Chapter Text
ENGLAND
1892
Oft on days such as these, riding the eve of the coming holiday, one might encounter a certain chill.
Not merely a chill in the bones, but of the spirit, as the days pass too quickly into darkness. A deep cold, a refrain from all memory of warmth—perhaps an abandonment for hope that Spring will e'er return—where bygone leaves transform branches of their trees, once alive and green, into crossbar cages against the sky.
Such is this, the story of an orphan girl, whose heart is the Spring, and of her prince, whose soul is the memory. Or, perhaps, the cage.
Her eyes roved over the slurried sky beyond the stagecoach window, the bump and rattle of old wheels clanging beneath her. Her rump, for a moment, lifted from the seat, forcing her hand against the door in a desperate effort to keep from falling over.
She glanced out into the sprawling English countryside, its rolling fields cloaked in a thin layer of snow. It was the type of snow that clung, ice-like, to the dead blades of grass and bristling thickets—from the tallest tree to the deep frost below—even as it melted upon touching the northward road. For the barest of seconds a wind blew along the nestled drift, flurries spinning before her eyes, taking the shape of dancers.
In a blink they were gone, and the coach eased, horses tugging the carriage through a curtain of sparse woodland.
Rey, a tall, handsome woman of nineteen, leaned forward. But as much as she leaned, or swayed, or tilted, she could not see where the horses were heading—only study how the powdery snow clung still and silent to the trees, their bright reflections like the trailing eyes of owls, perched and patient atop their branches.
Eventually, she emerged from the close confines of the carriage. As soon as it halted, her slippers were immediately pierced by cold and frost, and she shivered under the shadow of the towering mansion before her.
She gawked for only a moment before remembering herself. Her modest gown stirred the snow beneath her as she moved to accept her belongings before the coachman lost his patience.
As Rey ascended the steps, her eyes wandered over the shaded, desolate panes of the estate windows. Snow lingered on their ridges, glazed with icy crust and streaks of frozen stalactites, reminding her to take care not to slip. So she watched her feet until she was safely atop the decking. It was at this time that the driver snapped his reins and led the stagecoach away, leaving her alone in the white silence.
Swallowing her nerve, Rey reached out, slamming the peeling-rust knocker into the door. She smoothed her skirt as best she could, gripping closed her shawl as she waited; though not normally one to fuss, a meeting like this would require at least some level of decorum on her part, if she knew what was good for her.
The door creaked open, drawing her attention to the blending shadows as a man, his hair blinding steadily with age, beard short, scraggly, and unwashed, appeared. He peered at her with eyes a more piercing blue than the chill, and seemed, not for lack of a scowl, in an even colder mood.
“Are you the girl they sent?”
Rey, were she at the workhouse mill, may have retorted with some comment such as Why, were you expecting another? But she held her tongue. “Yes. Unkar Plutt sent me.” She offered her dry, chilly hand—as she had often seen respectable women do. “I’m Rey.”
He grunted at her before turning his back and hustling into the house. “Let’s get this over with.”
Her hand remained extended for a moment before she bid it fall to her side. Off-put yet determined, she entered the house carefully, tapping the snow from her feet before following him through the dark and narrow hall.
The walls loomed above her as an Egyptian Anubis, lined with portraits of presumed ancestors and scenery, woodlands and mountains and queens she had seen in paintings before, but never bothered memorize. They might have impressed her, if she had any schooling.
This is something one might wish to know—that is, an essential compendium—about Rey: An orphan plucked from the London streets, she was abandoned by drunkards fourteen years prior. Or, at least, that is what she was told. Since then she has taken occupancy in a workhouse mill, shining shoes and sewing hems until her fingers turned blue—from effort or dye, she never had the energy to decide.
Years had passed this way without much event, although this year offered an unusual opportunity. The millhouse owner, Unkar Plutt—a portly man of indefinite age—had always allowed a limited commingling between the sexes, in which Rey learned—with no small amount of pride—how to fend off assailants using no more than the leg of a table or, more recently, the toe of a boot.
