by Lani Lenore
“You’re wrong,” he interrupted, surprising her to silence. “You play a role here but you’re not a part of this world. You live in it now, but not within its rules.” He paused a moment, then added: “You’re like me.”
Anne had known this all along. She’d accused him of being different and he’d shunned her–pressed him and he’d refused to speak of his circumstances. Her defenses fell, and she lowered herself to sit at his side.
“And I don’t want Olivia, as if it matters,” he said quietly, looking away from her. “I can hardly bear to stand before her.”
Anne looked at him with concern in her eyes. She wanted to know his desires; his fears; his reasons. Now, she would have his truth.
“What happened to you, Armand?” she asked softly, gripping his wrist in an affectionate gesture.
He shook his head, denying her once again. “I don’t want you to pity me.”
“I already do and I don’t even understand what’s going on,” she insisted. He couldn’t look at her.
“Pity is not the same thing as distaste.”
“I don’t hate you, Armand.”
She wished he would stop trying to keep her at such a distance.
He wished she would stop saying his name.
Anne tilted her head, wearing a look of concern.
“What did your enemy do to you to make you crave his death so much?”
She asked–as if she couldn’t have guessed. Of course it was that Rat King that had made him this way.–had brought him to life or, rather, had stolen his real life away.
Armand sat in silence, his face as expressionless as always. She searched for something, anything, but there was nothing, as if he were completely lifeless.
Almost absently, her hand found its way to his chest, slipping inside the coat to the blue wooden suit that covered him as skin. She felt the heartbeat pumping against her hand.
“You haven’t always been like this,” she claimed, staring into him. “You used to be a man, didn’t you?”
Armand sighed. “It was a long time ago,” he began, looking off into memory as he spoke. “I remember it without much trouble, but I haven’t thought about the broader details in a very long time.
“In a body that I lived in for a tiny fraction of the ages spent in this one, I was like royalty. The kind that most toys are designed to be.
“A castle, riches, servants, horses, land…all that. I don’t recall any certain details of it–perhaps because I have chosen to deny it. Now, I only have the story.”
Anne wondered what it was like for him to look at his own life as if he hadn’t lived it–to push it so far away that it was like was someone else’s tale? She wondered these things, for this was what he described to her. She attempted to understand.
“My father was a Lord. My mother: gone. I don’t recollect how or why, and I don’t remember either of their faces. But there was a tiny princess. Very young; so full of goodness. Her name was Clara.”
“Clara!” Anne exclaimed, her eyes growing wide. “But that’s the name of the doll that I–!”
“That doll is not my Clara,” he proclaimed unwaveringly, shaking his head.
There was his missing emotion. Even though he didn’t have much feeling for what his life had been before, or what he had been in it, the memory of the girl named Clara stirred him deeply. There was anger and a hint of old sorrow there in his voice.
“She was once…I…” He stopped, trying to find the proper explanation. “It’s hard to put to words, but I will attempt to.”
Anne tried to calm herself over hearing this, but he would explain. He was good at that.
“I remember her more vividly than any other thing in my past. I have not allowed myself to forget her, for everything is because of her. I remember dresses she used to wear; how she whined over her curls. I remember her standing on a chair and still not managing to be as tall as I was.” There was a faint smile on Armand’s lips at these words, and Anne found a small smile as well as she listened to them.
“But most of all,” he began again, his smile fading suddenly. “I remember what happened to her.
“It started slowly–girls disappearing throughout the village. All lovely girls of varying ages. Simply gone. I was involved in the search along with several other men. We uncovered nothing. There was no trace.
“Eventually, Clara became one of those missing girls–though I can’t say she was the final victim…”
He stopped then, and Anne allowed him to be silent, to gather his thoughts before he went on.
“Olivia reminds me of Clara,” he said, veering a bit from the subject on a whim. “That is why I treat her as I do.”
Anne would agree. When she’d first seen Clara, she’d thought it was Olivia.
“She’s older, yes,” he went on, “but with such innocence. I also know that she–like that doll you met–is also not that little girl that I loved.”
“Your sister,” Anne confirmed with a nod. “So all this is for her.”
She watched him breathe a moment. Then she saw his wooden brow darken harshly–painfully–and he opened his mouth again.
“She was mein Töchterlein.”
Anne shook her head, not knowing the tongue that word had come from. “I don’t understand.”
The nutcracker looked into her eyes.
“My daughter.”
Anne gasped shortly at his words, unable to hide her surprise. A child? Yes, she supposed that was a dreadfully strong reason to fight, though she wouldn’t know it herself. Still, she wasn’t sure she could imagine Armand having such a profound attachment to anything, not even his own blood.
“She didn’t know that truth,” he went on. “No one did. Only my father and I–and the mother. Her mother was a servant. I don’t remember her. It wasn’t love. I was spoiled, selfish, and young–not that those are fine excuses; I know that now. My father agreed to take Clara as his own child and the woman for his bride.”
