Erik fixed his eyes on box three. A tall man with greying brown hair helped a bediamonded woman off with her fur coat. Everyone’s eyes in the theater were on him; ladies whispered, their fans rustled. The Emperor.
The Emperor. Erik’s throat choked. The very image of the man sent searing blood to his fingertips and eyes. The Emperor. Erik looked at him, then slipped from the catwalk into the—
* * *
Clara sharply closed the book, and the red-gold warmth of the theater faded away.
“It’s late,” she said, eyeing Nutcracker. She knew—she knew—what would be coming next in the book, and she didn’t want to read it. She didn’t want Nutcracker to read it.
Nutcracker had been staring intently at each page, his green eyes having an almost fiery cast to them. His teeth were pressed together.
“I would like to finish the book, Clara,” he said, gently tugging it from her hands and opening it again.
“I don’t think we should.”
“I would like to finish it.”
Clara dreaded the next scene, but could not stop herself from leaning in and reading along with Nutcracker as the Polichinelle candies around them flickered and formed into velvet seats.
* * *
Erik looked at him, then slipped from the catwalk into the depths of the theater. The anger pushed him onward, leading him through the red halls of chased gold, to the actor’s room with the large collection of pistols. He found a regimental pistol, loaded it, and whispered back to the theater, where he melted within the curtains.
Act I had already begun. The Bass was singing his cabaletta, dressed in green and surrounded by bowls of fruit. Erik waited, feeling the crescendo vibrate across the stage and in his feet and chest. Sweat streaked down his back. The bass of the timpani and brass filled the theater with a roaring climax.
Every bitter, hateful thought that Erik had ran in jagged knives through his muscles, and he raised the pistol and pointed it at the emperor’s head. Timpani rolled. Erik pulled the trigger. Heat flared through him.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
The shots were not heard above the thundercloud of percussion. The woman’s scream moments later, however, was. In box three, the Emperor had slumped down in his chair. Blood bloomed over his linen shirt. The woman at his side yelled and cried, and the theater grew cacophonous as Emperor Friedrich silently, and gracefully, yielded to death.
* * *
Clara dared look at Nutcracker. His teeth were gritted; his eyes were still on the book. But tears painted from his eyes down his face, and disappeared into the rounded curve of his jaw.
“Oh, Nikolai,” Clara whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
He did not seem to hear her. He only turned the page and continued reading.
* * *
The Krystallgradian City Guard had descended upon the theater in their uniforms of white and red, hundreds of them, examining the audience members and ushering them out, blocking off the entrances, searching the halls. They found the pistol in one of the violin cases, but the violinist had been playing at the time of the shots, and the actor who owned it had been in the green room with his troupe of actors. He was just as flummoxed as they.
General Drosselmeyer stood at the side of the orchestra pit, questioning the Maestro with short, clipped words. The lines in the General’s face were dreadfully deep, and his fierce blue eye flashed.
“We were all playing,” the Maestro was saying. “Every instrument has a run with a high note with a sfzorzando at that section. Well, all but the oboes—they have two measures of rest—but that’s hardly enough time to aim a pistol and shoot, for heaven’s sake. At any rate, we would have seen them do it, they’re in the center, you see.”
The oboists looked deeply relieved.
“It could have been the ghost,” said the second flutist.
General Drosselmeyer turned, slowly, and looked at her.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, but it wasn’t said in a way that warranted a response. The flutist turned pink and hurriedly twisted her flute apart to clean it.
“There really is a ghost,” one of the cornets came to her aid.
“Everyone here knows it,” chimed another one. The orchestra began speaking out in agreement:
“Strange things have been happening for years now—”
“Things out of place—”
“Objects missing—”
“Whole plates of food—”
“At night, there’s music that comes from everywhere and nowhere,” said the third-chair cellist. “Organ, piano, flute, even singing—It’s beautiful music, too. We think it’s the spirit of the theater.”
