* * *
Emperor Friedrich the Second had been hunting in the North Forest with his favorite hound when he rode into a meadow, straight into a blessing of fairies. A swarm. His hound ran off, whimpering. The little glowing creatures ambushed him, streaking around him like a white blizzard. His horse reared, and Friedrich was thrown off. But before he hit ground—his mind screaming bliinbliinbliinbliin—the fairies had spirited him away to the other world. Clara’s world.
He fell, crown-first, onto an icy road in the middle of the city. Horses reared above him. Carts swerved. Emperor Friedrich the Second escaped to the walk.
With stunned fascination, he took in this new world. He’d heard stories of fairies spiriting people away, but hardly expected it to happen to him. Were the tales true? Were rats here only just larger than mice? What a charming world!
The world quickly became less charming as thunder boomed and the Emperor was drenched.
The rain turned to snow. The Emperor’s suit jacket froze stiff.
Friedrich, of course, had no money, so he couldn’t afford a place to stay as he wandered around the city, utterly lost and confused. He wondered what the fairies meant for him to do here. Three days of wandering, and he guessed he must have somehow deeply offended them.
With no rublii, the Emperor had to pawn his cufflinks, his riding coat, and even his silver-tipped boots...which meant he was hungry and cold. He wasn’t a prideful man, but he recoiled at the thought of begging for food. He endeavored to find work, but his manners were so eloquent and his hands so uncalloused that no one believed he needed it, even without shoes.
Days turned to weeks. By the end of the third, when mud puddles formed in the shapes of food, Friedrich had abandoned himself to the idea that the fairies wanted him dead. He lay against a lamp post, resigned.
It was in that moment that the world grew brighter.
Friedrich looked up, and in the glow of the streetlamp above, a fairy shimmered, dancing with the flame inside. Immediately Friedrich was on his feet—dizzily on his feet—hope strengthening him. The fairies! They were here! They’d come to take him back to Imperia, at last!
They did not take him back to Imperia. The lamp above Friedrich went out. Far up the street, another lamp lit, so bright it cast Friedrich’s shadow. Another fairy. Friedrich made an effort to wipe the mud from his clothes, endeavoring to look presentable, and pulled his strength together to go after the light.
When he reached it, the lamp dimmed, and in the distance, another lamp lit. Friedrich followed it. The next lamp lit. And the next, and the next. The fairies led the emperor for miles, away from the city to the outskirts, where roads hairpinned up hills, and to a small courtyard rimmed with fine houses. Two fairies lit the doorlights of the smallest one. Friedrich stumbled up the steps, and placing the last sliver of trust he had in the fairies, pulled the bell.
Then, he collapsed.
The servant who answered the door was appalled to see a muddy, half-starved man piled upon the front porch. The young lady of the house, however, happened to be passing by in the foyer, and she immediately took compassion on the poor man. He was very probably drunk, she knew, but she couldn’t turn him away. She bid the annoyed servant to bring the man to the guest room, and for the next several days, nursed him back to health herself.
A multitude of soups and pastries revived Friedrich over the next several days, and the lady of the house, Mary Strauss, got to know him. They had long chats—mostly Mary talking, and the Emperor eating—and she became charmed by his manners and gentleness. Friedrich grew fond of her laughter and her talk, and most of all, her kindness. He found himself falling deeply in love with her, and yearning to spend every moment onward with her.
When he became well enough to be on his feet, he bowed to his knee and proposed.
She really knew nothing about him, though her heart, too, had been stolen. He’d told her he was the emperor of a far off country, which she always teased him about, thinking he was funning. But the moment she said Of course, you silly goose! fairies filled the house, illuminating the fireplaces, the bookshelves, the flowers in the vases. They surrounded the couple in a susurrus of wings and trailing sparks.
And just as quickly, those fickle little fairies spirited Friedrich and Mary back to Imperia, at the exact same time, and the exact same place—the sacred meadow—where the fairies had stolen him.
* * *
“His footprints and his horse, even, were still there,” said Nutcracker, finishing the story. “Time really does get tangled, crossing through worlds.”
“I imagine this all was a shock for Mary,” said Clara.
