Only one child lagged behind the rest as the children hurried from the theater, the promise of Polichinelle’s candy speeding their steps. Pyotr struggled with his crutch, accidentally dropping his satchel and tripping over it. Immediately Clara was at his side, helping him up. But she wasn’t the only one—the mousy couple was helping as well.
“Forgive me, miss, all the saints, I’m sorry,” Pyotr squeaked. “I’m never as fast as they. Thank you, miss. Forgive me, I’ve got to catch up with them. They’ll all have their candies and be left for the train and I’ll be left behind if I don’t hurry.”
As Pyotr hobbled to the stage door, a Look passed between the husband and wife. In one movement, they chased after Pyotr.
“Wait,” said the man. “You’re an orphan, then?”
“Just so, sir,” Pyotr chirped.
“Well—we’ve been looking for a son, you see. We’ve always wanted one.”
Pyotr’s face lit up like a flame, then dimmed, as though well-acquainted with the disappointment of parents coming to adopt, and leaving with other children.
“There’s lots of boys at the Abbey orphanage,” he said, pushing a smile. “I know lots. I can help you find one.”
The man crouched down until he was eye-to-eye with Pyotr.
“We were looking for someone like you.”
Pyotr looked more dumbfounded than he had when Nutcracker had come dropping out of the sky to fight the rats away. He looked from the man to his wife and back to the man with his large eyes, and in one moment, leapt up and wrapped his tiny arms around the man’s neck. His wife caught the crutch before it clattered to the stage.
“Shall we—speak to—the nuns?” the man wheezed as they left. His face was slightly blue for how tightly Pyotr had his arms around him.
* * *
That wasn’t the best part of the endless piano playing in the endless theater over the endless hours. For as night drew on, the Polichinelle family arrived—Alexei, Madam and Master Polichinelle, and the children...in the form of matryoshka dolls. Zizi was there too, and she ran to give Clara a hug before twisting the dolls apart and helping the Polichinelle’s line them up in a row. Eleven egg-like dolls smiled ahead, the tiniest just the size of a robin’s egg, a little sleeping baby trimmed with silver.
“I don’t like to think,” said Zizi, “what would happen if we left them inside each other.”
Madam and Master Polichinelle, and Clara, laughed. Alexei remained solemn, looking at Zizi yet saying nothing. He wore his dress uniform, a starched red suit of medals and gold trim, making him look even more intimidating.
Without wasting another moment, Clara played. Each matryoshka doll tumbled upward in an odd confection of hair, striped clothes, dark eyes and squeaks of laughter. Like Alexei and his parents, they all had dark complexions, but unlike Alexei, had brilliant smiles. They gathered around their mother, gripping her skirts and chattering, wondering why they were in the theater, asking for chocolates, latching onto and Alexei’s hands and swinging. Zizi had just scooped up the baby, a plump little girl with big eyes and dark lashes when Alexei shook his siblings off his hands—and ankle—and strode to Zizi.
In one smooth movement, he pulled Zizi into his arms, dipped her so deeply her red hair brushed the floor, and kissed her straight on her pretty cherry lips. The baby cooed, sandwiched between them.
It was quite a passionate kiss. The kiss of someone who had tasted thousands of fine chocolates and had finally found the perfect one. Alexei’s ten-year-old brothers—twins—made gagging sounds as the younger girls screeched with giggles. Both Madam and Master Polichinelle stared.
When the kiss finally finished Alexei gently rebalanced Zizi, they both looked absolutely dizzy as though they’d been hit with a handful of nevermints. Alexei’s mouth—smeared with lip rouge—managed to form the words:
“May I walk you home from church this Sunday?”
“You’d better be at church,” said Zizi, her face pink as a sunrise. “After a kiss like that, you need a confessional.”
But she grinned, and still holding the baby with one arm, she took Alexei’s hand and wove her fingers through his. For the first time, Clara saw Alexei smile. Really smile. It broke through all the solemnness of his face and made his eyes shine.
* * *
Trains came and left, the hours passed, and Clara continued to play as the hands on the clock twirled and it felt as though she had witnessed every Imperian child reunited with her parents. It was sometime in the early morning when the news reached her: she had played sʎoʇ ǝɥʇ ɟo ɥɔɹɐɯ and every soldier and child—except one—had been accounted for.
