by Lani Lenore
“It’s Clara,” she announced cheerily.
2
There was a hole in the wall, hidden by the darkness beneath an unpainted armoire. The nutcracker would guess that it hadn’t been frequented in a while, for the opening wore an undisturbed spider web that was caked with old dust. Nearby, the spider that had once made this place its home was on its back, legs curled in the air. He looked down at the arachnid briefly. It was just a hard shell now with no meat or juices inside. Long dead. It could do nothing for him. The soldier moved past it and spun the web around a needle to pull it aside.
He stepped into the room beyond and halted. Suspended in the air with thread that was as complicated as the spider web he’d just broken through, a toy soldier was displayed, unmoving. Blood stained his wooden body.
The nutcracker’s invisible eyes moved up the torso toward the head, noting the stench, until he saw its source. Where the toy soldier’s head should have been, a rat’s head had been mounted, and it was so aged that it had begun to decay. The eyes were mush, running down the furry flesh that remained on the skull. Flies danced around it, humming their song. The rat’s mouth was open, and in it was a doll’s arm. It seemed to reach out to him for help, the fingers twisted in pain and horror. On the wall nearby were a few words written in what appeared to be blood. In the dimness, he couldn’t read them. But he could guess.
Be ye warned. That was what it meant. Neither rodents nor toys from the outside were welcome here. This was claimed territory.
The room was much thicker with ebony than the others he’d seen. A warmth inside battled the cold that had long been sitting in the space. This room was not connected to the shafts–perhaps being an old armoire space that had been made into a bedroom. However, the bed was the smallest thing in it, taking up a single corner of the room.
There were shelves lining the length of the walls. Some were set with dolls, but mostly just pieces of dolls. There was doll clothing that had been made, dripping out of chests against the far wall. There was a workbench that held all sorts of clutter, but on the nutcracker’s previous visit to the room–in the hands of the man who had brought him to this house–it seemed that the mess was actually a very precise setup.
This was the toymaker’s room. Armand had been inside once, though he’d been broken and under close watch–no opportunity to look around. Even so, he knew just where he wanted to be on this stopover.
Once he reached the stool that sat before the workbench, it was only a matter of moving to the rung, the seat, and then to the tabletop. It was an easy feat for him.
His boots touched the wooden surface, and he peered out over the dunes of material. There were jars of glues and paints. There was a block of putty. Strings, glass, spare limbs, a bag of stuffing. There were sketches of dolls. They looked like Olivia. They looked like someone else. He moved away from them.
With so much to work with, he was pleased. The nutcracker set to work.
Several shards of glass a few inches long rested to the side. Earlier, Armand had observed that the toymaker was currently engrossed in the project of constructing a large dollhouse with windows of stained glass. The soldier looked over them and then collected a jagged, red piece about four inches long. It was still thick, and he decided it would suit him. He moved on.
He attached the glass to a peg, embedding it and securing it with string and putty. It was firm. He decided it would hold. He then took up a long, skinny screw and fixed a hold near the head so he could hold the pointed end upright. Leather straps were used to secure the screw–rapier to his hip and the broadsword of glass to his back. The nutcracker worked a while in silence. But he was not alone inside there.
Eyes were crawling over him.
As fortune would have it–or perhaps providence in the grand scheme–he finished his business before he heard the first voice.
“Are you blind?”
The reverberation of the voice was odd, and when the nutcracker rose with his glass sword in hand and looked toward the edge of the table, the toy looking back him was just as strange–looking as it sounded.
The toy was designed to look like a doll with long black hair falling past its thin waist. The face was delicate and fair, made from a porcelain mold, but there was no color on it. The eyes blinked, and there were red circles with black slits drawn as eyes, lined in black–perhaps done by the toy itself. The body was draped in an odd costume of deep purple with golden trim. A dress had been mutilated to make the costume, ripped off at the midpoint to reveal the toy’s white stomach. Sleeves puffed mildly at the shoulders and then ran tightly down the porcelain arms. The naked waist gave way to a skirt that ended just above the ankles, revealing a pair of black boots. It was obvious that the toy had dressed itself and had not been graced by the maker.
And it was absolutely impossible to tell its destined gender. A very pretty male prince. An impossibly handsome female doll. This was an unfinished toy, stuck between having a name and being a misfit. Truly, a misfit was exactly what it was.
“I notice you have no eyes,” the toy said in a voice that sounded like a female’s poor attempt at a male tone. “But glass and buttons also see just as well. Even so, you’re here. Apparently, you didn’t see our little warning.”
“I saw it perfectly well,” the nutcracker replied swiftly. “Fine showmanship.”
“I do my part.”
The two eyed each other, but Armand could detect movement coming from all sides of him. There were many more of them–unfinished and unperfected, fatherless toys. Most of them were unpainted; some completely without features. Some were dressed in altered clothing; some were not dressed at all. Like him, they were all carrying instruments of pain. The nutcracker didn’t look directly at them. His eyes remained locked on their apparent leader.
