Encircled

by Laurie Lucking

  Marie turned from Isabel’s pleading face to the nutcracker and back, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “All right.”

  “Yay!” Isabel hugged her, and then she and Fritz dashed from the room.

  “And Merry Christmas to you too,” Marie called after them.

  “Merry Christmas,” they called back.

  After turning the nutcracker around, Marie hurriedly dressed and joined the family downstairs for the exchange of gifts and the Christmas breakfast. For the first time in her life, Marie barely noticed her gifts.

  “Is everything all right?” her mother asked during breakfast. “You don’t seem your normal self this morning.”

  “Of course.” Marie couldn’t help the smile that lit her face. Her nutcracker prince was real. The smile sank along with her hopes. What if she couldn’t free him?

  Mrs. Stahlbaum exchanged a worried look with her husband. “Did you sleep well, Marie?”

  She tried to smile again to reassure her mother, but couldn’t. There was a decided tiredness beneath her excitement. And a distaste for secrets. “I don’t think I slept much at all,” she began and then told her story.

  They listened raptly, and Mrs. Stahlbaum hissed her alarm when Marie pulled up her sleeve to reveal her bandaged arm. When Marie finished, her family sat quietly, staring at her, wide-eyed.

  “Wow,” Fritz said at last, his fork suspended, its ham forgotten. “That’s like one of Godfather Drosselmeier’s stories. Perhaps you should give up art and write stories instead. Tell me again how the nutcracker chopped off the Mouse King’s seven heads.”

  “Really, Fritz. We’re at breakfast.” Mrs. Stahlbaum who, despite it being breakfast, was cleaning and bandaging Marie’s wrist. “I think you had too many sweets last night, Marie dear. Your body put the energy into your dreams.”

  “Don’t be too sure, Anna.” Mr. Stahlbaum gave Marie a contemplative look. “Drosselmeier would enjoy hearing the tale when he comes by this evening, but aside from him, it would be wise to keep your—”

  “Dream,” Mrs. Stahlbaum interjected.

  “Experience,” Marie said.

  “Tale,” Mr. Stahlbaum continued, “between us.”

  As soon as the family returned from Christmas Mass, Marie retreated to her room for a few hours, as they had no other plans until her godfather’s visit that evening.

  She’d intended to take a nap, but she kept looking from the nutcracker, its eyes tormentingly blank, to the broken pane in her cabinet. She couldn’t have dreamed it. The prince was too wonderful, in a still-flawed sort of way, not to be real. She thought back to the day Drosselmeier had brought the nutcracker. He’d been unusually quiet and hadn’t talked of his nephew except to say he’d had to postpone his expected visit. She’d actually forgotten about the doll for a time in the excitement all the young girls had shared over the princess’s unexpected return. Some claimed she’d been hiding in the palace because of a terrible curse, but the official word was that she’d been visiting relatives in other courts.

  Marie gasped. Drosselmeier’s nephew didn’t return…but the princess did.

  Didn’t Godfather tell of a cursed princess and the young doll maker’s son who freed her only to take the curse on himself because of a misstep? He was then further cursed by an enemy of his family’s and sent away to a faerie realm.

  What had her nutcracker prince said before they entered the faerie realms? I’ll not falter this time. In Drosselmeier’s story, the princess, and then the doll maker’s son, had a square jaw, grinning mouth, and cottony beard. Like a life-size nutcracker. The perfect inspiration for Mouserinks to turn the young man into a doll as revenge on Drosselmeier for convincing their king to reject any dealings with the Mouse King.

  Marie dashed from her bed and fell to her knees before the nutcracker atop his cabinet.

  “You are real, I know you are. You’re Drosselmeier’s nephew—you took the princess’s curse, yet she refused to marry you. Dear Ernst, I wouldn’t care if you had a cottony beard and a square jaw and a grinning mouth, I’d marry you. I’d prefer you didn’t, to be honest; I’m not that good, but I’d love you anyway. That’s what the faerie queens meant—that I must value your heart above your appearance—I do.”

