Reindeer Games (6)
Dec. 9th, 2011 12:35 amI hired a dogsled team and set out cross-country. I wasn't sure exactly where I was going, relying only on a dimly recalled memory of the Island. Time and again, this mystery had been going back to my distant past, back to when I was a lot younger and more carefree, witnessing momentous times. Now here I was again, setting out to have a look for myself at the Island of Misfit Toys.
In its time, that place had been a sanctuary for animated toys that had no other home. King Moonracer, the mighty winged lion, combed the world looking for oddball playthings and bringing them back to his Island to live. When he learned about the place, Santa intervened and promised to find homes for all the toys. He was as good as his word, and the Island was abandoned.
But Rudolf's blurry photos didn't look old. They could have been taken yesterday. And if what I saw in them was true, the Island of Misfit Toys was open for business again.
I felt that this had to be the key to the strange affair I had become embroiled in. There were just too many questions. If Rudolf was so well loved, why had he been killed? And why did it seem like everybody I talked to had something to hide? The answer had to be on the Island. On the Island I would find something that somebody was willing to die for – and somebody was willing to kill for, too.
I got off a mile from the Island. I paid the lead dog to wait, and I glided across the open ice towards the jagged waterway separating the Island from the main mass of ice. I had a warm scarf, a full bottle of gin, and a box of ammunition for my pistol. I felt ready for anything, provided it was small, harmless, and more scared of me than I was of it.
At the water's edge I found a rowboat pulled up onto the ice. There was a sign next to it. The sign read THE ISLAND OF MISFIT TOYS. The word 'misfit' had been lined through in red ink, and the word DANGEROUS had been scrawled above it.
"Uh oh," I said.
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In its time, that place had been a sanctuary for animated toys that had no other home. King Moonracer, the mighty winged lion, combed the world looking for oddball playthings and bringing them back to his Island to live. When he learned about the place, Santa intervened and promised to find homes for all the toys. He was as good as his word, and the Island was abandoned.
But Rudolf's blurry photos didn't look old. They could have been taken yesterday. And if what I saw in them was true, the Island of Misfit Toys was open for business again.
I felt that this had to be the key to the strange affair I had become embroiled in. There were just too many questions. If Rudolf was so well loved, why had he been killed? And why did it seem like everybody I talked to had something to hide? The answer had to be on the Island. On the Island I would find something that somebody was willing to die for – and somebody was willing to kill for, too.
I got off a mile from the Island. I paid the lead dog to wait, and I glided across the open ice towards the jagged waterway separating the Island from the main mass of ice. I had a warm scarf, a full bottle of gin, and a box of ammunition for my pistol. I felt ready for anything, provided it was small, harmless, and more scared of me than I was of it.
At the water's edge I found a rowboat pulled up onto the ice. There was a sign next to it. The sign read THE ISLAND OF MISFIT TOYS. The word 'misfit' had been lined through in red ink, and the word DANGEROUS had been scrawled above it.
"Uh oh," I said.
( Read more... )