It was for this reason that Rey found herself walking through the halls of the Skywalker house, her hand absentmindedly feeling at her hair. One of her co-workers had helped himself to gin, and cut it to her shoulder in a brilliant moment of nonconsensual barber-ism. T’was a perfect excuse to waste his nose and lay him on the floor alongside her fallen locks.
But, either in lieu of her victimhood or regardless of it, Rey was deemed a "troubled" woman. A grown but wayward orphan in need of care and comfort for the holiday—before inevitably returning to work with a “clear mind and heart.”
It all would seem quite preposterous to Rey, were meals not included.
The hall led to a wide sitting room, lit in muddled whites from the tall, cloudy windows. The fireplace crackled, smelling of charred yule, and the furniture seemed well kempt, if not somewhat ancient—save for, of course, what must have been the man's chair, which he sat into with a great sigh.
"So. Rey, was it?"
She folded her hands in front of her. "Yes, Sir."
He grunted. "My name is Luke Skywalker." He pulled a fat pipe from the table and began to stuff it with tobacco Rey could smell, ripe even from her distance. His focus remained on it rather than her as he continued. “Owner of this property, and your charge. It is my understanding that you will remain with me from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day.” His eyes flitted to her, startlingly bright. “Correct?”
Rey nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
“...Ahuh,” he mumbled, sipping the pipe. After a moment and a thoughtful puff, he gestured to the hall opposite where they entered, which was, impossibly, darker than the last. “Down the hall. Last to the right. You’ll sleep there—but not one peep from you after twenty-one hundred hours,” he said, punctuating his words with a warning jut of his pipetail. "Understood?"
“Yes, Sir,” she said, a flicker of a smile on her lips. Her feet already itched to know what the bed looked like, even as the feeling had yet to return to them.
When he gestured for her to go, she clutched tightly to her belongings and fled, slowing only when the light drained too far for her to see her slippers in front of her.
She held her hand out to the wall, feeling the soft wallpaper curl and catch under her fingertips. An odd grace, she felt, as she tip-toed through the darkness, her arm outstretched in an almost accidental poise—as if she were dancing with someone unseen.
The eventual cool touch of brass reminded her of her goal, and she tentatively turned on the gaslight. A woman at the end of the hall suddenly appeared, and Rey jumped, realizing only a moment later that she had been frightened by her own reflection.
Scoffing at herself for her silliness, but still resolved not to look at the mirror again, Rey paced quickly toward the room that Mister Skywalker deemed hers.
She found another gaslamp and bid light into it, watching as its soft glow flooded the room. Her heart drowned in it, her eyes bulging at the sight of a four-poster bed, covered in linens and quilts.
Shocked, Rey barked an unladylike gasp of glee, dropping her belongings to pitch herself across the room and land hard upon the bed. She rolled onto her back, spreading her arms wide.
“Merry Christmas, Rey,” she whispered, unable to withhold a smile. She closed her eyes, imagining the jealousy of her coworkers, and the fantasy warmed her to her toes.
The evening settled quickly overhead, the sun falling as it tended to do whenever Winter returned to Great Britain. The fire crackled and popped, flickering against the bare, shining mahogany of the dining table.
Rey lifted the spoon to her mouth, the heady broth of mock-turtle soup passing her lips with a politely subdued slurp. She glanced up, over the mile of distance between her and Luke Skywalker, studying him when—she thought—he wasn’t aware.
In her brief explorations before this, she discovered that the estate was indeed very dark throughout, and surprisingly empty, though not in disarray. In fact it was tidy—save for cobwebs and an amass of newspapers gathered in numerous rooms. It was quite thrilling, to do such a thing as wander without the company of her griping millhouse management. However, oddly, she could not find a portrait of her host—not one.
