“Boiler explosion,” a hefty man whispered knowingly.
“No one was keeping watch on the pressure gauge?” whispered another man with a frown.
“Where was the conductor?” whispered another.
“Didn’t you see?”
“Didn’t you see?”
“There was a nutcracker! A giant nutcracker! And he was moving and fighting rats! I saw it from my shop!”
“A what?”
“Haven’t you heard? Haven’t you heard?”
“It’s all over the wires! There was a telegram from the Abbey!”
“The nutcracker is one of the soldiers from the Palace! But the spell only worked halfway. He’s only partly toy, and he’s huge.”
“And there’s a girl on the train who can break the spell!”
“What!”
“Break the spell??”
“Break the spell!”
“Where are they?”
“Probably in pieces,” said a grumpy-looking man.
“Vlad, shush.”
“They could have leapt from the train before it ruptured. They could still be alive. Possibly.”
With the desperate pallor of those who dared to hope, they continued to search among the steaming wreckage.
* * *
Three prospekts away, Zizi Kaminzki hurried along the walk, a slip of telegram in her hand. She cast a glance at the billow of smoke above the roofs, but bit her lip and continued on. She was still on shift, and she couldn’t detour to see what had shaken the brick streets and rattled the windows. Besides, she would hear all about it at Polichinelle’s. She quickened her pace, passing the Krystallgradian Symphony Hall with marble pillars and gold trim, to the colorful, bright building that took up an entire city block.
Polichinelle’s Candy Emporium. It glinted all colors in the afternoon light, crosshatched towers and checkered domes, looking like a mix of iced cakes and Christmas boxes and smelling quite strongly of peppermint candies. Her eyes watered as she hurried up the long stretch of stairs and through the glass doors.
Inside, the Polichinelle lobby was packed. Men with old military rifles slung over their backs argued with one another; women clutched toys and tried to put on brave faces; Madam and Master Polichinelle argued and discussed and cast glances at the matryoshka dolls lined up in the fine chocolates display case; and in the middle of everyone stood Alexei, scooping freshly-made nevermints into bags, a thundercloud expression on his face.
He had no idea what to do. The city was in chaos. No one knew who was guarding what, he had no idea which part of the walls deserved nevermints or the best way to get them there. The trains weren’t running, after all, except there apparently was a train running and it had carried in at least thirty rats that were wreaking havoc in the Triklass part of the city, except the train wasn’t running anymore, as it had just exploded, jostling the candy in their jars, and they were running out of sugar!
When Zizi brushed in with a jingle of bells, Alexei’s expression became slightly less stormcloudy and he excused himself, hurrying past the tables of white iron, the giant lobby fountain, the spiral staircases and thousands of glittering candy jars of glazed raspberries, licorice-dipped caramels, sweet basil shews, sugarplums, sunshine drops...to meet her.
“The men along the Triklass Prospekt wall tried using the nevermints,” said Zizi breathlessly, as Alexei helped her off with her coat. “Worked marvelously. Sent rats squealing away. Of course, my sense of smell is permanently ruined, but soldiers must make sacrifices.”
Alexei smiled, which looked like a grimace.
“But they’ve breached the wall south. In Krasno-Les,” Zizi continued. “It’s all on the wires. And they’ve started digging near the West Starii. It won’t be long until they’re in the city. We’ve got to make more mints. A lot more mints. How in the saints will we ever make enough mints?”
Alexei’s expression was back to thundercloud.
“There’s good news,” said Zizi quickly. “Look, I stopped by the telegraph office, and I’m sure you’ve heard, but—”
Zizi uncrumpled a yellow slip of telegraph paper and handed it to Alexei, who frowned as he read the words:
Abbey of Indomitable Sisters...
“The Abbey sent this?” he said. “They know how to work a telegraph machine?”
“The real question is how would they not?” said Zizi, with a snort. “I grew up there. Ignorant and defenseless are not words I’d use to describe them.”
Alexei looked at her quickly.
“You grew up in the Abbey?” he said. “I didn’t know you were an orph—”
He bit the word short, his eyes like a deer facing an Imperian train, as though realizing that he probably should never talk. There was an awkward moment of silence in which the overhead clock went tick, tick, TICK.
