Midnight in Everwood(83)
Nothing came to pass. Marietta frowned, her grip slackening. ‘Perhaps—’
‘Hold on,’ Dellara shouted. A faint wind whirled past Marietta’s ears, gossamer-fine and seductive, whispering of other lands, other worlds, of all the places she might see and adore.
‘Keep your thoughts on Everwood,’ Dellara repeated, more urgently.
Marietta filled her head with visions of the picture-perfect little town, shining cosily under dark skies and wrapped in a blanket of snow. Something tugged at her stomach and in the next breath, the three of them were whisked off their feet and into the time-rippling space between worlds.
When they had stopped twisting through the fabric of space and time, Marietta opened her eyes once more.
The crisp scent of snow and fir and frozen sugar welcomed them. Everwood stood in the valley before them, hemmed in by ice cliffs and frozen waterfalls, where starlight dripped from above. The velvet sky swam in endless constellations that Marietta found she could put names to now. Liketh’s Lantern, the Great Moose, the Goblin’s Smile. She might be a lost girl, far from home, but for the first time in her life, she felt the night air on her face with a sense of deep freedom. Being free of all constraints, societal or physical, was a particularly delicious feeling.
Act Two
But Godfather Drosselmeier, with a strange smile, took little Marie onto his lap, and said in a softer tone than he was ever heard to speak in before: ‘Ah, dear Marie, more power is given to you than to me, or to the rest of us. You, like Pirlipat, were born a princess, for you reign in a bright and beautiful kingdom. But you will suffer if you take the part of the poor misshapen Nutcracker, for the Mouse King watches for him at every hole and corner.’
—E.T.A. HOFFMANN, THE NUTCRACKER
Chapter Forty-One
Everwood was set a-glittering with celebration.
‘Between one event or another, I had almost forgotten what a darling little place this is,’ Marietta said, drinking it in.
Dellara slowed the moose to a casual trot. They had purloined a moose-drawn sleigh, abandoned by faceless guards, standing beside the ice-bridge to which the golden key had transported them. Now they were journeying through Everwood in it, knowing it would whisk them away to the Endless Forest faster and in more comfort than if they’d taken the route on foot. First, they would bid farewell to Marietta, then Pirlipata would take it east, home to Crackatuck.
A pair of men with twirled white beards and forest-green pointed hats played a jangling melody on brass instruments. Nearby a group of children were chanting: The ice prison has fallen!
‘Why, would you look at that.’ Pirlipata smiled. ‘It seems this rebellion was fated to win back the heart of the kingdom.’
‘Queen Altina’s star will shine brighter tonight; she will be glad to see peace and goodwill restored in her kingdom,’ Dellara said. ‘The air is thick with the most powerful magic tonight.’ Marietta glanced at her and she added, ‘Hope.’
As they made their way through the town, scarlet ribbon-curls littered the marzipan cobblestones. People danced and skated through the streets, clinking together tall goblets of molten chocolate. Vendors sold fairy cakes; tiny cakes crowned with a glittering sugar fairy. Red sparkles shot out from their tiny chocolate wands, dusting everyone with twinkling flecks. Dellara guided the sleigh past gingerbread chalets with sloping roofs and candy-cane buildings with whipped-cream roofs, collecting bits and pieces of the parade of festivities until their sleigh shimmered as brightly as one of Dellara’s gowns.
Then the moose tugged them onward and across a smaller snow bridge to the great fir forest beyond. The sleigh runners cut fresh tracks through the pristine snow, sweeping them out further into the forest, the noise of the celebration falling away, leaving them in silence. It was hard to forage for words when they all knew what was to come. Marietta pulled the blanket higher over the three of them, sharing the front bench in the sleigh. The forest air was freezing after they’d been indulged with the warming enchantments swirling about the palace.
The firs grew thicker, crowding together in an effort to blot the starlight. Large lanterns affixed to the sleigh illuminated their way, creating puddles of blackness where their reach ended. Soon it grew difficult to navigate the sleigh through the trees.
‘I am not a practised hand at this,’ Dellara admitted after a while, bringing the moose to a stop. ‘From here we go on foot.’ She leapt from the sleigh and set about unharnessing the moose. ‘It seems we’re not the only ones who have found our freedom tonight,’ she murmured to the great, placid animals.
Marietta exited the sleigh with trepidation, recalling the shadows that had stalked her through the forest on her arrival. How they had crept down her throat, constricting her chest corset-tight, disorientating her as if she’d been set upon by malignant spirits attempting to lead her astray. But she was not the same woman she had been then.
Pirlipata kept a hand on her sword hilt as they walked deeper into the forest.
Snow crunching beneath their feet, breaths crystallising, they soon lost sight of the sleigh. Mist slithered between the trunks and Marietta eyed it but the shadows kept their distance. This time, she did not hear the whispers. This time, she heard something else instead.
Dellara stilled. ‘What was that?’ Her hand vanished beneath her cloak, reappearing with her wand.