She wondered at Mister Skywalker as they ate, watching a bit of steamed carrot drop into his short beard.
Though his house had many spare rooms, they were clearly unused. And as she sat, she wondered even more about the long path to his house, and whether anyone but him had tread there for many years.
“Your soup is getting cold,” he grunted, startling her.
Rey returned to her broth, shy at being caught staring. The soup had been half-freezing when she’d received it, but may it ever be beyond her to complain about a free meal.
Luke lifted his bowl, swallowing the last remnants with heavy drags, as though he were drinking from a flask. When finished, he slammed it down, wiping at his mouth—blessedly capturing the stray carrot in his wake.
The silence, while appreciated, settled fitfully within Rey, causing her to observe warily as he rose to his feet, trekking over to the fireplace. She watched as he pulled a box from the mantle, plucking out a wrapped chocolate from within.
As though feeling her eyes on him, Luke turned. Rey hurriedly drew her gaze away, withdrawing to her meal as though having witnessed nothing at all. It was with determination that she did so, as to convince him she was an orphan, not a dog, and would be quite satisfied never begging like one, thank you very much.
So it surprised her when pinched fingers set the chocolate down beside her bowl—gently, as if in offering.
When she looked up into his eyes she saw the windows of his house. Dark, shaded, and desolate.
She accepted it anyway, curling it into her hand. “Thank you, Sir.”
“Just Luke is fine,” he encouraged gruffly, the gentleness of his air rapidly waning.
Rey nodded, thinking more on when it would be appropriate to unwrap the temptation in her hand than his bristling attitude.
As he departed to smoke his pipe in the sitting room, Rey managed the restraint to finish her cold soup—and even bring the dishware to the kitchen—before tearing open the chocolate's wrappings. She tossed the paper aside and closed her eyes, bringing the little piece to her nose, inhaling deeply.
Very few times had Rey been given the opportunity to savor chocolate. But even so, she could tell that this piece was sweet and milky, likely to melt on the tongue. And when she pressed it to her lips, the heat of her breath molding the syrupy skin to her flesh, she nearly sighed with ecstacy. She ate it all in one bite, chewing slowly as she rested against the countertop, knowing, nearly dreading, that she could get used to this.
Rey entered the sitting room in a way she knew, as all humans knew—a way that sought heat and company.
Luke sat in his chair, his legs elegantly crossed as he leafed through a paper that was likely older than his rapture let on.
Rey wandered along the wall, soaking in the spot of warmth. “It’s snowing,” she noticed with gleaming positivity, lingering by the windows.
Snow indeed swirled beyond, falling in steady clumps. Each one soared like downed stars, streaking through the night, and she wondered if they could be wished upon just as easily.
“So it is,” Luke agreed blandly, not looking up from his paper.
Rey only frowned at him for a moment before reminding herself that not all people were meant to enjoy such things. Instead she let her eyes linger on the undressed conifer loitering in the corner. It was bristled and full, beautiful and bare.
“What sort of tree is that?”
Luke glanced at her, then the tree, as if having forgotten either existed. “A Nordman, I believe. Whatever it was cost me ten shillings." He sighed. “Shed all over the carpet, damn thing. It was my sister’s idea.”
His sister? Rey blinked. So he does have family.
Luke coughed at his paper and reached out to take his pipe from the table. But when he opened his tobacco box, he frowned, then promptly slammed it shut. “Damn." Looking up, he scanned Rey up and down with as much consideration as a man might when purchasing a horse. “Say, you are quite tall for a woman, aren't you.”
Rey didn’t know whether to feel proud or offended, so she shrugged her shoulders, committing to neither. “I suppose.”
“Hm,” Luke grunted, pointing towards a nearby chifforobe. “Up in the cabinet. On the left. I have an unopened tobacco box.”
He didn’t bother ordering her to retrieve it for him. Rey understood, moving to the cupboard. He coughed again—as though in desperate need to satisfy his lungs with the syrup-smelling stuff—so she hurried to open the door, pulling down the first box she could.