“My feelings are deeply hurt,” said Zizi, “that you don’t know everything about me. You probably don’t even know my shoe size.”
“I don’t,” said Alexei, still frozen.
“Seven and a half,” said Zizi.
The clock ticked three seconds more, and then Zizi burst into giggles. It was the sort of infectious laugh that brightened a room. Alexei didn’t laugh, he wasn’t the laughing type, but he gave a half-chuckle of relief. The crooked smile he had when he looked at Zizi, however, was genuine. Tension broken, they read the telegram.
Abbey of Indomitable Sisters. Via North Forest. 25 December, 1892, 12:15 PM. Imperian wire technicians: Fairy-blessed girl and v. large nutcracker soldier arriving East Starii Line appr. 1:40 PM. Help them find the magician. Will break spell on children, soldiers, etc. Spread word. —Sister Lizaveta A.I.S.
Zizi was bouncing on her Polichinelle heels with excitement as she waited for Alexei to finish. Alexei’s dark eyebrows rose, and rose again as he finished.
“Nutcrack—?” he began.
“A walking, talking giant one!” Zizi interrupted. “The spell only worked partway on him.”
“Fairy-blessed?”
“It must mean the fairies are helping! Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Can break the—”
“Spell!” Zizi crowed.
Alexei mouthed wordlessly at the slip of paper, his somber expression replaced with surprise. By now, they both were surrounded by the masses of people in the lobby, hungry for news. They passed the telegram paper around, their eyebrows high, their mouths agape. Alexei glanced upward at the clock—nearly half past two.
“Sugar,” he said. “That wasn’t the train that just—?”
The jangle of a shop bell interrupted. It wasn’t the bell that stopped everyone so much as it was the breathless stumble, the heavy scrape of something large against the tiled floor, and the crowd parted to see the visitor: a girl in a torn nightgown streaked with blood, covered in cuts and blotted with soot. She half-dragged, half-heaved something large in a bulging soldier’s greatcoat.
Without a word, the girl shakily fell to her knees, and a massive nutcracker head hit the Emporium floor with a clunk as it rolled out of the coat, stopping at Zizi’s feet. The great large face looked up at her.
“Hello,” said the head.
Zizi screamed.
The pieces of Nutcracker had been scattered across Shokolad Prospekt, dressing the widest and most fashionable street in the city. When the boiler had exploded into pieces, so had Nutcracker, coming apart at the joints as they hit the pavement a good distance away from the train. Clara had managed to find the head.
Everyone from the candy shop hastened to help find the rest. An arm was found next to a footwear shop; the sword was found on the bank of the Starii; a leg halfway submerged in the river kicked itself closer to them in splashes. Clara was surprised to discover that most of the Krystallgradians already knew who she was. News did travel quickly through Imperia.
Before the Polichinelle lobby clock had chimed three, Clara found herself again in the shop, now surrounded by dozens of eager Imperians, Polichinelle attendants, Zizi,
Alexei, and the self-clattering pieces of Nutcracker.
“Unground sugar,” said Alexei, crouching to examine the moving pieces more closely. He poked at Nutcracker’s painted yet blinking eyes. “How is this possible?”
“Please don’t do that,” said Nutcracker’s head, flinching.
Alexei picked up a forearm and examined it, touching his fingers to Nutcracker’s hand. The hand knocked him away, hard. Alexei dropped the arm with a clatter, but gave a hint of a smile.
“Fascinating!” he said.
Clara knew he could be put back together. After all, she’d done it with his arm, twice! And now she had the help of dozens of hands. They spread the pieces of Nutcracker on the tile floor and set to putting him together. They inserted joints into place, twisted, pulled, pushed, snapping them tight, Nutcracker offering bits of advice, wincing and saying ooo, ah, as they did so. The head came last of all, which they had to put on backwards and twist into place with a click. Nutcracker blinked several times, and smiled.
“Good as new,” he said. But he wasn’t, for he was scratched all over and covered in soot and bits of rat fur and spatters of blood. In a moment, hot wet cloths were brought from the kitchens, and Nutcracker was washed up by everyone—which made the pink circles on his cheeks flare red.
