Toyland- the Legacy of Wallace Noel

by Tony Bertauski

  “Don’t tell anyone.” She pushed him on the bed. “What I’m about to say, don’t tell Mom and never, ever tell Pip. You hear me?”

  He looked scared. Their parents had only been married a year. That wasn’t long enough to know what a stepsister was capable of doing. She began pacing again, all the way to where the room narrowed and then back to the slide. She told him the whole thing—the snow, the wind, the man with the icicle beard and frostbitten nose. The two moles above his right eyebrow, side by side.

  “Put it on.”

  “What?”

  “I just want to see what happens.” She put the hat in his hand. “I’ll yank it off as soon as you do. Just put it on.”

  He wasn’t moving. She had been in the Arctic for what seemed like forever, but it was probably only fifteen minutes. But when she took the hat off, it was like no time had passed at all. Pip was still clapping and Mom was on the couch.

  Not even a second.

  “Seriously. Put it on.”

  It wasn’t fair. But she didn’t want to be the only one freaking out. She shoved it on his head, pulling it all the way down to his eyebrows. He grimaced and slapped at her. The little bell rang. He looked up from beneath the fuzzy trim.

  “I feel stupid.”

  She jiggled the bell. “Maybe it was the tower. You were right, the radiation. I feel weird inside.”

  “I was there too, ding-dong. And radiation doesn’t make you hallucinate when you put on an elf hat. Or maybe it does. Doesn’t matter, it’s just a hat.”

  She fell on the other bed. The adrenaline spike was waning. She was weak and tired. And something else.

  “I’m starving,” she said.

  “That’s what haunted hats do.” He threw it at her. “They give you the munchies.”

  “Tin?” Pip opened the door. “You all right?”

  Tin hid the hat. “I’m okay, Piper. I think I ate something funny, that’s all.”

  “Can we sleep downstairs with Corey tonight?”

  “Yeah. That’s a good idea.”

  Tin forced herself to stand, careful not to wobble. She was drained. Pip climbed the slide and grabbed her hand, and they dragged their sleeping bags off the beds. Corey carried their pillows.

  “Where’s Monkeybrain?” Pip searched her sleeping bag.

  “You sure you left him up here?” Tin asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Well, go down with Corey and ask Mom. I’ll be down in a second.”

  Pip took Corey’s hand and they started down the slide. Corey let out a weeeee that lasted half a second. Tin shoved the hat in her pocket to make sure the bell didn’t ring. She waited until they were halfway down the steps.

  She’d seen a purple arm.

  It was a little closet with a low doorframe. She had to duck to look inside. Monkeybrain had hands that would lock together. Pip would latch them around her neck and carry him like a momma holding her baby. And sometimes that hand would catch on things.

  Like the closet doorframe.

  “What are you doing in here?” Tin said.

  Her legs turned a degree colder. There was a little door built into the baseboard, just like the one in the workshop. It had a hinge on top so it could swing open.

  It definitely didn’t lead outside.

  She shoved her duffel bag against it. Whatever that was for, she wasn’t letting it in or out. Or letting Pip sleep up there again. She clutched Monkeybrain against her chin as she slid to the door. Something else wasn’t right.

  He was warm.

  3

  Tin launched out of deep sleep to the crackle of embers and found herself on a musty couch. The hat was in her pocket. She’d gone to sleep wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.

  “Another visit to the North Pole?” Corey was thumbing his iPad.

  There were two other couches around the fireplace, with empty sleeping bags and dented pillows.

  She flopped back on the couch and stared through dusty beams of midmorning sunlight. There was a door in the ceiling, like the one she’d seen under the workbench and in the closet. There was nothing leading up to it, no upside-down staircase or swinging rope. It was just a door in the middle of the ceiling.

  And it seemed normal.

  The scent of biscuits and gravy called from the kitchen. She found a cold batch waiting on the stove and ate three bowls. Mom was outside with Oscar and Pip. They were playing in the snow. Mom came into the kitchen with snow-dusted hair.

  “Good morning,” she said. “Feeling better?”

