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The Christmas tree this year is beautiful.
It’s beautiful every year, of course. It’s Christmas, so how could it not be? The smell of a fresh tree, his father and uncle laughing and complaining in turns as they drag it inside the house and set it up, and the hundreds of sparkling lights that get strung up afterward by him and Daniel and their father, usually with one of them getting stuck at some point. The dozens of twirling ornaments, all shapes and sizes, some bought and some handmade by his mother and the girls, and one or two even by him and Daniel—though they’re not as good, admittedly. The girls seem to have a magic touch, with the angels and snowflakes and ballerinas. Daniel’s is a power ranger, and David’s angel is... nice, at least, if not as pretty as Claudia’s.
But it’s beautiful, altogether, the smell and shiny lights and happy faces that stand around it, and all the wrapped gifts that are settled underneath it, just waiting for morning.
David loves Christmas, he loves it, but he’s sitting underneath the old piano right now, his knees tucked up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them as he ignores his mother’s sighs and patented ”David!”
His father is pushing a warm jacket over his mom’s shoulders now, and she frowns and takes it, pulling it on properly. “John,” his father says, talking to a black pair of shoes that come into view—David’s uncle, “thanks for watching the kids. Make sure they’re in bed by ten, will you? And if David ever comes out from under that piano, let him put the carrots out. It’s his favorite part.”
He says something else, and David can hear Jazzy give both his parents a warm hug before they leave. The cold gust of air reaches him at the same time that the door closes, and he shivers, pulling his knees in tighter.
He can see the tree from where he’s stubbornly hiding, and feels like—
It’s not fair, it’s Christmas Eve. They’re supposed to be together, aren’t they?
Claudia falls to her knees in front of the piano, and pokes her head down to look at him. Her dress slides against the wooden floor as she smiles, amused, and says, “David, you can come out. You’ll miss Uncle’s story if you don’t. And,” she adds, “he has presents he said we could open early!”
Even so, he doesn’t come out until Jazzy climbs underneath and pulls him out by his hand with big, sad eyes, and pleading because it’s not the same without him. They get comfortable on the couch in front of the tree, and Uncle John gives them knowing grins as he calls out to Aunt Sue, who comes in with five brightly wrapped gifts in her arms. She laughs when Jazzy jumps up and runs to grab her around the knees.
Aunt Sue hands her the pink one, which she promptly sits on the floor and rips open, revealing a Barbie doll in a red-and-gold Christmas dress. Amber gets the yellow one, and it’s filled with empty journals and paintbrushes and coloring pens, while Daniel gets the larger green one, which he opens to reveal the model of a car, and Claudia a small, pretty red one, with an even prettier necklace inside. David’s is blue, and he opens it slowly, and touches what it holds even more carefully.
It’s a nutcracker, wooden and painted dark red and blue, with bright eyes and a frozen smile.
Aunt Sue smiles when she sits next to him and says, “If you twist the knob on his back, music will play.”
David nods and reaches back, sliding his fingers along the wood to find the metal spindle, and as carefully as he can manage, he turns it. It’s classical music, like what you’d hear from an orchestra, only much simpler. “It’s perfect,” David says, and looks at his aunt, who runs a hand through his hair and replies, “You’re welcome.”
“Now then,” she says a moment later, standing up, “it’s time for dinner.”
He sets the nutcracker on top of the piano, and gives it a long look before he follows everyone else to the dining room.
The chain bites into his wrist as the rats shove him into the open chamber room. Johns’ knees slam into the ground, and he barely manages to keep from crying out. He looks up defiantly though. The rat standing in front of him is short, but standing taller than him anyway, dark grey with thick whiskers and beady black eyes. Carly lets out a short gasp as they give her the same treatment, but she bites back anything louder and spits at the rat’s feet.
“You can do whatever you want to us, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re no king of ours,” she says, staring at the Rat King’s face with anger.
“But I am your King,” the rat says, “as my dark cloud above this city can tell you. It’s there because there’s no one to stop me. And that, my lady, makes me your King.”
“The Prince will stop you!” Johns yells, and then winces as one of the rat soldiers shoves him.
“Boy,” the rat says, and Johns wants to bristle—he and Carly aren’t children. They haven’t been since the day the Rats took over the city, and the Prince—their friend—disappeared. “Your Prince is dead.”
Before either he or Carly can protest, the Rat King says, “Take them to the smoke factory.”
Dinner is turkey and gravy, green beans and potatoes and sparkling cider with apple pie for dessert. They all say grace and talk through the meal—Claudia yelling at Daniel only once when he spills cider all over his pants and runs off to put on his pajamas instead of his jeans and t-shirt. He comes back in time for the pie, and they listen to one of Uncle John’s stories about gypsies and jewels and dancing, and another about a Magical Princess with the name Jasmine, which Jazzy loves.
“Time for bed,” Aunt Sue says, after all their plates have been cleared and washed, and Amber whines for a long moment until Uncle John picks her up and takes her up the stairs. Claudia grabs Jazzy’s hand as they go up the stairs. David runs back to the living room to grab his nutcracker, but stops when he gets to the piano.
The nutcracker is lying there, with one wooden arm lying next to his body, disconnected and turned at an awkward angle. “Daniel!” David yells, turning around, and Daniel runs up the stairs, dodging in front of Claudia and Amber while yelling, “I’m sorry!”
“Oh, what’s happened?” Aunt Sue asks, walking in.
David holds the nutcracker out and says, “Daniel broke him!”
Aunt Sue frowns, and David can see the apology on her lips before she says anything. He pushes past her and runs up the stairs, holding the nutcracker close to his chest. Daniel is huddling underneath his comforter already when David comes in the room, and David frowns but doesn’t yell at him. Instead he grabs the roll of tape from his dresser and does the best he can to get the arm back on. Eventually, he stands the nutcracker up on the dresser and folds his arms over the surface, just looking at him.
