Chapter 6

Santa

A boy lay in the square of a strange town. Unconscious, snow fell onto his back, quickly building up to almost an inch deep.

Someone approached the square at a slow, casual pace. Abnormally tall, his long red coat dragged behind his small boots that were at odds with his imposing figure. He made his way over to the boy and stopped just in front of him.

“Now, what do we have here?” he cackled. “It seems someone new has come to play.”

His mouth burst into a wide grin, revealing sharp, pointed, hooked, menacing teeth.

He reached down, picked Ty up, and threw him up onto his shoulder with ease.

“What will be left of him when he returns home?” He called to the air as he returned the way he came, toward a large building towering into the sky.

Across the square, in an alley, a pair of glowing eyes watched the tall figure until it—and more importantly, the boy—entered the building. There was movement, and the eyes were gone, vanishing inside the darkness.

#

Black. How different it was compared to the blinding light only moments before. Or was it hours? Days? He figured he should find out, so he opened his eyes.

He was in a room that seemed designed by someone who never heard of light bulbs or windows, as it was completely devoid of both. More than that, it lacked everything. There was no furniture, no decorations, no wallpaper, nothing. He was all alone with cement walls and floors… and a raggedy old blanket. He guessed it had been on him at one point, a sickening thought since it looked like it never saw a washing machine in its life.

There was a big wooden door behind him. He went closer, praying that it would be unlocked. As he approached though, he could already tell it wasn't locked... because it was missing a doorknob, a lock, or any kind of handle at all. Ty tried throwing himself against the door, but it didn't budge. For the first time, he realized how much trouble he could really be in. Where was he? How would he get out? What if what was outside that door was worse than an empty room?

A sliding noise came from above and Ty jumped. He looked up, noticing a panel on the door like you'd see in some fantasy dungeon cell. He didn't want to think about how well that description fit his surroundings.

The opening was high enough up that he had to stand on his tiptoes to see out of it. He expected someone to be looking in, but instead, he saw... a black button? The kind used on clothes, but way bigger. In the time it took him to blink, the button moved away, and the panel closed back into place.

“Hey!” Ty yelled. “Help me! Please, open the door!”

He didn't expect that to work, but it was worth a try... even if his only hope was a plastic button.

The Living Button gave no reply, and instead, he heard a sound that certainly sounded like padded feet retreating down the hall.

Minutes passed, and Ty walked around in circles thinking of ways out of this situation. He came up with nothing better than pinching himself in the hope he would be whisked away back to the safety of his bed. Not only did it not work, it actually hurt, too. Fantastic.

He was unable to come to any other bright conclusions before he heard footsteps coming back up the hall. Two pairs, it sounded like. He was sure one belonged to the Living Button, the other one made of slow, purposeful strides. Ty hoped that purpose was to let him out of this cell.

Both pairs of footsteps stopped outside the door, and a long white object was inserted into the place a doorknob belonged. It almost looked like... a finger?

The “finger” turned, a click coming from within the door, and then it flung open, revealing Ty's savior... or, was it his captor?

#

“Ah! You're finally awake,” a voice said from the hall. “Excellent!”

Ty fell back onto the ground in his haste to dodge the door as it swung inward. This turned out to be a good thing, as the figure before him was so tall, he would have had to strain his neck to see all of him.

On his head was a red hat with a spiked white ball so heavy that it weighed the tip of the hat down to hang along the side of his face. And his head... it was like a skull that belonged to no human or animal Ty was aware of. Its head was round, somehow too round to be human, and lacked essential features such as jaw and nose bones. He had eye sockets, but the holes bent and moved like eyebrows (at that moment one hole grew larger than the other in a questioning gaze). The closest thing he had to a nose were two smaller holes, so minuscule they were like an unimportant afterthought, thrown in just because noses were such a common feature in living creatures.

If he had teeth, Ty couldn't see them. His mouth remained firmly closed. His smile was a line, an animated scratch across his face.

“What are you doing, my boy?” He let out a strange laugh that at first sounded like 'HoHoHo!' but had an underlying 'HehHehHeh!' mixed in. It sent a shiver up Ty's spine. “Are you just going to sit there with your mouth hanging open? There is much to see, come along!”

A long bony hand shot toward him and pulled Ty to his feet with alarmingly little effort. Before he knew it he was being dragged—almost carried—through the door. He took the time to look over his shoulder and back at the room where he spent who knew how much time. In front of it was the answer to the mysterious button.

A sock monkey stood by the door, somewhere between two and three feet tall, and holding a spear more than twice its height. And there were the buttons, sewn onto its face as eyes.

The tall man brought them to a stop and raised his elbow, blocking Ty's view of the monkey and bringing the boy's attention back around.

“What is your name, little friend?” He asked, still smiling downward.

“Ty,” he said, after a pause, adding, “And yours?”

The man's smile grew larger, threatening to reveal the teeth that may be hiding inside. “Do you believe in Santa Claus?”

Ty didn't know what that had anything to do with his name, but he went along with it anyway and shook his head.

“That's good. I hate Santa Claus.”

The figure noticed Ty's puzzling as he eyed the man's red hat and coat. “Wondering why I dress like him?” He didn't wait for an answer. “It's because, whether I like it or not, he and I are two sides of the same coin. For children around the holidays, he is the symbol of all that is good to them: happiness, love, toys, magic. But me? I am the protector of all those things, as well as the true creator. I wear this outfit to give the children who wind up here something safe and familiar.” He leaned down closer to Ty, raising one hand to the side of his mouth as he whispered, “And between you and me, it’s also to mock that overweight lie of a man.”

He laughed at that before he turned to face Ty, serious again.

“So, my boy, you asked me my name. I am the protector and creator of childhood itself! My name,” a small, dramatic pause, “is San.” He bowed and, because of his height, he ended up leaning over Ty. He looked down at the boy and finished, “Welcome to my toy factory.”

“Toy factory...” Those words brought both a mixture of wonderful memories and painful emotions, his mind automatically linking them to his grandfather.

“Yes, indeed! I create every toy you could ever imagine within these walls. We've even branched out recently to video games. Gotta keep up with the times, eh?”

It sounded impressive, Ty had to give him that. But something bothered him.

“So, if this is the factory… why do you have a dungeon cell in it?”

“Dungeon?”

Ty pointed over his shoulder from the way they came.

“Oh, that! No, no, that wasn't a dungeon! Good heavens, you must think terribly of me!” He slapped himself on the forehead. “We are remodeling, you see. That was the only spare room I had at such short notice. You appeared on my doorstep—I mean that almost literally—and I simply couldn’t leave you out there in the cold.”

Ty nodded. It made some sort of sense. Still...

“The rest of the factory is a lot more interesting—I'll give you the full tour!”

He took one step and then immediately stopped again. “How silly of me, I’d forgotten you'd been asleep all this time! The tour will have to wait, I'm sure you're starving.”

Now that he mentioned it, Ty found that he was rather hungry. It made him wonder just how long he had really been asleep. He started to ask when he remembered what the wizard said: Here, time becomes strange. That might be true but... was he really still in the same place? How could that room full of light be connected to this factory?

All of a sudden San took off down the hall, pulling Ty along with him. The boy had to break into a run just to keep up and even then, every few feet San's massive hand would lift him off the ground as he began to lag behind.

Ty got a weird feeling, from this place and San himself. He could tell that he was hiding something. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what, but the fact that the secrets were there hung over him, keeping him on edge around the stranger. Even though he was greeted with nothing but kindness and was on his way toward food, Ty felt more of a prisoner than he did in that empty, windowless cell.