  “I’m… fine. Why, is something wrong?”

  “No.” She stole a biscuit. “Not like you to sleep late. Hey, when you’re ready, we’re thinking about taking a hike this morning. There’s a trail that goes into the woods. Corey’s going, too. Aren’t you, Corey?”

  “Is the furnace all right?” Tin asked.

  “Furnace?”

  “Yeah, you know. Last night, there was a sound. Corey said you went to the boiler room or something.”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s fine. Maybe it was the house settling. Go on, get a shower if you want. I’ll clean up.”

  Corey was still camped on the couch. A new log was catching fire. He wasn’t exactly warming up for a hike.

  “Want to know about your uncle Wallace?” he said.

  “No.” She climbed the ladder one creaky rung at a time.

  The bedroom vault was cracked open. She stopped and listened. She swore she’d closed it. This is how paranoia starts. Simple things like snow become suspicious.

  She peeked inside. The duffel bag was exactly where she’d put it. The little creepy door hadn’t been pushed open, and nothing was out of place. There was a bathroom down a narrow ledge with a tall railing. She showered until her bones were warm.

  Corey’s couch was empty when she came downstairs. She found everyone in the backyard.

  “It’s snowing!” Pip threw up her hands.

  It was, in fact, snowing. It started almost exactly when she walked outside. A snowman was slumped at the bottom of the steps. He was half as tall as Pip and staring at the ground. Broken twigs were stuck in his middle section.

  Mom gathered everyone and, with a backpack full of snacks, they started down the path. Pip held Mom’s hand until they reached the amphitheater. Animal tracks dotted the stage, and a few of the benches had been cleared. Tin didn’t want to feed paranoia by asking if they’d been out there while she was in the shower.

  Maybe animals put on a play.

  Corey came up behind her. The others had already taken the path that went into the forest. The fire tower was the other way. Even from that distance, the top looked like a boiling cauldron.

  “Was that like that before?” Tin said.

  “Probably about to blow.” Corey lifted his phone and filmed several seconds.

  “Don’t get lost!” Mom called.

  Their bright winter coats bobbed between the trees, and Pip skipped behind them. Oscar said the path was from deer and elk and other large animals. Tin preferred that answer to all the ones her paranoia was giving her.

  “He was a Lithuanian immigrant,” Corey said.

  “What?”

  He held his phone up. It was Wallace Noel’s Wikipedia page.

  “You getting service?” she said.

  “I walked down the road this morning, caught a bar about a quarter mile out. Want to hear it?”

  “No.”

  “He came over on a boat with his mom in 1851. He had a brother, too, but he got sick on the way and he, uh, well, he died. Wallace fought in the Civil War and then, uh…” He scrolled down the page. “Dude, people are really into your uncle.”

  “He’s not my uncle.”

  “There’s, like, whole conspiracy websites dedicated to him. Like rabbit hole city, you know? Listen to this. He and his mom went to Chicago after they immigrated. He went to school for a while, fought for the Union in the Civil War—there’s a creepy picture of him—then he got back and spent the next co
uple of decades on ships until he finally joined an expedition to the North Pole in 1881.

  “The trip got all sorts of attention, but then it supposedly shipwrecked, and no one was supposed to survive. Then a group of them found their way back, and he was one of them. Says here that he got separated from the group for days, and they thought he was a goner, but then he just showed up, still alive. Oh, man. He’s your uncle for sure. Ugly as a camel.”

  Tin shoved him into a tree and snow fluttered down.

  “So it gets weirder. He basically disappears from public, probably moved out here to build the Willie Wonka factory. Next thing you know, he introduces Noel toys to the world. The World’s Best Friends, he said. And everybody loved it. Guy made millions and no one really knows why everyone loved them so much.

  “And then all of a sudden he was, like—gone. Production stopped. One theory is that the toys had a marble in them that made them special. But when some of them fell out through, like, rips and stuff, they were choking hazards for little kids. That’s where the saying comes from, don’t lose your marbles.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “I’m just reading. Anyway, these other companies basically ripped him off and started making the exact same things—bears and pigs and every other animal on Noah’s ark—but no one cared about them like Noel’s because of the marbles, I guess.”

