A Winterland Tale - Part Two

The party music was loud, her grandmother had drained two bottles of wine at dinner and was now encouraging everyone to dance, and the kids had demolished the house. Clare’s mother finally relented and let them open presents.

Clare had gotten her brother and cousins situated while her mother played Santa. The rest of the adults were milling around and polishing off what her grandma had left of the eggnog and rum.

“Wait!” Clare yelled at one of the older kids. She scratched the itchy band aid on her thumb. “You will all open your presents at the same time but you have to wait until all of them have been passed out.”

They muttered, a few openly cussed her, and her mom laughed. “You sound like a grown-up.”

Clare rolled her eyes. “Somebody has to,” she added under her breath.

Was she supposed to be excited? It wasn’t like she was going to be tearing open any boxes of her own. Aunts, uncles, and grandparents cut her off when she hit sixteen. Clare had to wait for Old Saint Nick before she got any presents.

“That’s the last of them,” hollered Clare’s mom. “Go for it!”

Clare ducked as paper went flying. The kids tore into their presents like dogs frantically digging for bones. Not that she had ever actually seen a dog do that. Paper, ribbon, boxes, everything went everywhere. Clare took a moment to appreciate their enthusiasm – it quickly ended when she remembered she would be the one cleaning up after.

“Here you go,” said her mom, as she placed a beautifully wrapped box on Clare’s lap. The snowflakes on the paper shimmered. She knew she imagined it, but the paper felt cold, as if she were holding real snowflakes.

Clare shook her head and tried to give the package back. “I’m too old. Nobody would have given me a present.”

“Well, someone did. You open it up while I try to find some alcohol your grandmother forgot to drink.”

With that, she was off, leaving Clare with the screaming children and the strange present.

There was a tag with her name on it, but nowhere did it say who had given it to her. It was heavy and Clare thought it made a clinking noise as she rotated the box.

Whatever, she thought.   

Clare ripped into the delicate wrapping paper and uncovered an ornate, wooden box. Stained a rich mahogany, every inch had been lovingly carved into a pattern of swirls. Some swirls were made of straight lines, some of dots, others of flower petals. As Clare tipped it to see the backside, the lid fell open and music began to play. It was an old jewelry box and inside, a harlequin and columbine danced merrily to the light tune. Clare’s first urge was to toss it aside. She was too old for some silly little musical box, but there was something about the dancers, or maybe it was the music? She leaned in closer, almost desperate to discover its secrets.

“A music box? Cute,” said her mom. She took the box from Clare’s hands and her trance seemed to disappear immediately.

Clare shook her head and thought that it was definitely bed time if this music could almost persuade her to pass out amidst the chaos. 

“Shit,” she said. Thinking about her warm bed made her remember she had forgotten all about the broken nutcracker for her mom.

“Clare, you know I don’t care if you swear but if your father hears you, he’s going to blow a gasket.”

“I know. I’m going to pop upstairs for a sec. Forgot about something.” She took the music box from her mom, who only shrugged.

“Escape for as long as you can. I don’t know when we’ll be getting rid of the family.”

Clare nodded and bounded up to her room. The nutcracker was still sitting patiently by her window.

“I forgot about you. Let’s get you fixed up and we can give you to mom before she passes out.”

When she went to collect him, Clare noticed that there were scratch marks on her window pane, and when she looked through the glass, there were little trails and mouse crap in the snow. She said a few words that a child ought not to know as she hid the nutcracker under her sweatshirt and went back downstairs. Apparently, pest control was needed at the Balanchine house.

The music was even louder, kids were running around like animals as they played with their new toys, and her grandma had passed out at the kitchen table.

Clare waited until she was sure no one had seen her, she didn’t want one of the kids to follow and didn’t need her mother asking questions, before she slipped into the garage. She shut the door behind her, locking out the last of the blessed heat, and turned on the lone light bulb. The glue was already out. Her father was constantly breaking things and they went through so much super glue, Clare’s mom had suggested they buy stock in it.

Clare put just enough to hold the nutcracker’s jaw in place and held it for the customary sixty seconds. He wouldn’t be able to crack anything, but at least he could still open and shut his mouth.

“Nothing worse than not being able to talk, am I right?” she snorted. “And of course I got glue on my finger. Why wouldn’t I?”

Clare tossed the bottle back onto the steel table and reached for the light switch. She happened to look up and see that there were mice everywhere. As in, everywhere.