  The nutcracker stared blankly at her, but she was almost sure she saw him tremble. Stubborn man! “Oh Ernst, you returned the seven crowns. Mouserinks’s curse should have lifted—you should be human now, but you’re holding on to the doll-spell, aren’t you? Because you can’t bear to be the nutcracker-like man you’d be otherwise? Let it go, Ernst. Please, for your family, for your uncle. For me. I would marry you. At least, if after getting to know you better, I find you’re the man I think you are, then I would.”

  Still, the nutcracker stared blankly. Marie stared back, willing those eyes to spring to life again. But nothing happened. At last, Marie pushed to her feet, swiping a hand over her wet eyes. “I won’t give up on you, Ernst.”

  As she stepped away, a crack sounded, and everything went black.

  Marie woke to find her godfather lifting her from the floor to her bed and her mother fluttering behind him.

  “Feel her forehead,” Mrs. Stahlbaum said. “Does she have a fever? Oh my darling, I knew I should have called in the physician about that cut. It was infected all along. That explains those wild dreams, and now this, fainted on the floor. Gently now, Drosselmeier. Ease her down gently. Oh my darling Marie.”

  “She’s fine, Mrs. Stahlbaum,” Drosselmeier reassured her, a touch of amusement in his voice as he stepped away from the bed. “Her forehead’s no warmer than it should be, and her eyes are open.”

  Marie struggled to pull herself fully to consciousness. “I’m fine, Mama,” she managed, only slurring two of the three words. “I must have slipped and hit my head.”

  Was that what happened? Marie searched her scattered thoughts, herding them from their sleepy corners into a cohesive train of memories. The nutcracker. She’d been trying to convince it to marry her. She groaned. Perhaps she had hit her head, or gotten a fever. But a small part of her heart kept her from believing that.

  Her eyes sought the precious doll only to find Drosselmeier picking it up off the floor, its jaw broken beyond repair this time. Her heart wrenched. She sat up, nearly knocking heads with her mother, who, feeling her forehead, had barely managed to straighten in time. “Godfather, what are we going to do?”

  He coughed and turned a studious expression on the doll. “I don’t know, my dear. Why don’t you come downstairs when you’re ready, and we’ll see if we can fix things up?”

  Her mother shot him a wary glance. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Perhaps she should rest here until tomorrow. After all—”

  Drosselmeier laughed, cutting her off as he took her by the arm. “She’s fine. Come along so she can freshen up.”

  When Marie seconded that, Mrs. Stahlbaum allowed Drosselmeier to guide her from the room. He paused at the door. “By the way, Magician Mouserinks has taken an extended leave from the king’s court, possibly even from Plumgarten. Apparently, he and the Mouse King intended to lure me to my doom in the faerie realms by stealing some valuables from me, but their plans misfired.” With that, he was gone.

  Within a quarter of an hour, Marie’s foot touched the carpeted floor at the base of the stairs and paused. Godfather hadn’t specified which room.

  “There you are, darling.” Mr. Stahlbaum kissed Marie on the forehead as he met her at the base of the stairs. “Drosselmeier’s waiting for you.” Before she could ask where, he took her elbow and turned her gently toward the library.

  Marie looked from the closed library door to her father, her eyebrows raised.

  The corners of Mr. Stahlbaum’s mouth kept trying to curve up, but he seemed determined to push them down again. He coughed, his mouth dipping into a brief scowl. “You have five minutes to sort out this nutcracker business, and then I expect you both in the drawing room to await dinner. Understood?”

  Marie
blinked and glanced down the hallway to the grandfather clock in its corner near the dining room. In five minutes it would still be an hour until dinner. “Yes, Papa.”

  “Good girl.” He patted her on the arm, then strode off toward the drawing room.

  Marie watched him go in and then shook herself and hurried into the library. “Godfather,” she began as she closed the door behind her and turned to face the room, “have you noticed something odd about Papa this—”

  A young man, tall as her godfather, with thick brown hair tied back at the nape of his neck, startled and turned to face her, the nutcracker doll in his hands. He had the same blue eyes as the doll, but his face was as handsome as the doll’s was odd.

