Erik Zolokov ignored her question, and instead played several chords at the piano. He was quite good, Clara could tell just by the lightness of his hands. A shiver rose up her spine at the darkness of the chords, though. They sounded oddly familiar, yet foreign and odd. They rumbled, a minor key in the bass clef; and around her, the room became darker. Erik Zolokov looked at her, still playing, apparently from memory. Clara shivered as her mind clouded.
“Music is interesting, isn’t it?” the magician said. “Gently played, it can soothe one’s soul. It can rouse one to fight in a battle; it can conjure memories of those lost. I could even make someone fall in love with you. Or plunge you into the depths of despair.”
Clara swallowed. Erik played another dark chord. The half-moon outside was shrouded with thick clouds, and the Gallery became cold.
“It occurred to me, years ago,” Erik Zolokov continued, still playing that broken, familiar song, “that if I composed something good enough—something transcendent enough—and if it were played well enough—it could have a power quite beyond this world.”
“And you’ve used that power to turn everyone into toys and send the country into chaos,” Clara snapped. “What a waste.”
Erik Zolokov stopped playing. He fixed his cold blue eyes on Clara.
“I am using this power,” he said, “to keep an incompetent prince from becoming an incompetent emperor. In a world of giant rats, a fool of a sovereign could leave your life ripped to shreds. Or—” Erik Zolokov shrugged. “Perhaps I’m simply doing it because I can.”
Clara took a step back, and stumbled as she lost her too-big Polichinelle shoe.
“After Nikolai fails, the fairies will choose a new emperor,” Erik Zolokov was saying. “One who is worthy of the title. And I...I will be at peace to finally compose my masterpiece: a symphony opera so stunning that it will make the angels weep.”
Clara blinked. He’s like a broken mirror, she thought. Some pieces of him were right, and some were clouded and confusing, and everything about him lacked wholeness. She picked up her shoe and held it close. It had a nice, hard heel, one that could probably make a good dent in someone.
“Nikolai Volkonsky is not incompetent,” she said, the shoe giving her courage. “Do you know what he’s done just these past three hours? He’s formed a militia, has the trains up and running, and is sending ammunition to the borders. Prince Nikolai has fought hundreds of rats and he’s brought us here and we’re about to break the spell! And all without everyone knowing who or even what exactly he is! He’s proven he’s an emperor!”
Erik Zolokov abruptly stood.
“The only reason Nikolai Volkonsky has gotten this far,” he said, “is because of you, and the fairies. That is cheating.”
“It’s not!” said Clara hotly.
Erik Zolokov swiped his rosewood flute from the bench beside him and held it to his lips. In two notes, he had vanished. The sheet music on the piano fluttered in his wake.
You pancake-head, Clara chastised herself, searching the silent Gallery and holding the shoe tight. You were supposed to get his flute!
“It is,” he whispered in her ear.
Clara yelped and leapt backward, and in the same, smooth movement, twisted around and smacked the shoe at him with all her might.
Erik Zolokov grabbed it with one hand just before it hit his face. For a moment, his unyielding hand pinned Clara’s hand to the shoe, then he gave a little twist and the shoe dropped out of Clara’s hand and hit the floor. He released her, and Clara fell back, catching herself on her palms. The rug burned her hands.
“Did you really just try to hit me with a shoe?” he said, looming over her. “In the head? Do you do that to people?”
Clara stammered something intelligible, something between fear and anger at the absolute audacity of him. He turned people into toys, for heaven’s sake!
“I’m sorry,” said Erik Zolokov quietly. He paused, then offered his hand down to her. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Clara stared at his outstretched hand, more confused than ever.
“You’re sorry?” she echoed.
“For more than just this,” said Erik Zolokov, his hand still offered. “For everything, really. I’m sorry I brought you into this mess. I’m sorry I left you with the rats. No one should be subject to that. And I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this whole ordeal. I know how it feels, to be plucked from your home and family and taken far away.”
Clara stared at him. He actually did look sorry; his face was etched with grief. It was the least broken she had seen him.
