The Toymaker's Apprentice Read online

  She exited in a whirl of skirts, the red-and-white pattern of her dress blending into the field of tulips as she hurried out of sight.

  Stefan watched her go. Something about the girl reminded him of his mother. They had the same twinkle in their eye. Looking at the gardens, the sight of tulips no longer made him sad. He would like to see her again. Tell her how the prank played out. Maybe take her to a café for cakes.

  He smiled to himself, and immediately moaned. He had forgotten to ask her name.

  ERNST SIGHED AND SANK deeper into the bathing bowl, the tips of his claws poking up from the lavender-scented bubbles. He’d been inspired by the piebald Snitter’s powdered scent and left the docks for better climes. At the Golden Note, a luxury hotel in the walls of the massive Imperial and Royal Court Theatre, he could bathe in warm water and hear the symphony wafting up through the pipes and cracks in his hidden room. Perhaps the music of Mozart or Beethoven would be played tonight. Ernst wriggled his toes and sighed. For the next three hours, this was the life.

  The knot in his shoulder from the skirmish with the alley cat had finally eased in the hot water and he was just beginning to doze off, when there came an awful pounding at the door.

  “Open up! Open up!” a male voice demanded.

  “Probably my escort,” Ernst decided, settling back into the tub, preferring the continued pounding over leaving the warmth of the water. Once he answered that door, this little retreat would be over and his duties would begin. Who knew when he’d get another bath like this one?

  Just one minute more . . .

  He settled a washcloth over his eyes and began humming along with the orchestra tuning below.

  A key turned in the lock and the door to Ernst’s bedroom burst open.

  The rat sighed and pulled himself out of the tub. Wrapping a plush robe around his thin frame, he dried his feet on the mat with a little dancing step.

  “I told you he wouldn’t be here,” he heard a mouse say disdainfully. “You can’t trust a rat.” The speaker was a young piebald with a mottled face and black paws. He was venting his anger on the small gray mouse that served as night manager of the hotel. The manager held his back straight, but his whiskers quivered nervously. “They’re all thieves and cheats,” the piebald continued.

  “Really?” Ernst asked dryly.

  The gray mouse balked and lost his composure, cowering like a meadow mouse in the face of an owl. To his credit, he recovered quickly, preening his short whiskers, and lifted his chin as if he had never doubted the integrity of his guest. “Forgive the intrusion, Herr Listz,” he began, only to be interrupted by the piebald, who refused to quail.

  “Yes, they are,” he said. “Only a rat would waste a month’s wages on one night of . . .” He took in the opulent suite. “‘When the seed runs out, so does the rat,’ as they say. The name is Blackspaw. My commander sent me to guide you.” The way he said “guide” sounded an awful lot like “guard” to Ernst. “We leave at dawn. I’ll be outside.”

  “Keeping me honest, eh?” Ernst chuckled. He leaned against the doorway nonchalantly. Let the mouse think he was a wastrel. He could use it to his advantage. “I should think a soldier such as yourself would trust the judgment of his commander implicitly.” Ernst sucked his teeth and studied his newly trimmed claws. “We had such a nice rapport, Snitter and I, and he was so kind to offer Her Majesty’s tutor a guide to Boldavia. I suppose he’ll be very disappointed when I make my report. What will the Queen think, I wonder.”

  At last, the piebald was shaken. He bristled and shrank as the air left his puffed-out chest. “Ah . . . ah . . . apologies, Herr Listz. Clearly you are a gentlerat of . . . uncommon breeding. I was . . . merely concerned for our . . . ah . . .” The piebald realized he was flailing and, with a concerted effort, stopped.

  “I shall be in the hallway. We leave at dawn.” He clicked his heels and retreated.

  The manager wrung his paws together apologetically. “Herr Listz, is there anything I can bring you?”

  “More hot water, please,” the rat said. He sauntered over to his sack of seed and pulled another portion out to tip the night manager. “And a blanket for my guide out there. Or cover him with something pretty so he doesn’t frighten the guests.”

  The manager smiled and removed himself with a bow.

