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
I have been asked many questions about the incident code-named by the Ministry as Fimbulwinter. “What do you mean your wand was stolen by a goose, you halfwit?” is one that comes up a lot. “How dangerous can an army of mice be, you fool?” is another. There are questions about what kind of idiot gets himself turned into a toy shop window display and why anyone would be so stupid as to just merrily help a wicked witch out with her chores.
I hope that this report has answered most of them. This kind of idiot, basically. The kind of idiot who volunteers for Christmas duty because he thinks it's going to be nice and quiet and uneventful. The kind of idiot who tries to sort everything out despite not having the first clue what he is getting into. The kind of idiot who, nevertheless, saves the city in the end, with a bang, some whimpering and a cat laughing.
But some of the questions are about what happened next.
Of course, what happened next was a lot of tidying up. Tidying up and clearing away all the roving monsters and storybook characters, the enchanted forest, magical ships and talking animals, putting everything back where it should be, especially if that was in the imagination rather than the real world.
“But how?” Comes the next question, inevitably, “With London Stone gone your magic no longer worked.”
You might deduce, then, that the London Stone was put back. It was a sort of seasonal treat from Father Christmas. Do you know Gog and Magog? The statues of giants in the Guildhall? Solid chaps: thick as timber but hearts of oak. Well, lime wood, which is what they’re made of. Anyway, Old Christmas had a word with them and they carried the Stone back to Cannon Street, creaking and rustling through the dark trees, their path lit by scurrying elves with flaming torches.
Father Christmas himself didn’t wait around to see it, though. Something about lists and presents and an important date coming up, and when you have a flying sleigh at your disposal, you make your own schedule. So he was off, which was a pity, because I could really have done with his help.
The trouble was putting the Stone back might have been like turning off the tap and stopping all the old magic spreading out into London, but you were still left with water all over the floor, or, in this case, the streets full of a magical forest full of mysteries.
Fortunately there had apparently not been room for an army of elves on Father Christmas’ sleigh, and now that my government approved magic was working again, they were mine to command. And command I did.
Trees were chopped down, witches' holly hedges were grubbed up, magical toy shops were put out of business and fairytale sailing ships put out to sea. London was tidied up.
And the characters were tidied up too.
Klaus and Joachim and Gottfried, the wooden nutcracker soldiers, were happy to take up sentry duty in the Christmas display in a department store, where, at night, they do double duty as pest controllers in their endless battle with the mice.
But not the mouse army that Father Christmas had left behind. They were too elvish now to pass as ordinary London mice. What to do with them? What to do with a horde of ratty, feral little people, easily startled rodents with short attention spans and little more intelligence than a sort of basic animal cunning?
So, they work in finance now and are doing very well, apparently. Property speculation mostly, I think.
Dick Whittington is appearing as Dick Whittington in Dick Whittington at the Hackney Empire. He’s getting good reviews.
And then we find ourselves back where we started, with the trolls.
The Tower ravens found them in the end, sheltering in an abandoned underpass in the Elephant and Castle shopping centre.
“This treatment is inhumane,” said Gully.
“Well, that’s alright then,” I said, “You’re not human, after all.”
“This is a horrid place.”
“It’s nice and cold,” said Stubby.
“Yeah, alright, it’s cold,” said Gully, “Fair enough.”
“And wet,” said Stubby.
“Right, yeah, nice and wet too, true,” said Gully.
“And lonely,” said Stubby, “Haven’t been bothered by humans for days.”
“Alright, alright,” said Gully, “Cold and wet and lonely, yes, all fine. Wifi’s rubbish though, innit?”
“Yeah, it’s a horrid place,” said Stubby, finally agreeing.
“Well, it's all you deserve,” I said, “You should count yourselves lucky. Harassing the Ministry on the Internet is one thing, but you’re in serious trouble now.”
“You can’t prove it was us moved the stone,” said Stubby, “They’re circumferential elephants.”
“Circumstantial evidence,” said Gully, “And what did I say about not mentioning the Stone until he did?”
“But that’s what he was talking about, wasn’t it?” said Stubby, appealing to me.
“I would say listen to your brother,” I said, “But given that I suspect moving the London Stone was his idea in the first place, don’t. But do. But don’t.”
“My head hurts,” said Stubby, “And I still haven't seen any elephants.”
“So you’ve got us,” said Gully, “You’ve fixed it all, figured it out, your wand’s working, what now? Where are you sending us this time? Bermondsey? Balham? B… Brighton?”
“Blackfriars,” I said.
“Agh, no!” screamed Stubby, “This is torture! This is cruet unusual!”
“Shut up,” said Gully, “Blackfriars? Back the other side of the river? Back in the city?”
“Back in the City,” I said, “And soon. Fact is, you two have caused me a lot of trouble and you are going to start working it off. It’s still a mess over there after all your shenanigans, and we’re going to need time to tidy up, which means keeping ordinary people out of the way.”
“You want us to eat them!” said Stubby, delighted.
“Do you want to stay in Elephant and Castle?” I said.
“It’s not bad,” said Stubby.
“I know he said not to listen to me,” said Gully, “But shut up.”
“This one time,” I said, “Listen to him. No, I do not want you to eat people. Why would I want you to eat people? No, I want you to do what you do best.”
“Eat people,” said Stubby, nodding.
“No, sit under bridges and mess with traffic,” I said, “Blackfriars, Southwark, London, Tower, I want jams, I want tailbacks, I want no one getting into the City for days, understand?”
“Understand,” said Gully, “It’ll be a pleasure.”
“Not too much of one, I hope,” I said, “It’s supposed to be a punishment.”
“Then we won’t eat a single person,” said Gully, “Deal?”
“Deal,” I said, “ And Happy Christmas.”
An All Too Magical Christmas #23