He twists the metal knob on the nutcracker’s back, and listens to the music play before he climbs into bed. Uncle John closes the bedroom door with a, “Goodnight, boys. David—we’ll fix that nutcracker of yours in the morning, alright?” and David curls around his pillow, looking at the nutcracker out of the corner of his eye.
The clock between his and Daniel’s bed ticks loudly, and he blinks hazily, tired, but lurches up when the nutcracker disappears from his dresser. He throws a look at Daniel, but Daniel’s still in his bed, his eyes closed and arm thrown awkwardly over his headboard—fast asleep already.
There’s a loud noise from the foot of David’s bed, and David jumps up, bare feet cold against the wooden floor. When he turns though, to see what the noise was, he sees a—a rat. It’s a big, fat, black rat, with long whiskers and a purple jacket, and a little sword that he’s holding in one hand. It looks right up at him and its eyes seem to grow wide before it jumps into action and throws itself forward onto all fours, running straight at David.
David fumbles backward, and jumps on his bed before the rat can touch him. He yells for Daniel to wake up, but Daniel just rolls over in his sleep, facing away from the intruder. The rat is climbing up the bed post, and David scrambles backward into the corner where his mattress meets the wall. He holds his arms up and closes his eyes tight, waiting for the inevitable attack, when he hears a clash and opens them again.
The nutcracker, his broken arm in a clear cast, has drawn his wooden sword—only not wooden, David realizes, but metal, and is engaging the rat in a fight. “Stand back!” the Nutcracker yells, his good arm waving the sword with practiced ease.
“Your majesty,” the rat says, bowing, and David sees the moment of hesitance, when the Nutcracker seems to be lowering his sword, before the rat jumps forward and knocks him on his back. The Nutcracker yells and swipes out his blade, catching the rat in the back as it runs and jumps off the bed, scattering amongst the toys on their dark bedroom floor.
David stares down at the Nutcracker with wide eyes as he stands up slowly, wobbly with just the one arm for balance. He sheathes his sword and then looks up at David, and his mouth is still frozen in that smile, the break in wood where he can crack nuts, but his eyes seem warmer somehow and he walks closer before saying, “I’m sorry about that—are you okay?”
David, because he’s not sure what else to do, just nods.
“Thank you, by the way,” the Nutcracker says, and looks down at his broken arm, “for trying to help me.”
“Oh,” David says, his shoulders dropping, “I couldn’t actually fix you though.”
The Nutcracker nods, but says, “This sling is much better than an unattached arm would have been. So thank you, uh—what’s your name?”
“It’s, um, David.”
“Thank you, David.”
“You’re welcome, then—Nutcracker?”
“Yes,” the Nutcracker nods, acknowledging the name. “We have less time than I thought,” he says, looking around the room. “The rats are attacking already. I need—I need a plan.”
“What sort of plan?” David asks, still amazed as he watches the Nutcracker pace on his bed, talking despite being made of wood.
“I need to find the Snow Fairy,” the Nutcracker says after a long moment. “But I have no idea where they’ve taken her—“
“The Snow Fairy?” David asks loudly, and leans forward. “Like the one hanging on the top of the Christmas Tree?”
The Nutcracker looks at him, and his eyes seem... inquisitive. David swallows and tries to sit up straight, though his pajamas probably do less to make him look sure of himself than he really wants. “Can you take me there?” the Nutcracker asks.
David holds out his hands carefully, and the Nutcracker tentatively steps onto his palms. David can feel something in his hands tingle, and as he gets up, he smiles brightly. “Of course,” he says, and just like earlier when he was going to bed, he holds the Nutcracker close to his chest and walks across his room, out into the hallway and down the dark staircase.
It seems oddly longer than usual, and the Nutcracker gets heavier as they go, so when they reach the bottom step, he puts him down and points at the double-doors that lead into the living room. He has to reach up to tug on the doorknob, and pulls it open with both hands.
“Why is it so heavy?” David asks, looking back at the Nutcracker. His eyes go wide when he sees that the Nutcracker has grown—they’re almost the same size now. The Nutcracker grabs his hand and runs into the living room, and David almost trips over the rug beneath his feet. The tree is ridiculously large, and the ceiling is dark but for the reflection of the Christmas lights, making it look like the night sky instead. He looks down again, and stares in wonder at everything around him.
The Nutcracker has stopped running, is looking at him, now almost two inches taller than David.
“Has everything gotten bigger,” David asks, “or did I just get smaller?”
The Nutcracker shakes his head and says, “Hurry, David, every minute we take is a minute we waste.”
“But how can we get to the Snow Fairy, if the tree is so big and we’re so small?” David asks, but the Nutcracker doesn’t answer, just pulls him forward until they reach the bottom of the tree. Huge stacks of presents stand around them, and some toys that his aunt and uncle must have put out after he and everyone else went to bed.
“We’ll take the carriage,” the Nutcracker answers, finally, and David blinks up at him, before a carriage—red and gold and hung by a string, is lowered down from the tree, gently stopping its descent as it touches the floor. David looks up and hears a spatter of giggling laughter and sees what looks like sparkling white light flittering through the bottom branches of the tree.
“What are—are the ornaments alive? Just like you?” David asks, surprised.
“Of course they are, David,” the Nutcracker says, opening the small carriage door and beckoning for David to get in. He does, and when the Nutcracker follows, the carriage lurches and lifts them off the floor. In the carriage, the Nutcracker continues, “Every fairy and angel you hung is alive, every soldier and animal—they’re all as real as me or you.”
The shimmering white lights seem to swirl around the carriage as it’s pulled higher and higher through the branches of the tree, and David can see faces every now and again to go with the happy laughter. “I hung that angel!” David says, yelling and pointing out the carriage window at the pretty purple angel that his mother had pulled out of the attic. She waves and smiles at him, and he waves back, amazed, until she falls out of sight.
