The Toymaker's Apprentice Read online

  ALSO BY

  SHERRI L. SMITH

  Orleans

  Flygirl

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

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  Text copyright © 2015 Sherri L. Smith.

  Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Sarah Watts.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Smith, Sherri L.

  The toymaker’s apprentice / Sherri L. Smith.

  pages cm

  Summary: Journeyman toymaker Stefan Drosselmeyer is recruited by his mysterious cousin, Christian, to find a mythical nut that will save Boldavia’s princess and his own kidnapped father from a fanatical Mouse Queen and her seven-headed Mouse Prince, who have sworn to destroy the Drosselmeyer family.

  [1. Fairy tales. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Toy making—Fiction. 4. Apprentices—Fiction. 5. Princesses—Fiction. 6. Kidnapping—Fiction.] I. Hoffmann, E. T. A. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus), 1776–1822. Nussknacker und Mauskönig. II. Title.

  PZ8.S4132Toy 2015

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014045980

  ISBN 978-0-399-54516-0

  Jacket art © 2015 by Sarah Watts

  Jacket design by Annie Ericsson

  Version_1

  For my brother, Derek,

  who distracted our piano teacher while I read Hoffmann’s wonderful book.

  Contents

  Also by Sherri L. Smith

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Toymaker’s Apprentice

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  The Prince of Mice

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  The Nutcracker

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Epilogue

  Appendix

  Author’s Note

  IT WAS A DREARY DAY for the time of year in Nuremberg. Gray clouds hung low over the peaked roofs of townhome and hall. The cobblestoned streets seeped with drizzled rain. A little gray dove leapt into the air from a great oak tree that stood in the graveyard. From his perch in the limbs of the tree, Stefan Drosselmeyer watched as the bird flew over hundred-year-old graves, and the newer crypts adorned with weeping angels and family names.

  A thin line of mourners followed the coffin in a sad parade through the cemetery gates and into the mossy rows of the dead. In the distance, two gentlemen on horseback, clad in the same black as mourners, regarded the scene from a nearby rise.

  A hitch developed in the smooth strokes of the dove’s wingbeats and it faltered. Stefan frowned as the wings froze and the bird glided back toward his tree, where he snatched it from the sky. One of the men on horseback looked up, revealing an eye patch and a single bright blue eye.

  Stefan scooched farther back into the shelter of the tree. He bit his lip, turning the dove over in his hands. Up close, the bird looked less like a dove and more like a child’s approximation of a bird. A solid shape, no feathers, and only a dark spot of paint for the eye. He had just completed his apprenticeship as a toymaker and was proud of his bird. His father, who also happened to be his master toymaker, was the old-school sort who thought toys should only move when lifted. But Stefan was more interested in the modern trend toward automation. He brushed a shock of damp hair out of his eyes and frowned at the damaged wings. The paint had failed to seal the joints completely, and rain had gotten in, swelling the wood.

  In the graveyard beneath his tree, the procession had come to a stop before a low black crypt. He could hear the priest droning on, the sound of his father in tears.

  “Where is he?” a sharp-nosed woman whispered. Stefan’s absence had been noticed.

  “He’s just a child,” a plump woman murmured. “The church service was more than enough.”

  It had been more than enough, Stefan agreed. The gloomy cathedral, soot blackened, candles barely bright enough to see by. And his mother, cold and pale in the narrow coffin.

  His father had insisted on building the casket himself, a tribute to his beloved wife. He wished to be alone with only his tools, not his son. Left to his own devices, Stefan had decided to make the dove.

  Murmured condolences covered the gossip of the two women. Stefan examined the wooden bird. When wound by the pegged tail feather piece, the wings would crank to a point of tension and then, with the tail cocked just so—the bird would take flight. Light wooden wings beating a frantic blur. A favorable wind could keep the dove aloft for minutes at a time.

  But today the wind blew strange. He stuffed the bird into the pocket of his redingote and pulled out a sketchbook. The wool coat was too big for him, and too heavy for the weather, but it was his only black coat. He’d grow into it, his mother had said. For now, it kept out the worst of the rain.

&
nbsp; He jotted down a few thoughts in his notebook beside a sketch of the bird device. Below, he could hear the priest’s blessings come to an end. He risked a glance down at the gathering. The door to the crypt stood open, black as night, blacker than the lacquered coffin. Above the lintel, a name was carved deep into the stone: Drosselmeyer.