  Marie’s heart stopped, then pounded back to life as if it had years of missed beats to make up for. She glanced from the doll to the man she’d daydreamed of for years, and dreamed of in an enchanted sleep, and couldn’t think of a single sensible thing to say. “Papa told me Drosselmeier was here,” she managed at last, “but he—”

  “Didn’t tell you which one,” Ernst Drosselmeier finished for her, a smile on his lips that reminded her of one her prince had given her. He stepped toward her. “Do you mind?”

  She shook her head, but when his brows furrowed, she mustered her thoughts and grinned. “No, Ernst, I don’t mind at all.”

  Ernst matched her grin, but then he was at the fireplace in three strides, holding her beloved nutcracker doll before it. “Then you won’t mind if I do this.” He tossed the doll into the flames.

  Marie gasped and almost dashed to her doll’s rescue, but she caught herself and met Ernst’s gaze again.

  “You won’t need it, Marie. I’ve come back. To stay.” He and Marie met halfway, and he pulled her into his arms. “Thanks to you.” He kissed the top of her head. “How can I ever thank you?”

  She lifted her head to look at him. “You don’t have to do anything.”

  “But I want to. I think it should be something that will take the rest of our lives.” He winked at her. “Could you come up with something like that?”

  Marie laughed but then pretended to consider. “Well, you did just throw my favorite subject for sketching into the fire. How are you as a model?”

  “Wonderful. I have very expressive eyes.” And at that moment, they told her all the lovely, romantic things his teasing didn’t, but she didn’t mind his silence, knowing his heart would work its way out into his words when the time was right.

  “You’ll have to get rid of that glare you give Lord Blaine, though,” she said with a grin.

  “Get rid of it, Miss Stahlbaum?” Ernst gently cupped her chin and tilted her face towards his. “That I shall not. For now on, my dear Marie”—he kissed her—“my own Marie”—he kissed her again—“I’ll give it to every man who so much as glances your wa—” He paused, but instead of kissing her as she hoped, he looked toward the door.

  The chiming of the grandfather clock, calling them to the drawing room to await dinner, eased into her awareness. She smothered a smile at the alarm expressed on Ernst’s face.

  “Marie, please tell me they aren’t serving any dishes with nuts. I really think I might have an allergy.”

  THE END

  About the Author

  E.J. Kitchens loves tales of romance, adventure, and happily-ever-afters and strives to write such tales herself. When she’s not thinking about dashing heroes or how awesome bacteria are—she is a microbiologist after all—she’s taking photos, ballroom dancing, or talking about classic books and black-and-white movies. She is the author of the fantasy novels The Rose and the Wand and To Catch a Magic Thief and the short stories “How to Hide a Prince” (Tales of Ever After anthology) and “The Seventh Crown.”

  Beyond the Stars, Past the Moons

  A retelling of “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe

  Jebraun Clifford

  The Girl

  I HAVE LESS than one hour to live. Though Tegan would chide my imprecise measurements. As he’s just informed me in his AI monotone, my escape pod will provide fifty-five minutes and eight-point-eight seconds of oxygen. And there’s only a five-point-six percent chance of rescue.

  Wonderful.

  Squinting, I lean forward and tap the instrument panel. Seven seconds. Six seconds. Five seconds.

  Stop.

  Brooding about the oxygen—or lack thereof—won’t change anything.

  I slowly exhale and trace my finger around the flickering holo-pic next to the fuel gauge, also almost empty.

  Mom. Dad. Henrik.

  Are they even alive? What if I’m the only one who survived the explosion?

  The scene pushes into my head uninvited: The hull breach. Dad strapping me into my pod. Mom settling nine-year-old Henrik into his across the corridor.

  “You’ll be fine, Astrid.” Dad kissed my forehead, his auburn beard scratching my skin, his words almost drowned out by the klaxon blasting through the ship. “Eight cycles max, and we’ll be together again. You’ve got enough rations and Spark to keep you company.” We both glanced at the spotted hundar in her stasis kennel. “Plus, Tegan will look after you.”

  Tegan’s voice came online. “Of course, Miss Astrid. However, Captain Jakob isn’t entirely correct. Our ETA is eight cycles, seven hours—”

  “Eight cycles.” Dad typed in the commands for the rendezvous point on Satler Station and tousled my short curls. “See you soon.”

