Winter went without a storm to rival the one the girl had rode in on an orbit ago. Once frost was all that remained and Gran had readied the peat trays, Mat, a man of his word, prepared to visit Elis.

"Over my dead body."

It wasn't up for debate; Gran needed him here. So, he waited until the ground was tilled and the seedlings planted to ask again. It wouldn't be the first time Snow had stuck her hands in the dirt, he reasoned, but the old woman had always felt safer with an extra pair of eyes and feared that if the girl did see someone that she might not raise the alarm.

"Got a history of having her head in the clouds and feigning mute."

But Gran was growing soft in her old age, and in the end, Mat got his way.

"Hey." Gran got in Snow's face as the boy wrapped a scarf around her head. "You see anyone crest that hill, you give me a shout, a tug on my dress, somethin', anything, you hear me? Or ya best believe they'll haul ya away faster than these cankles can keep up," she added, gesturing accusingly toward her feet.

Gran ignored Mat's stern glare and straightened at Snow's nod.

"You sure that pasty skin of yours isn't going to burn?" Gran asked, not for the first time.

Snow shook her head.

Mat tucked one last long strand of white away. "She doesn't burn."

Now it was Gran's turn to glare.

He turned Snow toward him. "You behave for the old woman, you hear me?" he said loudly, before he leaned in close and added under his breath: "Don't worry. She's all grizzle." He leaned back in time to catch her smile.

"Alright." Gran swung her weight as a wedge between them. "No secrets from the lad who's heck bent on abandoning his family to play with toys and swindle with an old geezer.

"'Til high sun," Gran warned as Mat grabbed his cloak from the peg at the door and swung it open. "You best be back here when the sun's at its highest in the sky or y'r not too old to get whooped, you hear me?" she shouted as Mat gave a little wave and shut the door behind him.

The rim of the sky was still pink like a healing scar when Mat caught sight of the cherrywood door and found it curiously ajar. Bustling and subdued music reached his ear as he peeked inside. The bell overhead didn't chime, the door was already past the threshold; he gave no introduction to the chaos inside, which robbed him of all coherent thoughts and rooted him to the spot.

A matinee of tiny, glass-blown frogs in top hats that he had previously spied in various states of frozen pomp and circumstance were playing miniature brass instruments atop a shelf, their little legs pumping to the music, their cheeks swelling with each breath as more than a dozen velveteen rabbits jumped and jived to the spirited tune down below on the floor. One with a floppy ear twirled and dipped its partner only to drop it a moment later as its backside split, tearing at the seam. Its partner showed the appropriate amount of horror as those around them threw up their stitched paws to their whiskers in a collective gasp. The floppy-eared rabbit turned to glance at its torn bottom, its stuffing falling out, then fell to the floor in a fit of giggles, losing more of its fluff with each wiggle. Its dancing partner placed its paws on its knees with a chitter that wracked its furry body while another rabbit darted down a side aisle and the others resumed dancing. Moments later, a high-pitched squeal clashed with the music. Mat glanced around, looking for the source, when the rabbit who had darted away returned with two honey-colored stuffed hamsters—seams giving their artificial nature away—in white helmets with red crosses, oblong tubes emitting that whistling sound between their plump cheeks, hauling a green stretcher between them. They halted in front of the victim who was still clutching its deflating belly, then hoisted the rabbit onto the stretcher. The forgotten partner scooped up the stuffing and shoved it atop the patient before the hamsters hustled back down the aisle.

Sure that he was suffering some sort of psychosis, Mat scanned the room for other perps that might further propel him into a state of lunacy. He needn't look far—on the back wall, above the hubbub below, he spotted what appeared to be a chameleon hanging by its feet on a string where Elis often hung tea lights. Should it have simply been an acrobatic chameleon, the peculiarity would have been a minor one, but after Mat dragged calloused fingers over his eyes to rub away the crud and disbelief, he looked again and the creature indeed appeared to be painting. Tail wrapped around a slow-moving paintbrush, the pale chameleon was the same shade as its nearly blank canvas.

