Strange toys are being created in the
workshop at the back of a shop in a busy modern High Street. In a
parody
of Pygmalion, and by a supernatural-cum-pseudo-scientific
method the subversive
proprietor is able to bring the toys to a
semblance of life, – but to do so he must steal the soul of a human
being and transfer it to a doll. He sells the dolls abroad for huge sums of
money, and the soul is constrained forever to lead a travesty of life.
With an increase in the shop’s normal custom, coupled with the
approach of Christmas, and the mysterious disappearance of the last
shop assistant, the proprietor, Mr Jardine, looks about him for a new
assistant. His eye catches Lewis, who is overweight, depressed and is
subjected to bullying and derision at school. Lewis is at his lowest, for
he also has to endure an unsatisfactory home life, where he is at odds
with his critical, sniping father and forever having to assuage his over
protective mother.
At the instigation of the toy shop owner, and unaware of his nefarious
intentions, Lewis toughens up, changes his appearance through
exercise, diet, and fashion sense, and meditates to becomes inwardly
stronger. He emerges as a different person, someone whose physique
the girls at school have suddenly noticed. He is able, at last, to deal with
bullies and to attract the attention of Lisa, the girl he is crazy about.
Lewis’ development is deliberate, as he takes himself in hand, but the
toyshop proprietor started the transformation by offering to use his
secret psychic powers to help Lewis.
Then overtly to help him his new relationship with Lisa, Mr Jardine says
that if Lewis will get a lock of her hair, he will help him with his
relationship with Lisa. Although Lewis does this, in his new stronger
persona, he becomes aware that something very wrong is taking place,
and realises that both he and Lisa are destined to inhabit the dolls in the
back workshop. Using all his newfound skills, which have developed far
beyond the level of the toyshop owner he is able to outwit him at his
own game and save both Lisa and himself. The toyshop owner
disappears.
From an acclaimed writer of suspenseful supernatural, this is a chilling
story where the reader breathes a sigh of relief as, with the
disappearance of the toyshop owner, the shop returns to become just
another High Street shop.