The Nutcracker Bleeds (8 page)

“Our
enemies are the most fearful sort,” he said darkly, his movements slow. “They
have dirty, stinking hair covering their bodies. Sharp teeth, and vile intent
against all. In fact, I hear they sometimes eat their own young.”

He
stopped trying to scare her with his tone, falling into a thoughtful
expression. “
Humans
don’t eat their own young…do they?”

“Of
course not!” Anne protested.

The jester
considered a moment, and then simply shrugged it off as if he might not have
believed her.

“So,”
the woman started, going back to the proper subject. “These enemies of Olivia’s
are
mice
?”

She
remembered the mice in the kitchen earlier. One had bit her ankle; another had
bitten Olivia’s finger just the day before. That was probably why they had been
incorporated into her dream.

“Mice,
yes, and rats,” the puppet informed her, cringing as the last word came out.
“Rodents.”

“So
that’s what that rule on the chalkboard meant,” she uttered quietly, but
quickly shook it away. “These rodents… They are intelligent?”

The
jester tilted his white face and gave her an odd look. She nearly expected the
long tails of his ridiculous hat to stand up like an alert dog’s ears.

“I
mean
,”
she began again, speaking slowly, “do they speak? Do they reason? Or are they
truly like animals?”

The
puppet guide shook his head, starting to twirl in circles of boredom. “If they
have even a relic that they protect, don’t you think they have some sort of
reasoning skill?”

“Not
necessari–”

“Yes,
that’s what I thought,” he said, not listening. “Now would you like me to show
you the way or not?”

He
was almost begging to lead her onward, and she wondered again if she trusted
him. But, once again, what choice did she have? Anne managed a nod, and before
she knew it, they were back on their way toward completing her task.

4

Following
through the shaft, Anne tried to memorize the way. They went straight on for a
long while before starting to turn bends, and she played them over and over in
her mind until they’d reached a place where they had to go
down
. She’d
been apprehensive about it at first, but saw that there was a lift made with a
system of strings and teacups. It was amazing and yet frightening, but the trip
to the bottom of the shaft went off without incident.

Back
on a straightway again, they passed by a vent. Anne veered close to it,
grateful for the light, wishing she was once again back to her normal size and
in one of those outside rooms, even if she was only having to search high and
low for Olivia.

But
Olivia wouldn’t be there, would she? At least this way, I know where she is and
I cannot be reprimanded for her disappearance.

Selfish
thoughts, true, but it was the only way she could hold onto herself.

She
was about to move on after her guide, but through the grate, a shadowy movement
made her stop. She leaned closer, peering through one of the spaces between the
curling designs to investigate.

The
room she found herself looking into was William’s study on the second floor–one
of the only rooms there that wasn’t a bedroom. She had rarely seen the inside
of this room, perhaps only twice in her entire career here.

It
was deep in the night, but a lamp inside this room was burning. Wall lamps were
always kept with a tiny flame, but this particular one on the desk was burning
brightly. Surely William wasn’t working at this hour…not on the eve of
Christmas…

Whispering
voices
.
She leaned in even closer, pressing her face to the warm metal to look through
at an angle, and on the far side of the room, she saw shadows–large ones
without faces.

“One
more application should do it. I’ll take care of that tomorrow at dinner. I
know it’s been tearing you apart to have to handle it yourself,” the first
voice whispered, and even though it was quiet, Anne could tell that the last
part was spoken in a mocking tone.

“You
asked me to come here just to tell me that?” asked the second voice, annoyed.

“No.
It’s been a long while since we talked. I wanted to make sure you were still
serious about our arrangement.”

“Seems
a bit late to back out now, even if I did have doubts.”

The
quality of the whispers was such that she couldn’t tell whom the voices belonged
to. For the great number of people in the house on this night, it could have
been anyone. But she was certain that both were male.

“She’s
getting worse,” the second voice continued. “I see it every day.”

“I
do believe that’s the point of it.”

Anne
narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on the two figures, but the shadows did not
like her game. They seemed to grow darker just because she was trying to see
past them.

In
the silence, a grip on her shoulder made her shriek.

“Naughty,
naughty, Anne!” scolded the jester puppet, shoving her shoulder so that she
spun around in a circle. Before she toppled over, he gripped her arms roughly.
“Trying to slip away from me, hm? Tarrying behind? That’s a
bad
girl.”

“No,”
she said, shaken from the things she heard and from the sudden scare that her
escort had offered her. “I was just having a rest.”

The
jester shook a long finger at her, chastising her in a singsong way. “You have
to stay close. Losing you could get me into trou–ble.”

She
nodded–a forced gesture.

“I won’t
do it again,” she assured him.

The
puppet eyed her a moment, then seemed satisfied and began to pull her along
after him by her wrist. She let this happen, too busy thinking about the
whispers she’d heard to be repulsed. Who was that talking? And what, exactly,
had they been speaking of? Whatever it was, something wasn’t right about it.

Anne
didn’t like it at all.

5

The
jester pulled Anne along for a lengthy while before finally releasing her to simply
follow him again, but even then he kept glancing behind him to make sure she
was still there. She was a good girl; she didn’t veer far.

The
air in the shaft had gotten colder, and Anne guessed that they had gone a good
distance from the nearest lit fireplace. In what seemed to be the darkest part
of the shaft, the jester stopped.

“This
would be it,” he announced, though taking care not to broadcast it too loudly.

