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Before Toby could say anything, the old man calling himself 'Father Christmas' stepped forward, into the fireplace. Toby wasn't about to let the old man go and burn himself. He clung to the sleeve of the man's dress, but found he could not stop him, the old man dragging Toby along with him into the flames. The fire exploded around them both, flames rising so high, they reached the top of the old man's fur-edged hat.
But they didn't burn.
Instead, the flames whirled and whooshed around them, circling them and spinning around and around until Toby began to feel sick, his head swimming. He closed his eyes, gripping his stomach and started to fall to his knees, stopped only by a hand that grabbed a hold of the hood of his sweater.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the roof almost ten feet beneath him. He had sneaked onto the roof, once, and had become berated by Mum for doing something the 'Council' wouldn't like. He recognised the roof. But he didn't recognise the chimney stack that he and the old man stood upon. That chimney stack was not something that the roof had before, because none of the flats had fires.
The old man's arm wrapped around Toby's waist, holding tight, and then the old man jumped down to the roof, landing as light as though he had only stepped from a pavement's kerb. Once on the roof, the old man set Toby down and shook his head. Toby could only stare around him, feeling the chill wind of Christmas night biting through his clothes.
"That was a fool thing to do." The old man turned, waving a hand towards the chimney stack. "The door is over there. You'll find it unlocked."
The chimney stack began to grind and twist, bricks folding into other bricks, the chimney tops squeezing down. Before long, the chimney stack had disappeared, as though it were never there. Toby looked towards the door to the stairs from the roof and saw that it was, indeed, open, light streaming out of a thin crack.
"No. No! Wait a minute!" As much as he wanted to go back to the flat and wake up from this dream, he wanted to keep experiencing it, too. It was the most real dream he'd ever had. "You're not Santa Claus. Santa is supposed to be fat and jolly and dressed in red, not green. And he leaves presents, not coal. Unless you've been naughty. Have I been too naughty? Am I being punished?"
"I never said I was Sinterklaas." The old man narrowed his eyes and looked down his long, hooked nose. It looked as though his long, grey moustache grew from inside his nostrils. "Why should you be punished with coal? It brings heat and warmth and light. It holds life dear on the coldest of nights. Coal is a gift. With coal, you make fire. With fire, you can cook. No, you are not being punished. Not by me."
"But you said you were 'Father Christmas'." Toby circled the old man, picking at the dress and letting it go as though it would bite him. "That's Santa! But Santa doesn't wear a dress. He wears a bright red jacket and red trousers and shiny black boots. And he's jolly and happy, not sad, like you."
The old man smoothed down his straggly beard and then did the same with his dress. The two sacks sat against his back, held up by nothing. Toby didn't know why he thought the old man was sad, he only got that feeling from looking at him. Those eyes, the ones that looked like they had the entire, starry sky in them, and nothing at all, made Toby think the old man was sad.
"Sinterklaas is a very different creature." The old man straightened up to his full, very tall height and threw open his arms. "Santa is the eternal aspect of a Saint, Nicholas, who gave poor children gifts. I am the eternal aspect of the mid-Winter itself. A time for celebration for we are half-way to the birth of Spring and life renewing. I have known many names and I have changed as people's perceptions have changed, as has Sinterklaas, but I am not he. I am quite different."
With a flourish, the old man turned on the spot and, as he did so, the roof changed. Gone were the loose gravel and tar sheets that covered beneath Toby's feet, replaced with thick carpets with patterns of hunting and feasting, made from fibres of green and red and gold. Long tables appeared, groaning with the weight of all kinds of food.
Whole turkeys and chickens and geese, cooked and mouthwateringly brown. Pigs with apples in their mouths. All kinds of fruit piled up in bowls. Sausages and potatoes, carrots and peas, and parsnips and cabbage leaves. Food of every kind covered every available space on the four tables that surrounded Toby and the old man.