The Nutcracker is looking at him when he glances back with a huge smile on his face, and he looks away quickly, back out the window, because—because the Nutcracker is looking at him like he’s something just as amazing as the ornaments hanging from the tree as they pass them, sparkling and shining. The carriage knocks against a vividly red ornament ball as it’s pulled up, and David sees Daniel’s power ranger steady it and then salute them.
“This is amazing,” David says, just watching it all; taking it all in, before they come up to a portion of the tree that seems to have been flattened, and the carriage stops. There’s a woman in a big dress facing away from them, and she has glittering wings behind her, which match her long, curling blonde hair. David looks at the Nutcracker who pushes him out of the carriage quickly, and then bows. David hurriedly does the same as the Nutcracker speaks.
“Snow Fairy,” he says, and the woman turns. She has a small, happy smile and looks at the Nutcracker for a moment before her gaze switches to David. With a jolt, David realizes this is the angel he made—not the one his mother did, or even Claudia. He made her, and she was beautiful. The Nutcracker continues, “I’ve come to ask you—“
“Well then,” she interrupts, “won’t you introduce me to your companion, your majesty?”
“Ah, yes, of course,” the Nutcracker says, standing up straight. “This is David. He was attacked by a rat soldier earlier tonight.”
“And fixed your arm, I should think,” she adds, looking at the Nutcracker’s arm.
“I just made the splint,” David says, embarrassed, and the fairy smiles at him.
“Is that so? Nutcracker, why don’t you take it off and try to move it.” To David’s astonishment, the Nutcracker does with just a moment of hesitation—and his arm is attached and strong. He lifts it up high and looks at David.
“How—“ David starts, but the fairy puts up a hand. “By simply trying to, you healed him, David. You have more power than you can possibly know.”
The Nutcracker shakes his head, and he says, “Snow Fairy, it is imperative that I speak to you at once.”
She rolls her eyes though, and waves her hand. Cool air drifts in through the frost-covered branches and white sprites dance through, surrounding David and the Nutcracker, music playing loudly all around them. “How impossibly rude of you,” the fairy says, “you can at least ask your savior to dance.”
Before David can splutter and put his hands up in defense, because he really, really doesn’t know how to dance, the sprites all laugh in bursts and push him right into the Nutcracker, who opens his arms to catch him. And then there’s something underneath their feet, and David finds himself and the Nutcracker being lifted into the air. He wraps his arms around the Nutcracker, staring down at the floor—the floor in the tree, and the floor outside it, the wooden floor where the presents lay, and they are sohigh.
“It’s alright, David,” the Nutcracker says, quietly. “The snow sprites won’t let us fall, so long as the music keeps playing.”
David peeks up, looking at the Nutcracker’s face, and nods, still terrified but—but they’re flying. And the music is all around them, frosted sprites dancing next to them and giggling through the air. The Nutcracker takes a step back, onto what looks like thin air, and holds his hand out. “May I have this dance?”
“Oh, I, um, yes, I guess we—yes.”
He takes the Nutcracker’s hand, and it feels warmer than it did a moment ago, somehow. The Nutcracker pulls him forward suddenly and they’re dancing through the air, with nothing below them but space. “It’s like magic,” David says so quietly it’s almost like he’s breathing it instead, staring at their feet, and then looking up and around. Somehow, he knows exactly how to move, and when he looks up at the Nutcracker’s face again, somehow, he’s smiling.
David’s eyes go wide and he says, “You—you’re not—“
“What?” the Nutcracker says, confused, before David tugs their hands up between them and they stop moving, falling down through the air until they land back on the frost-covered branches, where the Snow Fairy waits for them. He looks down, and the Nutcracker does too—warm hands touching warm hands, nothing wooden about either set. The Nutcracker jerks backward, but his face changes.
“You’re a boy,” David says in awe.
“I—I’m human again. You broke the spell,” Nutcracker says, staring at his hands in wonder, and then looking at David with the same look of amazement as before.
“Yes, child,” the Snow Fairy says, smiling softly again, “you are.”
The Nutcracker gives her a look then, and shakes his head, “I’m not a child or a boy, I’m a man.”
David blinks and the fairy laughs. “Aren’t you twelve?” she asks.
“I just turned thirteen!” the Nutcracker says, incredulous.
David murmurs, “Wow,” and the Nutcracker looks at him, so much emotion on his face—emotion he couldn’t show when he was made of wood.
“What?”
“It’s just,” David says, “you’re really close to my age. I’m—I'll be eleven in a few days.”
“Happy birthday then,” the Nutcracker says, grinning at him.
David laughs. “Happy birthday to you too!”
The rat general’s tail curls around his leg as he looks up the long trunk of the tree, a man in a red suit laying next to him, just broken plastic—the price of trying to keep a rat from his duty. He watches the Snow Fairy as she casts some spell on the Nutcracker, and his plans to overtake her with his men dissolve. That’s the Prince, he’d recognize him anywhere. Any rat would.
The Rat King needs to know that the spell has been broken. That the Prince is alive—that he’s a Nutcracker no more.
Something must be done.
He and his men scatter back down the tree, and quickly file through the small hole in the corner of the room—a hole made just to find and destroy the Snow Fairy. Instead, they’ve found the Prince. The King will be ecstatic, the rat thinks, and leads his men through the passage that leads to the Black City—the city with a rat-made black cloud hovering over it as toys burn from the smoke factory. The magic that coats the hole shimmers as they slide through it, and they come out into the city quickly.
The Queen’s magic never disappoints—except, the rat thinks, perhaps in the case of the Nutcracker, but that shall soon be remedied.
“Straight and file, rats!” he yells, and they march to the palace, bursting through the front doors loudly when they arrive.
“What is this!” someone yells, and the rat almost winces—it’s the Rat Queen, sounding angry. The Rat King joins her with a snarl on his face.
“Well?” he asks. “Did you find her?”
“Yes, my King. But there’s something else—something we did not expect.”
“And what is that? Get on with it!”
“Your Nutcracker Prince is with her. Only he is no longer a Nutcracker. The curse has broken. He is human again.”
