The music swirled around and began, a merry tune of excitement and anticipation. The curtain rose to reveal a room decked out for a party, complete with a beautifully decorated Christmas tree, far larger than life. Covered in painted candy “ marzipan shepherds and fairies of spun sugar “ it provided a focus for the entire scene. As Clara danced her way onto the stage Ninette found herself lost in the world of the Nutcracker. Though she had seen it “ danced in it “ year after year, Christmas after Christmas, she loved it still. She knew every movement and the feeling which prompted it; she knew exactly why Clara must lift her chin and throw up her arms at that exact moment . . .
“She’s ruining it. Look at her left foot! How could anyone in their right mind choose Amy Richardson to dance Clara? I’d have made her a party guest! If that. Did you see her hand dip during that plié? She almost lost her balance just now. Dreadful.” Aunt Edris spoke in an outraged whisper into Ninette’s ear “ a quiet but cacophonous accompaniment to the gay music of the orchestra.
Her aunt’s voice drew Ninette back from her fairytale world into the realm of technique and criticism. It was her first night back from Hogwarts on Christmas holiday, and, “Watch this!” demanded Aunt Edris. “These chassés turns are difficult “ I’m sure she won’t get them. Look at her feet, not even stretched “ absolutely dreadful! Even worse than Katie Harris last year.”
Clara was receiving her gifts now. There it was “ the Nutcracker, her favorite. With her eyes Ninette followed Clara as she danced with her doll. A doll whom she loved “ a doll whom she loved enough to make real. Ninette had practiced this dance in her room at home “ with a pillow, for she had no dolls of her own.
“It should have been you up there. Amy has none of your technique. It should have been you.”
Fritz and the boys circled around Clara, teasing her; Clara drew back, protecting the Nutcracker. Ninette, who had nothing to protect, knew why.
“If you hadn’t gone away . . .”
The party guests were leaving. Clara clutched the Nutcracker to herself, loving it “ too engrossed to pay attention to her departing friends.
“Though there’s no telling what people will do . . .”
It was the middle of the night, and the stage had been left to the toys “ but Clara was coming back, coming back to be with her precious Nutcracker.
“But anyone should be able to see that you’re better than her . . .”
Now the rats were entering, coming in from all sides, and Clara was looking around, frightened, for the Nutcracker.
“I was sure you were going to get it this year . . .”
Ninette leaned forward ever so slightly, and her aunt’s voice faded away. The toys were waking up “ emerging from the shadows, no longer toys. A regiment of soldiers, dressed gaily in blue and red, marched out to confront the rats. And at last, there was the Nutcracker himself “ life size and wielding a sword. Clara “ for to Ninette she was not Amy but Clara “ clapped her hands in delight, and spun about to see everything.
All through the ballet Ninette watched, enraptured, as Clara and her Prince were entertained by the sweets come to life; the stage was filled with the dainty marzipan shepherdesses and the fairies of spun sugar “ all the dreams of a child come true.
Ninette danced the part of Clara that night, with every part of herself besides her body “ and without her body, the mirror could do nothing to her.
In the house next door there was a family of five children. Ninette liked to watch them from her window when she was not practicing. They were always outside “ running around, playing tag in the backyard “ and laughing. They were always laughing.
She had been invited over several times when she had first come to Aunt Edris “ but she had never been allowed to go. “Your knees!” Aunt Edris had said. But she still liked to watch.
Every year Jeannie “ the Morris girl who was just a year older than Ninette “ had a party celebrating both Christmas and her birthday. Every year she invited Ninette “ and every year, for the past six years, Ninette had stayed at home. This year was no different. The invitation arrived, gaily colored, hand-drawn by Jeannie’s artist brother. It lay on Ninette’s desk for a single day, before she wrote the polite refusal that she wrote every year, and put the invitation in a folder with the six other invitations.
She woke up early the next morning “ earlier than usual, so that she would run no risk of meeting anyone on her way “ and slipped out of the house to place her reply in the Morris’ mail slot.