“I would like to take you back, Miss Stahlbaum,” said Erik Zolokov. “Right now. I will play Far Away Fantastique to the finish, and you will be home again.”
Clara kept staring.
He will take me home, she realized. She would be a little late, there would be no time to change, she would have to play in her Polichinelle’s skirt and too-big shoes, but she would be there, playing for Johann—it wasn’t too late. Clara swallowed, almost considering it as the magician prompted:
“You would be back, just in time. It’s five minutes to eight o’clock now.”
What?? Clara’s mind screeched. Just in time?? How in the world did he even know about the concert? She had only told Zizi and Nutcracker! The magician even knew what time the concert began.
I’ve been played, Clara realized. I’ve been played like he plays the piano. We all have. He had been watching them this whole time, playing with them, the same way the rats had played with Pyotr. Cara scrambled back and to her feet herself, face flaring. She had lost her other shoe and didn’t care.
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
Erik Zolokov tucked his offered hand back into his cloak, and two spots of pink appeared on his cheeks. He looked at Clara with such sharpness that his handsomeness was quite ugly to her.
“Prince Nikolai will prove himself,” said Clara. “He still has time.”
“I’m sure,” said Erik Zolokov, in a tone dripping with sarcasm. “And when he is a toy, remember this: I had offered you your future.”
In a smooth movement and a blur of wood, Erik Zolokov’s flute was at his lips. He played three notes and disappeared, leaving behind nothing but the ringing flute echoes.
Many things happened at once. Gunshots sounded outside the room. The rat snarls grew deafening. The doors at the end of the Gallery burst open, knocking furniture aside and sending in shafts of light, breaking up the darkness. Nutcracker Regiment One tumbled in. Immediately, Alexei had slammed the doors shut with a bang behind them. They—all of them—were scratched and torn, their bags of peppermints empty. Rats threw themselves at the doors with a thumpf, thumpf, thumpf-thumpf. Rats even rose up outside the windows, clawing at the glass.
“So we are out of nevermints and we think they’ve learned how to hold their breath,” said Nutcracker. “Right. Get your rifles at-the-ready, we’re going to fight through them to the waggons outside—Clara! Have you played the music?”
“It’s not here,” Clara shakily called. “The music isn’t here!”
“What?” said Nutcracker.
“Captain,” the old man wheezed, taking Nutcracker’s attention from Clara. “They’ve eaten the horses, we saw it, fallen, all of them! Waggons overturned! Such a horrible sight! I shan’t forget it, not as long as I live!”
“We won’t have much longer to live if we don’t get past these rats!”
“Nutcracker!” Clara cried, picking her way to the piano, where the music still lay. “Don’t open the doors! I can get us back to Polichinelle’s from here!”
The doors bulged with each thumpf.
“Nikolai!”
Nutcracker turned quickly.
“Nutcracker,” she corrected. “I can play us away to Polichinelle’s!”
Nutcracker looked at her, confused, then his eyes lit on the music she was shuffling through to find Far Away Fantastique.
“Abandon posts,” he order
ed sharply. “Retreat! Follow Miss Clara! Do as she says!”
Clara quickly took a seat at the piano, hurriedly folded all the sheet music except Far Away Fantastique into her coat. The regiment was stationed at the doors, keeping all of them pushed shut as the rats continued throwing themselves in great snarls against it, wood cracking.
Clara closed her eyes, inhaled, opened, and played the first chord of Far Away Fantastique.
The music wasn’t difficult. It was, in fact, quite easy. But the way the notes were arranged, the expansive arpeggios and the span of the song over the entire keyboard—from the lowest note to the highest—it gave the strong feeling of rolling hills and broad fields and fast-moving rail lines with trees whipping past and around Nutcracker Regiment Number One. The windows and portraits blurred.
Thumpf. Thumpf. With one last, loud thumpf, the door splintered and rats leapt in, throwing Alexei and Nutcracker, and the regiment to the rug. Or what might have been the rug. Instead, they hit nothing, suspended in a blur of dark golds and reds. The world around Clara seemed to be holding its breath, the rats slo-w-l-y arcing into the room, caught in the maelstrom of smeared colors. The regiment frozen. Zizi was caught in a pause, looking upward at the darkly blurred glass, which faded to a wash of night sky. Only the piano rang out with focused, clear tones.
