Hot New Toy
Seanan McGuire
Stories that come true
"Hot New Toy" is one of two August 2023 Patreon rewards from Seanan McGuire. (The other is an updated version of an old reward story, "Shore to Shore".) She introduces it as follows,
July was a very heat-wave-y, nap-y month, and so here is a picture of me, napping with Elsie.
For this month's stand-alone story, we go to a bureau adjacent to the ATI, where toys try to protect the children who loved them, and nothing is as it seems. I love Gigi.
CW: Implied child neglect, sad toys, bad parents.
In this explanation, "ATI" is a reference to the Aarne-Thompson Index, a system of traditional story classification that formed the basis of her Indexing series, which is excellent and should be read. It is, alas, only two novels, so a new Indexing-adjacent story is welcome.
It's a very sad story, but good, and also short.