  A few minutes later, three white mice appeared with freshly boiled kettles. They silently reheated Ernst’s bath and left. He sank back into the tub with a sigh.

  Despite the variety of Rodentia, when it came down to it, there really were only two types of rodents in this world: squirrels and rats. Squirrels were chipper little fools who believed they’d live forever, so they spent all their time gathering nuts, storing them away for that bright future. Anyone with that blithering outlook was a squirrel. Including that impudent little piebald—so certain of tomorrow that he’d rather wait than live today. But rats appreciated the brevity of life. Death was around every corner for rodents without a bushy tail—rat and mouse, vole, mole, and shrew. But only rats lived for the moment (as did, perhaps, a criminal vole or two). The rest were squirrels by nature, if not form. Even mice were mostly squirrels at heart. Timid and hopeful, diligently thinking of winter even in the spring. But why save for tomorrow what you could spend today? Especially if each day could be your last.

  Ernst Listz was a rat. Which was why he had willingly spent more than half his bag of seed on wine, a bath, a second dinner, and a very soft bed. If it meant sneaking on board a barge headed down the river the next day rather than purchasing proper accommodations (carved out in the bulkhead of one of the more luxurious boats), so be it. He would gladly sleep beneath a coil of rope in exchange for this one night of being clean, safe, and well fed.

  Ernst wriggled his toes in the steaming water, the last of his aches and pains easing away. He dismissed all thought of the morning to come, and the state of the kingdom at the end of his dangerous journey. For now, it was a hot bath and a full belly. In short, it was heaven.

  “CLARA,” STEFAN SAID to himself, committing the sound to memory. Arno the groundskeeper had been forthcoming with directions to Professor Blume’s house, and with a name for the girl in the red-and-white dress.

  Clara. A perfect name, thought Stefan as he passed through the professor’s front garden. It sounded like a bell.

  The professor’s front lawn was impressively laid out in beds of flowers and herbs, and rows of carefully trimmed trees. It mimicked the botanical gardens in miniature.

  Stefan was admitted through the front door by a dour servant who left him in a large entryway filled with enough plants and flowers to rival Arno’s greenhouse.

  Stefan paused to peer closely at a side table covered in miniature trees planted in ceramic trays. There was a red-leaf maple tree that stood no more than twelve inches high. Despite their tiny size, they appeared to be fully grown. It was breathtaking. He imagined the sorts of figurines his father might carve to decorate the trays. A small picnic scene would charm many of the ladies who came to the shop.

  He was alone in the hall, so he pulled out his sketchbook to draw a quick design. The scene unfolded beneath his pencil, a tiny sheltering maple and a girl in a full skirt and tulip-shaped apron sitting beneath the tree. The fact that she looked exactly like Clara escaped him entirely.

  Stefan startled when a voice spoke close to his ear.

  “Bonsai,” the gruff voice said. “Japanese technique. Some of those trees are a hundred years old.”

  Stefan looked up to see Professor Blume, a man shaped like a large turnip with a velvet housecoat over his shirtwaist, vest, and slippers. He appeared to be in his early sixties, with wiry gray hair sticking out from beneath a small fez of burgundy velvet that complemented the pattern in his robe. Spidery red veins blossomed across his bulbous nose.

  He smiled at Stefan and held out a hand. Stefan hastily pocketed his noteboo
k and shook hands with a slight bow.

  “Welcome, Herr Drosselmeyer, was it? Come to my study. We can discuss your interests over a cup of tea. My own brew, actually, grown on one of my plantations in Ceylon. Have you been? Fascinating part of the world, Ceylon. Humid as a hothouse, but the vegetation! Theologians are still out on the subject, but I do believe it might be the original Paradise.”

  Stefan followed the professor into his study. Conservatory was more like it. Yes, there were bookcases, a desk, and two very comfortable-looking armchairs, but they were woven from rattan and bamboo instead of the tufted leather that usually graced a gentleman’s den. And where one might expect tapestries or wood-paneled walls stood vines and potted plants, seedling trays, and all manner of vases filled to the top with exotic flowers.

  “Have a seat, my boy. I’ll ring for tea. Now, what is this about a nut?”