They could hear the Rat King’s scream of anger all the way down the street, until the Queen put her hand on his shoulder, smiling. “It’s no problem,” she says. “I’ll fix it, dear, and then you—“ she looks at him, and he gulps, “—you will cut down the tree she resides in, and destroy them both with one blow.”
“Snow Fairy,” the Nutcracker says, his voice serious. “I may be young to you, but if I don’t get back to my kingdom quickly, many people could die. The curse that the Rat Queen put on me has dissipated, but the curse on my Kingdom surely has not. Please, help me get home.”
“Only the star atop this tree can send you home, your majesty. You will have to climb to the very top. Good luck,” the Snow Fairy says, and leans down to give the Nutcracker a kiss on his cheek, and then another to David’s. Blushing, David follows the Nutcracker to the circular metal staircase that is the center of the tree, wrapping around the trunk.
“Nutcracker,” David starts, as they take a step up.
“Don’t—I mean, don’t call me that, please. I’m—actually,” he says, sounding almost embarrassed, “my name is David too. David Cook. You can—call me Cook. Or Your Majesty, if you’d rather, but for you—I mean, I don’t mind if you just want to call me Cook.”
“You’re—why ‘your majesty’? Are you—“
“The Prince of my Kingdom? Yes. We were a good country, full of people with honest hearts. But a few months ago, the rats invaded. They took everything, and when I stood up to fight against them, the Rat Queen cast a curse and turned me into a wooden doll. The nutcracker. I was frozen, and I couldn’t even—I couldn’t move.” He looks back at David, eyes soft, “Not until you picked me up.”
“Why me?” David asks, confused. “I’m—why did you turn back into a real person, just because of me?”
“I don’t know,” Cook says. “There’s just something magical about you.”
The air gets colder as they go higher, and Cook holds his hand to make sure he doesn’t trip on the increasingly icier steps. The guard rail is too cold to hang onto, and David winces at the cold thrust of air as they get above the last branches of the tree at last, and find the brightly glowing star. As they get closer to it, he can almost feel heat—as if it gives it off.
“How do we get to your kingdom?” David asks, and Cook smiles at him.
“We just have to—“ except right then, the hand holding onto David’s shutters and Cook rips back, looking at it as his fingers start to become wooden again.
“What’s happening!” David yells, stepping back, and suddenly he’s falling—Cook, again a wooden nutcracker, is reaching for him through mid-air as the tree falls beneath them, and everything in it seems to be screaming, including David as he falls through the air, towards the ground at too fast a pace to survive—
—he falls out of his bed, the comforter landing around his legs as he struggles and jerks backward, terrified still that there’s nothing solid beneath him.
“David?” Daniel says, jumping out of bed. “Are you okay? Why are you screaming?”
David casts a look at the bed—no nutcracker, no rats. He scrambles into a stand, and then runs across the bedroom and out the door, flinging it open so fast it slams against the wall.
“David! Daniel!” his mother yells, and is running up the steps behind his father, whose already halfway up, one shoe still on his foot, the other left by the door—they must have heard him scream just as they were coming in the door. Uncle John is at the door of the guestroom, looking wildly around for some kind of intruder, and David rushes right past his father, running down the stairs.
“David?” his father says, and stutters to a stop on the stairs, “David, what’s wrong?”
“I have to save him!” David yells, and runs into the living room, stopping only for a moment to look at the disastrous mess. The tree’s fallen, crashing onto the floor and smashing nearly every ornament it had, and any number of the presents that had been underneath it.
He hears his mother gasp as she follows him in, and then his father say, “David—dear Lord, what happened to the tree?”
David doesn’t care though, and jumps over the angry broken branches, searching for—there. He sees the wooden arm through the branches and grabs for the Nutcracker—for Cook—and pulls him out of the debris. His arm is perfect—as if it had never been broken. It was real.
Everything was real.
“David,” Daniel whines, “just tell them you did it!”
David crosses his arms, holding Cook tightly, though he hasn’t said a word for the past hour and a half, seemingly just a toy carved from wood. But David knows better, and if his parents would just listen, they would too.
“David!” his mama cries. “The tree didn’t cut itself down! What happened, mijo?”
“I told you!” he yells, and oh, gosh, he’s going to start crying at this rate. “The rats must have cut it down because they didn’t want Prince Cook getting back to his Kingdom!”
His father breaks another ornament, stepping on it with his slipper. Strained, he says, “David, there are no tree-cutting rats in this house, and there are certainly no Prince Cook’s who’ve been magically transformed into your wooden doll.” He gives an angry look to Aunt Sue and Uncle John and says, “Why did you give him a doll, anyway? He’s a boy, and doesn’t need silly girlish toys.”
David gets to his feet, and holds Cook closer to his chest as he starts for the door and the stairs.
“Where are you going!” his father yells, “David!”
“I don’t want you to see me cry!” David yells back, and hurriedly wipes said tears from his cheek as he runs up the stairs.
It’s not fair he thinks, falling onto his bed, sobbing. Cook is real, as alive as David himself. “Wake up,” he cries, holding the nutcracker up. “Please, Cook, you have towake up.”
The Nutcracker just looks past him, painted eyes not moving at all.
“David,” someone says, pushing at his shoulder. He blinks open his eyes, his vision hazy, and lurches forward when he sees Cook standing there.
“Cook,” he says, disbelieving. “You are real! I knew you were, I knew it!”
“I’m sorry about earlier,” Cook says, and the sound of his wooden feet stepping against the wooden floors is loud as he paces next to David’s bed. “But David, there’s simply no time. We must go.”
“Of course!” David says, jumping up. “But—how can we get there?”
“The rats came here somehow, didn’t they? And if there’s one thing a rat is good at, it’s creating tunnels and passageways where it has no right to. But,” Cook says, “we’ll take that to our advantage and use their own tunnel to get back home. Quickly now!”
David nods and moves to run out the door, Cook right in front of him, when Daniel calls, “David?” from his bed. Then Daniel fumbles out of bed and says, “The—the—the Nutcracker!”