“Since you were aware of what you were walking into, you accept the consequences of your intrusion?” the doll asked, sounding simultaneously like a man’s horrific impression of a feminine pitch.
The nutcracker caught a gleam of a broad, shaving–blade that was strapped to the leader’s back. That toy grinned at him. A doll that was much larger than the nutcracker emerged onto the table beside the porcelain leader. To the leader’s other side, a toy mouse in a suit with a key in its back rose up holding a metal hook. This misfit group was certainly a violent bunch. Armand knew that the ones creeping up behind him were the same. Still, he was not moved.
“You misunderstand,” Armand said, but not as an apology. “I don’t want to stand here and chat with you. I got what I came for, so I’ll be going.”
“That’s just the thing,” the leader hissed, moving forward a single step. “We can’t let you leave here without at least chopping off a few of your limbs. Not after you’ve so blatantly defied us by coming into our territory. You understand.”
“Strong words for an incomplete toy with no name.”
The toy’s face twisted in a scowl of fury. That was a soft spot, was it? Of course, he’d known it would be. That mistake of a doll looked back at him, gritting its teeth until Armand was sure they would crack. Then, the toy relented, shaking its head and sighing.
“A waste,” it said. Then, to the others as it casually walked away: “Rip him apart.”
The incomplete toys were coherent, and they performed loyally for their leader. The pale epitome of confusion had just left the circle when the others began to close in on the nutcracker.
“Outsiders are not welcome here,” one murmured, and he tilted his head to see a lumbering stuffed bunny that had not been sewn together down the front. It was carrying a pointed letter–opener.
“I think I want the arms,” another voice said from behind him.
“I placed claim on them first,” growled one of the others.
The circle closed in, and the nutcracker stood his ground. He would let this happen.
“My, my. You’re a pretty one, aren’t you?” came a whisper. He felt a hand in his hair. This was quite near enough.
“That’s right,” Armand replied dryly.
A smile reached his lips for the first time since he’d been inside this house–for the first time in a long while. Could it be that he was actually beginning to enjoy himself? Like in older days? That need to exploit his confidence was returning? But of course it was true; there was a sword in his hand.
The glass sword leapt upward in a red flash, ripping open the face of the rabbit that was advancing with the letter opener. The creature screamed in pain as stuffing floated out like snow. The nutcracker ducked as toys took swipes at him, his blade crashing through the china kneecaps of another toy near him. He knocked a head off with the metal of his arm.
The way he moved about through the midst of them was like a dance. Their screams were the song to accompany the melody of his moving sword. His movements were perfect and timed, like some sort of wicked ballet in which he destroyed all his partners. It was faultless. It was bliss. One by one, the weapons and bodies of his adversaries fell. It took great lengths to kill a toy once the curse was upon them, but he was certain that these were not going to bother him again for a very long time.
Once he was finished, standing upright and still, he took a moment to take in the sounds of the weak moans emitting from his former opposition. They were docile now, and he thought he might have actually destroyed a few of them completely.
As he stood, the weightless fluff of cotton drifted down to settle on him, he opened his mouth to speak.
“Anyone else?” he called into the depth of the room.
He was met with no response, and he hadn’t expected any–if in fact the ones who’d looked on were wise.
Making sure that he was leaving with all that he desired, Armand dropped down to the stool and then to the floor, where he began to walk toward the exit unopposed.
3
From the shadows, red eyes observed.
The fight had been amazing, and though the entire group had been bested, the nutcracker’s performance had been exquisite! The misfit doll with the long black hair had enjoyed it very much. There had been such violence in his every swing! Such a thirst for the pain that came forth! It was so much of an amazing sight that the toy was completely stirred throughout its body. Before it slunk away into the dark, it understood something.
It knew it was meant to be like the nutcracker. It knew it was meant to be male.
4
After quite a while, Anne and the doll, Clara, finally managed to get to the top of the stairs.
Over and over again, Anne had climbed the next step and then leaned over to help the child up. All of this while keeping up with the cat’s eye and the needle. The steps had seemed to go on forever–perhaps straight on to heaven where she could ask St. Peter if she’d been good enough to make it, but finally they’d emerged at the top. They’d made it to the third floor.
Congratulations, Anne, she thought to herself as she sat on the floor, rubbing her legs to calm their shaking. Anne knew she wasn’t quite strong enough to handle all that. All of her muscles ached and refused to support her now.
There I went, struggling on for such a long time… She got a sudden mental image of the nutcracker dragging her and Clara both up the stairs by their hair, knocking them against the edges of the steps without care while the jester scrambled to keep up, trying to stare up their dresses. The image made her release a short and abrupt giggle, and her hand didn’t make it to her mouth in time to contain it. Beside her on the floor, Clara peered up at her with a strange expression.
Why am I laughing? Anne wondered. That’s not funny at all.
“That was hard work,” the girl said. It seemed the child had a way with things radically apparent.
Clara stood and picked up the cat’s eye marble that was resting near Anne.
“We’re almost there! Let’s do hurry. Then we can have a rest!”
Before the woman could catch her breath enough to protest, the child doll had darted off toward the door of the Lady’s domain.