Both Clara and Nutcracker were so worn out, they hardly moved. Nutcracker still lay on the floor, staring up, and Clara rested her head on the closest softest thing: his tufted beard that fluffed from his cylinder of a chest. She lay there a moment, only vaguely aware of the inappropriateness of using someone as a pillow. Her ears still rang from the explosion, her eyes still burned black from the bright flames, her body still ached from hitting the ground so hard, and her head still beat with the excitement.
And yet, she was weary with softer emotions. Relief that Nutcracker was all right and in one piece again. Overwhelmed with gratitude. If it hadn’t been for Nutcracker wrapping his arms around her, Clara would be all over the Shokolad Prospekt storefronts. Inside her head, the silhouette of Nutcracker at the engine door fighting off rats played again and again. The feel of his hard arms pressing her to his chest. Clara felt an emotion she couldn’t pinpoint, but it was very similar to hearing Johann play the piano.
“That was smart thinking,” Clara whispered, fumbling for words. “And brave, wrapping yourself around me before the boiler exploded.”
“Oh,” said Nutcracker. “Not at all.”
“It was,” Clara insisted. “It saved my life.”
“Oh. Well,” said Nutcracker.
“And—not just with the train. All day, too, with the rats.”
“Oh. Well,” said Nutcracker.
“And keeping me from freezing to death,” said Clara.
“Oh. Well,” said Nutcracker.
“Thank you,” said Clara. She hesitated, then reached out and touched a deep scratch on Nutcracker’s chest, a beige scar against the red. She hurt for him.
Nutcracker reached up, paused, then touched her cheek with the tip of his wooden hand. Clara had never been touched so gently, and for a moment, she was robbed of words. Cheeks burning, she managed to stammer out:
“It was my fault! The boiler explosion. When you told me to turn the wheel, I—I didn’t. I absolutely fell to pieces.”
“Oh. Well,” said Nutcracker, grinning. “So did I.”
* * *
Nutcracker had been put together, but Clara was a mess. As Nutcracker gathered the makeshift militia in the Polichinelle lobby, Zizi quickly drew Clara away. Down a staircase and through long hallways of kitchens, and at last, to a room of mirrors and sinks with running water, and padded stools. Zizi helped pull the dirt-and-blood-streaked nightgown from over Clara’s head, fussing over her cuts and tangled hair.
Clara knew Zizi, of course. She’d met her through the fairy book. But Zizi didn’t know Clara, and she was fascinated with her. She peppered Clara with a thousand questions as she washed Clara’s cuts with a hot wet cloth. Questions like: What are the candies like where you live? And Your dress looks...quite a bit like a nightgown, at least, nightgowns here, is that the style there? (“Nothing extraordinary like the candies here,” and “Oh yes, everyone wears these, even the men.”)
She asked her what the fairies looked like, and how she liked the Indomitable Sisters and told Clara how Mother Svetlana would often sing so loudly it would shake the Abbey rafters. Most of all, Zizi asked Clara about the spell, how and when it could be broken.
Clara relished the hot water and cloth against her skin. It would probably be her only chance to get ready before the concert, Clara reasoned, and so she allowed Zizi to fix her up nicely. Zizi threw Clara’s nightgown out with a wrinkled nose and dressed her up in clean clothes from a line of wardrobes across the wall. A Polichinelle’s striped skirt, a white blouse, and shoes with hard heels that clacked. (The shoes were a little large, Clara had to curl her toes to keep them from slipping off.)
Zizi finished Clara with the flourish of icing a cake, brushing Clara’s hair ‘til it shone, and bringing it up into a bun and pinned it with ribbons and gleaming clips shaped like hard candies and gingerbread stars. And at last, a final touch of powder and lip rouge, which Zizi explained every Polichinelle worker wore so she needn’t worry about being inappropriate—it was just part of the uniform—and anyway, Clara looked very pretty with lip rouge.