This part didn’t surprise Anne so much. That part seemed more like the Armand she knew. Even then, he’d kept himself separated from everything else around him.
“Her mother died giving birth, so it was only my father then–and, of course, several caretakers. At first, I was distant, but as I watched her grow, I saw so much there that I wanted to be part of. I did nothing but look after her, teach her things, and give her anything she desired.
“I wanted her to know that she was my child and not my sister, but my father convinced me that it would confuse her at that time. We agree to wait, and when my father was on his deathbed, we would tell her together. None of us made it that far.”
The woman at his side clenched his hand, guessing that this was difficult for him to say. Of course it was. This was exactly what he’d been trying to keep from her since they’d first met. She didn’t interrupt his story; not once, as he went on.
“I’ll never forget that night. I had a strange feeling. I got out of bed and went to her room, just to be sure she was alright. I went inside, looked down at the bed in the dark, and it was empty. I panicked. I tore everything apart. Clara was not there.
“I had never dreamed that anyone could possibly get to her. To come into our keep and take her directly from beneath my nose! But it happened, and once I found that she was gone, I knew exactly where to look for her.
“I remember that it was very cold, like tonight. I trudged out through the snow on foot, muttered to a few watchmen where I was headed and for them not to follow me. Eventually I got to my destination, and I found the man I had gone to see.
“His name was Augustus, and he was a toy maker. There were rumors that he used magic in his work, for the things he was able to create with his hands were completely impossible, and he would never reveal his secrets. Clara had thought that he was so fascinating, and he made her so many incredible things that could never be explained. For instance: the marble you know as the ‘cat’s eye’.”
So that is how he knew what it was and
how to use it.
“I took her to his shop many times, and he made frequent trips to the keep. He always had something new for her, but I never liked him. I never liked the way he looked at her, or the way he seemed to care about the things he made more than anything else. He seemed to be obsessed with dolls, and when I went to see him that night, I found out how he had made most of them.
“If he saw a young woman that he found desirable–and that would have to mean that she looked like a doll–he would turn her into one, convinced that it was her destined form.
“On that night when I went to him, he was just standing there, holding Clara in his hand, gazing so lovingly down at her. She was so tiny. Just a lifeless doll.
“I didn’t bother confronting him, I simply rushed in with my sword–and that is all I remember of that moment. I remember waking up in the dark. I was in a box, locked inside. I broke out of it with strength I had no idea that I had, but everything was different. Everything was so much larger and distorted… I understood immediately what had happened to me, because I had seen what had happened to her.
“After I had been missing for a while, and since I had told some of the men where I was going, they came after me. When they found my sword there on the floor, and saw the dolls that looked suspiciously like the missing girls, they were going to burn the toymaker. So, in a last desperate attempt to save himself, he transformed himself into a rat.
“He had planned for that, but hadn’t expected to use that escape so soon, so when he used it so abruptly, he’d not yet created an incantation that would allow the curse to be lifted. He was destined to live as a rat forever–as long as he kept himself alive. The manner of which was unknown to me until I spoke to the Shaman, who told me about the ritual of devouring human flesh.
“Augustus made his escape, because the men had thought he’d simply vanished. All that had been left were his clothes. The men left in fear and sought to burn the building down, but Augustus had used yet another spell, animating the dolls and puppets within his workshop–including the soulless doll that Clara had become. No longer the child I loved; no longer with a single memory of me. Only a likeness in doll form.”
So sad…
“Those toys that he brought to life left with him, and followed him for years all over the continent and finally here.
“And all that way, I followed him, usually always two steps behind. It was simply luck that Olivia’s uncle brought me to this house where my enemy had made his den. I thought there was a good chance I might find him here, so I did not try to escape. I have also found out now that, not only does Augustus the Rat King not know of my presence here, he is weak. He needs you or Olivia for that ritual soon. Without its performance, there is a good chance he will simply die. Though I know I can deliver neither of you to him, I don’t want him to simply fade. I want the pleasure of killing him myself.”
Anne listened to every word, thinking it was the most atrocious thing she’d ever heard. His story was wholly more fantastic than anything she’d ever read in a book, but so terrible that she wished that it wasn’t true.
Armand looked at her, but there was no remorse–no sorrow for these past things. There was only hatred and a lust for his revenge.
“As for me,” he said, staring into her eyes, “the premature curse he locked me in did not hold me completely–though it held well enough I suppose. It wasn’t designed to make me into a simple doll as he had done to Clara and the others. I was to be a nutcracker, but a living one, made to be immortal and understand that there was no way for me to be free. He let me keep my soul, and made me nigh indestructible–even by my own hand.”
He raised a hand to his chest on the right side, taking hold of the wooden panel that signified the fold of his uniform. He slid his fingers beneath it, pulling it away from him slightly. Anne was amazed; she’d had no clue that it wasn’t completely attached to him as skin!