The door swung open just as Ninette reached it. She started back in surprise, and nearly fled “ only her aunt’s careful training kept her in place. She dropped her eyes to the ground without looking up once.
Everything was completely silent “ so silent that at last Ninette thought she must have imagined the door opening. She raised her eyes, and met the gaze of a little girl.
Ninette knew her, of course, from her years of watching. At five years of age, Lottie was the baby of the family. Ninette could remember the party the Morris’ had when Lottie was born. The Morris house had overflowed with people for days, people spilling out of the doors and windows, filling the yard. She had thought it funny that their house could be so busy, while her own remained silent and imperturbable. Somehow the Morris’ laughter never penetrated the windows of Aunt Edris’ house.
Now Lottie stared back at her with dark, impenetrable eyes. Ninette held out the letter. “Will you give this to Jeannie?” she asked quietly.
Lottie took the letter without moving her eyes from Ninette’s face. “Why won’t you come?” she asked, her childish voice questioning.
Ninette did not answer. She had not known that Lottie knew who she was “ nor how she knew that Ninette would not come.
“Jeannie says you won’t come. It makes her sad. Why won’t you?”
“I can’t,” Ninette answered. The little girl nodded once, as if she understood. Ninette turned around and went down the path back to her own house, where an empty room stood waiting for her to practice.
She watched the party from her window “ late at night, after she was supposed to be in bed. The house was filled with lights, and she could see shadows of people moving around inside. Jeannie’s two older brothers were there, teasing and laughing, and the music was loud. Joyous. As always. She watched as Keith, the oldest Morris, held Lottie up to the window, their forms dark against the light background. She did not know what they were doing, staring out from a warm room into an empty, barren winter garden, but she felt a sudden craving for a human touch “ a closeness, a warmth that might make its way into her own cold body. As she pressed her forehead against the freezing glass of the window, she found herself longing for her mother.
Her earliest memory was of being lifted onto her mother’s bed, where her mother would tickle her until she shrieked and squirmed; when she was tired, she would cuddle close against her mother’s warm body “ and somehow she never seemed to get lifted out and taken back to her own room.
There was a picture of her mother on the old wooden chest of drawers in Ninette’s room. It was not very old, but it was in black and white. Cynthia’s hair was pulled back into a twist at the back of her head, and she wore a leotard. It only showed the upper half of her body, but she sat with her arms around her knees, staring off over the photographer’s left shoulder. Her face and hair were light against the dark background. “A piece of art,” said Aunt Edris “ and it was. But Ninette just liked to look at her.
There was one other picture of Cynthia, but this one was taken from a distance. She was on stage, dancing Giselle “ the tragic heroine whom every dancer longed to dance. Her partner was holding her up above his head, and the line of her body was true and absolutely lovely.
There were more pictures in Aunt Edris’ room “ pictures of Cynthia that appeared on posters and in reviews. But these two belonged to Ninette.
There were no pictures of her father. She did not even know his name.
Next door there was a loud burst of laughter, and Ninette permitted herself to imagine, for a moment, what it would have been like if she had been there. She could see herself, huddled in a corner, afraid to speak “ and was glad that Aunt Edris would not have let her attend.
The tree was tall and wide, and covered heavily with all sorts of decorations “ everything from dainty, fragile glass balls to paper cut-outs and stars made out of straw. It was not at all neat and tidy, with its sprawling branches and childish ornamentation, but it was as warm and joyous-looking as the Morris family itself.
Ninette could see it from her usual place at her window, and could not help comparing it with their own tree. Perhaps a quarter of the size, their tree stood on a table, decorated with a few choice ornaments. She knew it well “ it looked the same, and had the same ornaments as it had the year before, and the year before that. The presents underneath looked almost out of place, wrapped in compulsory wrapping paper though they were. Three packages, neat and tidy, underneath a tiny tree.