Nutcracker was grinning.
“Yes, my father had a bit of explaining to do,” he said. “But it turned out all right. My mother loved it here. She and my father were married, and a year and a half later they had me.”
“Did she miss her family?” said Clara. “Did she ever see her world again?”
Nutcracker looked uncomfortable.
“Er,” he said. “Well. No. I supposed she didn’t have much of a chance. She passed away just after I was born.”
“Oh,” said Clara, remembering how the fairy book had mentioned that. “I’m sorry.”
Nutcracker waved it away. “We were all happy.”
It was a good story, Clara thought, touching the locket at her neck. Her own love story didn’t involve fairies or mysterious emperors, but the sweetness of a fairy-touched romance reminded her of Johann, and his beautiful music. It wouldn’t be long now.
“You’re a romantic, Miss Clara?” said Nutcracker, eyeing where her hand was placed.
Clara turned her eyes down, blushing a rosy pink.
“Ho-ho! Full-blooded, I see. Well, I am not. Does that appall you?”
“No, it’s all right,” said Clara, and she meant it. To be truthful, she felt a little sorry for the prince. Didn’t royalty normally have their marriages arranged? Nutcracker would never know what it felt like to be in love.
“I...expect your marriage is arranged?” said Clara tentatively.
An odd look came over Nutcracker’s face. He coughed.
“Ah,” he said. “It is, as a matter of fact.”
“Then it’s probably good you’re not a romantic,” said Clara.
Nutcracker abruptly halted.
“I’m sorry?” he said.
Before Clara could answer, a high-pitched cry shattered the air. A child’s cry.
They both quickly turned, forgetting about fairies and romance. The rancid smell of rat and fur filled Clara’s throat and ear, and by now she recognized it.
Rats.
Nutcracker’s sword flashed with a shiing and he bounded forward, across the edge of the ravine, each lope turning up chunks of snow. Clara struggled after him as he crouched—or tried to—at the crest, looking down below. Clara was struck with sudden familiarity. She had seen this ravine before! It had been in the fairy book! It was the same ravine the orphan with the crutch had fallen into. What was his name? It was—
“Pyotr!” said Clara, for he was there, exactly below them on the bank of the frozen river. And not alone. Four large rats circled him. The boy brandished his crutch at them, feverishly looking for deliverance.
“Holy Saint Michael,” he squeaked aloud in a prayer. “Intercede on my behalf...I—I—I never miss morning mass—and—I—I won’t complain about the mush...”
The largest rat, in a single bound, snatched Pyotr’s crutch in its jagged mouth and bit down with a sickening crunch. Wooden splinters fell from its mouth to the snow.
Pyotr made a valiant attempt to get to his feet, and stumbled. A second rat shoved him forward with its nose, sending the boy stumbling the opposite direction. All three of the rats laughed. Actually laughed, a series of snarling grunts that made Clara’s face flare. Imperian rats were...were...bullies! They were playing with him, the same way a cat plays with a caught mouse, only their mouse was a small boy.
The third rat rom
ped forward, blocking Pyotr’s escape.
“Please,” the boy squeaked, still praying. “Holy Saint Michael, intercede—”
The largest rat curled himself around Pyotr like a misshapen snake, and opened its jaws wide over his head—
“Interceding!”
A giant wooden figure fell from the sky like a pillar of fire from heaven and landed at a fierce crouch in the middle of the rats. The largest one toppled back, Pyotr tumbling away from him. Immediately the rat twisted onto its feet, hissing, its hackles raised.
“Holy Saint Michael!” the boy cried, though this time it was not a prayer.
Nutcracker swept his sword in a great arc, leaving streaks of silver and red, and rat squealing backward in pain. Blood spotted the snow. At once, Nutcracker was a blur of red, black, silver, as the rats leapt at him. Rat blood spattered Nutcracker’s uniform. The smallest of the rats turned his attention back to Pyotr, a length away behind Nutcracker, but in an instant, Nutcracker swung around and lopped off its leg. It howled and retreated on threes. Pyotr looked as though he was about to cry.