  With a slide of wet leaves, Stefan dropped out of the far side of the tree and hopped the fence, his coat snagging briefly on the rusty iron bars. He dragged himself free without looking back. A tear in the wool would be more easily mended than a tear in his heart, and that was what would happen if he watched them roll his mother into her grave.

  Don’t look back, he told himself. His hair was in his eyes again, the same blue-green eyes as his mother’s, the same dark blond hair. He pushed the locks brusquely out of his way. “Never look back,” he said through clenched teeth, and walked out into the gray world. His boots clattered onto the cobblestones, gaining in tempo as he broke into a run.

  • • •

  ON THE HILL overlooking the graveyard, the men on their strange black horses shifted. No breath rose from the nostrils of their stone-still mounts. The men shook their reins, and with a soft click of gears, the horses followed Stefan into the street.

  THE CAT AND THE RAT faced off in the alleyway. The tom was less mangy than the rat would have liked. He preferred his predators old and toothless. The rat was not as fat as the cat would have preferred. He liked a nice plump snack, but this rat was one of those rangy fortune hunters who had fallen on hard times.

  They eyed each other in the night. The rat’s nose twitched, long whiskers glistening with the damp of the wharfside cobblestones. He rose to his full height, an impressive seven inches, and spoke.

  “I should warn you,” he said in perfect Catish, “I am quite the dab-hand at this.” On the last word, he pulled his rapier from its sheath. Slender and wicked, the sharp blade (which he liked to call “Viper’s Sting”) flashed brightly, a vicious slice of moonlight in the depths of the shadows.

  The cat raised a whiskered brow. Most rodents spoke a few words of Catish—mainly phrases such as “spare me,” “please,” and “mercy.” Although that last one was a mistranslation. There was no word for mercy in the cat tongue, only “swiftly.”

  Ernst Listz was the sort of rat who knew the difference, the sort that could converse in more languages, both Man and Animal, than the average river rat, or even the exceptional one. Indeed, few scholars, rodent or human, spoke the tongues of other species. For, though they lived side by side, rarely did they try to understand each other. The cat might consider him an extra-special meal as a result, but Ernst would make sure it was hard won.

  Suddenly, the cat made a sound that needed no interpretation: he chuckled and grinned, revealing two rows of very compelling argument. Each ivory tooth was as long and sharp as Ernst’s little blade.

  The rat set himself en garde, his sword at the ready, and waited for his opponent to strike.

  The cat flattened his ears.

  Ernst twisted the sword in his paw and smashed it into the cat’s bared fangs with a quick snap.

  The cat blinked, startled, even as his forepaw shot out.

  Ernst dropped to the ground in that peculiar way only rats can. He whipped his hard pink tail around, poking the cat in the eye.

  The cat hissed and struck, snagging the tip of Ernst’s tail.

  “Ha, Sir Rat! I have you now,” the cat purred, his open eye gleaming green in the dark. The offended eye remained closed. Until Ernst pricked it with the tip of his sword.

  “Do you?”

  The cat winced. They formed a circle, linked tail to claw and eye to sword.

  “Détente?” Ernst proposed. The scales were in perfect balance—neither cat nor rat had the upper hand—but for how long? More than one tomcat had willingly surrendered an eye for dinner. But, like a rat’s tail, once lost, the eye would not grow back. The fight was a draw.

  The cat sighed. “Well played, friend Rat. Fortunately, it does not suit my purposes to eat you at this time.”

  Ernst nodded, but his sword did not waver.

  “Well then, I bid you on your way, Sir Tom. May our paths lie ever in opposite directions.”

  The cat appreciated the sentiment and chuckled again, a deep throaty sound called a “purr” by those human wretches who kept cats in high regard. Ernst held back a sneer.

  By unspoken agreement, each released the other and took two paces back.

  “Adieu,” said the cat, displaying an unusual knowledge of a human tongue. Like cats and rodents, Man and Animal lived side by side in companionable ignorance. The only thing more rare than a cat who spoke Human was a man who spoke Catish, or any of the other languages of the Animal Kingdoms. But of course, these wharf cats came from all over and ate scraps at the tables of the world. Like rats had done once, long ago. Ernst relaxed his stance as the feline turned slowly and slipped into the night, his tail whipping silently in his wake.

  And then Ernst collapsed against the cobblestones and breathed deeply, never mind the muck and the smell. The sweetest breaths always came immediately on the heels of cheated death. He could have hurt the brute with Viper’s Sting, certainly, but with that mouth full of fangs, it was more like a battle of one against thirty. Odds even an adventurer like Ernst would rather avoid.