David shakes his head. “Go back to bed, Daniel, I’ll be back soon.”
“No!” Daniel yells, “You can’t just—“
“Are you a swordsman?” Cook asks, suddenly, and grabs a fake pirate sword off the floor before throwing it at Daniel.
“The best there ever was,” Daniel announces proudly.
“Would you like to join the fight against the Rat King?”
“Yes, sir!” Daniel yells, jumping on his bed and saluting Cook.
“We could use another talented soldier,” Cook says, and nods, “but we have to hurry now.”
Daniel jumps down and runs up, and knocks on Cook’s head. David grabs him and pulls him back and says, “You didn’t believe me.”
“I believe you now,” Daniel replies, rolling his eyes.
David almost wants to say no—that Daniel is too small, too reckless, too—everything, for an adventure like this one. (And maybe, just a little bit, David wanted to be special—the only one Prince Cook thought he needed to save his Kingdom.) But then Cook holds out a wooden hand, obviously meant for David to take.
Cook hesitates after a moment, and his hand drops a few inches, before David lifts his and wraps his fingers around the wood. Cook has no fingers like this, so David holds on extra tight and the look in Cook’s eyes is almost like a smile.
“Let’s go,” David says, and Cook nods, and they race out the door and down the stairs, Daniel right there behind them. When they reach the living room, David slowly pushes open the doors—and it’s just as grand and marvelous as it was the night before. The tree has been stood up, though it’s leaning against the wall now.
“You take the left side,” Cook tells Daniel, “and you the right,” to David. “I’ll check the front North. When you find the rat hole, yell for us—don’t go down it alone!”
They separate and David runs quickly down the right side of the wall, looking for the rat hole desperately. He doesn’t find one, and after ten minutes, he sighs and walks back to the center of the room. Something isn’t right though, and he yells, “Cook? Daniel?”
There’s no response. He looks from either side, and takes a step back before yelling again, “Daniel! Where are you?”
Then, there’s a sound like something out of a circus coming from the fireplace. David turns around slowly, and watches as the guard is slowly pushed, a loud screeching noise as it scrapes against the floor and wall.
It’s two rats, pushing it, and David freezes as he sees Daniel, standing there next to another one, tall and skinny and gray with a long, pink tail curling around his brother’s wrist, holding him there. Cook has been wrapped tightly with a rope, and is lying on the floor, struggling to say something but his mouth has been bound.
There’s a circus monkey behind them, which is where the music was coming from. He looks sad—dejected, almost, and the clown behind him is standing with shoulders hunched, completely unhappy.
“Don’t you like the show?” the gray rat says, and takes a step forward, twirling his walking stick like some sort of dance. “The music is—grand!” He hits the monkey over the head, who starts playing faster even as he cries out in pain.
“Stop it!” David yells, and runs forward a few feet before stopping, the other rats looking menacing as they step out from behind the fireplace guard. He looks at the rat whose clearly in charge and says, “Please, please—let my brother go! Let the Nutcracker go! Don’t hurt them!”
“What?” the rat says, looking surprised. “Let them go? I’m holding nobody prisoner. You all want to be here, don’t you?” He looks back around and the monkey and clown both nod. Cook struggles even harder but can’t say a word.
Daniel doesn’t say anything for a moment, before: “You said you’d let me ride your bike, right?” He’s looking at the rat, and David’s eyes widen. He yells, “No Daniel! Don’t trust them! They’re rats!”
“That we are!” the rat yells, “and I am the Rat King, the cunningist, smartest, strongest, most powerful rat of all.”
David tightens a hand into a fist and yells, “Cunningist isn’t even a word!”
The rat blinks, and looks at one of the rat soldiers who says, “I—no, it’s certainly a word, sire.”
“See?” the rat says, “I’m even more cunning than you, a small human boy who loves Christmas, and girls’ toys—like little dolls,” He finally moves, and unwinds his tail from Daniel’s wrist to touch Cook with it instead, pushing him with something like distaste on his face, “and little nutcrackers.”
He looks back at Daniel. “Do you like girls’ toys, son? You broke my Nutcracker’s arm, so I assume not, but—”
Daniel makes a face and yells, “No! I hate dolls!”
“Oh, good,” the rat says, “then I do believe I have a bike you’d love to drive.”
“No!” David yells, “let them go!”
“Or what?” the Rat King says.
David thinks desperately, and finally says, “I’ll call my father!”
The rats all burst into laughter—and Daniel even rolls his eyes.
“Your father?” the Rat King asks. “You can’t even convince the man we’re real.”
The rats drag the guard back over the fireplace before he can reach it, even though he starts running forward—he sees the clown pick Cook up, still struggling, and can hear the Rat King say, “Take them to the smoke factory—all of them,” before he hits the guard and starts banging on it with his fists. “Stop! Please, let them go! At least—my brother, please, he’s just a kid, please!”
He yells for minutes, and he knows they’re gone, but he keeps yelling until he slips, and sits down against the guard, covering his face with his hands and crying. They’ve taken Daniel—and Cook, the Prince—the Kingdom is doomed, and his brother is—
“David,” comes a sweet voice, and he jerks his head up, looking around for it. “David, are they gone? Is the Rat King gone?”
“Yes,” David says, and then a girl in a pretty yellow dress slips out from behind a box. Her skin is dark, painted smoothly, and her hair sleek and pulled into a bun. She’s one of the angels Claudia made, David realizes.
“They took His Majesty?”
David nods.
She sits down next to him. “They took the Snow Fairy too. They took Brooke.”
David’s heart drops. He’d forgotten about the Snow Fairy, but now all hope really is lost.
“What do we do?” she asks, like he’s supposed to know. She’s looking at him like he has answers—like he knows everything. He doesn’t, but he finds that he has to say something.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Syesha,” she says quietly.