Anne managed to pull herself up, taking a few shaky steps before willing herself to move on. Perhaps, even with its unpleasantness, the kingdom was the best place to have a rest.
Clara was stopped directly before the door of the room, and the woman joined her there. To her surprise, a hole had been cut in the door and made into a flap that would open like a tiny gate. Clara knocked upon it and stepped back while Anne wondered if the miniscule sound could even be heard through the thick of the door.
After a moment of standing there and speculating with twisted hands, a little window eased open and the chipped, wooden head of a soldier leaned out.
“Password,” he said.
Anne cringed. Once again she was helpless to this. She knew the password to get out, but not the one to get back inside! And perhaps every gate had different passwords.
“You don’t know?” The girl to her side had her delicate face taken by apprehension. No, Anne did not know any password, and for a moment, she hated the doll for the pointed accusation.
“I thought perhaps you might,” she said, but Clara just lowered her head. Had she caught on to Anne’s irritation? Needles of guilt stabbed at her.
“We have some suspicious persons here,” the woman heard the soldier at the window shout back behind him.
No, no. Not any of this again.
She nearly opened her mouth to proclaim that she’d been accepted by the Lady and forgiven for her earlier intrusion, but Clara’s freezing touch on her hand stopped her.
“Over there,” she whispered, and Anne followed her pointing finger to a hole on the edge of the door on the other side of the hallway.
That was the attic door. It was dark inside there and Anne could see dust flying around in the still air within. That was not exactly where they wanted to be–not where she wanted to go–but there were only two options. They could wait here for the guards to apprehend them and take them to Olivia, where she would surely be imprisoned this time for making so much trouble, or she could give into Clara’s tugging hand and head into the unknown of the dark attic space.
She felt her feet release their resistance to keep her rooted, felt herself falling into step behind the child doll in the deep blue dress with the cuffs of white rabbit fur. Anne was moving toward the attic before she’d truly given herself time to consider the option.
Because, of course I’m going into the attic. Deeper into this madness. Spoon–feed it to me until I’ve tasted it all.
Ducking beneath the jagged opening, she came out into that deep space. She tugged Clara so that she would be still a moment to listen. Listening was important here; she’d learned that quickly. And a better thing was that she was good at it.
There was nothing here. Piles of junk, sure, but there was nothing moving around. Every toy that had been cast off here had undoubtedly found its way into Olivia’s room. And though this place might have served as a lovely post for the rodents to spy on the toys nearby, they might have been much too afraid to set up so near to their enemy’s troops.
The neglected room was dusty, but it was the most pleasant place Anne had seen. There was even an ounce of light seeping through the cracks where the moonlight outside was reflecting off the snow. It was cold in this enormous and unkempt room, but she felt safe in it.
When she was fairly certain that nothing was moving about, she released Clara and gave the cat’s eye a little scratch. Green light illuminated the way for her and despite all the junk, there was a nice walkway cleared, large enough for a human to get through. This would be a decent place to stop and rest her weary body.
Anne grasped for the child’s hand once again, but collected nothing but air. Confusion set in. Looking around, she saw that Clara was no longer beside her.
“Clara?” she called out lowly, a bit of her certainty falling away. This was exactly like when she’d searched for Olivia earlier. High and low and she’d not found the girl…
“Over here, Anne!”
A cheery voice
. A child’s voice. Somehow, the sound of it made her feel alright again. Clara moved toward it slowly, passing beneath an old chair and finally she saw the girl. She had seated herself on a pillow that was old and had collected much dust, but it looked like the best thing in the world to Anne.
“I’m very tired,” the girl said, her porcelain face looking drained. Anne thought that was very odd. “Let’s sit down.”
Anne did not argue, putting the needle and the cat’s eye on the floor and sitting gingerly into the pillow that she immediately sank down into. It was much more comfortable than any bed, and for a moment she only stared up at the ceiling, feeling the blood circulating to her extremities as it tried to console her aches.
“Yes, this is a very nice place.” She heard the child comment from nearby. The doll was leaning in next to her, and Anne’s mind, though it was shutting down for sleep, thought to make an inquiry.
“Clara?”
The girl answered her with a short “Hm?”
“I don’t remember ever seeing you in Olivia’s…I mean, the Lady’s room before,” Anne said. “I’m sure she would have adored such a–”
“I was on the shelf behind the bigger dolls,” the child said, cutting her off quickly. “I stayed there for a long time. Missed much of what was going on. Actually, I think she’d forgotten about me.”
Anne’s mind started to work. To be forgotten–horrible! It reminded her of her own life somewhat. Pretty, forgotten girl, tossed into a completely different world. Truly, how much different was it now than it had always been?
In the limbo between asleep and awake, Anne felt arms wrap around her. A small head rested against her chest.
“You’re warm,” Clara said quietly, snuggling in tighter against her. But it was not warm to Anne. The cold of the child’s skin was bleeding through her doll dress.
“Why are you here, Anne?” the doll questioned. “I mean, why are you in this house and not in a house of your own?”