Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker(81)

“Godfather Drosselmeier!” She almost snorted.

“I’ll fix the Nutcracker. You have to fix yourself,” he said.

“I’m very much almost all better already,” she replied. “Aren’t I, Maman?”

“You have a way to go. And I am going to sleep in here with you tonight to make sure you don’t go wandering about again.” She put down her needle and reached out to feel Klara’s forehead. Her own face was softened in a way Drosselmeier hadn’t seen in years. “You’re not out of the woods yet.”





95.


When Klara had nodded off again, cradling the Nutcracker in the crook of her sling, Clothilde motioned to Drosselmeier. They stood outside the door and spoke in hushed voices.

“We had to send for the doctor in the middle of the night, did you hear?” she said. “Her fever was raving. She’d been throwing toys around the parlor as far as we could tell. She was right about the key though; she did extract it from the curio cabinet and open the fairy castle to its fullest extent. We must have been sleeping deeply, as we didn’t hear the crash—instead it was the melody from the music box that slowly and gently woke us. When we stole downstairs we found her in the dark, sweating through a dream that made her moan.”

“She’s made a great recovery. I’m so relieved.”

“The doctor said she is still in danger. She must rest quietly. That is hard for her. If you can help in the next few days . . .”

“How can I help?”

“You will make me beg you?” But she knew she didn’t have to beg. “Your fancifulness occupies her in a way her father and I can’t possibly match. She must be kept to bed for a few days, perhaps a week. Last night may have been the turning point of the current crisis, but she mustn’t be allowed to slip backward. Recovery is a long process. We’d be broken if we lost her, Dirk. Quite, quite broken.”

“Of course, you know I should be honored to be of assistance.”

“And forgive me if I was ill-tempered last night,” she finished.

“You were worried. We all were worried.”

“We must remain worried.”



Later that day, when Drosselmeier was allowed to have a plate of his Christmas supper upstairs while Klara had hers in bed, he said to her, “I know your parents want you to get better for their own selfish reasons. I mean, they love you and all that.”

“Why do you sound sad when you say that?”

He didn’t answer. “More to the point, my dear goddaughter, is that you have to get better because I need you.”

“Can we get married when I grow up?”

“What a lovely idea. But I’m afraid I shall be too old by then. So you’ll have to find your own prince somewhere else. Or someone. Maybe not a prince. It’s hard to tell this early. No, I need you for something other than a wife.”

She pouted, but said, “What can I do for you? You’re so old.”

“That is exactly it. I have a problem I have never been able to solve.”

“I’m not good at sums.”

“It is not addition or subtraction. My problem has to do with the Little Lost Forest.”

“What is that?”

“Haven’t I told you before?” He told her again. He didn’t mention the faun and the dryad, the Pan and the Pythia, whoever they were; let those creatures stay in stone, frozen in a northern garden. They had frightened him as a boy, and he wouldn’t pass that on to Klara. He simply said, “I know of a sacred forest that needs to have a home. It needs someplace to grow. But I don’t know where it should be.”

“Is this real,” she asked, “or is this a story?”

“Well,” he said, “that I don’t know, either. But I’m afraid I’m getting too old to find out. If I haven’t located a home for the sacred forest yet, I shall have to leave the job to someone else. Will you take on that chore?”

“Where is the sacred forest?”

“I’m not certain,” he said. “I suppose it may be all around, disguised as the garden. Or perhaps it is hiding in the depths of the Black Forest. I think it’s been wandering for a very long time looking for a place it can root, and grow, and make itself at home. If you could go to the fairy-tale land last night, perhaps you can find a way to send the forest there, too. It might be willing to grow and thrive in a place like that.”

“Godfather,” she said, “but you made the fairy-tale land.”

“I only built it,” he said. “You visited. I gave you the key. You opened the lock.”





96.


Clothilde said, “I always sensed that he liked Klara better than he liked us.”

Sebastian took her elbow. “He had a way with children. An appeal that worked upon me, too, until I grew up. I felt it was my fault, a little.”

“Growing up?”

“Well—not quite. But—losing track of something he wanted to give to me. Losing the way to hear him.”

“Nonsense. That’s sentimental. You were always kind to him, don’t forget.”

“It’s odd, isn’t it, that there isn’t more—more fuss over his death.”