  Stefan settled into one of the chairs. Professor Blume sat opposite him. The humid room had turned the older man’s face an alarming shade of red, but he showed no sign of discomfort. Stefan, on the other hand, began to feel both sweaty and foolish.

  “Sir, I apologize for bothering you. It’s just that . . . well, I’ve recently become journeyman to a new master and he’s set me on a task. To find a nut called a krakatook.”

  “A krakatook!” Professor Blume exclaimed. He pulled a damp-looking handkerchief out of his robe pocket and mopped his forehead.

  Stefan winced. “I know, a fool’s errand,” he said quickly. “And I have been a fool. But I had hoped . . . It was suggested to me that I might turn the tables with your help. Is there any chance you have a nut in your possession that I might pass off as the krakatook? Something unusual that my master wouldn’t have seen before? I’d like to surprise him with it. And I’d return it to you, of course . . .” He faltered.

  The professor was struggling to rise from his chair.

  Stefan jumped to his feet first. “I understand if you want to throw me out. Don’t get up. I’m leaving.”

  “The devil you are, my lad! What do you know about Chinese mythology?”

  Stefan blinked. “What?”

  “The Chinese! Celestials! Much like the Greek gods and their ambrosia, the Chinese gods maintained their immortality by eating peaches from a certain tree in the gardens of heaven on Mount Kunlun. That wall hanging there is a representation.”

  Stefan rose to admire the finely woven tapestry that hung hidden behind the fronds of a palm tree. It depicted a stylized mountain wreathed in clouds. At the base of the mountain, farmers toiled in the fields, while at the crown, a shining city of pagodas rose above the clouds, a tree at its center. He could just make out the small fruits on its limbs. It reminded him of the view from the roof of his house.

  The professor continued. “Got that one off a monk in Nepal. They wear yellow and red robes over there. Far cry from a Benedictine, wouldn’t you say? Where was I? Ah, yes. According to legend, the krakatook is not really a nut, you see, but the stone of the peach of immortality. Peach stones have medicinal value in China, good for a variety of ills—stagnant blood, allergies, and the like. But the stone of the peach of immortality has extraordinary properties—great wisdom and longevity among them. It’s a cure-all, like so many magic talismans waved about by heathens in the night. And, like magic, it’s all balderdash. You can’t exactly eat a peach stone, after all.”

  “Yes you can,” Stefan said. “If you crack it open, there’s a soft seed inside, shaped like an almond.”

  “Aha! Those are called bitter almonds, and they’re poisonous.”

  Stefan frowned. He’d eaten the seed inside a peach when he was little and lived to tell the tale. He said as much.

  The professor waved his hand in annoyance, the tassel on his fez bouncing.

  “It would take bitter almonds by the pound to kill you. And all the mythological hocus-pocus—longevity and medicinal traits—all as fake as the Feejee mermaid. I’ve been to China and I’ve never seen any gods living on mountaintops eating peaches. But mystical or not, the krakatook is real.”

  Stefan’s eyebrows rose. “What makes you say so?”

  “Because I have one,” he said. “Upstairs. Would you like to see it? What now? Are you choking? Overcome with joy, no doubt. Hold on, I’ll see about that tea.”

  Professor Blume grinned conspiratorially and scuttled from the room, slippers slapping the oriental carpets, his fez tassel bouncing from side to side like an excited dog’s tail.

  Stefan recovered his composure and sat down. Eccentric, Clara had said. That didn’t even begin to describe his host.

  The slap-slap of slippers soon returned, accompanied by an out-of-breath professor. Stefan jumped to his feet again.

  “Still here? Good, good. Sit down.” He beamed at Stefan, a small casket clutched in his pudgy hands.

  “Here you are, young fellow. The krakatook, fresh and hard as the day I first bought it off a merchant in Istanbul who did not know what he had. Of course, I didn’t either, or I wouldn’t have bought it, I suppose.” He thrust the casket into Stefan’s bewildered hands and sat down abruptly to catch his breath. The rattan protested with a scrunch, but held. “Well, don’t just gawp at the thing. Open it!”

  Stefan examined the box. It was a small chest of tooled silver, no bigger than his hand. He flipped open the latch.