It’s quiet for a moment, and David closes his eyes. He remembers the feel of Cook’s hand on his—his wooden ones, and his real ones. He remembers Daniel holding up a sword, pretending to be a pirate. He remembers Cook’s smile. “We have to go find them,” David says, finally. He’s surprised that he means it, and says, “Have you seen any rat holes in here?”
Syesha looks at him, surprised for a moment, before she shakes her head. “No,” she says, “they came through the fireplace. But they’ve blocked it off!”
David looks back at the guard, and then touches it with one hand. It’s far too heavy. “We have to push it—just enough that we can slip through.” Syesha shakes her head, but then—then it starts moving, and David spins around—there are at least a dozen play soldiers, heaving at the guard. They push it open with more than enough room for him to slip through.
When he looks at them, they just salute him and say, “Save His Majesty, David, and we will forever be in your debt.”
David nods, and hangs on tightly to the sword in his hand—heavy and strong. “I’ll do my best,” he says, and slips through. He tries to ignore his nerves as he stares down the long, dark hole that must lead to the Rat King’s Kingdom—to Cook’s Kingdom. He swallows and starts forward, before someone yelps behind him and he spins around.
It’s Syesha.
“I—“ she says and stands up, her pretty dress now covered in soot from the fireplace, “I’m coming with you! To save His Majesty and—and the Snow Fairy!”
“Me too,” one of the soldiers says, coming in behind her. He has long brown dreaded hair and says, “My name is Jason. His Majesty has never done us wrong—it’s time we stop napping and save him for a change.”
David smiles at them happily, and then nods seriously. “Okay. This way!”
They run down the tunnel.
They manage to sneak out of the tunnel what seems like ages later, and even though it’s mid-day in Cook’s Kingdom, the sky is dark—too dark. “What is it?” David asks quietly, as they start walking down the dirty, cluttered street. There are a few people out—but they look dirty too, with their jackets pulled up high and their eyes nervous and jumping around, like they wish they didn’t have to be outside.
“The smoke keeps the sky dark,” Syesha says, “because the Rat King hates light.”
“But where do they get so much smoke?” David asks, scared he already knows the answer.
“The smoke factory,” Jason says. “They burn toys. We need to hurry.”
They rush through the streets, ducking past a pack of rat soldiers, following the smoke. There are more people as they closer—looking more and more distraught with every step. There are children crying, clutching toys in their hands. David doesn’t understand at first, before Syesha puts a hand on his shoulder and says, “David.”
He looks up, towards the factory, and then they slip slowly through the gates with the line of people. A big rat pushes them, and says, “Get in line.” There’s a huge pile of toys in a big truck, pouring out onto the dirty ground, and kids are crying even harder as the rat soldiers rip their toys out of their hands and throw it into the pile.
David can see the Rat Kings sitting up on a balcony, and—Daniel.
He almost runs forward, but Jason grabs him and says, “Shh.”
They maneuver their way through the crowd of people who’ve already given up their toys, and chase after the truck as it starts to leave, obviously full. David seems to go even faster than Jason and Syesha—maybe because he’s desperate to get inside, to save Cook and his brother. It’s hard to believe this was ever a good place.
The truck stops in front of a big hole in the side of the factory, and lurches its back up high using some sort of mechanical, metal device that looks like a giant hand. The toys start falling through the hole, and David gives Syesha and Jason a quick look before he makes his decision. “No, David!” Syesha cries as he jumps forward and pushes his way into the toys, and then, squished between a teddy bear and a toy truck, he falls through the hole with the rest of the toys.
He lands inside the factory, on a smaller pile of toys. The noise is incredibly loud, and it’s hot—so hot he can already feel himself starting to sweat. It’s dirty in here too, grime and soot everywhere, just like the fireplace back at home. Syesha suddenly lands behind him, and they duck behind the pile when a rat worker moves over, grabbing a handful of toys and throwing it onto some sort of escalator—an escalator that’s going up, towards the source of the heat, a huge, gaping hole with smoke pouring out of it.
It’s then that he sees the monkey from earlier, and the clown.
“Oh my gosh,” he whispers, “are you two okay?”
They’re obviously hiding from the rat workers, and they nod with big eyes. “You—you came. To save His Majesty?”
“Yes!” David says, “Do you know where he is?”
The clown shakes his head, but points, and David stands up just enough to see Cook lying at the edge of the pile of toys, his leg broken off. He’s not moving. “He saved us,” the monkey says, sadly. “But he stopped talking—he’s just an ordinary toy now. A real nutcracker.”
“No!” David says, and pushes forward past Syesha even as Jason lands in the pile of toys loudly, and the two rat workers look up at him. He somehow manages to get behind them, because Syesha has stood up and started twirling, and the monkey is playing that song again—distracting them. But one of the worker’s had grabbed Cook, and thrown him on the escalator with his broken leg. There’s a long pathway of metalwork next to the escalator meant for walking, and David scrambles up onto it.
“Cook!” he yells, “Wake up!”
The metal flooring is slippery, and the railing feels wet from all the steam in the air. It’s getting hotter as he goes higher up, and he almost slips. The other side is a long way down—filled with men shoveling coal into the burner on the ground. “Please,” he says, and then lurches forward and grabs Cook’s hand just before he goes over the edge of the giant hole. He pulls him out and then leans back in and grabs his leg.
“Please, Cook, wake up! Your Majesty, please!” David yells, and then when Cook makes no response, his face just—wooden and unmoving, he tries to attach the leg again. He manages it, quickly, and says again, “Please, please wake up. Please, I need you!”
The Nutcracker doesn’t move, because that’s all it is now: a nutcracker.
David starts to cry. “You can’t die,” he says. “We came all the way here to find you.”
He doubles over as he cries, pressing his forehead to Cook’s wooden one. “I don’t know what to do,” he says, and then, “I’m so sorry, Cook.” But then there’s a hand on his—a warm, soft one and he startles backward.
“You’re alive,” he breathes, and Cook slowly opens his eyes. His real eyes, because he’s not a wooden nutcracker anymore. He’s real, and sitting up slowly to say, “I—you did it, David.”