“Five points,” said Nutcracker brightly. “Limbs are five points, you see. One point for tails, five for a limb, ten for a stomach, twenty ahead—see here, what is this?” And Nutcracker slashed at the second rat.
“T-t-ten?” Pyotr stammered as the rat recoiled and fled.
“Good! Keep count—two down, two left—” Nutcracker said, looking about.
He caught the rat mid-leap. It knocked him back, and Nutcracker hit the ice so hard his left arm broke off. Pyotr shrieked.
“Stop, stop, it doesn’t hurt, I’m fine!” said Nutcracker, his face blushing with red paint.
“But they get five points!”
“Well, I’m at fifteen points—now thirty-five,” said the Nutcracker, kicking the rat away and bringing the sword down on its neck. “And thirty-five is more than five so I’m still winning!”
He brought another one-armed blow upon the rat, and its shriek was cut short, and it fell in a mound at the riverbank. His dislocated arm thrashed on the ice, as though still part of the fight.
“You’re awfully good at counting, sir!” said Pyotr, his eyes bright.
“I have my talents.” Nutcracker turned about, overbalancing with just one arm, and searched for the last rat.
Clara had begun picking her way down the side of the ravine, gripping branches and bushes to keep from tumbling. The last—and largest—rat spotted her and quickly bounded toward the easy prey.
Impulsively, Clara grabbed at a bush and broke off a spindly branch, and wielded it above her head, immediately knowing it was about as effective as a newspaper in the rain.
Idiot, was Clara’s one thought to herself as the rat leapt upon her, knocking her onto the ice, the branch flying behind her in an arc. The rat pressed its full weight against her chest, and Clara could not inhale under its paws. Her heartbeat thudded in her vision. She gagged, catching of whiff of its hot breath, the smell of rotting flesh. Burning drops of saliva hit her cheeks and throat. She made great effort, and hit the rat’s leg with her fist.
The rat broke into guffaws of—good heavens, it had to be laughter, a horrible sound and smell. The rat’s jaw gaped wide over Clara’s face: front teeth, yellow rows of teeth arcing behind it—all sharp points—a foul pink tongue, a cavernous throat—
Silver sliced through the rat’s neck so cleanly and silently, Clara did not even realize what had happened until the rat’s weight fell on her in two pieces, and its head rolled off into the snow beside her. Yellow, lifeless eyes wide, bleeding out in a steaming stench. The rat’s body still twitched. Its tail especially.
Gagging, Clara wriggled out from under the rat’s body and reached for Nutcracker, who one-armedly helped her to her feet. She tried to say thank you, but instead stuttered: “T-t-twenty points?”
Nutcracker grinned.
“Forty points altogether!” Pyotr squeaked, limping to their side.
“Forty-five,” Nutcracker said in a low voice to Clara. His eyes twinkled.
Shaking, Clara set to work, heaving Nutcracker’s arm (which gripped her as much as she gripped it) from the ice and hurrying to his side. She’d put this arm together before, and even though it was much larger and higher now, she could do it again. Nutcracker meekly knelt and offered his shoulder socket to her, and somehow kept his arm from moving as Clara maneuvered the peg of it back into the hole, twisted and turned and pulled it forward, and with a click, the arm was back in place. She was getting good at this. Nutcracker tested it by moving it around. It glided like a charm.
“I know you!” Pyotr squeaked, hopping on one foot with excitement.
“You do?” said Nutcracker, the painted color draining from his face. “How?”
“The sisters, sir! You surely are one of the soldiers who was turned into a toy!”
“Oh,” said Nutcracker, visibly relaxing. “Well, yes. Yes I am. Mostly toy. The spell did quite work on me you see...”
While Clara wiped the rat blood from Pyotr’s face with the hem of her coat, Nutcracker told him a bit of their story. He told him about how the fairies had helped him find Miss Clara, and that was good luck, wasn’t it? and now they needed to get to the train station telegraph office to send out the word and stop the magician.
Pyotr’s eyes grew wide during the story.
“By the saints!” he squeaked as Nutcracker finished. “That’s why I come! This early morning, as the candles burned to first marking, I heard someone in the Abbey and I followed him to the kitchens. It was the magician, sir! The very same you said! He played a song on his flute, and he disappeared!”