They opened them on Christmas night. Ninette, sore from her day’s practice, stretched her legs as she flipped through the heavy book on ballet technique that her aunt had given her. The print was small, but it was a book “ at least it had some personal significance. Her other gift had been a package of leotards and stockings.
Putting down the book, Ninette watched anxiously as her aunt unwrapped her own gift. It was not much “ only a card which she had made herself, for she had no money to spend buying presents. It was the first time she had ever given her aunt a Christmas present. Before this year, she had never thought one way or another about Christmas. The Morris family’s celebrations seemed like something in another world, far away, unreal “ her own Christmas consisted of things her aunt would have given her anyway. But for the last two weeks before school had ended, the air had been full of talk of Christmas. The girls in her dormitory had given each other Christmas presents, and discussed, with much giggling, what they were going to give to their families. So Ninette had decided to try.
She had made the card slowly and carefully, working after studying during the long nights at Hogwarts as she listened to the girls around her giggle and fall asleep. She had drawn her favorite scene from the Nutcracker; the scene in which all Clara’s dreams come true. As she watched her aunt pick it up, Ninette found herself hoping beyond belief that her aunt would like it “ somehow it would mean everything in the world if her aunt looked up and smiled. As she hoped, the dainty marzipan shepherdesses and spun sugar fairies which she had tried so clumsily to draw danced their dance of dreams through her head.
Her aunt examined the card for a moment or two, her face unreadable. Then she lifted her head and stared at Ninette, and her eyes were dark and angry. “You’re just like her,” she said, looking at Ninette as if she had been betrayed “ as if Ninette had betrayed her. “You’re just like her.”
Ninette was frozen, unable to move, unable to think. Inside her head the moving figures were stilled, caught mid-step, their graceful dance nothing but a memory, a dream. Once again, they were only marzipan and sugar.
But Aunt Edris was not finished. “Do you really think that you have time for such things?” Her voice, hard and cold, flung out the words. “Do you really think that you can become a ballet dancer by wishing, by sitting on the floor, by making cards for the right people?”
Ninette felt herself shrinking back; she hunched her shoulders against the chair behind her for comfort.
“Sit up straight,” commanded her aunt. “Sit up! You’re so much like your mother. Neither of you are able to stand alone. You need someone to show you the way, someone to point out the obstacles and the pitfalls, someone who is willing to give up their own life to help you become who you ought to be. Don’t think that I don’t notice.” Her voice had become bitter. “Why couldn’t the talent have gone to me, along with the knowledge? I know what must be done, but I cannot do it. You can, and your mother could, but neither of you are willing to try. Neither of you are willing to sacrifice.
“Your mother threw it all away “ threw it all away on a whim. Now you’ll do the same! How dare you? How dare you fail to use your talent? How many people in the world would kill to have what you have? But your mother didn’t care, it meant nothing to her, all my sacrifices meant nothing; only one thing mattered to her, and when she couldn’t have it, she “”
“What did she do?” For the first time, Ninette found the courage to raise her head, to look her aunt in the eyes. She did not know what had caused this outburst, did not know what she had done to displease her aunt so greatly, only knew that this was her chance, to find out what no one “ not even Janet “ would tell her. “What did she do?”
But her aunt closed her mouth, her lips tight, and was silent.
“What did she do?” Ninette found herself standing, and the courage to ask again came from deep inside her, from a place she had not known existed.
It was not enough. Her aunt had drawn herself up, standing tall and grand above her. “She wasted her life, as you are wasting yours.” Grabbing Ninette by the shoulders, she shook her “ not hard, but roughly, as if she were a doll. “You are not working hard enough.”
The warm, courageous spot Ninette had found was gone, and it left behind a horrible emptiness. Back in her room the mirror on the wall mocked her, and the picture of her mother dancing Giselle swayed before her eyes. She was not as beautiful as her mother, nor as good a dancer “ and if her mother had not been good enough for her aunt, how could she ever be?
AN: Many, many thanks go to Ashwinder and HermioneDancr for their help on this chapter. *huggles betas*