“I—what did I do?” David says, too emotional to even think.
“You cried for me,” Cook says, and his red shirt wrinkles as he pushes forward and kisses David, right there at the top of the toy-burning factory. David wipes at his eyes after Cook pulls back, and says, “Because I love you.”
Cook smiles, “I know. I love you too. I think it’s why you could save me.”
They stand up and Cook looks over the edge. One of the men drops his shovel, looking at them with bewilderment, before yelling, “He’s alive! His Majesty is alive!”
David thinks for a moment that it was all over again—except all of the men look up and then shout and wave and drop their shovels, and when the rat soldiers run forward on the ground floor, the men don’t back down—they start to fight.
“Let’s go,” Cook says, “and save your brother and my kingdom.”
They rush down the escalator and someone is beating back at the rat worker’s—Jason, David realizes. Cook pushes past him and runs over to the left side of the room, where a giant wall stands—a control panel. Cook is turning a wheel all the way down, and David rushes to follow suit, and it’s like they’re turning the entire factory off.
The workers somehow manage to make the rats flee, all of them running as high as they can to try and get out of the factory. But they’re locked in, just like the workers have been. There are great big, ugly metal chains on all the doors, and Cook is looking around wildly for a way out. He grabs one of the workers and says, “Is there some way out of here?”
“Dave!” the worker yells, and wraps his arms around Cook instead of answering. Cook seems just as surprised before recognition seems to hit, and David watches as he says, “Michael? Michael, you’re alive!”
Then: “Is Carly—?”
Michael nods. “She’s around here somewhere, kicking the rats back in their sewers.”
“The sewers,” Cook says, like an idea’s hit him, and David scrunches his nose up because ew.
“Come on,” Cook says, holding out his hand. He smiles, and David smiles back before taking it. Just then there’s a huge explosion from one of the doors though, and a huge rat with—with metal wings flies in, and debris fly everywhere. Cook throws himself over David, holding him down as he yells, “Stay still!”
Someone else manages to throw something up at the rat and it comes crashing down into a pile of coal, leaving the doorway it came through open for them to escape out of rather than using the sewers. “Let’s go!” Cook yells, and doesn’t hold out his hand this time—he just grabs David’s and runs, pulling David along with him. And they try to, except right then what looks like an army come pouring in through the newly made hole. Everyone starts running and screaming, and before David can fight his way out of Cook’s hold, Cook is pushing him into an old metal elevator.
“What about you!” David yells, and Cook shakes his head. “Hide! I have a plan!”
He reaches in and slams his hand against a button before jumping out and slamming the doors closed. David can hear people yelling at first—the battle still going on, until it gets quieter as the elevator goes higher, away from it. There’s a loud ringing noise coming from somewhere though, and it gets louder after a moment, and then louder—and then the elevator stops and jerks wildly, throwing David to the ground. Then the elevator starts to fall.
He screams until it jerks and lurches, and then slams into the ground so hard his knees ache from the landing. Everything is deathly quiet even though he thinks he must be back on the first floor. Slowly, with trembling fingers, he gets up to unlock and on the elevator doors.
As soon as he touches them though, there’s a loud crashing noise and something heavy slams against them. He jumps and hits the back of the elevator when he tries to get away from it, because it keeps slamming in—the metal is ripping apart, and with a horrifying realization, he sees that it’s a rat—a rat is chewing through the metal.
“You don’t scare me!” he yells, despite the fact that his heart is pounding and his entire body is shaking.
“Oh?” comes the voice, and then the doors rip open and it’s the Rat King standing there. The room beyond him is empty except for more rat soldiers, and two of them grab David by his arms and drag him out of the elevator and throw him on the ground in a mound of coal. He coughs and scrambles backward.
“I see your Prince left you all alone—not very honorable, is he?”
“He didn’t!” David yells, but then coughs again.
“Do you know where he is?” the rat asks, suddenly serious.
“No,” David says, moving backward as the rat follows him, his boots breaking coal wherever he steps.
“You’re not a good liar,” the rat says, snarling.
Before David can try to get up and run away, a loud voice comes from a balcony three stories up, “I’m right here!”
David and the Rat King both look up at the same time, and the Rat King yells, “Seize him, seize him, you idiots!”
The rat soldiers use their metal flying machines to lift off the floor and try to catch Cook, but he does something—David can’t see what, just knows that it lets out a horribly loud sound, screeching almost, and he has to cover his ears. The rats can’t seem to handle it, and their machines fall one-by-one, crash-landing.
The Rat King grabs David’s arm and drags him over to a large hole that’s been broken through, and David screams and kicks him as hard as he can, but the rat is too powerful. He can see Cook racing after them somehow, but the Rat forces David onto some sort of mechanical looking bike and says, “Hold on, or I’ll feed you to my mother,” before the motor makes a spluttering sound and they’re speeding down a long, disgusting hall that David belatedly realizes is the sewers.
Cook is chasing after them, but he’s getting smaller with every second, and David yells, “Cook! Cook!” but he’s too far away. He can’t catch them no matter how fast he runs.
“No!” Cook yells, chasing the Rat King as fast as he can. He cuts down a rat that jumps in his path and keeps chasing them, down into the sewers, and he can hear David calling his name. It just makes him run faster, before he finally trips and lands on the muddy, grimy floor. He stumbles back up to his knees, but the Rat is gone—and David with him.
He stares after them, even as Michael runs up behind him, joined by Carly.
“David—“ Carly says, quietly, like she’s about to say I’m sorry.
“We have to find them,” Cook says, looking directly at her, and then Johns. “The Rat King won’t abandon the Queen—he’ll be heading towards the palace.”
“We can get almost anywhere through the sewers,” Michael says. “The palace should be this way, sire!”
They start running again, and Cook vows to not give up on David until his last breath leaves him.