Clara leaned against the piano, exhausted but happy, and had almost fallen asleep in the quiet, empty theater when Nutcracker arrived.
Clara found herself suddenly shy. She had missed him—his broad smile, his tufted, unruly hair, his eager laugh, teasing voice, and bright green eyes. And now here he was, just he and Clara on the theater stage. He was holding telegraph slips from Lesnov and Koroleva and all the others and bursting with all the news that the rats had been fought off and their children and soldiers were returning on the trains and Clara had done it, she had done it! Well done, Miss Clara!
Clara smiled, but thought, What now?
She would turn him human again, of course, and he would go on to be coronated and rule and empire. And she...well, she would go home. Back to playing her piano, or whatever she did in her world. It would be no trouble going home, Far Away Fantastique was an easy song. She would be home in no time, and that was wonderful. Really, really wonderful. Clara couldn’t wait. Really.
“Oh—Clara!” said Nutcracker, remembering himself in his excitement. “Look! I brought you something.”
He handed her a box of Polichinelle’s chocolates.
“Oh,” said Clara, loving him and missing him already. ‘Thank you!” She began to eat them. They melted over her tongue as soft as mist.
“The city’s full up,” said Nutcracker. “Everyone’s hoping I’ll give a speech. The press is waiting at the Palace. So...well. I should probably greet them all as Prince Nikolai.”
“Oh,” said Clara, teasing. “You don’t want to stay a nutcracker forever?”
“It is a tempting idea,” said Nutcracker. “I so enjoy banging my head on every doorway I go through.” He leaned on the piano, looking wistful as Clara unwrapped another chocolate. “The first thing I’m going to do is eat one of those chocolates. By the stars, I miss food.”
“You should, Imperian food is delicious,” said Clara. “That’s one of the things I’ll miss. The glistening towers, the night sky, and Polichinelle’s chocolate.”
Nutcracker frowned.
“You’re leaving?” he said. “That is, I know you have your family and your piano and all that, but...you don’t want to stay a little longer? For my coronation? Surely you don’t want to miss that? Polichinelle’s is catering.”
Clara became silent, clasping her hands together around the foil wrapper. She wasn’t crying, of course, but she bit her lip and her face was tight to keep from crying, which in a lot of ways, was worse.
“Clara?” said Nutcracker.
“Are you all right?” said Nutcracker.
“Only, you look a bit...distressed,” said Nutcracker.
“What’s wrong? You can tell me. Aren’t we friends?” said Nutcracker.
“No? Ah. Well then. I’ll just wait until you’re feeling a little better,” said Nutcracker.
And he did, until Clara managed to compose herself without shedding a single tear.
“I think,” Clara finally said, “that I should not stay.”
Nutcracker looked absolutely crestfallen.
“Oh,” he said.
There was a pause.
“You don’t want to come to my coronation?” he said.
“Oh, no!” Clara protested. “I would love to go! I—I adore Imperia. I’m homesick for it already. I love Krystallgrad and the snow and the trains and
the people here and Polichinelle’s and the Palace and...and you. I’m awfully fond of you, Nutcracker. That’s the problem. If I stay, I’ll only become more fond. So.”
Nutcracker looked both pleased and confused.
“What, is that bad?” he said.
“Yes!” Clara burst. “For heaven’s sake, Nutcracker! I know you’re not a romantic, but your marriage is arranged! How can you forget something like that? You’re a prince and I’m—and your Assembly or whoever arranges it would never—”
Nutcracker placed his large wooden hand over the piano keys, on hers.
“Ah, Clara,” he stammered, the circles on his cheeks painting a blushy red. “Um. About that. Ah—I think. Ah. Hm. Well, obviously. Um. Clara. Why don’t we—look, will you play that song on the piano one last time? I think, you know, some things are better said when one is not a giant walking, talking toy. Ha-ha,” he finished weakly.
Clara smiled, equally weakly, and readjusted sʎoʇ ǝɥʇ ɟo ɥɔɹɐɯ on the piano. She knew it by heart, but she wanted to get it right.