Clara played two measures, and stopped.
The world focused sharply, the sting of freezing air, the screech of frightened rats, and Nutcracker Regiment Number One fell to the banks of the Starii, the lamps of the Shokolad Prospekt gleaming above them.
When Nutcracker Regiment Number One stumbled back into the candy emporium, they all but collapsed onto the checkered floor, as though their knees had been kicked out from under them. Clara felt like her stomach had been kicked in, and everyone in their bedraggled, torn army looked miserable and battered.
They’d fallen ankle-deep into the mud. Clara caught Far Away Fantastique before it touched ground.
The army managed to slog their way up the bank toward the Emporium, which glowed in resplendent color. And once inside, they pulled themselves together with the limpness of a beaten army. Madam Polichinelle set the workers in the Emporium to their aid—disinfectant powder was liberally applied; bandages made of cheesecloth were wrapped about wounds.
Alexei thunderclouded through the lobby hall, kicking ladders and sending them rolling across the walls.
“He’s upset about the horses,” Zizi whispered, though Clara knew it was more than that. Alexei kept his face steadfastly turned away from the glass case where the eleven matryoshka dolls sat. Instead, he turned on Clara, who shivered in her Polichinelle coat at one of the little white tables.
“Why didn’t you play the soldiers back?” he snapped. “You had the chance! We gave you enough time, didn’t we?”
“Alexei!” Master Polichinelle barked, the first word Clara had ever heard him say.
Nutcracker stepped in front of Clara, staring down Alexei. Alexei backed away.
“It wasn’t there,” said Clara.
“What?”
“The music that would break the spell. It wasn’t there.”
Clara wearily reached into her coat and pulled out Erik Zolokov’s compositions. Illumination Sonatina. Far Away Fantastique. The Imperial Palace Prelude, March of the Toys, A Child’s Dream. Everyone surrounded the table at once, examining the pieces of music. Clara closed her eyes, which burned, and listened to the rustle of papers, the sticky footfall of mud-covered boots, the nervous whispers, It’s not here. It’s not here.
“Does this mean,” said Zizi, “that the children won’t be...children again? They’ll be toys forever?”
The lobby became so silent that only the tick tick tick of the overhead clock could be heard.
Nutcracker stepped in front of them. “We’re out of mints and more need to be made and sent out. Master Alexei, can you work on that? In the meantime, we will conceive a new battle plan. I do want to say that I—I have nothing but the deepest gratitude for all of you. You helped get his music, and that limits what magic he can do. We, at least, have that to be grateful for.”
Clara numbly watched as Nutcracker dispatched Krystallgradians to the kitchens, telegraph stations, and, in spite of their defeat, continued as their leader. They curtseyed and saluted him with the deepest respect.
Alexei must have felt bad for yelling at Clara, for he left a moment and came back with a plate for her that had a single chocolate in the middle, nestled on a bed of rose petals and a swirl of syrup. Clara was starving. Being surrounded by hundreds of chocolates had her wishing she had a rublii—or whatever the money they used here was—it all smelled so wonderful.
“Oh, thank you!” said Clara, taking a large bite. The rich, thick patty of chocolate filled her mouth and throat.
“You don’t eat it like that!” said Alexei, horrified. “You fold it up in the petals and smell it first, then take one tiny, tiny bite—”
“Don’t you dare tell me how to eat a chocolate!” said Clara, turning on him with a newfound energy and a mouthful of chocolate. “I’ve had the longest day of my life! I’ve been attacked by rats, I’ve missed my concert, my whole body is burning, you yelled at me, and I will eat this chocolate however I want to eat it!”
Nutcracker, Zizi, and Alexei had all taken a step back.
Alexei cleared his throat...and managed to say the exact right thing:
“Allow me to get you another chocolate.”