  Mom turned, her face pale. “We love you.”

  I gulped back the sob tearing at my throat. “I love you, too.”

  Henrik waved, Mom blew me a kiss, Dad stepped back, and the pod’s iris door circled closed. A sickening surge as I shot clear of our family’s cruiser, the Psyche, my stomach dropping to my scuffed boots. The split-second of disorientation as the artificial gravity kicked in, and all my internal organs slammed back into place. Then the horror of watching the only home I’d ever known get consumed in a fiery blaze. I’d pressed my face against the glass, mouth dry, pulse skyrocketing. Before the autopilot kicked in, I searched the wreckage for the three other escape pods but saw nothing giving me hope that my family survived.

  Tegan interrupts my recollection of the disaster with one of his bland observations. “Sensors picking up a solar flare on our starboard side.”

  “I’m sure it’s spectacular.” I wipe the tear trickling down my cheek. “Too bad I can only see port side.” The tiny round window provides my only view of impending doom, and it hasn’t changed.

  A cluster of stars. A small planet. An even smaller moon.

  I inspect the spider-web thin crack across the window. A random piece of debris collided with us fourteen cycles ago, knocking us off course and damaging the pod. The auto-pilot is offline, and the manual controls refuse to respond. We’re basically space flotsam, drifting through the galaxy like a defunct satellite.

  Usually, that wouldn’t be problematic because we keep close to major trading routes. But Dad accepted an offer to deliver raw freshum crystals to one of the outer colonies. The Psyche was on the edge of the Linnel Quadrant when the hull breach occurred. Had the crystals destabilized? They’re a powerful energy source, not to mention the processed shards make a wickedly sharp weapon, but the containment field should’ve been strong enough. Now I’m in the middle of nowhere, and I can’t even raise anyone on the comms. To top it off, Tegan informed me this morning of the dwindling oxygen supply.

  “It couldn’t get any worse,” I mutter under my breath.

  Tegan pauses before answering. “As stated earlier, one life form requires less oxygen than two.”

  “No.” My reply is sharp. “I’m not euthanizing Spark.” My family and I saved her from becoming a dorflyn’s snack on Polaris Seven when I was eleven, and she’s traveled with us for the last six years.

  “It would be quick and painless.”

  “Don’t care.” I reach through the wire door and stroke Spark’s bristly fur. She l
icks me then pretends to worry my hand, keeping her needle-like fangs retracted. “She stays.”

  Tegan sighs. “Very well. I’m also receiving an unusual reading from the planet’s surface.”

  “That one?” I point out the window.

  “As it’s the only planet visible for—”

  “Yeah, yeah. What kind of reading?”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was an attempt at communication.”

  “What?” I jolt forward and wince as the harness chafes my shoulder. The planet, listed as DS 9897 on the pod’s navigational records, isn’t only uninhabited, it’s also uninhabitable with an off-the-charts sulfuric atmosphere so corrosive, it would dissolve metal in a matter of minutes. I refrain from asking Tegan exactly how many minutes. “Have you responded?” I run my fingers through my hair, feeling the ends sticking up in all directions.

  “On several frequencies. I’ll do my best to translate it into something intelligible.” The comms panel lights up, and a bright green line, like an EKG, streaks across the screen. Regular dips and troughs. Certainly not random.

  My heart slows and begins to beat in rhythm with the line.

  I press against my chest. “The message is from the moon.” Stars above! Where did that knowledge come from? It dropped into me like a wayward meteor.

  “My calculations clearly—”

  “I don’t care what your calculations say. It’s not coming from the planet.”

  The line on the comms panel ceases. Did I imagine my reaction? I peer through the window again, cupping my hands around my face to block out the interior lights. We’ve floated closer to the pock-marked moon. I catch a glimpse of a structure tucked into a crater—a vast prismed dome, its panels reflecting the two primary stars in this system.

  “I was right! That’s a base.” What’s left of one—it looks a bit battered. And familiar. Have I been here before?

  The pod shudders and moves toward the moon.