As Clare spun to reach the door, she tripped on one of their fuzzy little bodies and fell, hitting the concrete hard and cracking her head against the door.

A few moments later, she woke up and was somehow lying on her back. The music box she had still had on her was by her head, its happy song playing, and she wondered if she had broken it. Then she wondered why she had even brought it. Clare could already feel the knot on her forehead growing and she groaned as the pounding in her head became deafening.

“You! Don’t move.”

Clare froze. It was the first time someone had ever squeaked out a command to her. Her lids slowly opened to find a mouse standing on her chest.

Well, she thought, that’s odd.

 

He had a shiny little sword pointed at her nose.

Her mouth fell open. She knew she must have hit her head really fucking hard to be seeing a mouse with a sword. Clare inched up on her elbows to get off of the cold ground.

The little bastard stabbed her square in the nose. “Be still!”

“Ow!” Clare swatted at him, but he evaded. “Why are you poking me?”

“I said to be still. Do you not have ears, creature?”

“Creature? A goddamned mouse just called me a creature," she said to herself. Angry at his audacity, and the fact that he stabbed her, Clare's ire grew. "Let me guess, you’re probably one of the little assholes that shit outside my window.”

It stabbed her again as she moved. “We did not come for you so do not make this difficult. We will be gone soon.”

It’s beady, black eyes were trained on something just to her left and its little heartbeat was moving a mile a minute. If she didn’t know better, Clare would say that the wee brown mouse was scared.

She wanted to laugh at the ridiculous predicament she was in. This could only be a dream, she knew. In reality, her dumb ass was passed out on the garage floor because she tripped. Someone would find her soon and wake her, so she thought she might as well play along until then.

“If you tell me what you want, this could all go so much faster,” she smirked.

“We came for him.”

Her eyes followed the mouse’s tiny weapon and saw it pointed at the nutcracker being dragged away by a group of mice. Clare forgot about the mouse, and his sword, and jumped up. The mouse took a tumble and screamed the whole way down to the hard floor. She couldn't care less.

“Hey, you can’t take him. That’s my mom’s Christmas gift,” Clare shouted.

“He is a gift to nobody. He is a curse, an abomination. He is the enemy.”

When Clare turned to see who had spoken, this time she found a large rat with three heads pointing his sword at her. She fought the urge to vomit at seeing such a gross oddity. Not all of its heads actually seemed to work. One was hanging off to the side, its mouth ajar and its eyes dead.

Regardless of the stomach churning mutant that had a sword aimed at her, Clare reached down to yank the nutcracker away from the mouse horde. They bit her hands, crawled up her arms and legs, nibbling all the way. Clare flailed her limbs, throwing them off as best she could. There were so many of them. The King Mouse, as she had dubbed him, screamed for the others to charge her and she stomped and kicked.

This silly dream was beginning to sour into a nightmare. And if this was a dream, then why couldn’t she wake up?

The King, himself, decided to charge Clare. He raised his weapon and screeched as he ran at her. Clare screamed and kicked at him. She got him and he flew a few feet. His sword clattered to the ground and slid under her dad’s car. Clare walked to his fat, flea-ridden body. She didn’t want to play anymore. She wanted to wake up. To put an end to this dream, she stomped on his heads. They made a sick squishing noise under her tennis shoe and a small pool of blood came oozing out.

“The mutant mouse is dead. Gross.”

Immediately, all of the other mice began scurrying about and trying to find an exit. Clare was willing to step on all of them if she had to. After all, it was a dream. Her shoes weren’t really going to be covered in rat guts.

“That’s right,” she called after them. “Run!”

Then she saw him. In the corner of the garage was the man in white she had seen earlier in the night. Only this time he wasn’t smiling. His eyes still held their eerie glow, his skin and suit just as pristine as before. He looked from her to the doll she held, and then he disappeared.

“I really want to wake up now.”

She ran for the door. It was locked. Clare dropped the nutcracker and pulled at the knob with both hands. “Let me out! Hey, mom? Somebody? Open the door!”

She banged and hollered but no one answered.

“I’ll get a hammer and knock the damn door down,” she said. She whirled around and there stood the nutcracker, its arm reaching out to her as if telling her to grab it.

“I didn’t know your arms could move. I broke you again, didn’t I?”

Clare leaned down to pluck him up, but when her hand met his, a wave of pain racked her body. Her hand was stuck to the dolls and she couldn’t remove or even lift the doll. Then she began to shrink.

To be continued…