Clara ached from the day’s adventure, but somehow, now, felt fresh and new. She looked in the mirror and saw her blue eyes shining and her red lips sort of smiling, and the outfit made her look a simple sort of pretty, one that said, You mustn’t kiss me, but I can let you borrow this library book.
They hurried back to the lobby, through the myriad display windows with scenes dressed entirely in candy. There were nougat fairies with thinly-sliced apple wings; a cathedral made of dyed sugar glass and frosted at the edges; a peacock made of chocolate and candy fruit gems; a forest of coconut shreds, dyed black and frosted to stick pretzels, and little rats edged with almond fur peeking out from under the trees. Clara rushed after Zizi, down a vast hall with rooms for everything: banquet rooms, parlor tea rooms, cake-and-smoking rooms. And there were even more up staircases and on the roofs and towers.
They arrived at the lobby to hear Nutcracker’s voice echoing up to the mezzanine. Clara watched from the side, smiling a little and listening to him speak:
“See, we have two telegraph stations just a stone’s throw from here—the Konfetii and the Shokolad. What we need is a regular stream of correspondence between here and there. I need one for Derevo, for Krasno-Les, for Koroleva, and all the rest. We need regular updates. Oh, and a scribe, to take this all down so we have a record.”
Nutcracker was in the center of the lobby on his hands and knees, placing candies on the floor in what looked like a map. Licorice whips lay end-to-end in a giant circle, marking the borders of the country. Gumdrops marked telegraph stations. Ribbon candy marked the streets. Gingersnaps lined up in a row were rivers. Comfit nuts crisscrossed in long lines across all of it, indicating railways. An orange marked the top as the palace. Nutcracker spoke with great enthusiasm, placing candies down, and everyone listened with great attentiveness.
Nutcracker had not just taken charge, he had taken Charge. The lobby was a stark contrast to an hour before. Where everyone had been confused and angry and frightened, the air now fizzed and sparked with a new emotion: Hope.
“All we need to do,” Nutcracker was saying, placing more candies as he spoke. “Is keep the rats at bay and find the magician, get his music, and turn the soldiers back into soldiers.”
“And the children,” piped someone from the crowd.
“The most important thing of all,” Nutcracker agreed. “But first the soldiers, to fight the rats away.”
The sadness and pain of everyone was such that Clara could actually feel it. An old man sniffed. A woman clutched a music box closer to her chest. Alexei Polichinelle, at the glass counter, reached in and carefully straightened the ne
sting dolls inside, his face unreadable. Clara glanced at Zizi, who watched him with shiny eyes.
Nutcracker continued on, naming men in the group as official spy correspondents, assigning militia soldiers to the nearest telegraph stations to send out the word. “Look for a man,” said Nutcracker. “Not old—about my—er, eighteen or nineteen or so. Erik Zolokov is his name. About six-foot-one, no coat, blue shifty eyes. Very shifty eyes. He will have a flute. Take it from him if you can. Don’t let him play it! He—Clara!”
Nutcracker had just spotted Clara among the crowd. He beamed at the sight of her, and pulled her from the crowd, and with ease lifted her onto the glass counter. Clara found herself sitting in the center of the eager Krystallgradians—women with coats of jeweled buttons; other women with hair pinned underneath hats; some playing with their gloves, taking them on, off, on off, anxious, whispering. Fathers, too. “There’s the girl who will break the spell!” and, “She’s been fairy-blessed, we are lucky!” and “She’ll make our children right, you’ll see.” Men clutched their old military rifles, feeling their last two bullets in their pockets over and over; bald men who wore furry hats; men with glasses that curled around the ears; silent men who said nothing, but only looked at Clara with fervent hope in their eyes.
Clara felt overwhelmed and embarrassed. I don’t even know if there’s music to break the spell, she thought. I don’t even know if I’ll be here to play it. But one thing she knew, looking at the hopeful Imperians before her: she wanted to be.
Nutcracker, who must have been used to this kind of awe and attention, spoke with great ease and eagerness.
“Clara will have everyone back to normal in no time,” he said proudly. “You should see her magic! It’s no wonder the fairies sent her to us. All we need is the music and a piano!”
The Enchanted Sonata Page 13