  There, on a bed of blue velvet, sat an ordinary nut.

  “It’s a walnut.”

  “No, it only looks like a walnut. Turn it over.”

  On the reverse of the nut, there was a word carved into the surface of the shell in flowing golden script: Krakatook.

  “It’s still a walnut,” Stefan said. “It’s just been gilded or engraved.”

  “But how?” asked the professor, brandishing a finger in the air.

  “How what?” Stefan was lost. Professor Blume was clearly batty.

  “How was it engraved? Everyone who knows anything about the krakatook knows the name is a corruption of ‘crack a tooth!’ The surface is impervious to tooth or blade, mallet or sledgehammer. Rather convenient for a mystical nut, wouldn’t you say?”

  “But sir, there’s no such thing—”

  “As a krakatook, I know, I know,” the professor said. “But there it is, hard as a young man’s head. I broke a tooth trying to prise it open once. But it was no good. Give it here.”

  Stefan handed the nut over. He would be polite and try to leave as soon as possible. But for now, he had to humor the madman.

  “Give me that casket, too. You’ve felt it, eh? Heavy. Solid silver with a bit of lead in the hinges. Now.” He placed the nut on a marble-topped side table, holding it carefully in place with his finger and thumb.

  The tea never came, Stefan thought.

  And then the professor slammed the silver casket down onto the nut with all his might.

  The casket rebounded into the air, yanking the professor’s arm with it.

  Stefan shouted in surprise, raising his hands to block the shards of flying shell. But there weren’t any. “Mein Gott!” he exclaimed.

  The krakatook sat quietly on the table.

  “Unshatterable!” the professor pronounced.

  He smiled and tossed the nut back to Stefan. “Useless as a snack and, if it has any of those mythical medicinal qualities, well, short of sucking on it like a candy, I don’t know how it would be of much use.”

  Stefan turned the nut in his hands. “Impossible!”

  The professor rubbed his arm. “It gives the bones quite a shake. Ah, here comes that tea, just in time. Sit, my boy, and recover. You’ve had quite a shock. Like finding a narwhal horn in the woods, I should think. Startling discovery indeed.”

  Stefan had no idea what the professor was talking about now, but he willingly sat and drank his tea, slowly recovering his nerves.

  “So . . . this nut,” he beg
an to say.

  “It’s yours, take it. I’m a botanist. If I can’t crack it to study it, nor plant it to grow more, then it’s no use to me except as a parlor trick. It’s not as if I have a line of celestial mystics asking after it. And I could do without all the squirrels it draws into the attic. Must protect my specimens, you know. Can’t have rodents gnawing at my trees.”

  Stefan looked around the room. There had been no sign of squirrels, or talking mice for that matter. As far as he knew, the professor was playing another parlor trick on him.

  “Thank you, Professor Blume. I’ll mention your bonsai trees to my father. They would make perfect dioramas.”

  “Indeed they would,” the professor said brightly. “Well then, you can see yourself out. Dioramas . . .” he muttered to himself, and turned to gaze at his plants.

  A bemused Stefan found himself once again on the doorstep of the professor’s peculiar house, the krakatook inside its casket stuffed deep into the pocket of his coat. It had been a strange day. He turned his feet gladly toward home.

  “ZACHARIAS ELIAS DROSSELMEYER?” the flamboyant man in a red feathered hat inquired at the door.

  “Yes, at your service,” Zacharias said, buttoning his coat. “But I’m afraid I’m running out. Errands, deliveries.” Christian and his strange friend and even Stefan were out on their bizarre quest, but he had a business to run. “Perhaps we could set an appointment?”

  “I’m afraid not,” the man said. “Your son has been injured. Some sort of run-in with a cart and horse. If you’ll accept my carriage, I can take you to him.”

  A shock of cold fear pierced Zacharias from heart to stomach. Elise was gone, and now this? He grabbed his hat, a modest brown felt thing that he crushed in his hands rather than put on his head.

  “I’ll just . . . lock up.” He fumbled his keys, closing the shop. “Oh, I should leave a note for . . . I have family . . . visiting.”