Anne
stared into a cavernous opening that was filled with darkness. Cold air blew
back at her, carrying unpleasant smells with it. The place smelled of rot and
mold, of urine and feces, of blood and decay. The woman covered her mouth so
she wouldn’t vomit. She wondered briefly if the puppet even had a sense of
smell.

“We
have to go in there?” she asked, though already knowing the answer.

“Now,
now, Anne,” he said, forming a tight lip. He looped arms with her.

The
jester took a deep breath and puffed out his chest. Interesting to her that she
could actually hear the air enter his body through breath. Was it possible he
had lungs?

“We
just have to be brave,” he said, taking a step forward. Then he added for good
measure: “And extremely cautious.”

Side
by side, they stepped into the darkness of the rodents’ lair. The terrible
smells made Anne’s head spin, but she forced herself to bear it, breathing only
when necessary and always through her mouth–though it was so putrid that she
could nearly
taste
it.

“This
is only one of the many entrances,” the jester whispered to her. She could
hardly see him, but he appeared quite fearful. Whether or not it was simply an
act, she didn’t know.

“This
one isn’t frequented much. It’s a back way. I figured it’d be deserted, and not
too far at all from where the cat’s eye is kept.”

“Seems
like this isn’t so difficult a task,” she whispered back, looking around her
alertly. “Perhaps it just proves that I’m not loyal to the rodents if I would
steal from them?”

“You
think it’s easy,” he said with a shudder. “We haven’t gotten there yet.”

They
continued forward, creeping now, passing beneath several black cloths that were
hanging about in the long corridor. Each time Anne passed beneath one, her
heart sped for fear that they would meet with an enemy and knowing that if she
couldn’t protect herself from the tiny mouse that had bitten her ankle, she
wouldn’t be able to defeat one her own size. Each time, she found herself
lucky; they didn’t meet with any trouble.

Eventually,
they came to a pit, and after scanning the area carefully, the jester led her
near the edge and pointed downward.

“It’s
down there,” he whispered with a regretful nod.

Anne
looked over cautiously, not seeing much other than dark. Then, her eyes began
to focus. Suspended in the shaft, on a raised pedestal, was a polished, green marble
with a black center.

The
cat’s eye.

“How
can I get to it?” she asked, her mind searching for an answer.

Her
companion said nothing, but when she looked toward him and his silence, he was
holding something toward her in his hand.
Strings
. His own. They were
attached to him, and with them, he would lower her down there?

Did
she actually trust him? Did he believe that she did?

She
stared at him hard for a few moments, and the toy grinned his wicked grin at
her, knowing she didn’t have a choice–yet again.

“I
must be out of my mind,” she muttered angrily, taking the strings and tying
them around herself until she’d managed a decent harness.

He
continued to smile after she’d finished, and when she looked at him once again,
he hadn’t taken his eyes off her. If he’d been human, she would swear she was
turning him on by wrapping herself with the strings. Then again, was this his
idea of foreplay? She cringed at that thought, shutting it down immediately.

“Quickly,”
she instructed. “So we can get out of here.”

The
jester didn’t respond to her, simply giving her a shove that sent her off into
the dark shaft. She had a mind to scream, but before she got the chance, the
strings caught and she was suspended in the air.

Very
good, Anne
,
she told herself.
Just keep calm
.

The
cat’s eye was more to the center of the shaft, and the jester maneuvered her
toward it, though it took a bit of effort. The marble became her focus–the
center point of the universe. She reached out her hands to grip it when she was
nearly close enough–

–and
a sea of squirming movement below caught her attention. She gasped at the
sight, withdrawing her hands close to her as if it mattered. Her breathing
quickened, her heart sped, and she completely forgot about the center of the
universe.

Bugs
. Hundreds of
them, along with their writhing larva, crawling over each other at the bottom
of that shaft. Was this what the jester meant when he said it was not so easy?
Bugs… Anne
hated bugs
!

“Get
the marble!”

She
heard the voice, but could hardly understand the words.

“W–what?”

“
The
cat’s eye
!”

Below
her, the bugs twisted, excited by her presence, and just as she’d nearly
managed to calm down by telling herself that they were still several
inches
below her, one flew up and landed against her cloth boot.

Anne
screamed. She couldn’t hold it in. She kicked, but that didn’t stop more bugs
from flying up to crawl across her. They were brown, lightweight bugs with
transparent wings, each about the length of her palm. Even though she
struggled, she recognized them.
Termites
. This was indeed a trap set for
wooden toys.

“Anne!
You have to get the relic! It’s right there!”

She
opened her eyes, fighting away the bugs that were swarming through the air
around her. The jester was right; the marble was right in front of her. Before
she could waste time on the bug that had lodged itself in her hair where her
bun was wrapped, she grabbed the marble, curling herself into a ball around it
as the bugs continued to light on her.

Immediately,
she was pulled up. The jester tugged her to the top of the hole, battling the
bugs that how now discovered him as well.

Back
out of the pit, the strings came free of her as if magically loosed. They’d
been tightly wound, and yet fell from her body as if they’d been simply lying
across her. This was no time to question it, however. She ran, holding the
cat’s eye tightly. The jester already had a head start. Behind them, the
termites rose into the air in a thick swarm.

“You
knew about this!” she accused, holding the marble tightly beneath her arm and
freeing herself of bugs with the other.