Mat squinted, leaned in, trying to get a better look at the painting, but he pushed the door open too far—the morning light shot across the dance floor and splashed onto the canvas. Its eyes swiveling, the chameleon turned its head to take in the visitor; the chorus of brass instruments came to a jarring halt; and the velveteen rabbits fell limply to the floor, their black eyes lidless and unmoving.

They were toys again.

The sudden silence ringing in his ears, Mat stepped tentatively into the shop, closed the door behind him but left it open a crack so the bell would not chime. He tiptoed over the rabbits and glanced at the frogs as he passed, skin crawling as he imagined their eyes following him around the room.

The scene had gone from one of impossibility to an idle toy store in a moment flat. Replaying the matinee in his head, he feared rationality would kick in and his brain would boil it all down to a fever of sorts. A sliver of doubt wedged into his psyche even now as he slipped by stagnant aisles. Nothing budged save the chameleon that kept the dripping paintbrush tightly gripped, one eye trained on Mat, the other going wild in its socket. Mat gravitated toward the back wall and came to a stop before the artist that cocked its head like a dog awaiting instruction.

He admired the paint blotches and that's all they were—purple and grey splotches on a dominantly blank backdrop. The chameleon kinked its neck to keep one eye on him as Mat took a step closer. He felt foolish thinking a lizard could paint anything other than bleeding shapes. Still, the creature's wonky gaze unsettled him. Mat searched for a seam, rough edges that indicated it, too, was a toy gone rogue, but while he had never seen a chameleon outside picture books, there was nothing to indicate it wasn't real.

His head swiveled at the groan of a chair down the dimly lit aisle where Elis sat, his back to Mat as he hunched over his worktable. A small flame with no lantern or candle stick to suspend it, loomed above his head, illuminating whatever held his attention in the space between his burly arms. The old man mumbled, talking to the two hamsters that peered anxiously over his right arm at his work. Mat inched closer so that he might make out the tinker's words.

"Nurse Helga takes one day off and seams unravel."

Whatever the old man worked on twittered. Mat thought it likely the velveteen rabbit with the torn backside.

"Stewart can't help himself," Elis chuckled. "When the hare gets a hankering to gambol, he leaves it all out on the dancefloor."

A rolling sickness that Mat had stumbled upon something private swelled inside him as he witnessed Elis converse with stuffed animals. Mat thought to make a quiet exit, unseen. Instead, he spoke before his brain could warn his mouth: "Elis." His voice broke on the word and caused another domino effect of stirs: Elis recoiled and his head spun as if he'd been stuck by a hot poker, eyes bulging behind his half-moon spectacles; the ball of fire suspended above his head snuffed out and manifested in a lantern propped on a shelf behind him; and the two hamsters fell listless atop the worktable. It was only Stewart who was slow on the uptake; ears perked and whiskers twitching, the rabbit lifted his head to peek over Elis' arm at Mat.

He nearly bolted out of the shop right then.

Elis jumped up, his chair almost careening to the floor. It was then the rabbit remembered itself; its eyes glossed over and its head smacked back against the table.

"Mat," Elis said and walked toward him only to pull up short, not quite out of the aisle's shadow. "What are you—I didn't hear you come in."

"Front door was open," Mat offered lamely.

Neither seemed to want to be the first to speak next for fear of what might tumble out. Mat's skin felt like it was trying to shed so that it might crawl away. Elis looked frail enough to crack.

"Come for anything in particular?" the tinker asked, a peculiar choice of words that instilled no comfort in this extraordinary situation.

"I thought I'd come into town and discuss when you'd like me to start helping out—in fact, I thought I'd start today."

Sorry about the peach cobbler, he thought ludicrously. Luckily, the dead look in Elis' eyes as if he hadn't spoken at all clogged up his throat.

"Not today."