  “Let me see.” He showed her a photo of the marble. It looked more like a metal ball bearing. “No, the picture of Wallace.”

  He flipped back a few pages. Tin snatched the phone. The photo was from their return from the expedition. His face was gaunt. Dark circles around icy blue eyes and sunken cheeks beneath protruding cheekbones. Two moles, side by side, above his eyebrow.

  The nose was discolored.

  There was scarring. It was disfigured like winter had taken a bite. The phone slipped from her glove and disappeared in the snow.

  “It’s him,” she said.

  “Uncle Wallace, yeah. I just said that.”

  “No, no, idiot. From last night, when I put the hat on. The-the… the dream,” she whispered.

  “Oh,” he whispered back. “I didn’t realize he had toys on the North Pole.”

  “What? No, the frostbite on the nose. The moles.” She dotted her eyebrow. “That was him.”

  “Look, he’s not the only one who came back with frostbite. Or has moles. And you were staring at photos on the walls before your dream.” He air-quoted. “I put the hat on and nothing happened to me. Your uncle Wallace was weird and so are you. And your mom’s calling.”

  Tin lost sight of them.

  The path went through rocky terrain that turned sharply. They were huffing before they were halfway there. Tin dug a granola bar out of her pocket. She was hungry again.

  She couldn’t remember if the black-and-white photo they found at Awnty Awnie’s house—the one with him and Pando—showed his nose. It was too far away. And he was really fat with suspenders and a bushy beard, not emaciated or gaunt. Maybe he got the nose fixed. He had the money, not that plastic surgery was much of anything in the early 1900s.

  Still.

  Everyone was waiting where the trail ended. It teed and went in opposite directions. The paths curved in very smooth arcs, not wandering at all like wildlife trails. Oscar was looking through binoculars and pointing. Mom held them up for Pip. They didn’t see the little patch of color half-buried in the snow not too far in front of them.

  It was fuzzy.

  “Want a look?” Mom asked.

  Tin took the binoculars and looked at the elk grazing for lichen. Mom pulled out snacks, passed a bottle of water around, and decided to head back since they weren’t sure where the paths went. Oscar was giving Pip a piggyback ride.

  “You and Corey can keep going,” Mom said.

  Corey was already leading the way back.

  “That’s all right.” Tin held up the binoculars. “I’m just going to look a bit more and catch up.”

  The fuzzy orange color was in the trees, as if someone went straight instead of turning down one of the paths. As soon as she stepped off the path, she felt a strange shiver. It was only for a moment, but it washed through her like a cold wave and left a wake of gooseflesh beneath her coat. She looked closely at what was buried beneath the snow.

  A stuffed orangutan.

  It was half-buried in the leaves and snow. He was matted and torn. He’d been out there awhile. And that wasn’t all. There was a stuffed raccoon a few more steps away, in the same sad shape, and a stuffed pig.

  The pig didn’t look too bad.

  The glassy eyes hadn’t turned milky with age, and the fabric was still intact and somewhat clean. She picked her up—for some reason the pig felt like a her and not a him—and squeezed. There it was.

  Don’t lose your marbles.

  The photo was grainy.

  Tin zoomed on the face. Corey had downloaded it on his trip down the driveway. It was proof there was a man who looked like Wallace Noel. This photo was taken in 1932 by the owner of a diner who found the guy interesting, and made its way into urban legend.

  Tin had read the leather-bound journal Awnty Awnie hid in her footlocker. It was full of clippings and sightings and theories about Wallace Noel. And this was before the internet.

  Why did she never mention him?

  This photo from the diner, however, didn’t look exactly like the man she thought of as Wallace Noel, but he had a gray-peppered beard. The angle didn’t reveal whether there were two moles above his eyebrow or not.

  He called himself Mr. Doe.

  “I don’t know.” Tin zoomed in till the photo was a blurry mix of grays. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” Corey said. “Who else would it be?”

