A Mystic Missouri story.
1.1
In the midst of a smashed-flat neighborhood, surrounded the
splintered and shattered homes, Toyah hunted for treasure. The little
blonde-haired girl in a dirt-brown tunic slowly picked her way down the street.
As she shuffled, slid, and skipped around the twisted wrecks of cars and
trucks, climbed and jumped over fallen trees, she would occasionally pause and
peer at her surroundings. On her shoulder, a small plastic and tin owl likewise
swiveled its head, the tiny red beads set in its wide eyes sparking. Despite
several stops, neither seemed to find anything interesting. Not until they were
three blocks deep into the street did the owl make a fluttering of its plastic
wings. The limited movement allowed by the simple hinge was useless for any
sort of flight, even if it had been made from the right materials, but its
rapid clicking alerted the girl that it had seen something. When she looked at
it, the owl turned its tin head so that it’s beak pointed directly at a house
three more plots down. The girl hurried over, scrambling over a crumbled brick
half-wall, its metal grating lying in a tangled mess among the debris of the
neighboring home.
Toyah appraised the building as she approached. Stopping a
few feet from where several jagged spears of snapped frame stuck out from a
heavy slab of concrete, it was clear there would be no climbing inside herself.
She crouched down, noting that the slab and wooden frame slats hung over the
ground by about half a foot, cloaking in shadow a broken, ground-level window that
no doubt led into the basement. Toyah stood back up and opened the leather
satchel she’d been lugging with her. Her fingers touched an object of polished
wood, and she pulled out a wooden doll painted like a nutcracker soldier.
Toyah set the little wooden soldier down upon the grass. The
red and blue and tan facsimile of a man wobbled for a moment, then righted
itself. Its tiny, simple hinges squeaked a bit from long disuse. The young girl
pointed forward, towards the massive pile of destroyed wood, brick, and metal.
Taking a moment to make sure it had oriented itself, the little toy soldier
waddled forward. Its legs were jointed only at the hips, forcing it to walk in
a stilted shuffle, especially over the grass. Toyah frowned. This wouldn’t do
at all. She picked it back up and inspected the legs. The whole toy was about
eight inches tall, as long as her forearm, and the legs were wooden posts twice
as thick as her finger. She concentrated for a moment, and the toy vibrated for
a few seconds. Then, it went “limp.” The stiff material couldn’t sag, as such,
but it’s limbs, which had been resolutely held forward, now dangled towards the
ground, as the head turned slightly to the side as if at rest.