“A spirit of the theater,” said Drosselmeyer, “who knows how to shoot a pistol. I’m sure. We will have full search of the Symphony Hall. There is obviously someone hiding in this building, and he will be found.”
But they never found him.
* * *
Erik ran through the darkness of the arched tunnels beneath the city, shaking. All the anger and hatred he’d expected to turn to happiness once the Emperor was gone had only multiplied into fear and panic. He’d just killed someone. He’d killed someone. The Emperor.
He collapsed to a corner in the tunnel, stone freezing against his back, the sound of water rushing in the distance. They’d find him. And when they did, they’d execute him. Everyone knew that if you killed someone—even someone who deserved it—it was a trial, then Skoviivat, then execution.
But it wasn’t the thought of death that troubled Erik. He was frustrated that even though justice had been done, he still felt dark and angry and devoured inside. Why? Shouldn’t he have felt relieved? In that dark tunnel under Krystallgrad, Erik laid out his emotions and memories one-by-one and examined them. His family. The volnakrii. Hiding in the tree and looking below at the Emperor.
And the prince.
The thought came to Erik almost unbidden. Yes, that was right, the prince had been there, too. He, too, had been responsible for protecting Lesnov.
That was it. Erik’s thoughts twisted in on each other, strangling and consuming themselves, and growing larger. Justice needed to be done to Prince Nikolai as well. Only then would the pain within Erik disappear.
* * *
The next five years passed, and every moment Erik devoted to the art of music. He became a master, teaching himself every instrument, playing pieces backwards and forwards, sleepless nights and exhausted days composing songs distilled to their purest element. The process took years, and the compositions focused on one thing: to make Prince Nikolai experience what Erik had gone through.
The prince had no brothers or sisters, of course, but wasn’t the entire Empire his family? How would the prince feel, to discover one day that, like Erik, all he had left to remember the children by were toys? What if the prince found himself defenseless, alone, without a home or even his name? Erik wove his revenge together with strands of music into a twisted, real-life operetta, tainted by years of experiencing theater opera. He would face Prince Nikolai just before his eighteenth birthday, and the show would begin.
And so, Erik composed a jaunty song that had the same liveliness of the laughter Sergei gave when his father carved him a wooden toy; the same simple sweetness of Ana singing wordless songs to her dolls. Erik created the essence of toys. March of the Toys. It had the power to enchant those listening, wrap around their body and soul, and twist and press them into the toys that best defined them.
He composed a song that could take him to places quickly, for he was tired of running and hiding in fear. The song was a melody of rolling hills and distant landscape, the sun setting beyond distant trees and mountain haze, and even farther, to the skies beyond the maps. He called this Far Away Fantastique, and could, generally, go a short length or miles, depending on how much of the song he played.
He composed The Imperial Palace Prelude, a song that had fine flourishes and repeated motifs throughout, as though echoing through halls or seeing itself
duplicated in grand mirrors. He would need this song to get to the Palace when he faced the Prince.
Erik played himself beyond the border walls and tested his compositions on the rats. They danced and chased his jaunty flute music; they became docile and affectionate, rubbing their heads against his knees and curling around his feet. He would play March of the Toys, and with a squeak!...they shrunk to wind-up rats.
The only piece he created for himself was A Child’s Dream. It was every memory and longing of his childhood condensed and refined into glistening, wistful music. It was a song for children, for their deepest desires and hopes, a song only children could hear and see. When Erik played it, the theater around him vanished, and visions of nights in front of the fireplace and his family surrounded him, and he wrapped the warmth of it around himself like a dream.
The story ended there.
Well, not quite. Clara turned the page and discovered an additional picture. A woodblock print. It was of Clara, looking at the book. She wore her Polichinelle uniform, and even the half-eaten box of chocolates had been engraved upon the table. Nutcracker stood next to her, and somehow the ink of the print captured his grim, intent eyes. The caption read: Miss Clara Stahlbaum didn’t know what to think.
