The heavy brass key still fit the door lock to Tready's Toys. The door itself, though, had warped some in the almost year and a half of disuse. It took a good heft of Treadwellian weight to shove it open.
That's when the sneezing started. Dust goodness knows how thick had accumulated in the last fifteen or sixteen months.
The oversized rocker by the fireplace was Aloisius Treadwell's first destination. It still fit. . . mostly. It creeeeaked some. It was layered in dust. But it was still comfy.
Beady eyes tried to take in everything around old Treadwell this afternoon; Helstone had given him back the keys to his lakeside cabin and his toy shop in the middle of town, for the small price of officially severing economic and political ties to Westenford. It was small, indeed, as it had largely been taken care of already. This was merely a chance to get it all in writing among Myrken records.
So Treadwell just sat there until dusk. In some ways, though he'd been away from making toys en masse for some time, it was heart rending to sit in the toy store and see unused, unappreciated goods that were still perfectly good despite needing a good cleaning.
So he sat.
On getting up, it was to light a lamp in the window of the shop and to lock the front door. The first chore was the obvious one, as an odor both stale and rotten reeked from the kitchen. The kitchen window was soon opened as wide as possible, its stuck wooden shutters being thrown open as poor Treadwell found himself gagging horridly. Ruined food--basically everything from the kitchen stores save a bit of wine in a barrel--was taken outside and tossed out back of the shop.
Other doors were forcibly opened, too. First, from the kitchen going to the right into the bathroom. Treadwell's massive bronze tub with its purple silk lining was intact and unused--and dusty. That would need a great bit of loving care taken to avoid damaging it. Well, Treadwell thought, that was what his new servants at his new mansion estate were for! Second, from the bathroom into the bedroom.
The bedroom was, like the rest of the place, largely untouched. Dust blanketed the great, thick, fluffy, red and green plaid comforter. The bed itself was, surprisingly, still intact, able to hold up the portly Councilor's great bulk. A look under the bed revealed a book--to be examined a little later, when time permitted, perhaps the morning!--and a long since missing pipe. On top of the nearby night stand lay a candle, half melted, and flint and steel to get it lit. On the wall over that night stand hung, by a nail, a great, broad, leather belt jingling and gleaming with chisels, hammers, knives of various lengths and thicknesses and cutting edges, and pouches of nails and buttons and needles and thread of varied colors.
The holes in the belt, sadly, proved to be for a waist more than a few inches smaller. Living perhaps a bit too well in the past months was the sole cause of that, of course, since the majority of his time away had been spent magically suspended, asleep in a fairy cave. A new hole was chiseled through the belt at about the right spot--there had been a good bit of overlap in its leathery length in case something like this had happened--and with a grunt from its owner, a satisfied and happy grunt for once, Treadwell buckled it around his middle for the first time in what felt like ages. With that belt of tools in place, all was right with the world.
Now if only the clothes in the wardrobe could be so easily altered. The only things in the building that still remotely fit poor Treadwell were a handful of shirts and his old Mister Hoppy suit. The big white bunny in the purple vest and trousers still fit due to a simple enchantment placed on it when it was made. The suit stretched to fit, and in that respect, it would still be quite comfy to wear--perhaps even more so than the big black suit the Councilor currently had on.
Mr. Hoppy was thus hung up on his own rack just inside the back door to Treadwell's bedroom. Anyone trying to enter through that--admittedly locked--entrance would be in for a wonderful surprise. The wardrobe was left open to be fooled with later. Removing the tool belt long enough to change clothes, Treadwell changed into a simple white, long-sleeved shirt, wriggled into a pair of too-tight brown trousers, and worked a pair of accompanying brown suspenders over his shoulders.
He had work to do and dust to clean! Come tomorrow--or maybe the day after--Tready's Toys would be back open for business!