Chapter 34: Case of the Nutcracker

Act VI: Sugar Plum Fairy

Previously… In desperation, I tried to use my other vision. I closed my eyes and felt the tell-tale twitch in my eye muscles. As they opened again, I was again greeted by a sea of blue and grey. As I combed through the crowd, I was startled for a second, for I thought I saw a point of red.

"Otohime-chan? Otohime-chan?" Fremea's soft voice startled me. I rubbed my eyes gingerly and let my vision turn back to normal. Yet, an afterimage persisted, and that point of red remained where nobody was now standing. My eyes darted around, but I didn't see anyone who stood out from the crowd of kids and maidservants.

Surely, I wasn't imagining things, right?

"Otohime-chan, daijou-bu?" Fremea's hand touched my shoulders, and I jumped violently. So great was my sudden jolt, that I ended up hitting a maid walking behind me, carrying a tray full of beverages. The maid fell to the floor, and a cascade of liquids splashed onto all three of us. Of course, all the commotion drew everybody's attention, and my cheeks grew warm when all eyes fell upon me. Panicked, I got to my feet and helped the maid get back up.

"I'm so sorry!" I said, bowing repeatedly.

The maid, now soaked from head to toe, glared at me. Her eyes were sharp and piercing, and her dark hair was tied in a large bun. She was much older than the other maids, and her hooked nose betrayed a more Western ancestry.

At last, she relented with a sigh. "Just be careful next time, alright?"

I bowed and turned to Fremea, who by now was also standing. "I'm so sorry, I was distracted, and I got startled."

Fremea gave me a stern look. Then, she grabbed my hand and dragged me upstairs to the girls' shower room. Once in the changing room, she stripped herself and then started to tug on my own clothes.

"Wha-wait! Fremea-chan!" I cried in protest, "What are you doing?"

She grunted in frustration. "Come on! We need to get you out of these wet things!"

"Stop! Fremea-chan! Please! I can undress myself!" Despite my protests, Fremea persisted until my blouse and skirt was pulled off of my body, and then she proceeded to work on my underclothes. All I could do was comply and make sure she didn't tear any of the seams.

"Is everything alright?" A soft voice spoke, as a pink-haired maid poked her head through the curtains.

"Nyah! Perfect timing, Miu-san!" Fremea said as she tugged away the last of my clothing, "Would you mind taking these to the laundry? Oh, and would you bring us something to change into?"

"At once, Fremea-sama," The maid said. She took our clothes, curtsied, and disappeared. Satisfied, Fremea then dragged me to the shower room.

As befitting a high-class boarding school, each shower stall was well partitioned with partially frosted glass, so that Fremea and I could see each other and still retain our modesty. Furthermore, each shower head was controlled by an electronic touch screen, so we could each control the water temperature to the last degree.

"So?" Fremea said, as she lathered herself up, "Did you find anything about the case?"

"Yeah," I said, "But it's not enough to know where Marie or Fritz are."

I told her about how Rasputin disguised himself as Drosselmeyer, and how he escaped Russia during the revolution. Then I told her about Marie, the Nutcracker, and their true identities. Fremea gaped at me. "Wow! What a crazy story!" She cried as she scrubbed herself clean, "Nyah! I'm starting to understand Marie a little bit better, too."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Fremea's face darkened. "Take it from someone who has lived that kind of life before," she said, "Nyah, you're forced to leave behind friends and family, and then you're shuffled around from one safe house to another. Finally, the people you love leave without warning, and they never come back. For her to live such a life for so long, it must have grown tiresome—nyah—and lonely. If I were her, I would have tried to find some way—any way—to get out of that life."

Sighing, Fremea shut off the water and walked back to the changing room. As I followed her, she grabbed a towel and tossed another to me.

"So? What happened at dinner?" She asked as we dried ourselves, "Did you see something interesting?"

"Eh he-he," I laughed sheepishly, "So, you noticed."