There was only a small opening–any more force would make the wooden flap snap off. She could see nothing but darkness inside. With one hand, Armand held the wood apart. With the other, he guided her hand inside.
She felt a smooth, wooden, featureless chest once she’d slid her hand beneath the wooden panel, but then her eyes widened, darting all around when she felt something different. The wood had gotten softer within there, until all at once she realized that it was not wood at all.
“Flesh…” she whispered out, hardly believing she was saying it or feeling it.
Her hand rested on the skin of a firm pectoral muscle just above his heart. It was warm and soft like her own skin, and she felt his heart pumping away inside there better than she’d ever felt it before.
He seemed to like her touch, not anxious to push her away. She ran her hand across that patch of flesh until she met with the wooden dead–end just past it. Her fingers slid back, and they wouldn’t leave.
“This is the only place flesh remained on the outside,” he said, his voice low and quiet as if in reverence for his remaining skin. “Within, I have some organs left. Heart, lungs, brain… I hunger, and need food to keep myself strong, and yet starvation won’t destroy me. I’m forced to eat bugs, because they are the only things that my body does not reject. My distorted system uses every bit, wasting nothing.
“I’ve tried to give up before, fallen into desperation and attempted to kill myself. I tried to cut off my head but I couldn’t get a blade there. I tried to stab myself in this patch of flesh, but could not even make the point go close. I’ve fallen–been crushed. I tried to make it an accident, but my body never cooperated. This is a true curse, doing everything a curse was meant to do.
“When I couldn’t destroy myself, there was nothing left but to pursue y enemy once again, spending the rest of my existence to seek revenge. There is very little reason for anything else, and if anything good has managed to come along, I know that I can’t have it.”
Anything good… Perhaps he was talking about her by this? Anne wasn’t sure.
“I’m completely miserable.”
She hated to hear him talk this way, mainly because there was such honesty behind it. Was there nothing pleasant at all about his existence? No; how could there have been? She was so young compared to him and he understood so much more than she would in a lifetime. The extent of his constant suffering and hatred was unfathomable.
It was so terrible–and yet at the same time so laughable–that in just a few moments she had understood that she loved him, and also understood that he could never love her. She withdrew her hand from his heart and his flesh, vowing to have it forgotten. He pressed the panel back in as if it had never been opened.
“For years, I have sought only two things,” he said. “Revenge on the one who wronged me, and redemption through that. I don’t expect to be made whole again. I don’t want to be.”
He leaned in a bit closer, lowering his voice as if telling her a secret.
“Most of all, Anne, I just want to die.”
She allowed him to say this without revealing any emotion on her face. Anne tried to accept what he was saying. It didn’t come instantly, but she reminded herself to look on all of this distantly–just as he did.
“It will do you no good to care for me,” he told her then, finally looking back down to his weapons. “In fact, it’s best to forget that we even had this conversation.”
Forget? Is that how he handled everything? Even his past?
“Don’t dare say that,” she shot at him indignantly. “You can’t simply speak a word and have me stop caring for you!”
He stared back at her, and her face twisted suddenly, as if she hadn’t meant to say what she just had, but then she shook her head, realizing she shouldn’t feel at fault.
“Knowing that something is inevitable doesn’t always make feelings go away,” she said. “Humans understand that they will eventually die, but that doesn’t stop them from living! Even here it’s true! Brooke realizes he is just a toy, but yet he feels, even though he tries to
deny it. I see it every time I look at him. You cannot tell me that he’s nothing. And you! You can’t just forget about everything. I know you feel for the past, telling me that story, but you act like you don’t. But if you didn’t, you wouldn’t want revenge! Isn’t this what you tried to show me? To properly acknowledge what’s real? Well this that I feel is real, and don’t try to say that you don’t feel it too!”
Armand stared at her, still silent.
“I never thought I’d truly be able to care about someone else,” she admitted. “I always thought I would marry for money and live out the rest of my life with a man who I would spread for every night, and yet I would never feel anything by it. I know that I have to go back to that world–and to think that I actually hope for that! And perhaps I will still have that life I imagine, but I have something here, and that is you. While it lasts, you can’t smother it.”
Having done with her speech, she brushed back her damp hair in a frustrated motion, and he simply looked at her.
Anne looked on, awaiting any sort of response he might give, but then her hope for that vanished and her attention shifted to something else.
3
Armand watched her silently as she ranted, her words bringing odd feelings akin to those that surfaced when he heard his name. There were memories, old recollections; neglected but not completely ignored. Things that perhaps needed to be spoken to someone but never had been. If he didn’t tell her, perhaps he would die without the story being told, and then he would be no different from those animated toys around him–as if he’d never existed. His life would mean nothing.
He knew she wouldn’t like him to be silent, but what could he have said? Anything that passed from his lips would have only made this worse for both of them. He knew that her silence could not last long, however. She spoke again.
“You have blood on your face,” she told him as emotionlessly as he’d always spoken to her.