To one side, Toby could see the fireplace that the old man and he had stepped through, the fire crackling high. And, dancing and singing, drinking and eating, people sat and stood around the edges of the tables. People from all the corners of the world, laughing and talking together as though they were the oldest friends.
He moved towards one of the tables and reached out for a chicken leg, the skin still attached, a lovely golden brown, just how Mum cooked her chickens. Before he could touch it, however, the entire banquet faded away, turning into mist and then into nothing. He looked down at his hand that had touched the chicken leg and could see the shine of the juices from it on his fingertips.
"Well, it's a dream, after all." He sucked the chicken juices from his fingertips and thought about what he had seen. "That was cruel. All that food and I couldn't have a single bite? You're just like my Mum. She doesn't let me have what I want, either."
Toby looked around at the now bare roof of the tower block. For a moment, the dream had become fun, now it had returned to its cold and dark truth. Even his dreams felt as though they were punishing him, now. He felt a shiver run through him and he pulled his hands into the sleeves of his hoody and tucked them under his armpits, hugging himself.
He saw no need to carry on with this dream. The old man wasn't as fun as he thought Santa should be. But, then, he had also said he wasn't Santa, anyway. Just some cheap knock-off, like the backpack his Mum had bought him last year. It said it was a name brand, but it wasn't and everyone could tell. He began to walk towards the door down to the stairs and hoped that the door to the flat was now unlocked in the dream, too.
"Cruel, you say? Have what you want?" The old man's deep, rumbling voice followed Toby, rattling his chest, even though it sounded as though the old man whispered. "You think life is about getting what you want? You think me cruel? That food was not yours to eat! I pick no favourites! Cruel! If it's cruel you think I am, I will show you cruel!"
The old man's voice rose in volume and tone. Before Toby could even reach the door to the stairs, it slammed shut, the light blinking out from the inviting crack that had now gone. Toby rolled his eyes. The old man was just like any other grown-up. Telling Toby how he should feel. Telling him that he couldn't always have what he wanted.
No other kid got told that. He had seen them, coming back from the holidays, riding shiny new bikes to school, carrying proper, real backpacks. They talked about their new phones and the games they had got for Christmas. Toby used to join in with that, but, after his parents' divorce, he couldn't. Couldn't because he didn't get what he wanted. That was the whole point!
He spun around, ready to give the old man a piece of his mind. To tell him to either end this stupid, boring dream, or to open the door to the stairs again and let him go back to the flat. He felt tired and angry. As angry as he had felt when he tore down the Christmas cards and kicked over the tree. More angry.
"I've had enough! This is rubbish!" He stamped his foot and felt a little stupid at that. Only kids stamped their feet. "I'm either going back downstairs or I'm waking up now. You're stupid and boring and I don't care if you are 'Santa Claus', or 'Zintuh glass' or 'Father Christmas'!"
"Oh, you haven't had nearly enough." It seemed to Toby that the old man had grown even taller than before, looking down with sparkling eyes that looked like they contained shooting stars. "I'll show you exactly what is cruel, boy. The only place you are going is with me."
The old man's hand reached down towards Toby and, before Toby could run away, grabbed the hood of his sweater. In one instant, Toby had almost reached the door to the stairs, the very next, he found himself stood beside the old man. He definitely had grown taller. Taller than a tree and far, far older.
With his other hand, the old man pulled something from the sleeve of his dress. Something long and thin. As Toby struggled against the other hand, he could see holly and mistletoe branches curling around each other. It looked like wand from a movie. The old man waved the wand in the air and Toby expected something weird to happen.
And it did. A powerful gust of wind came from nowhere, spinning around Toby and the old man. So powerful, it lifted them both into the air and Toby found himself clinging to the old man's dress. Before he knew it, the gust of wind had taken them high into the sky, only the stars and clouds above them and, as Toby raised his shaking head, he could see the old man holding up the wand and smiling to himself through that thick, grey, straggly beard.