The Toymaker's Workshop

The old church had stood there, on the corner, for more than a hundred years. An odd bastion of Gothic architecture in the middle of a not-quite modern downtown, it brooded, not quite sane. It was a landmark of the city's past, and protected as such from the hungry bulldozers of developers eager to make way for the next minimall, but no one wanted anything to do with it. It reminded the people of the town uncomfortably of the faith they had long forgotten.

And so the church sat, passed by morning commuters on their way to work, closed to all except the eccentric caretaker, who lived in the old theater and had made it his home and place of business.

Dawn light crept into the chapel, filtering through dozens of tiny panes of stained glass. The workshop was once a pulpit, but the only worship now is that of the bald man over the form of a young lady on a table. There is a scraping as he worked lovingly over her body, made of wood, plastic, and ceramic, a manikin. The curves of the form taking shape in front of him reflected in the shades he wore, and he smiled, showing dozens of silver-capped peg teeth. "Yes, my pretty..." he murmured to himself. "Soon...soon we shall see how well put together you are...my pretty little manikin...soon we shall see you dance."

The figure lay, unmoving, as he threaded golden wire into her scalp in the semblance of hair. Her glass eyes, tinted a misty emerald color, stared vacantly at one of hundreds of mirrors hung on the walls. There was a hint of movement. The doll on the table stired, ever so slightly. Wooden lids blinked, and the bare ceramic breast shuddered, trying to draw in a breath. The old bald man cocked his head to the side at the unexpected movement.

"Oh, dear." he muttered. "So anxious...wait a while, my pretty. You aren't finished yet. Go back to sleep, my pretty little dolly, and let Mr. Silver finish his work."

He began to hum faintly, remembering a tune he'd heard a long time ago. He began to put words to the melody.

"Hush-a-bye

Don't you cry

Go to sleep my little baby

When you wake

You will have

All the pretty little horses

Blacks and Bays

Dapples and greys

Coach and six little horses..."

At his song, the figure fell silent once again, soothed by the toymaker's song. He continued to hum as he worked. Finishing with the hair, he moved his hand along the bare chest of the doll, and released a small, cunning clasp. The manikin's perfect breast opened, revealing a small hollow where a living person's heart would be. He reached up to the wall.

Hundreds of mirrors reflected his old, wrinkled hands. Circles, ovals, rectangles, octagons, and triangles reflected the metal bench, the life-sized doll, and old Mr. Silver. His thin fingers closed around an oval mirror, a pretty thing framed in pewter with a silver filigree. He moved to a crate at one end of the table, and opened it. A whimper drifted into the air.

"Shhh...it's all right. I just need to borrow this from you." the old man whispered to the contents of the box, reaching a hand in. The whimpering continued. He withdrew a lock of hair, and a piece of shadow, then closed the crate and returned to his work. He carefully braided the lock of golden hair with the sliver of shadow, and then threaded the braid with infinite care around the mirror. He smiled, a horrible, peg-toothed grin, cupped the mirror in his hands, and blew gently on the surface. The mirror clouded briefly. A faint face, identical to the porcelain visage of the doll's, formed in the fog. He set the mirror delicately into the hollow of her breast, closed the cavity, and whispered an ancient chant that invoked a contract he'd made eons ago.

The manikin's body began to change. Wood and ceramic faded into soft flesh, golden wires became flowing hair, green glass eyes transmogrified into flesh orbs. Where once was a manikin, there now lay a young woman, perhaps 23 years of age. "We're ready now, my dear." he said, with parental glee. "Take your first breath for me, won't you?"

The doll stirred, her throat softening as the wood and ceramic became tissue, and her chest expanded. She gasped slightly as dreams, memories, and longings flowed into her mind. A snowball fight with her sister as a child, a day in autumn spent watching the red and gold leaves of the great oak near her house fall, the tenderness of her first kiss...she felt hard, unyielding metal beneath the arch of her back, a coldness which crept into her bare flesh and chilled to the bone. She tried to lift her arms, but they seemed so heavy...

"Relax, Arella." the old man said. He stood over, her, far too close to be comforting to a naked woman. His form was tall and vaguely hunched over. He wrung his thin, wiry hands together in some sort of anticipation, and his shiny bald head and horrible, silver-capped, peg-toothed grin made shivers of disgust roll down her flesh. The old man's eyes were completely invisible behind the large mirrored shades he wore, and he was dressed in an immaculate gray suit that seemed several decades out of style that almost seemed to shimmer in the light of the stained glass mirrors. He resembled some horrible vulture hanging over her, waiting for her to die. She tried to scream, but she could not remember how, and the only sound she made was that of a drowning man gasping for life-saving air.

"Relax, my little dolly. No harm will come to you." The toymaker watched every delicious movement, aroused by her struggle. "You are simply having a nightmare. Just let the life come to your limbs slowly, naturally." She wanted to hide, to scream, to run away, to hit him...but it was an effort just to breathe.

"Try to move, dear." He encouraged her, in a calming voice that had no business belonging to such a horrible old man. "Sit up slowly. I'll get us something to eat."