Mat nodded. He wanted to ask when the old man would like him to start but thought better of it. Itching to be anywhere else, he turned to go.

"I was just sowing up Stewart, there," Elis said, tone lighter, conversational even as he gestured to the rabbit. "Busted some stitches on his rump."

Mat started. Is that an invitation to ask questions? If it was, he had no clue where to start.

Elis spared him with a "Nearly finished" and shuffled back to that small wooden chair that creaked beneath his weight.

Again, Mat wondered whether he should go, feeling a tug back to the door, back outside to a world without magic—magic, the word short-circuited his brain and he was standing there, staring at nothing when Elis said: "Close the door, will you?" without looking up from his task.

Mat nodded with no one to see the gesture, walked back over the rabbits, though he swore a few were now missing, to the door. Hand gripping the latchstring, he urged himself to shout goodbye back at the old man. Instead, he grinded his teeth and did as Elis bid him. The bell's chime radiated through the shop like a gong. He returned to the back, watching the chameleon reach as slow as molasses in the wintertime for a peg above where it currently perched.

"Elsie's quite the painter," Elis said, though when Mat glanced his way, the old man was still looking at the rabbit.

Elsie now had one two-pronged hand wrapped around the peg. Mat pushed gently against her back to help, but instead she swung back onto the rope that bounced around with her weight. She turned that wonky stare back on him in a way he imagined was not without consternation. It was hard to take her distress seriously with her eyes swiveling around in her head like that.

The old man chuckled, suddenly at Mat's shoulder, nearly stopping his heart. "She's an independent one, my Elsie."

Mat observed her work, all blocky splotches and messy arcs. "Think she knows what she's painting yet?"

Movement in the direction of Elis' worktable toiled in the corner of Mat's eye. He turned in time to see what he swore was a cotton tail disappear around the corner. The hamsters, too, were now nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, Elsie always knows," Elis said with a naked fondness.

"Can't wait to see the finished product."

"She's a slow mover—nature's curse—but when she gets started on a new piece, Elsie won't rest 'til it's complete."

Unable to keep up the farce of seriously discussing a painting pet any longer, Mat chuckled, an odd sound that made his skin shrink. Elis smiled politely, wilting Mat's smirk. He walked back to the velveteen rabbits that had yet to hide (their numbers sparser with every glance), picked one up and felt surprisingly unnerved when their eyes met. Mat gave it a squeeze, feeling for an energy source, mechanics, anything that wasn't fluff.

"I hate to kick you out," Elis said, "but I've got quite a bit to do around the shop."

That's what I'm here for, but Mat knew when he was being dismissed. And honestly, he was relieved. Yet when he opened his mouth, politeness won out: "I can help. Like you said—"

"Not today." All his easy candor from a moment ago was gone.

"OK. Not a problem," Mat said, propping the rabbit up in a sitting position on the shelf beside the glass frogs. When he let go, it slumped as toys do, one of its ears flopping down to cover an eye.

"I should have knocked," he blurted.

For a moment, he thought Elis might not acknowledge that he had spoken, but a belated smile slunk onto the tinker's face. "Those of us careless with our doors deserve to have our lives looked in on."

With his hand on Mat's back, Elis steered him toward the door.

"You can't tell anyone what you saw here today," he said as Mat stepped over the threshold.

"What did I see?" He had meant it as an oath of assurance; instead, the query sounded like genuine curiosity.

If Elis heard it, he gave no indication. "That a boy," he said, and smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes, before quickly shutting the door in Mat's face.

Simply eager for his help, Gran asked no questions when Mat returned not two hours after he'd left and for that he was grateful; he was fit to burst with questions that would make her head explode or think she ought to examine his.

As he helped her prepare dinner that evening, he finally trusted his tongue enough to ask: "What do you know about old man Elis?"

"That's about it."

"What?"

"He's old."

Mat snorted. "He's younger than you."

Gran gave him one of her infamous eye rolls.