  “Anybody.”

  “He said his first name was Pan.” He waited for her to get it. “Pan Doe?”

  “It doesn’t say he said his first name.”

  “What else would it be?”

  He scrolled through the stories of witnesses who came out to Toyland to conduct business. They said that every stuffed animal that left the factory came out to Toyland before going to the stores. An incredible waste of time and money, a former employee said. We couldn’t talk him out of it.

  He’d be sitting on the porch with stuffed animals, or around a campfire or in the living room, always with toys, just like the photos that were mounted next to the fireplace. He was lonely, another employee stated. They were his only friends.

  Eventually, he cut off all meetings with his company. Toys were delivered to the end of the driveway, but the driver wasn’t allowed to get any closer. He unloaded the delivery and left it on the ground. When he got back, the delivery was gone and another one was waiting to be picked up and taken to the stores. No one asked questions.

  As long as Noel toys were popular.

  “And then one day, it disappeared,” Corey read. “He was gone.”

  “It?”

  “It, he, same thing. The deliveries started to pile up until someone went to check on him. The house was unlocked. No note, no nothing. It wasn’t long after that the word about a man who called himself Pan Doe was seen on roadsides or hiking trails or farmers markets.”

  “Mr. Doe.”

  “Whatever.”

  She looked at the photo. “He’s not supposed to have a nose, remember? Lost it to frostbite.”

  “How do you know he lost it? Maybe he got it fixed.”

  “In 1932?”

  “Pan. Doe. He disappeared; the records are there. There are people all over Canada who met Pan Doe out there, said he was looking for someone or something. Some journalist wrote a whole piece about him in Life magazine.”

  “You mean started an urban legend.”

  “Facts are facts, Tin. Why are you arguing?”

  “Just because it’s written down doesn’t make it fact. I mean, look, the lady at the diner said he had green eyes, right? But the guy I saw on the North Pole had blue eyes.”

  �
�You mean the guy you dreamed about on the North Pole.”

  “Whatever. Those pictures downstairs, blue eyes. Guy in the diner, green.”

  “Maybe he wore contacts.”

  “To change eye color?”

  “He couldn’t see or she was half blind, I don’t know. This is, like, super obvious to me.”

  Tin shook her head. She wanted to agree with him. Those little details weren’t adding up. Something was missing.

  “Why don’t you see?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Put the hat on like last night, go back to the North Pole, and ask the dude if he’s Wallace or Pan Doe.”

  Stairs were creaking. Not even the ghost of Wallace Noel could sneak up on them in Toyland. A shadow fell through the cracked doorway of the bedroom, and a little face squeezed through it, purple and fuzzy.

  “Will you tell me a story?” Pip said in Monkeybrain’s gruff voice. “Please?”

  “I’ll be down in a minute, okay?”

  “Who’s that?” Monkeybrain nodded at the bed.

  Tin was afraid Pip saw the hat. The piggy from the woods was propped on the pillow. Her arms were out and ready for a hug.

  “That’s Piggy,” Tin said.

  “I thought you escaped.”

  “What?”

  Pip pushed through the door. “Popcorn is ready,” Monkeybrain said. “I love popcorn. I’m going to—”

  “Don’t.”

  Tin said it too seriously. It was the way Pip was doing Monkeybrain’s voice, the way his big eyes were staring at her that freaked her out just a little.

  “Sorry, sorry.” Tin ran to the door before Pip sulked off. “I didn’t mean it. I just… what did you mean that she escaped?”

  “You hurt his feelings.”

  Tin stroked Monkeybrain’s fuzzy back and plumped out her lower lip. She remembered doing the Monkeybrain voice when she was little, too. It sounded a lot like Pip’s version. How did she know?

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Monkeybrain. I know you love popcorn. I was just… never mind. I’ll be down to tell a story after I help Corey with something. Okay?”

  “Does he have a girlfriend?” She turned Monkeybrain’s head and barely moved her lips. Pip was better at it than Tin ever was.