Clara didn’t know what to think. She shut the book and looked up at Nutcracker, whose face had become completely, woodenly expressionless.
What could she say? Are you all right? That was a ridiculous thing to ask. Of course he wasn’t. She bit her lip, kicking herself for teasing him about the theater earlier. They put on terrible plays? No wonder he didn’t like that theater; she wouldn’t either if her father had been killed there.
“Clara,” said Nutcracker suddenly, making her jump. He spoke in the terribly polite, terribly restrained emperor tone that she had only heard a few times before. “Did you know there’s a piano? Here in Polichinelle’s?”
Clara was confused. This was not what she had expected him to say.
“Oh,” she said, dustily remembering the fairy book’s mention of it. “In the—cocoa room, wasn’t it?”
“Coffee. Miss Kaminzki wanted me to tell you. Second floor. Pianists sometimes play while people are at their coffee. She thought you might be able to work things out there. Go through the music, see if you can root out anything we haven’t thought of.”
“Oh,” said Clara. And then, because Nutcracker had returned his focus to breaking the spell, Clara quickly spoke on, hoping that words would dispel the odd feeling in the air that the book had left. “When Erik Zolokov was playing the piano in the Palace Gallery, he played a song that made the room darker. It sounded strange, because it was so familiar. And yet, it wasn’t. It reminded me of a—a variation of Illumination Sonatina. If we could find a variation on March of the Toys, maybe—”
“Excellent,” said Nutcracker in that crispy, over-polite voice. “Come. Bring the music.”
Clara left behind the fairy book in the lobby and hurried to keep up with each of Nutcracker’s long-legged clacky strides down the hall and up a broad set of stairs. She clutched the music to her chest. Nutcracker wasn’t himself. Oh yes, he was polite—very polite—but his paddle-hands were bent into tight fists and shaking. Those were punch-through-walls fists. Clara lagged behind him until they reached the large room of glass walls and exotic potted plants. The thick scent of coffee stained the air.
The piano was an upright instrument of walnut color. Or rather, coffee bean color. Clara took a seat on the padded stool, looking warily at Nutcracker as he turned up the gas lamps.
“Nutcracker,” she said tentatively. “The—story. Do you want to talk about—”
“No,” said Nutcracker. “Whyever would I?”
“I don’t know,” Clara mumbled, fumbling through the music.
Nutcracker took the music from her and sorted through it until he found The Imperial Palace Prelude. He set it in front of her. Notes studded the staff like diamonds; and stately, thick chords peppered the page. It looked difficult, but Clara could play it.
“I would be much obliged,” said Nutcracker, “if, right now, you would play me to the Imperial Palace.”
Clara removed her hands from the keys.
“Erik Zolokov is there,” she said. “He’ll turn you—”
“If you could oblige, Clara.”
“I—I don’t think so,” said Clara.
“Clara.”
Clara glanced at Nutcracker’s paddle-hands, still balled and shaking. His earlier words that day came to her mind: I still get angry about it...angry enough to want to kill whoever did it...
And Erik Zolokov deserves it, Clara thought. He truly did. But it made Clara shudder, because Erik had thought that same thought over and over until he had murdered the Emperor. It hadn’t changed anything for Erik either; it only made the anger and pain and destruction multiply and grow and become ravenous…
“Nikolai,” said Clara. “Do you remember what Drosselmeyer told your father? In the fairy book? About rats inside people?”
“Clara—”
“I think you have a rat,” said Clara.
The circles of pink on Nutcracker’s cheeks reddened to crimson.
“And what,” he said, “do you call your obsession with Johann?”
Clara stood, nearly overturning the stool. Now it was her turn to have a burning face. Her heart thudded angrily in her chest.
Clara and Nutcracker stared daggers at each other. Clara looked away first, tears pricking her eyes. The piano blurred in her vision. In one quick movement, she snagged the knob of the keyboard cover and slammed it shut on the keys.
The sound echoed to the glass wall.