A vegetable frittata for Snow was sizzling to a golden brown in a skillet above the cookfire as Mat removed morel mushrooms tenderizing in a cast-iron pot of gravy from the flame.

"Well, spit it out," Gran urged, adding a glob of butter to a pot of steaming rice on the counter. "What's eating you, boy?"

"When he came to Myst, did you still lived in town?"

"No. He came orbits later. I'd say he's been holed up in that ramshackle shop for maybe ten winters, give or take. Collects the oddest of things," she added like it was a place he had never been, sprinkling a cascade of salt on the mushrooms.

He pushed her hand away and she scoffed, flashing him side-eye.

"You've seen it; he's got things nobody else needs, or even wants really: dusty toys and old rusty parts that don't seem to piece together anything. He talks like he's going to fix all those busted things up, make 'em shine, but I've wandered in there time and again and he's not fixin', cleanin', or tidyin' nothin', so much as I can tell," Gran blustered. "What's he need it all for?"

To sell? Even Mat was so skeptical that he realized a heartbeat later he hadn't said it aloud.

"Not much of a market for such here, even if he did make 'em all like new, is there?"

Mat stared into the steam rising from the rice, wondering what information he actually thought he might glean from his grandmother. Surely nothing that would soothe his nerves about what he had witnessed today.

"No, I think he tinkers because he would rather spend his time with clutter than chat with folks," Gran said.

Mat took a seat while Gran watched the frittata, waiting for it to crisp but the look in her eyes told him she saw something else entirely.

"He's not like us," she mused. "Doesn't care about the harvest. Borrows a boat for the occasional fishing trip, but he rarely leaves that shop. It's a wonder how he even survives the winter."

"Your beets help."

She smiled. "Yes, he has my beets.

"Why the sudden interest in the man?" Gran eyed him over her shoulder, that sneaking suspicion she harbored toward just about everything back to knitting that crinkle on her brow. "Did something happen today? You didn't stay long."

"He wasn't ready for me," he said, praying she wouldn't ask what exactly that meant. He shrugged. "He just seems lonely."

The old woman turned back to the fire. "Townsfolk used to gossip that he lost a child. Plenty of women down there have lost one or two of their own, y'know—they recognize the ticks, the melancholy. Could be why he collects all those damnable toys."

She grabbed a mitt from the counter. "It's done. Get the girl."

"Snow. Dinner!"

Gran hissed. "Lazy bones."

"She's selectively mute, not deaf," he said as Snow strolled in from her bedroom. "Right?"

Snow blinked at him from across the table.

Gran sighed, eyes wide with impatience. "Let's eat, shall we?"

Mat let days pass, a buffer between him and Elis, before returning to the shop. The door was closed, and for the first time ever, Mat knocked. When the tinker opened the door, not a toy was stirring. Even Elsie was nowhere in sight, though her painting hung complete on the back wall. Mat paused to admire it, an expert depiction in great detail of the stage at FestiFae from the vantage point of the toy shop, where Elis had stood apart from the crowd. It was the scene where Melisthane lost her head. Scanning the audience, Mat's heart stopped when he made out Snow's cascade of white hair above the crowd and the profile of her mask, not a single one of his own blond curls to be found with her propped up on his shoulders.

"Ah. Yes, Elsie never disappoints," Elis said, having doubled back when he turned to find Mat no longer trailed him.

Keeping up the charade, then. Mouth clamped, Mat made a guttural noise of affirmation.

The tinker wasn't too busy to show him around the shop or convey what needed fixing during his indefinite apprenticeship of sorts, though Mat's mind was in a tizzy for the first half of the tour as he wondered just what the old man was playing at.

So, began Mat's service. He tidied, cleaned, tinkered and completed the occasional exchange with a customer.

Elis didn't speak of what he had let slip that day and Mat didn't ask but was ever eager to see it, whatever it was, again. It planted a subconscious niggle that played a part in his abominable thinking to get the two most peculiar people in his life together. Though it would take him more than seven winters to sum up the courage to go through with it.