Fremea glared at me. "Of course, I noticed-nyah! I spent the whole time talking about my day, and you were barely even listening! Obviously, something must have distracted you from appreciating my world-class stories!"

"Of course," I said, laughing awkwardly. There's no way I could tell her how I really felt about her stories.

Fortunately for me, the pink-haired maid reappeared, just in time to afford me some distractions. She placed two sets of school uniforms and two sets of underclothes next to us, and then bowed and left. As I watched the maid go, a thought popped into my head. "Does Miss Clavel-sensei keep track of the maids who work here?" I asked as I dressed.

"Why would she?" Fremea scoffed, brushing her hair, "She has the Ryouran Maid academy taking care of staffing and such duties. As long as they fulfill their contractual responsibilities, everything else is quite beneath her."

"In other words," I said, "Anyone could dress up as a maid and blend in this place?"

"Well, the maids would know." Fremea said, "They know everything."

Once dressed, the two of us left together, and went back to the dining hall. As we stood on the second-floor landing, I could see the whole room laid out before me. Looking through the railings, I let my vision change again, and I scanned the room carefully.

As usual, the dining hall became a morass of greys and blues with periodic beacons of white. Index and Oni-chan were still seated at the staff table, while Rasputin sat by himself, surrounded by kids who admired him. There was still a gaggle of maids were cleaning up the mess I made, but otherwise, I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"Nothing," I groaned, wincing as my vision went back to normal. "Whoever it was, I don't see them anymore."

Fremea furrowed her brows. "If she isn't there, then she must be in the kitchen."

"Come on, this way!" she said, as she grabbed my hand. Together we descended the stairs, slipped past the staff table and ran towards the kitchen doors.

"Kor-ra! Fremea-chan!"

"Urk!" Fremea stopped as a sharp voice snapped at us, and we turned to see Clavel-sensei standing with hands on her hips. "How many time must I tell you!" she scolded us, "You're not allowed to go down there! The kitchen is no place where little girls should be playing!"

"But Miss Clavel—" Fremea started to protest, but the headmistress wasn't having any of it. "No buts! If I see you put one toe pass that door frame, then you will have to go to bed early, and you will not be allowed in the playroom, tonight!"

"Yes Miss Clavel," Fremea sighed and trudged glumly back to the benches.

I started to follow her, but then a thought occurred to me, and I changed my course mid-way. Rasputin, aka Drosselmeyer, was still sitting at the dinner table when I approached him. He was digging into his meal rather ravenously, while doing his best to ignore all the kids hovering around him. I tugged at his coattails, and he snapped at me. "What! What is it?"

His razor-sharp eyes tore into my soul, so much so that I was paralyzed with fear. It took me herculean efforts just to open my mouth and ask my question. "I-I just wanted to know if you have a picture of Marie or even of Fritz. Afterall, I can't really find what I haven't seen before."

For a moment, he blinked at me, as if waking from a sudden dream. Then, his features softened, and he reached into his coat pockets. "Oh, but of course!" he said, smiling as he rummaged through his coat, "I think I've got what you're looking for."

"Aha!" He cried out triumphantly and pulled out a black-and-white photograph. It depicted Rasputin seated on a chair, with a little girl sitting on his lap. The Rasputin in the photograph had a full head of dark hair, and his dark sunken eyes still had an allure similar to that of the real person. The little girl also had dark hair, and she had a hook nose like an adult. In her hands was the nutcracker, built in the shape of a dog, and she was clutching him tightly in her arms, while trying to squirm away from Rasputin.

"There!" Rasputin said, pointing to the little girl, "That is Marie. We took this picture about a year after we came to the States."

Discretely, I took a picture of the photograph and texted a copy to Oni-chan. Then, I studied the photograph, especially of Marie, and I thought about what Fremea had said.

"Is there any way that Marie could have broken the spell by herself?" I asked, giving the photo back.

"Impossible!" Rasputin snorted, "The Nutcracker has to bite into the nut, Krakatook to transform back, and if he did, then everybody would have transformed along with him."