  After a moment, his heart slowed enough for him to take stock. These alleys were likely crawling with cats waiting to take advantage of newly docked ships, and of the dull-witted rats who had spent too much time at sea, unsteady on their legs, out of practice in avoidance and combat.

  Ernst sheathed his sword, inspected his tail—dimpled, but not cut, by those claws—and smoothed down his fur. Likely the tom had passed him up so easily because he was already full, dining on those very sea rats.

  No one I know, of course, Ernst comforted himself. He might have acquaintances and kin in Paris, London, even Munich. But he was new to Vienna. If he disappeared here, no one would notice. But he was a Listz, from a long illustrious line of rodents, born of better times, destined for greatness. Or at least betterness. A hot meal, a soft bed, and an appreciative audience would be a start. Clean clothes would be better, but . . . Ernst sighed, retrieved his satchel from the gutter, and slung the strap across his shoulder. He stretched his long back, dropped to all fours, and scurried the rest of the way to the Underwall, a tavern near the water where he had heard a rat might find work. Someone with his talent for languages and etiquette, his understanding of human culture, could surely find a way to put a meal in his belly and the night on the far side of a sturdy door.

  It was time to sing for his supper.

  BY THE TIME you read this note I will be gone . . .

  Stefan hesitated for the hundredth time. Writing a letter was almost as hard as telling his father to his face: Stefan was running away.

  “Not running,” Stefan corrected himself. “Just leaving. It’s time.” But he didn’t sound as convinced as he had been earlier.

  The fact was, he had served out his time in his father’s toy shop. Every toymaker with three years’ apprenticing graduated to the status of journeyman. Yes, he might have stayed to work in Nuremberg if his mother were still alive . . . But scarlet fever did not care for his plans one whit. Now, the “journey” part of “journeyman” called to him. Seven years to see the world. Seven years to put between him and the little stone crypt at the end of the graveyard.

  In France, there was a toymaker who built lifelike dolls called automatons. Nightingales that sang operas, dogs that chased balls. In England, they were making life-size clockwork people!

  A tremor of excitement ran through him. His father thought he was too young to leave home, but the world was waiting. Besides, home didn’t feel like home anymore.

  Stefan finished his note and left it on his father’s workbench, clearing a space among the wood sha
vings and dolls’ legs. He hesitated, touching the smooth edge of the sign his father had been carving before his mother fell ill.

  Drosselmeyer and Son, it read in flowing letters, flanked by the raised images of a wooden soldier and a toy horse. Stefan swallowed hard and turned the sign over before the guilt in his belly could change his mind. The smooth white paper stood out starkly; his own blocky writing simply read, “Father.”

  Stefan stooped to gather his tools. He placed his awl, knife, chisel, and sanding cloth into a piece of leather fitted with pockets for each, then rolled it up. He scanned the shop—two benches, one old and stained with years of varnish and paint, the other newer and built to accommodate a young boy. He had outgrown the bench last year. And now, he realized he had outgrown the shop as well. They looked smaller, these rooms that had once been his entire world. The workshop to the left, the storefront with its counter and display shelves cluttered with wooden soldiers, sewn dolls, and the occasional porcelain-faced angel. The living room in the back with the trestle dining table and cozy hearth. His parents’ room. The loft where he slept. The guest room, where his mother had . . .

  His stomach turned and for a moment he feared he was going to be sick. The place was too small, he decided. His father might even be glad of the extra room once he was gone. That was a lie, he knew, but it helped him take the next step. He shouldered his bag, stuffing his tools deep inside. The world was darker now that his mother was gone. If he stayed any longer, it would go completely black.

  “Don’t look back,” he reminded himself, and reached for the door.

  Someone knocked. The door flew open, bounced off Stefan’s boot, and slammed shut again.

  “Ow!” Stefan said.

  “Hello?” The knock was repeated, this time from the safety of the jamb. Stefan gingerly opened the door.

  “We’re closed,” he said.

  Two men stood before him dressed in black. One tall and lean with white-blond hair and an eye patch. The other dark-skinned, his hair kept hidden beneath a cleverly wrapped turban.

  “Oh, hello, dear boy! We aren’t customers,” the white-haired man said. “We’re family.”

  Stefan eyed the pale man and his dark companion dubiously. It seemed unlikely he was related to an albino or a Moor. “You were at the cemetery,” he realized.