* * *
Nine o’clock passed, and ten o’clock slid by. The mass of Krystallgradians had left the lobby, helping to make peppermints, dispersing to the telegraph stations, running nevermints to the borders. Clara had been awake for almost twenty-four hours and was worn to the bone.
But she could not sleep. Gloom settled over her as she ate chocolates and warm cider that Alexei had left her with—several boxes—and she sat at the small bistro still, staring at the music she laid before her. She’d found the fairy book—Clara and the Nutcracker Prince—on the front glass case. She’d left it there before they’d gone to the Palace. She had the idea to read on, but thus far hadn’t a heart to look through it. She couldn’t bear to re-live the events that had just happened. Everything blurred in her vision.
It was stupid. So, so stupid. Stupid to care that, in world full of giant rats and angry magicians, she had missed the concert. The concert, the encore, the applause, the refreshments in the lobby, the Chancellor’s congratulatory remarks to her, her mother kissing her on the cheek. Professor Shonemann beaming and telling her how her father would have been proud of her. And, most of all, she had missed the part where Johann would come onto the stage, play a duet with her, and gently, gently kiss her.
She had the chance. She had flatly refused it. But how could she have taken it and left Nutcracker and everyone to an empty Gallery, with no help at all? That would have killed them.
And so, when Nutcracker came into the Emporium lobby with his great clack of footfalls, Clara pulled herself together. A fallen kingdom was more important than a silly concert, and Clara needed to be strong for Nutcracker. She set her jaw into a smile as Nutcracker took a seat beside her, his wooden self clanging on the metal chair. He stared at the music, and said nothing, but Clara didn’t give him a chance to speak anyway.
“It’s going to be all right,” she was chattering. “We’re close. I’m sure we are. There has to be a way to break the spell. Didn’t he say, in the fairy book, that he could break it? So there must be something we’re not seeing. Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out. I will. We’ll turn all the children and soldiers back and defeat Erik Zolokov before you can snap your fingers. Which you can’t right now, so we have extra time. Ha.”
Nutcracker smiled wanly at Clara’s teasing, but his eyes were dim.
“I’m sorry, Clara,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Heavens, what for?” said Clara lightly.
“Your concert. I’d promised. I’m so sorry.”
; “Oh, honestly,” said Clara, sweeping a strand of hair from her eyes. “It’s just a silly concert. It’s not losing your empire or having everyone you know turned into toys. The concert, ha. I don’t even care about it anymore.”
Nutcracker reached forward and touched her face with his hand, and a tear ran over it.
“Then why are you crying?” he said.
And Clara began sobbing. It was the choked sob of something kept in so long that it had difficulty being released, and it came out in fits and starts. She cried, and cried, and cried. Clara hardly felt Nutcracker wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close in a gentle embrace. She buried her face in his white beard and sobbed, wetting it with the loss of Johann, the dress, the sonata, the kiss. She sobbed until she ached all over, and only then did she subside to hiccups, and somehow through the pain felt another sensation: the embrace of hard, stiff arms against her back, careful to not squeeze too hard; his unyielding chest; her chin, face, cheekbone and collarbone against wood.
And yet, it was all right. A combination of peace and the sensation of fairies fluttering within her. Clara was suddenly aware of Nutcracker’s every idiosyncrasy. The way he loped when he walked. His tall frame and boundless courage. His jovial voice. His teasing, gentle humor. His awkward kindness. Clara face grew hot with embarrassment.
Clara pulled away, fumbling for a handkerchief in her coat pocket. She wiped her face and nose. “Nutcracker, there was something I didn’t tell you. About Erik Zolokov. He was waiting for me in the Gallery…”
And Clara told him everything. How it had been a trap; how Erik Zolokov had appeared and played his odd, dark song that was familiar yet not; how he thought Nutcracker was cheating; how he had offered to take Clara back home; and how he must have been watching them the whole time and...and...she told him everything.
Nutcracker’s painted brows went low over his eyes, but he remained oddly...wooden.
“Huh,” was all he said, when Clara had finished.
“Huh?” said Clara. “That’s all you can say? He’s going to turn you into a toy and—that’s all you can say?”
The Enchanted Sonata Page 16