And then, Clara paused.
A new light cast over her and Nutcracker, brighter than the grand chandelier hanging above the theater seats. Clara stood, joining Nutcracker as they looked upward in awe. There were hundreds of them, perched on the rims of the chandelier, the backs of the red velvet seats, even on the music stands in the orchestra pit, swinging their legs, their wings just a touch of movement. They all seemed to be looking at Clara and Nutcracker, as though waiting for something to happen.
Clara turned and saw that a fairy had lit beside the music on the piano. It took her breath away. The little thing wore a crown, and a gauzy little dress that looked like heaven sewn together. Clara smiled. This had to be the Fairy Queen.
“Fairies,” said Clara quietly, feeling that odd sort of giddy peace that fairies brought. “Did they come to see you become human again?
Nutcracker looked annoyed, as though the fairies were a plague of horseflies.
“Oh yes,” he said. “Now they make an appearance. Not when the Palace was filled to the brim with rats and we were all about to be eaten, but no, they come now.”
The Fairy Queen stomped her foot at Nutcracker, stuck her tongue out, and took off in a streak of light, leaving a trail of sparks behind her.
“Did she just...stick her tongue out at you?” said Clara.
“Er—yes. I didn’t think fairies could understand humans. I, ah, I hope I didn’t offend her.”
“You most definitely did,” said Clara.
“Oh dear,” said Nutcracker, but he was laughing. A great jovial laugh that filled the theater. Clara couldn’t help but laugh with him. The fairies fluttered about with their laughter, and for a moment, the world had no beginning or end, only that moment.
Nutcracker stood behind Clara as she began sʎoʇ ǝɥʇ ɟo ɥɔɹɐɯ. He placed his hand on her shoulder. The reassuring press of it, the hard, stiff palm. Clara felt his strength and smile through it. The keys yielded to her fingers, and as the chords drew themselves up into bright melodies full of life, Clara felt the wooden hand change.
His hand became softer. And warmer. But the firmness remained. When Clara finished the song, she hardly dared turn around. She’d become accustomed to Nutcracker’s large head, tufted hair and beard, painted features, that she was a little nervous about seeing him...different.
“Clara,” said Nutcracker.
Clara turned. And at that moment, before she could even see Nutcracker as Prince Nikolai, fairies descended en masse from the chandelier, the chairs, the orchestra pit, the catwalks. They fluttered around Clara in an explosion of white, scattering light everywhere. Clara only saw a blizzard of sparks and glows, felt the breeze of their wings, and that was all. In a split moment, she had been spirited far away, to the slumber of a dreamless sleep.
Clara awoke at the drawing room spinet.
In her own home.
On Dieter Street.
Clara leapt to her feet, her vision clouded, and she landed on all fours. She grasped her bearings. The little Christmas tree Fritz had been so proud of. The sharp winter’s daylight streaming through the window.
“Nutcracker?” said Clara, disoriented. She looked down at herself—and found she was again in her nightgown. She was even wearing her boots. A wave of familiarity swept over her. She had lived this before. Except this time, it felt real—because it was real. Clara knew it was. The fairies had taken her home. And, either because time became tangled crossing worlds, or just because the fairies had felt like it, Clara had been brought again to Christmas morning.
Clara searched and found no sign of Nutcracker, either eight-foot or toy, but was also not surprised that when she touched her throat, her locket was gone as well. Clara hurried to the kitchen, where Mother and Fritz were eating breakfast, awash in morning light.
“Merry Christmas, little layabout.” Her mother stood and kissed Clara on the head. “We have citrons.”
“You have piano keys pressed on your face,” said Fritz.
“Oh,” said Clara, dragging her fingers through her tangled hair and rubbing the imprint on her cheek.
Mother frowned and felt her forehead for fever. Clara shook her head.
“I’m all right,” she said. “I’m just—nervous about the concert—tonight. The concert tonight. That’s all. You, ah, you haven’t seen my Nutcracker, have you?”
“You’ve lost it?” said Mother, sitting down to tea again.
“I think I have!" said Clara, fleeing the kitchen.
