Frosty Wind Made Moan

2

2

Even though Toby still felt scared, the fact that the person before him was an old man made him feel a little easier. He didn't know how the old man had managed to get into the flat, but, if he showed a little cleverness, he might be able to get him to leave without getting hurt. He began to edge towards the kitchen, the old man's eyes following him as he moved.

"If I let you have some food, will you leave?" He had neared the kitchen drawers, where Mum kept all the knives. "We've got chicken. I think it's chicken. It might be turkey. Do you like turkey? You can have as much food as you want."

"A feast?" The old man stood upright and Toby could see him better. He was very tall and didn't look all that skinny for a tramp. "A mid-Winter feast. An offering. That is good."

The old man almost folded double, reaching down to a pair of sacks at his feet. One sack was very large. It looked as though it were very dirty, old and ragged. The other sack looked much cleaner, but it was also much smaller. A lot smaller. From the dirty sack, the old man pulled out a lump of something. Something black. Then the old man placed the black thing on the coffee table.

That seemed more than a little strange to Toby. The old man straightened up again and moved in front of the tv. The light from the tv revealed the old man a lot more and Toby could see what the old man wore. Dressed in something that looked like a thick, green dress, with white fur running along the edges, the old man continued to look stranger and stranger. A long, grey beard complimented the white of the fur edges.

"A feast? No. It's just for sandwiches." He opened the fridge, making sure the old man didn't get any closer, and took out the plastic pack of chilled, cooked chicken slices. "I give you the chicken and some bread and you go, okay? Just go. And take that black thing with you."

Making certain he could reach the knife drawer, if he needed to, Toby reached up to the cupboard and took out the remains of a loaf of bread. From another drawer, he found an old, plastic shopping bag and put the chicken and the bread into it. As an afterthought, he took a can of pop from the fridge and a couple of packs of crisps, putting them into the bag, too.

Not wanting to move too far from the knife drawer, he tossed the bag over the back of the sofa and pointed towards it. The old man only looked at it. Toby almost started feeling sorry for the old man. It seemed clear he had difficulties, which was probably why he was homeless and breaking into people's homes.

"The coal is for warmth on these cold mid-Winter nights." Again, the old man bent over, gripping the sacks, one in each hand, and swinging them over his shoulders. "Warmth this home has not felt for so long, I fear. Good Yule to you, young sir."

Without even touching the shopping bag of food, the old man turned, stepping further away from the door, towards the window. No. Not the window. The wall beside the tv. Then Toby heard that sound of bricks scraping together again and, there, beside the tv, something appeared. He couldn't quite see what, as the old man stood in front of it, but Toby moved sidewards to get a better look.

In front of the old man, something strange happened. At first, it looked like a light had reflected on the wall. A flickering, orange and yellow light, but all the tree's fairy lights had gone out when Toby had kicked down the tree. Then Toby saw something impossible. The light began to grow and, as it did so, it revealed a fireplace growing out of the wall.

It looked like something from a movie. A big, stone fireplace with a log fire, warm flames crackling in the hearth, grew and grew until the bottom of the mantlepiece reached the top of the old man's holly and mistletoe crowned, fur edged hat. The fireplace almost took up the entire wall and Toby could do nothing but stare at it.

"Wait! What is this?" Despite how scared he felt, Toby found himself moving towards the fireplace and the old man. He could feel the heat from the flames even from the other side of the room. "Am I asleep? Is this a dream? How is there a fireplace in my flat? The council won't like that."

He didn't know whether the council would like it or not, but his Mum had used those same words after catching him kicking his football up and down the empty hallway outside their flat. And a few other times, too. Far too many times for far too many things the 'council' wouldn't like. He glanced at the sofa, expecting to see his own sleeping body, but only saw the bag of food.

"Would you prefer to sleep?" The old man dropped the larger sack and reached into a pocket on his dress, pulling out a handful of something that looked like glittering snow. "I can make you sleep. If you want? You won't remember any of this either way."

"Any of this?" Toby had got so close to the old man, he could feel the flames in the hearth prickling his cheeks with the heat. He reached out to touch the stones of the fireplace. "They feel real. It's really stone and it's really here."

"It is." The old man had put the glittering snow back in his pocket and had already picked up the dirty sack once more.

Toby could smell the wood burning. It reminded him of a candle Mum had once bought. He hadn't liked that smell then, but this time, this 'real' scent smelled better than the candle. It smelled comforting. In fact, the whole thing felt as though someone had wrapped him in their arms, giving him a long, loving cuddle.

With a look around, the effect of the fire had started to make everything seem better. The colours within the room became deeper and more vibrant. The dullness and the coldness of the flat had gone, replaced by warmth and softness. The fire and the fireplace had changed the whole room into something a lot closer to how he remembered the old house, before Mum and Dad had divorced.

"Who are you?" He hadn't realised how close he'd come to the old man, but he hadn't tried to do anything to Toby. In fact, Toby felt safe around the old man. "You're not homeless, are you? You didn't break in."

"I did not." The old man didn't bend down to talk to him like other grown-ups did. He held his back straight, only bending his neck to look down upon Toby. "Though, you are wrong on one thing. I have no home. I have no need of one."

"Why?" He didn't know why he asked that. If the old man said he had no home, it was probably for the same reasons other homeless people didn't have homes. But, when the old man said he didn't need one, that made Toby curious.

"I have no need of a home, because I only exist for a short time." The old man released the clean bag, but it didn't fall to the floor. The neck of the bag stayed, as though attached to the old man's shoulder. He patted the mantle of the fireplace. "I perform my long since given task and then I go, Elsewhere, until mid-Winter comes again and there I begin my duty once more. As I always have, from the beginning of civilisation. As I always will, until the end of life."

Toby had listened, he had! But, he had also edged around to take a better look at the sack upon the old man's back. He had thought the old man had caught the sack on a hook, or attached it with velcro, or something, but he was wrong. The bag hung there, attached to nothing. Held up by nothing. He wondered why the old man had held the sack for so long if he hadn't needed to?

"How can you only exist for a short time?" Here, in the light of the fire, Toby could see the old man's eyes and, for a second, he thought he saw something odd, something endless, within those dark brown irises. "Don't you either exist or not? And if you don't exist, doesn't that mean you're dead?"

"You are twice as clever as you look, but only half as clever as you need be." The old man's hand returned to the clean sack's neck, gripping it tight. "Go, get some sleep. Mother will be home soon and you don't want to get up late on Christmas morning, Toby."

For a second, Toby didn't realise that the old man had called him by his name. As soon as he did realise, and before Toby could say anything, the old man started to step towards the fire. The old man's booted foot almost touched the flames. Odd, pointed boots, well worn and rumpled, brown and scuffed. Toby had never seen boots like them, or clothes like the old man's green dress with white-furred edges. He grabbed hold of one of the long, wide sleeves of that dress, pulling the old man back.

"Are you mental? You'll burn!" Toby didn't know why he had stopped the old man and, by the curious frown upon the old man's wrinkled face, neither did he. "Look, just who are you?"

"Don't you know?" The old man's booted foot hovered near the flames but did not catch fire. "I'm Father Christmas."