"But what would happen if someone else tried to bite into it? What if Marie did it by herself?"

Unfortunately, Rasputin was no longer listening to me. Instead, he had gone back to eating and had ignored my admittedly quiet musings.

Looking around, I saw everyone was still busy with the last dregs of dinner. Clavel-sensei had gone back to a deep conversation with Oni-chan and Index-san, and Fremea was helping herself with desserts. With nobody watching, I quietly slipped out of my seat and through the kitchen doors. Down the staircase, I walked, and the dining hall's cacophony faded away. The cooks and kitchen staff were all pretty busy, eating their own meals, so they weren't paying much attention to me.

As I walked past the sinks, stoves, and countertops, I let my vision change again, and I scanned them for any clues. At last, I passed into the servant's quarters, and I soon became aware of a deep red visage of a person hiding in a bedroom. "No, I wasn't able to deliver it to him! I got derailed on the way!"

I could tell that the person was alone and speaking a loud whisper into her phone. Through my special vision, the maid appeared in deep red, and I feared for my safety. Despite that, I snuck as close to her room as I dared, so that I could hear the conversation. She was still wearing her maid uniform, but her face was obscured from view.

"Honestly!" The maid was saying, "It's so on brand for him to escape death again, after all this time, he must be the luckiest man alive!" she said, laughing darkly, "Anyway, I will need another sample of the substance to take care of him."

Sensing great danger, I quickly hid in the room next door, the same chamber that Rasputin, and the rest of us were using for the interview earlier that evening.

Not a moment too soon, I heard footsteps come out of the room next to me, and then the rattling of keys, as the maid was carefully locking up her room.

I peered cautiously out from the door trim and saw that it was the crooked-nosed maid I had bumped into earlier. In fact, her hair and her clothes were still stained by the drinks I had spilled onto her. Apparently, she had been busy all this time and hadn't been able to freshen up, as I had.

Leaving her bedroom doorway, she was carrying a washbasin, and a fresh change of clothing, and I knew where she was going. I followed her past the kitchen entryway, and down the hall to the servant's shower room. Once she entered, I waited for the sound of running water and then went in myself.

Compared to the girls' shower room that I was in earlier, this one was much less well furnished. Each shower stall used more commonplace fixtures, and there were no dividers to afford any sort of privacy to the serving staff.

Silent like a mouse, I tiptoed to the cubby holes, and carefully rummaged through the maid's clothing. My search yielded immediate results, as I pulled out her keys. Clutching them hard into my hands, I snuck back out of the shower room. My heart was beating so hard, that I was afraid someone might have heard it.

As soon as I got far enough, I broke into a sprint, and I bolted back to the servant's quarters as fast as my legs could carry me. Quickly, I stuck the key into the doorknob and unlocked the room. Once inside, I closed the door behind me and looked around.

The maid's chamber was fairly barren, with only a bed, a dressing table, and a wardrobe. As I walk into the room, my eyes were scanning everything for possible clues. Looking through the bed, I saw nothing and felt nothing out of the ordinary.

Moving on, I looked through the dressing table, and that proved a more fruitful search. There was an unusual amount of jewelry tucked away in the drawers as well as a single unassuming walnut. Yet, when I examined it with my other vision, it shone like beaten gold in the morass of grey. Not knowing what else to do, I quickly snatched the walnut away and tucked it into my pocket.

Closing the dresser, I then moved on to the wardrobe, which was locked. Pulling out the keys again, I quickly unlocked the doors, and when they opened, my heart leapt into my mouth. There, lying unconscious, was a little boy, two years younger than me. His hands and feet were tied up together behind his back, and a cloth was gagging him. He was lying still, his eyes were closed, and I feared for the worst.

My hands were shaking as I pulled out my phone and snapped a photo of the unconscious boy. Yet, as I was about to send a text to Oni-chan, a hand clamped down hard on my mouth, just as another hand snatched my phone away. I felt my heart leap into my throat as an awfully familiar voice spoke into my ear.

"Now, we can't have that getting out, can we?"