“Let go of me!” David yells, still struggling as the Rat King drags him through the halls of the palace. He can hear the sounds of the revolution going on outside of it, echoing in through the windows—he can hear people yelling and fighting, doors and windows breaking. He wants to get out—to find Cook, and Daniel.
The rat just tightens his hold on David’s arm.
“Where the hell is my Queen?” the rat yells, and they burst into a room filled with—with cages, at least a dozen.
David catches his breath. Daniel is inside one of them, facing away from them but complaining loudly to whoever it is sitting on the other side of it, “Let me out!”
“Daniel!” David yells, and Daniel spins around inside the cage.
“David! Oh my God, David, I’m so sorry, please, make them let me out of here!”
“Shut up—“ the Rat King starts, except David—and he’ll probably regret this—kicks out with a foot and then elbows the rat in the gut. It surprises him just enough that David can get out of his grip, and he runs forward, reaching through the bars of Daniel’s cage to hug him.
“Don’t worry,” David says as the rat howls in pain, “I’ll get you out of here. Where’s the key?”
“Over there! On that table!”
David dashes over and grabs it—a big silver one. The Rat King is right there when he turns around though, and David takes a step back, knocking into the table. “Please,” he says, “just let us go. We haven’t done anything to you!”
“You broke the Queen’s spell,” the rat spits, “with love. The only way to break the Prince’s spirit now is to get rid of you once and for all. I was going to make it public, but here works, I suppose.”
David flinches and waits for the blow, except there’s a loud yell and Syesha is suddenly there, and uses some sort of big broken piece of wood hit the Rat King over the head, knocking him painfully to the ground.
“Not while I’m here,” she says, and then, “Quickly, David! Get your brother and go!”
David fumbles with the key and finally, finally, manages to get his brother out of the cage. Daniel immediately wraps his arms around David and says, “I’m so sorry! David, I just wanna go home!”
“I’ll send you somewhere even better,” the Rat King growls, standing up slowly from where Syesha had knocked him over. She’s holding the piece of wood threateningly, still, but the rat’s tail whips out and swipes at her feet, and she falls to the ground hard.
“Run!” David yells, pushing at his brother, and they do—only there’s nowhere to go. The room is a dead end, there’s nothing but a window with no lock. David moves in front of Daniel, holding his hands out as bravely as he thinks he can, and stares defiantly up at the Rat King.
“We’re not scared of you,” he says, again, and his voice doesn’t shake at all.
“And you shouldn’t be!” Cook yells, running up behind the rat, who turns around immediately, “Not of a rodent like this! He’s a thief, and a bad one. It’s over, Rat King. My people have taken this Kingdom back. Your rats are fleeing the city, and your Queen is long gone.”
“This is—this is my kingdom!” the rat yells, but even David can tell that he’s desperate and terribly frightened, surrounded by people who hate him. He sends a last nasty look at David before his face—changes, and his clothes seem to bunch—and then he disappears and a small rat, one that looks like a real rat, small and furry, scurries away from them.
David looks up just in time for Cook to slam into him, holding onto him tightly. “I’m so sorry,” he says, “I tried to catch you, I—“
“Cook, Cook, you did,” David says, and he holds Cook back, never wanting to let go.
They walk out of the palace, looking beaten and dirty but triumphant as the people cheer and yell, and hunt for their lost toys and run around happily, no rat soldiers around to punish them anymore. As soon as they see Cook, they all cheer even louder, and David stands back, holding Daniel’s hand as they lift Cook in the air.
He’s their Prince, David thinks happily, and watches as he’s shown the love he deserves—finally, the rats are gone, and Cook can bring sunlight and happiness and toys back to his Kingdom.
“David,” someone says, quietly, and David turns. Daniel is suddenly gone—he’s raced up with the crowd, cheering for Cook.
“Oh my gosh,” David says, looking up at the Snow Fairy. “You’re safe! Where have you been?”
She smiles at him, and takes his hand, leading him away from the crowd, and he blinks curiously at her as she lifts her arm near a small train. He steps up, and looks back at her, where she says, “It’s time to go home, David.”
“Home? No, I—I want to stay here.”
Still smiling, she says, “But David, this is a dream, and when you wake up, it will be Christmas morning. Your parents would miss you—and brothers and sisters as well.”
It’s weird, how he knows she’s telling the truth, even though he can see Cook pushing his way through the crowd, chasing the train as it starts to move, its lone passenger standing at the back end, looking back.
“David! You have to go home, I know, but—promise me we’ll see each other again!” Cook yells, and everybody else—Syesha, Jason, everyone—waves goodbye.
David wipes at his eyes and waves back. “Of course we will!” he yells, and means every word.
“David, sweetie, wake up,” someone says lightly, shaking his shoulder. He opens his eyes slowly, and looks into his mother’s face. “Sweetie, it’s Christmas. And we have a guest, so get dressed and come downstairs. Everyone else is already there—you slept in.”
When David walks downstairs a few minutes later, he isn’t in any particular rush—he’s already had the most amazing Christmas he could ask for. He can hear chatting in the living room, and walks in curiously. He sees his parents, and his aunt and uncle, and his siblings, but there’s another woman there too, tall and blonde with a friendly smile on her face.
Behind her, there’s a boy who is looking at the Christmas tree branches where they’d been broken the night before. David stops walking.
“Oh, David!” his mother says, and the boy turns around quickly, looking guilty—like he was doing something he shouldn’t have, and David somehow knows it’s because his name is David too.
The boy doesn’t look at David’s mother though, and just stares at David—like he knows him, somehow.
“David,” his mother says, these are two of our new neighbors, come over to wish us a Merry Christmas. Beth, David, this is my oldest boy—his name is also David.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Beth says, smiling, but David doesn’t look at her.
The boy walks forward, slow, hesitating steps, and then holds out a hand, and says, “I think I know you.”
David thinks he could care less about propriety and manners, and he pushes aside Cook’s hand and wraps his arms tightly around him instead. Cook holds him back, and when David says, “I thought—“ he just shakes his head.
“I’m real.”