“That sounds like him, all right,” said Nutcracker.
“And he left this behind,” said Pyotr, almost hopping on one foot. He dug into his little beige satchel and produced a rather crumpled page. “Methinks it must be important, he kept it by his heart—”
“Music!” said Clara, delighted. She crouched down and examined the music in Pyotr’s hand, taking in the handwritten dots and lines and pepperings of note markings. “This is a song. You’re right, Pyotr! This is important.”
“It may even be a spell,” said Nutcracker, towering over them, “If this is one of the songs written by the magician, then that means if he plays it, something magic could happen.”
I wonder what, Clara thought, examining the music. The handwritten notes crowded tightly together on the page. It almost looked like someone had shaken a bag of notes together and poured them onto the paper. The music was that complex. Clara liked that. It meant a challenge. A smile crept to her face as she deciphered the squiggles, recognizing the bass clef, treble clef, key of B flat, cadenzas and arpeggios. A title in swooping calligraphy read: Illumination Sonatina.
“Illumination Sonatina,” said Nutcracker, reading over her shoulder, his voice thoughtful. “Illumination. What would that do?”
“Light,” said Clara, smiling a little at the page. “It has to be that. What else could it be? Perhaps it brightens a room or...perhaps it even gives inspiration.”
“Hm,” said Nutcracker, his mouth a frown. “Well. Inspiration is something we could certainly use right now.”
Clara’s fingers twitched to play the music herself. She doubted anything would happen if she did play it, but a little voice in the back of her mind whispered you are very good. You’ve practiced for hours every day. I bet you could play that well enough that something might happen. Clara fingered the chords.
“This is piano music,” said Clara. “See the grand staff, both bass and treble clefs? The magician is probably just playing the melody. But this could be played on a piano. Is there a piano nearby?”
“Oh, possibly,” said Nutcracker, vaguely squinting into the trees. “Underneath a rock, perhaps. It’d have to be a very large rock, of course. Not a small rock, that would be ridiculous.”
Clara closed her eyes, but grinned. Nutcracker, she was realizing, was a great tease.
“I meant
to take this to Krystallgrad,” Pyotr explained, his face shining. “To the militia. I thought it should help them. But I was sent to you instead, and I know you are meant to have it.”
Nutcracker paused, then tousled the boy’s scrubby hair with his great paddle of a hand. Pyotr beamed, and Clara was reminded strongly of Fritz. Fritz was only a few years older than Pyotr. Clara felt a pang of homesickness.
“Well,” said Nutcracker firmly. “It was pancake-headed to come out here alone. Mark my words, the rats will be back soon, and they’ll be bringing more of their friends. We’d better hurry and get you back to the Abbey. Hang on tight!”
The last sentence wasn’t just to Pyotr, but Clara, too, as to her surprise he scooped them both up into his broad wooden arms, and began bounding up the other side of the ravine. In the distance, above the crest of the hill, Clara spotted several rats running toward them. Two, three, four...Nutcracker ran in giant steps, as though the ravine were the sky and each lope had wings.
Clara loved hearing her father play the piano. Even when he was sick, he would still play. He would play, cough into his fists, then continue where he had left off, as though he wasn’t sick at all.
They lived in a fine home then, nearer to the Conservatory. Her father would stroke the keys at their grand piano, conjuring songs so light and brilliant that almost made the room lighter. If Illumination Sonatina sounded like anything, it would be that.
Her father played at the Conservatory and in concerts and at home, late into the night, just like Clara. He played with creased brow and puckered lips. Clara called it his “piano face.”
When Clara was good enough at the piano, they played duets together. Mother would come and listen, leaning against the door frame and smiling. And when they finished, Papa would pat Clara on the shoulder and say, “Well done, maus.”
Her father would have been proud of her, Clara thought. He had always hoped she’d be good enough to play in the Christmas concert. And now she was. It both felt wonderful and ached. She ached whenever she thought of her father. It ebbed, though, when she played the piano and felt the music wrap around her like a down blanket.
The Enchanted Sonata Page 9
