Alex slowly made his way to them, shedding his jacket at the warmth of the room and draping it over his arm to hide the doll. While he hadn’t wanted to disappoint little Sadie, he also didn’t relish the thought of the teasing the others were sure to give him if they saw him with a little girl’s toy.
“Gads, man! Were you outside?” Fritz looked him over as if trying to determine his sanity. His dark hair stuck out from the bandages wrapped over the left side of his head. While he had narrowly missed the blow meant to take off his head, his ear had not been so lucky. “It’s freezing out there.”
“It’s too warm in here.” Alex shrugged dispassionately as he looked around the small group. The five of them were a few of the only survivors left in their regiment of two hundred, and while they all would walk away from the war with their lives, none of them would walk away whole.
“After two months of being cold and wet, I’ll gladly take a night of being too warm…especially in this company.” Frederick raised his glass and winked at a pretty girl across the room. He had always been the ladies’ favorite, with his wavy blonde hair and handsome face, and by the way the young woman blushed and looked away coyly, it seemed the eyepatch he now wore only added to his appeal. Alex gave a small shake of his head, barely able to refrain from rolling his eyes.
“I don’t think Monde cares about the company,” Fritz said with a teasing laugh. “He’s never so much as looked a girl’s way in the three years that I’ve known him.”
This brought about a round of good-natured ribbing from the two of them, which Alex just ignored. It was true that he had little interest in forming romantic attachments. There had been a war to think about, and he refused to put anyone else through the pain he had experienced when his own family was lost. There was no point in pursuing a relationship when he had no way of knowing each season if he would live to see the next. And now? Now he wasn’t sure if he would ever find a woman willing to love the broken shell of a man that he knew he was.
“Don’t worry, Monde,” Harrison spoke over their laughter, ever the peace-maker of their group. “I’m sure the right girl will come along. Now that the war’s over, we can all finally settle down and get back to normal.”
Alex pressed his lips together. Though he acknowledged the words with a nod, he couldn’t find it in himself to believe them. How could he possibly go back to a normal life when nothing of his life before was left?
“What have you got there?” Karl, who had until this point been a silent observer of the conversation, interjected. He gestured towards Alex’s coat with his cane, and it took only a fraction of second for Alex to realize that one of the doll’s tiny white slippers was visible underneath the folds of red fabric.
He groaned internally but shifted the jacket up and held out the doll for inspection. “There was an old man and a little girl who found me outside in the courtyard earlier. She wanted me to have this.”
Fritz looked at him in exaggerated surprise. “I think that’s the longest story I’ve ever heard you tell.” He reached out and took the ballerina, turning it over in his hands slowly as he inspected it. He gave a low whistle. “That’s the prettiest doll I’ve ever seen. Makes you wish she were real, with a face like that.”
He handed it off to Frederick, who studied it in a similar manner before tossing it over to Karl. Alex bit his tongue and clenched his fists, feeling suddenly protective of the doll. It was silly, he knew, to get worked up over a toy, but there was something about the careless way they handled her and the ungentlemanly way they talked about her appearance that set him on edge.
He held out his unbandaged hand and wiggled his fingers impatiently. He muttered, “Give her back.”
Fritz had the ballerina again and was looking closely at the slippers that laced up the tiny, perfectly shaped calves. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I didn’t realize you were so fond of dolls.”
At Alex’s level glare, the young soldier laughed, twirled the tiny dancer around in his hands once more, and tossed her over.
Alex’s reflexes were not quite fast enough, and the doll fell just past his grasping fingertips and landed on the floor with a sharp crack. Fritz quickly bent down to retrieve her, having the decency to cringe and look ashamed as he placed her in Alex’s outstretched hand. “Sorry, Monde.”
He looked over the doll in his hand, checking to see what damage had been done. One of her arms had been cracked, splintering at the shoulder socket and hanging precariously from her torso, and the painted hair on one side of her head had been scuffed. He gingerly touched the broken arm. “It’s fine,” he replied woodenly before turning to head back to his cot.
Fritz and Harrison both called after him, but he couldn’t hear their words over the deep, churning guilt in his gut. Looking down at the delicate ballerina, now broken and damaged, all he could see was one more thing that had been entrusted to his care that he had failed to protect.
He sat on the edge of his bed, staring sightlessly at the floor and lost in his memories until the guests began to slowly trickle out as the night grew later. A pair of worn boots entered his field of vision, and Alex looked up to see Drosselmeyer looking down at him. He still wore his hat, but his scarf had vanished, allowing his long beard to hang freely. Sadie was missing from his side, something Alex was grateful for, given the sad state of the doll in his hands.
“Hmm. Already getting into trouble, I see,” the old man remarked conversationally, his attention directed towards the broken ballerina.
Alex pulled his brow together in confusion. Rather than elaborating, Drosselmeyer simply plucked the doll from the soldier’s hands. He slowly turned her from side to side.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Alex said, finally finding his voice.
“Oh, not to worry. I happened to make this particular little dancer. I’ll have her fixed in two clicks of a metronome.” The strange man stopped his perusal long enough to give Alex a reassuring wink before he began pressing and twisting the broken arm, humming a soft, comforting tune as he did so. After a few moments, he ran a finger gently over the ballerina’s head as his tune came to an end.
He handed the doll back to Alex. “Good as new.”
Alex looked her over in disbelief. Just as Drosselmeyer had said, the arm bore no trace of the splintering break that it had sustained. Even her hair was restored to its former sheen. “How did you do that?”
Drosselmeyer just winked at him once more. “Trade secrets. Just take care that she doesn’t get caught in the wrong hands again.”
He nodded mutely in reply, holding the doll a little tighter than was likely permissible for a man of twenty-four.
The old man turned about, perusing the small space that Alex had called home for the last few weeks. He idly ran a finger over the edge of the small shaving mirror, humming a different, lighter tune this time. With a sudden movement, he looked up and caught Alex’s eyes. “I meant what I said earlier. You should play more often; share your gift with others.”
Before Alex had a chance to formulate words in reply, Drosselmeyer whipped his scarf out of his pocket, threw it twice around his neck, and strode purposefully from the room.
Alex shifted uncomfortably in his bed, turning over for what felt like the hundredth time in the last hour and wishing that his mind would quiet enough to allow him to fall asleep. Distantly, the clock began to signal the midnight hour, beginning with the familiar melody he had heard so many times that he could sing it in his sleep. During his early convalescence he had been so bored he turned to analyzing it as if he were back in his music classes. A descending major third to the tonic, an ascending second, then a perfect fifth down to the dominant. The remaining eight notes rang in his ears, and then the chimes started.