The fairies had taken her back. That was good, wasn’t it? She was home again, with her family. She’d done all she had to. She had played the songs, helped the Nutcracker become a prince again and...she hadn’t even said goodbye! She hadn’t even seen his face! Nutcracker was right! The fairies were horrible!
Clara thunderclouded around the drawing room, tried to play The Imperial Palace Prelude, but unlike the day before, she couldn’t remember any of it. Not even the first chord. She tried combinations, scraped memories of the chandeliers and gold furniture together and tried to play it, but it was as though the fairies had taken that memory away from her, too.
She threw herself on the sofa in despair and anger. Next to her lay Clara and the Nutcracker Prince. The fairy book. It appeared the fairies had brought that back, too.
Clara stared at it for a moment, then slowly picked it up, opened the delicate pages, and read.
The story continued from Clara learning how to break the spell, Nutcracker facing Erik Zolokov, and Clara playing until the spell was broken. She smelled the nevermint, the feel of Nutcracker sobbing next to her, the taste of the lemon pastry.
And the story progressed further. There were pictures. Finely-crafted illustration prints. Clara examined them with interest.
The first picture was Nutcracker on a balcony, giving a speech to hundreds of people below. The picture only showed him from the back, and Clara examined his dark hair, his tall, thin frame, his soldier’s uniform with the sword at his side. The picture was so detailed that Clara could see the two-headed fairy insignia on his shoulder. In the audience, Clara discerned outlines of nuns, soldiers, Imperians with their children, and even fancied she could see Madam Polichinelle, head and shoulders above the crowd, her hair swept up with jewels. The caption read: Prince Nikolai heartily thanks the soldiers and the Imperians.
Clara turned the page to a new picture, one of Nikolai deep in discussion with Drosselmeyer over the Gallery’s War Table. Clara first noticed his hands and ears. They were so large. But his face, his smile. It seemed to brighten the page. The subtitle at the bottom read: Prince Nikolai discusses regiment placement and wall repair with General Drosselmeyer.
“He’s forgotten all about me,” said Clara, coloring. “I haven’t even crossed his mind. And I told him how fond I was of him. Out loud. Oh, Clara, how could you be so stupid.”
Impulsively, she turned the page. Her embarrassment and anger suddenly quelled with this pictu
re: Prince Nikolai was standing alone at one of the Palace fireplaces, stabbing at it with a poker. He looked miserable. The caption below read: Perhaps the fairies took her away because she loves Johann still.
“No!” Clara burst. “No! That’s not it at all!”
Clara turned the page, quickly. There was one last picture. Nikolai was sitting on a Palace sofa, staring despondently ahead. Drosselmeyer stood behind him, hands clasped behind his back. The text at the bottom of the picture read:
“Who gives a fiddle what the fairies have to do with it? If you love the girl, go after her!”
Clara stared at the picture, and slowly turned the page. In the center of the page were three words, and nothing else:
So he did.
The book ended. Clara turned the page, and found the back cover. No more pages. That was it.
“So he did?” Clara cried, flipping through the pages. “What does that even mean? So he did? How? What a—a—horrible way to end a book! A terrible ending! So he did!”
She tossed the book across the drawing room. It hit the floor splayed open, and Clara was too annoyed to even look at it.
* * *
The concert came like a snowfall, quietly arriving as the sky turned a purple-blue. Mother helped Clara dress, pinning her hair up and cinching her corset. She had dreamed of this moment, but now it felt more like a distant memory. The dress swathed around her and rustled when she walked, and Clara looked and felt graceful, accomplished.
In no time at all, they were at the concert hall. Clara’s family seated, Professor Schonemann ushering her backstage, and Clara waiting in the eaves with the other pianists. She tapped her Christmas sonata on her skirts. She couldn’t remember all of it. This should have worried her. It should have sent her running out the concert hall, screaming. But Clara’s mind was preoccupied, and she listlessly shifted from foot to foot as the other pianists performed.
At last, it was her turn. Clara swept from the wings of the stage, her skirts fluttering behind. She sat at the piano, and to the velvety silence of the audience, played what she had always called Johann Kahler’s Sonata.
The Enchanted Sonata Page 23