He shuffled off to the side of the workshop, and the girl managed to rise. She was able to see the whole place for the first time. The former church was filled with junk and bric-a-brac...and bodies. A dozen bodies in various state of dismemberment flopped along the walls, or stood like department store dummies in various poses. Most were missing arms, legs, heads, or even whole torsos...and every body was artificial. Fake. Wooden, plastic, ceramic and cloth. Along the walls were hundreds and hundreds of mirrors, in all shapes and sizes, reflecting everything in that horrible room a thousand times over in infinite patterns, like a demented kaleidoscope. Again she tried to scream, and again all that came out was a choked gurgle. A tear curled down her face as she reached around desperately for something to cover herself with, something to make her feel less exposed.

"Oh, dear." The toymaker muttered as he rummaged through a cupboard. "We seem to be out of marmalade. I suppose butter will have to do." He puttered around the crude kitchen area. The smell of toasting bread began to fill the chapel, adding to the sawdust and faint mildew odor. "I'm sorry about the mess...I don't receive many visitors." A far-off siren wailed somewhere beyond the walls as a police car screamed down a distant street.

She felt her limbs begin to work, finally, agonizingly. Pins and needles filled her limbs, but it was better than the numbness of before. She slid off the metal bench, scratching her hip on the metal. Her legs were not strong enough to hold her, and she collapsed. She searched for a door, but saw only the tangle of manikin bodies and mirrors. She reached for an arm, and pried a small ring of metal from it. It was a weapon, perhaps. It was better than nothing at least. "Si..." she cooed, finding her voice at last.

Mr. Silver turned back towards the steel table, bearing a tray. That horrible peg-toothed smile spread across his face as he saw her moving around. "Good, good...everything seems to be working. Here. You must be hungry. Have some toast." He set the tray down in front of her. She eyed the tray of buttery toast, hot, crisp, and neatly stacked, the smell wafting through the chapel to heaven. Her stomach gurgled, but she remained unmoving.

"I bet you're cold, as well. Let me fetch you some clothes." He shuffled off to a chest of drawers, rummaged around for a little while, before withdrawing with a pair of jeans, a tee-shirt, undergarments, and a pair of shoes. The girl poked at the toast, wondering if it was safe, before asking the only questions on her mind.

"Who are you?" she squeaked, her voice coming in a strained gasp. "What are you going to do to me?"

"Perhaps I am a subconscious manifestation of your grandfather, whom you knew only briefly before he died. Perhaps I'm your father, made twisted by your repressed anger for him never being there when you needed him and the danger his line of work puts him in. Or perhaps I'm just Mr. Silver, the crazy old man in the church on the street." He set the pile of clothes next to the tray. "It doesn't matter much...you'll most likely forget this nightmare as soon as you wake up, and you'd be better off for it. Don't worry your pretty little head about it. Oh, and before you try anything stupid, the door is barred. You'd never get it open fast enough."

She shivered at the implied threat, but if this was a dream, what was it for? "Kindly stay out of my head, Mr. Silver. I don't like you being in there." She tried to dress herself and eat at the same time, juggling underwear with buttered toast while trying to alter things with her mind. Couldn't you do that, if you realized you were dreaming? Couldn't you change the reality around you? But no matter what she pictured, she couldn't will herself away from that old church, nor escape the old man with thought alone.

The toast, however, was warm, and buttery, and deliciously crispy, and she wolfed it down as if it were the first meal she had ever had. And the clothes warmed her, and their softness was pleasant in a way the table wasn't. The sensation was so familiar to her, and yet it was all so new at the same time. And now that she was clothed and fed, the old man seemed less like a vulture, and more like an expectant parent, getting his child ready for her first day at school. She wiped the tears from her eyes.

Mr. Silver turned back and shuffled towards the metal altar. "There now. Don't you feel better?" He stopped and looked her over. "Look at you. So perfect...better than I ever expected. You truly are a marvel." He smiled softly, and waved his hand. "Now, I am afraid it is time for you to return to the deep parts of sleep. And when you wake up...put this crazy nightmare out of your mind." And it began to grow dark as the magic pulled at her mind. She felt her body relax, and she lay down on the metal table again. Within moments, she drifted into a dreamless sleep from which she would not wake short of being suffocated, crushed, or injured.

Mr. Silver, satisfied with his task, turned back to the mirror. He passed by the box, which whimpered again. He ignored the whimpering, and stood before a mirror. He laid one thin finger on it, and slide it down the side, enjoying the cool slickness of the glass. A vague mist formed in the mirror's reflection, coalescing into a face. Mr. Silver smiled. "Your order is ready, lord. As we agreed. You may make pick it up any time you like."

The face was ebony black and delicate, like some dark elf. Silver tresses framed a pair of empty eye holes, lit only by a pair of red pinpricks of light. The lower half of the face was covered with a leather scarf or mask that flowed out of sight. "Excellent work, as always, Mr. Silver. I will arrive shortly."

The face faded away. Mr. Silver went over to the crate, opened it, and looked in. Inside was a girl, identical to the sleeping doll on the table, bound, gagged, and naked. She whimpered again, trying to say something through the gag, tears streaming from her emerald eyes and matting her golden hair.

"Shh...don't cry. Don't carry on so, dear. Your new master will be here soon, to carry you away to a magnificent magical kingdom far, far away. Won't that be nice? And don't worry about your friends and family-your life will not go unlived."

The girl in the box tried to scream, but only muffled whimpers emerged. Mr. Sliver sighed, closed the lid, and returned to the table. He picked up the doll, gently set her aside, then picked up another of the half-formed manikins in his shop. "Back to work." he muttered, picking up his tools. He turned to the figure, and began to create.