8
The bitter cold attacked Toby as soon as he and the old man jumped down from the chimney stack from which they had emerged. He expected the old man to pull the holly and mistletoe wand from his sleeve while the chimney stack disappeared, but the old man only stared at Toby. It made him feel uncomfortable so he blew warm air into his hands to avoid looking at the old man.
"Alright! Alright! Yeah. I shouldn't have said anything to him." He tried to ignore the old man, but that stare had a way of burrowing into his head, poking his brain. "I've probably broken some rule or something but, you know what, I don't care. That poor kid deserved someone being nice to him for once."
"I agree." Now the old man retrieved the wand from his sleeve, raised it and then stopped. "I don't know if you broke a rule or not, but it wasn't something that was supposed to happen. I expect that's my own fault. Changing things like that, it has consequences."
Toby opened and closed his mouth several times. He had expected to receive a good telling off from the old man. He had not expected the old man to agree with him. It felt a little like a triumph, beating an adult at their own game, but he doubted he could count the old man as a grown-up. He didn't know what he could count the old man as.
"Hold up. Won't he forget?" He held up his hand to stop the old man talking, but he only stared at Toby. "I'm not saying I did it 'cos I thought he'd forget. But, won't he? You said to me I wouldn't remember, back in my flat."
The old man took a deep breath and began running his fingers through the loose curls of his long, grey beard. He looked as though he were thinking long and hard about that. Toby wished he hadn't said anything. Every second they stayed up here, on the roof of the large, stately home, it seemed to get colder and colder. He began stamping his feet to try and keep warm and still the old man thought.
"Little things." The old man said that as though it explained everything, nodding his head in a satisfied way. When Toby frowned at him, the old man thought for a little longer. "Little things pass and are easy forgotten. Did you see Father Christmas, or were you still half-asleep? Gone. Forgotten. You interacted with the boy, talked to him and touched both his heart and his mind. It is not something forgotten with ease."
"Will it change anything for him, though." As the old man raised the wand once more, Toby stepped to his side, holding on to the dress, ready to fly. "I'd like to think it's changed things for him."
"Who is to say? Neither I nor you can ever know. For you, you will never find out. For me, it is beyond my knowledge." The old man waved the wand and those etherial winds reappeared, catching at skin and clothing. "But, you changed this night for him. You made this night better and I'm sure the child is thankful for even that small respite."
Toby couldn't reply. Not straight away. The winds wrapped around them, seeking out the hidden places within their clothes, teasing into pockets and down sleeves. Before he realised it, the wind had picked Toby and the old man up and they were away once more into the sky, held aloft by arms of nothing but rushing air.
He couldn't help himself as they flew away from the house. As fast as the winds carried them, as much as it scared him, Toby glared below, under his feet, hoping to see the girl. Hoping that she had managed to find somewhere, or someone to help her, but he couldn't see her. In fact, almost straight away, the snow beneath them disappeared and, instead of darkness, Toby began to see strings of lights along roads and the flash of car headlights.
They had returned from the past, back to the Christmas Eve where the old man had found Toby. Though they still hadn't reached the block of flats where Toby lived, yet. It seemed this was a once in a lifetime journey. One that Toby could never have imagined, either in real life or in a dream. He wasn't creative enough for that. Before he landed on the roof of the tower block, Toby fancied asking a few questions of the old man. Whether he answered or not was a very different matter.
"You know back at that big house? You gave the girl some coal and an apple, but Leopold only got the coal." He remembered, this time, to shout and make himself heard above the rushing wind "I know you say it's not a punishment, but why give one both things and not the other. I'm sure Leopold would have appreciated an apple."
"The girl would wish for warmth and a full stomach. Not only the warmth of a fire, but the warmth of love, of affection, as would Leopold. In that, they were similar." The old man squinted against the wind as they seemed to travel even faster than they had before. It appeared the old man wanted rid of Toby. "A full stomach, however, is something Leopold will never miss. Whether he is fed through love, or only from responsibility, who knows, but he will never go without food. The girl? Ah, I don't know. Whether she will get the food and warmth she wants, that she needs, I do not know. That is what the coal and apple represent. Not a guarantee of warmth, or food, but the hope for it."