It was heavier than she might have assumed, but she carted it over, holding it out to him. “Here.”
He nodded his thanks, words subdued by coughs as he accepted it from her. But he frowned at it, a puzzled look on his face. His eyes seemed to glow with recognition—and, if Rey had known better, she may have seen horror there, as well.
“Not this one,” Luke insisted with a rasp, pushing it back at her. He stood up, stalking impatiently over to the cabinet and rustling through its contents.
Rey, normally a woman of similar impatience and ire, did not pay attention to Luke as he grumbled and withdrew that which he sought. Instead, she looked down at the box in her hand, running her fingers over its fine-carved surface. Swirling patterns etched the corners like vines, and with little hesitation, she slid the lid from its lock at the base, pushing it open.
She did not feel Luke Skywalker’s eyes fix on her as she set the box aside, taking what lie within into her grasp.
The wind cried out beyond the window, the harsh swirl of snow stirring like flaming embers in the darkness as its ghostly howl shivered through the walls. She cradled the object loosely in her hands, holding it up to her wandering gaze to find her stare returned by the dark, painted eyes of a man carved from polished wood.
“What is this...?” she asked softly as she looked into its stark, menacing face.
“That?” Mister Skywalker ambled closer, his brow furrowed and glowing in the flickering fireplace, tone shadowed as he replied with a grim, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Rey, lost in her fascination, believed him—yet doubted such an intricate design on a statue like this could truly be nothing. “Where did it come from?”
“It was a gift,” Luke intoned lowly, rubbing the short of his beard. “From my sister. She entrusted it to me long ago.”
Rey studied it further, wetting her chapped lip as she touched the sculpted waves of the doll’s raven hair. It felt so smooth, almost soft, under her fingertips. As she looked more she realized that it was dressed in a soldier’s uniform, with a sharp nose and bared teeth, and a lever in its back.
“A nutcracker?” Rey murmured, looking questioningly to Luke.
He nodded distractedly, his eyes trained on the doll. “Yes.”
She turned the nutcracker doll in her hands, her eyes sweeping down its thick arms and curled, gloved fists, one of which it held aloft, notably hollow.
“It's very well made, but where’s his sword?” she asked, staring into the hole of its clenched fingers.
“Lost,” Luke answered quickly, ripping himself from her side, shoving the tail of his pipe between his lips. As he separated, he looked to the large grandfather clock, the tall hand coming close to its apex. As if to ensure time were not against him, he pulled a pocketwatch from his vest pocket, grunted, and clacked it shut. “It’s late. I shall retire for the night.”
Rey, at the thought of sleep, yawned into her hand. “What about him?” she asked, holding the nutcracker out. "Surely he would make for good decoration. I could keep him out for you."
Luke frowned at her, then at the doll, his eyes scornful—as though imagining taking it from her grasp only to toss it over his shoulder. “I couldn’t care less what you do with that...” he scrunched his nose, “thing. Goodnight.”
His farewell was neither fair nor well-meant, dripping with newfound exhaustion. He left her no room for reply as he faded into the darkened hallway, leaving her alone.
The heat of the fire glazed along Rey’s skin, keeping bodiless company as she returned her eyes to the nutcracker.
He was heavy, bulky in her hand, his appearance almost… youthful. He lacked the beard seen most often on such things, but his painted teeth glimmered white in the light of flames, brow drawn angrily, as though a warning to all not to come near.
But it was his painted eyes that captivated her most—they did not look glazed or distant, but were intricately designed in shades of darkest amber, his pupils perfectly rounded and large, blending and consuming.
Were it not for his persistent sneer, Rey thought, he would have made a handsome doll.
As she held it steadily, something in the air changed—a static charge ground through the room, as though heaven and earth scraped against one another, with her caught between. In it the fire roared, cracking the log and sending embers dancing in her vision.