“As you wish,” said Nutcracker. “I will not impose on you any longer, Miss Stahlbaum.”
He pivoted, sharply drawing his sword with a shiing, and left. His clacking footfalls speeded to a lope, disappearing down the hall. Clara wrapped her arms around herself, aching all over and stinging with Nutcracker’s words. And what do you call your obsession with Johann?
All right. Yes. It was an obsession. That didn’t mean it was a rat. It wasn’t—it wasn’t like wanting to kill someone. Clara hugged herself tighter. She wasn’t even supposed to be here, in Imperia, tangled up in a world of rats and fairies and stubborn nutcrackers.
“Why did you do this?” said Clara aloud, to the empty room. “Why did you send him to me? What was the point?”
No one answered, of course. No orbs of light graced the coffee room to bob around her, no Fairy Queens lit upon her head. The room remained as still as a tomb.
Clara shook her head and began shuffling through the music to March of the Toys. She saw notes on pages, halfheartedly fingered chords on the keys, but no variations or themes could be made. She sighed, shifted through the music again, and paused at Far Away Fantastique.
She stared at it. It wasn’t a difficult song. She could play it now, go home to her family, and at the very least, get some sleep, forgetting the aching pain and worry she felt for Imperia and the Nutcracker and all the children. They could find another pianist to somehow break the spell. Clara wasn’t anything special.
Perhaps it wasn’t even too late to see Johann. The concert would be over, the refreshments would just be cleaned up, but there was still that small sliver of a chance Johann would still be there. He would surely want to hear her song, even if it wasn’t in front of everyone.
Hesitating, Clara pulled the locket from beneath her collar and opened it. When she saw Johann, a wrinkled bit of paper, she was sure she felt her heart squeeze. A little. Only a shade of how it used to squeeze, but still. A squeeze. Perhaps that was her answer.
She slid the keyboard lid open, and paused. Sitting there, on the shelf beside the music, lay the fairy book. Clara and the Nutcracker Prince.
Clara frowned. She hadn’t brought the book with her. She’d left it lying on the table downstairs. Yet, here it was. Clara looked around sharply. No fairies. A shiver ran up her back. Clara quickly opened the book, and
flipped to the picture of her and Nutcracker, and turned the page.
The book went on.
Nutcracker ran through the streets of Krystallgrad, loping over the bridges and streets of ice. The Imperial Palace shone in the frozen night.
Inside, Erik Zolokov waited.
Clara turned the page with a trembling hand. She felt sick and helpless. On the next page, only one line lay written:
Clara played A Child’s Dream, and discovered how to break the spell.
“What!” Clara cried. She dropped the book and dove at the music, new emotions searing to her fingertips. Her cheeks flared. In a moment A Child’s Dream was on the piano and Clara placed her hands on the keys.
What would happen? When it had been played before, it drew the children from their beds and out into the cold, revealing their fondest desires in sweet visions. It had exposed the children to the next song, March of the Toys. And, like the fairy book had said, only the children had heard A Child’s Dream.
But I won’t hear it, Clara thought. I’m not a child. How strange it would be, to press keys and hear nothing.
But she could still play it, with or without the sound. Clara inhaled, placed her trust in the fairies, and stuck the first chord: a B-flat major.
And she heard it.
Clara awoke at her drawing room spinet. Aching. She rubbed the drool from her cheek and blinked rapidly, piano music echoing through her ears. She blinked again as the scraggy Christmas tree beside her focused in her vision. The little drawing room clock on the mantle chimed.
Seven o’clock. Morning sunlight streamed through the room. Clara leapt to her feet, nightgown swishing her legs, her hair a tangle. She had boots on her feet. She was home! Grasping her bearings, she searched for any semblance of where she had just been. No Polichinelle uniform, no Nutcracker. He wasn’t even a nutcracker toy standing on the spinet, as he had been Christmas Eve. The fairy book was gone as well.
The Enchanted Sonata Page 19