. I suspected they were. I began to realise, as I stared at them, that their expressions weren’t changing. Their faces were quite frozen. But, as I looked, a single, panicked eye caught mine in silent terror and then flicked back, fixed on the scene in the window.
“Well,” I said, horrified, “If they’re bothering you, I can take them with me. I only came in to get warm for a moment, I have important…”
“My dear sir,” said the man, standing back for a moment, “You’re quite soaked through - not at all dressed for this weather. We can’t let you go out without a coat, let me see.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you,” I said, torn between wanting to get warm and wanting to get out of this creepy shop, “But I couldn’t…”
“Here we are,” he stood up from behind the counter where he had been rummaging, “And a pair of boots, too, look about your size, I think, sir.”
He came bustling across and draped over my shoulders a voluminous and ancient great coat that had once perhaps been a military blue but which was now so faded, stained and patched about that you couldn’t quite be sure. He bent down and yanked at my shoes so I had to grab hold of a toy castle to keep myself upright. A yeoman on the battlements pricked my thumb with a tiny halberd as his maker jammed his old boots on my feet.
“This really is very kind,” I said, trying to stand as he pulled away at my legs, “I really do have very important things to do. To save Christmas, actually, really.”
“Save Christmas,” said the man, standing and looking me up and down, “Well now you look very seasonal for it, sir, very jolly. Off you go and save it. I’m sure you’re the man to do it.”
“And I’ll go with the children,” I said, “Take them off your hands, least I could do.”
“Oh you’ll go with the children,” said the shopkeeper, bustling me to the door, “You’ll go very nicely.”
And he pushed me back out into the snow, beaming at me all the while with his all too mirthless smile.
“Well, come on, then, kids,” I said, grabbing hold of a sleeve, “You come with me, then,” and I turned to pull them after me.
And immediately found myself walking back into the street, on the other side of the shop. Which was odd, but before I could stop for a moment to collect myself, I walked on, past the shop, past the children, round the corner of the street and… back in at the other end, where I’d started.
And I couldn’t stop. Back past the kids, the shop, the corner, back to the start and round again and round and I heard a voice, muffled, say:
“Oh, you go very nicely indeed,” and I looked up and saw, high in the sky, the shopkeeper, dim behind wavy panes of glass, looking down at me, and I realised what happened.
I was trapped in the miniature wooden model window display. I was enchanted.
An All Too Magical Christmas #11