And, impossibly, the face of the nutcracker moved with it, his expression, for only a moment, looking more alive and angered than ever before.
The grandfather clock banged, startling her as the face appeared and disappeared faster than she could blink. She jumped, her grip on him slipping, and he fell to the floor with a splintering clatter.
Rey gasped, covering her mouth as the clock continued to chime.
“Oh, no,” she murmured, thinking of how this had been a gift, an entrusted relic to her generous, reclusive host—of how reckless and silly she had been. She crouched down to take him carefully in her hands.
Her heart grew heavy as she beheld him. A fissure had opened in his face over his cheek and painted eye, the slightest of cracks etched into the wooden finish.
She ran her thumb over it in silent apology, and, thinking fast, withdrew to the kitchen for scissors, cutting one of the ribbons from her old dress that wouldn't be missed. She carefully moved the ribbon of cloth under the nutcracker’s jaw, holding it there until she returned to her—well, Skywalker’s—room, where she fumbled to switch on the gas-lamp at her bedside table, and sat gingerly down.
“There,” she whispered, tightly fastening the knot. She did not want to risk the doll falling apart before finding glue in the morning. Though a quick and messy-looking job, she attempted a reassuring smile at the doll’s face. “That should hold you together for the night.”
He did not reply.
Sighing, Rey looked about for a place to put him. She settled for the mantelpiece above the dreary fireplace in the corner, and set him before a mounted, medieval sword that looked too ancient to be useful for anything more than decoration.
Taking a step back, she appraised him. He seemed regal, standing high with squared shoulders, gaze serious and stern, despite the feminine dressings Rey had given him.
Her heart pounded in what she was sure to be anxiety, and spent her time in the washroom changing into her poor slip of a nightgown and wetting her face, practicing sincere apologies—preparing herself to have her time at the Skywalker Estate cut drastically short.
It would have been no surprise, after all. Far from the first time she had been left out.
She went to bed and fell asleep with fitful thoughts, and the night waxed on as her mind unraveled itself to the dark abyss of a dreamless rest.
Until she heard it.
The slightest scraping sound awoke her. Thinking the worst, she reached over to ignite the lamp, scrubbing her eyes and looking towards the sound.
Mice—the largest mice she ever saw—were chewing at the nutcracker’s body. They had seemingly pulled it to the floor, and had begun gnawing at his side, his shoulder, and his arm.
“Oy!” Rey cried out. Filled with a righteous, almost protective anger, Rey scrambled from under her sheets, pulling her evening slipper from her foot and chucking it at the mice. “Get away!”
It was an excellent shot, striking one of the mice at its ear. They bristled and scurried off, but one took the makeshift bandage in its teeth, and pulled the nutcracker towards the gaping emptiness of the hall.
Rey did not think, only lurched from her bed, sweeping her slipper in hand and chasing after the vermin with a hunter’s gleam in her eye. She snarled and threw again, but did not see where the slipper went, and slid over the carpet and into the hall—colliding with the mirror.
It shattered at the headlong impact of her body, and she felt a sharp sting in her arm. The earth lurched from under her once more, the air scraping against her skull, and she collapsed to her knees with a swimming head.
The darkness swallowed her up as she lay where she fell, and as the earth shifted she was unaware of a presence, strange yet familiar, looming over her.
When she awoke the next morning, her mind sloshed terribly, as though wracked with vengeful nightmares of gin or wine.
She sat up and sunlight streamed in from the window, illuminating the dust as it danced lazily through the air. Her arm itched, suddenly, and she moved to scratch it—but found bound over her skin a bandage strangely similar to the ribbon she had clipped.
She blinked at it, comprehension slipping from her, until she looked at the fireplace. The doll stood, his face impassive, held together by nothing. The cloth ribbon was gone, but the nutcracker had not moved.
She stared at him in that moment, and he at her, his painted eyes betraying nothing.
Nothing at all.