"I'm not sure I understand." Up ahead, Toby could see the tower blocks approaching. "All I know is that I never get what I want, either."
They stopped in mid-air and the winds about them seemed to become wilder. Toby became buffeted by a tumult of air tugging and pushing him and he almost lost his grip of the old man's dress. The old man, however, did not seem quite as disturbed by the increase in force. Toby tried to cling even tighter and he dared a glance up to the old man's face.
That face looked down towards Toby with such fierce anger. He hadn't seen the old man angry, up to now, and Toby wondered what he had said to cause such animosity. Those star-filled eyes of the old man now appeared to contain flashes. Tiny supernovas that flared and died within micro-seconds. A bump against Toby's feet almost dislodged him again.
"You think you compare? You never get what you want?" This seemed different from the words the old man had spoken before, that preceded their journey to the snow-covered fields and lanes where Edward and Leopold's house had stood. "Impudence. Greed! You have everything you need and yet you complain that you do not get what you want? Want! Want! Want!"
The hand holding the holly and mistletoe wand raised higher above the old man's head and he spun it in the air, as though stirring a pot upwards, or conducting an orchestra that stared down upon them. The winds became even more violent and carried both Toby and the old man higher. Higher and higher they rose, leaving the Earth retreating below them.
Toby became more scared than ever before as he watched the tower blocks where he lived spinning away beneath them. They shot through clouds, the winds dragging fingers of cloud trailing after them and still they rose higher. So high that Toby saw a huge jet barrelling towards them that zoomed past as though they weren't even there.
And still they flew higher. Higher than Toby could ever imagine until the darkness around them took on a different colour. Less of a grey, dull blackness, to a deep, cold black that felt devoid of any warmth. Before Toby knew it, he looked down to see the entirety of the Earth beneath their feet. The circle of the planet so far below them that Toby thought they must have shot into space and Toby feared the old man would leave him here to freeze in the emptiness outside of Earth's atmosphere.
He still breathed, however. Toby wasn't the brightest of students, but even he knew that he couldn't breathe in space, and neither should he still feel the tempest of wind around him and the old man. That, more or less, settled the matter of whether he dreamed all of this. As he looked back up to the old man, he could still see anger there.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!" When the old man said nothing in reply, Toby found himself getting angry. If the old man wasn't going to accept his apology, that wasn't Toby's fault. "I said I'm sorry, what more do you want?"
"Sorry for what? What do you apologise for? You don't even know what you said, do you?" Using the wand as a pointer, the old man made Toby look back down towards the Earth. "How many of the people down there do you think gets what they want? What they truly want. Fewer still get what they need. Wants, desires and needs. Do you even know the difference?"
"Of course I do!" Despite how terrified and angry he felt, Toby could only look down at the Earth and marvel at how beautiful it was, but he wasn't about to let the old man think he had scared him. "There's probably lots of people get what they want. All I want is a games console. It's not much to ask. Everyone else is getting one, why can't I?"
The anger had faded from the eyes of the old man, replaced by something else, but Toby couldn't tell what the expression meant. At once it looked like disgust towards Toby, then it looked like pity, then it only looked like sadness. Toby wasn't certain he deserved any of those expressions targeted at him.
"I had thought you were better than that. After how you acted with the boy." With a shake of the head, the old man waved the wand once more. "I can see now that you are but a selfish, bitter little child. You have never known true want ... but you will."
As though the winds disappeared from under them, Toby and the old man began to fall, back towards the Earth. They fell at such speeds that Toby worried they'd smash right through the Earth and out the other side but, even in panic, Toby noticed they weren't falling back towards England. Not even towards Europe. They were descending towards somewhere far, far away from his home, into the light of day.