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A patient little music box
On that fateful night, the small music box was taken to the Catherine Palace - glowing with a million lights - and gifted to a happy little girl.
“For me? Is it a jewelry box?”
“Look!”
A gasp.
“It plays our lullaby!”
It did. That was its primary purpose. The music box was only happy to play.
On the wind, cross the sea. Hear this song and remember. Soon, you’ll be home with me once upon a December…
Unfortunately, that wasn’t meant to be.
As the revolution came to a head, someone stole it.
In another universe, the little girl’s cherished music box may have ended up in the servant boy’s possession when she and her Grandmama fled the Palace. In another, the music box never existed at all and the princess and all her family were killed in the revolution.
But this was not those universes. In this one, the Grand Duchess’ hand clutched her music box as she fled through a wall, through snow and through ice. Safe from an evil sorcerer’s wrath.
And yet…
“Anastasia! Anastasia!”
In the chaotic train station, most didn’t see the gold and emerald green music box slip out from the unconscious little girl’s pocket. Kicked and bruised by adults’ feet, it fell unceremoniously in a corner. Hidden.
The little girl was taken away to the infirmary, where she’d wake up hours later with no recollection of a train or of a distraught old woman.
Or of her name. Or of her family.
Soon enough, the little girl would walk around the city and be sent to an orphanage.
Without her music box.
For, as it was said, someone stole it. Kidnapped it. Whisked it away. Who did it? Oh, an unimportant man whose name would be lost to History. His hawkish eyes had seen the music box leave the girl’s pocket and fly across the floor.
At first, he didn’t make a move. Fleeting eyes perusing the crowd. His train was late and he’d been sitting in the cold for hours. As people took away the little girl, he feigned a stretch and he rose to his feet.
Nimble fingers found the music box quickly.
“Oh, look at you! I wonder what you’re worth,” he pondered aloud.
The music box never answered.
Instead, in silent defeat, it disappeared inside the man’s pocket. The one without a hole in it.
A day or so later, a doorbell dinged! to life as a customer stepped inside a pawnshop. The music box was exchanged from hand to hand. Passed along.
“Oh, what a pretty jewelry box!” commented the pawnshop owner, examining it in golden light. He tsk ed, tsk ed, tsk ed in the way only an expert could. “I think that’ll be…”
The man sold the music box for nearly a third of what it was really worth.
By selling off the music box, he sold, with it, a little girl’s memories. Her childhood. Preserved in gold, in emerald and in song.
The music box stayed in the pawnshop for years. Tucked away between porcelain plates and a wooden crate, it gathered dust. Forgotten. Many would have prided themselves in owning a Romanov artifact. And yet, as fate had it, the music box was tucked away just so that it could wait for its rightful owner forever, if need be.
And the music box would wait.
It would. It did.
It waited there, on that shelf, for years.
Its rightful owner wasn’t the one who found it, though. Someone else did.
Ding!
The doorbell chimed as the young man walked in. The music box recognized him immediately.
A servant boy, all grown up.
Messy haired, barely out of his teenage years, he could charm his way into a princess’ heart - even a princess who had grown up as a pauper - with a cheeky grin and bad repartee.
That time hadn’t come, though. Not yet. Even if he already knew a man who had once been at the Russian Court, this young man hadn’t thought up his brilliant plan just yet.
That was until brown eyes caught a glimpse of the music box. Hidden in its corner.
Finally, the music box seemed to shiver.
“Finally,” whispered the young man.
He snatched the glittering box and held it up to his face. Traumatic events came back to life in his eyes, shadows of a night in winter when he’d seen royalty for the last time.
The young man had been searching for the music box. He had all this time. Maybe not consciously, not at first, but he’d been scouring pawnshop after pawnshop, flea market after flea market, with in his mind an image of that box he’d seen in her hand. He’d wondered what had happened to it. He’d wondered what had happened to her. He wasn’t the only one who wondered. Many did as they gossiped in the streets.
The Princess Anastasia - alive or dead?
Who knew?
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Yes, I did.” The young man flashed the pawnshop owner a grin. “How much for this?”
The music box rested in the pawnshop owner’s hand for the last time.
“Oh, my! I haven’t seen this in years. Not since…”
“Not since the revolution?”
Eyes met. The music box glinted in the light.
“Yes, indeed. Not since the revolution.” A fingernail tapped the music box. “How old were you, back then? Not much of a lad, I suppose. I hope you weren’t too affected.”
A beat.
“Weren’t we all?”
The pawnshop owner nodded in reply. Sagely. With that, the young man gave him whatever he could offer. With another ding! of the doorbell, he walked out.
The music box was safe once more.
It would take some more time before the music in the box - still cristalline after all this time - would be heard again. Carried around from one poorhouse to the next, from street to street, it stayed in the young man’s pocket. Waiting. Eventually, the music box found its way back to where it had been gifted in the first place. The Catherine Palace. In some universes, it would be located in Leningrad, but in this one, it was still in St. Petersburg.
The music box witnessed as girl after girl tried to talk like her, walk like her, look like her.
It never was her.
Until one day covered in snow, a little dog sneaked his way inside the Palace and the right girl, the real girl, stumbled inside.
The music box listened - and the young man did, too - as wood boards fell to the ground. While the young man and his friend from the Russian Court followed a voice they didn’t know, the music box recognized it.
It was her.
Singing its song.
Once upon a December…
The music box, the princess in disguise, two con men and a dog soon found themselves on a wild European goose chase full of monsters, train wrecks, bike rides and waltzes.
One night on board a ship of iron, the music box called for the princess - its owner, now grown up and oh so lonely - but she didn’t hear. Her dog Pooka, curious Pooka, though, did. He heard it. In a strange twist of fate, the music box was flung out of a bag - not unlike when it had fallen on a train station’s floor - and into its owner’s hand.
“Pretty jewelry box, isn’t it?”
“Jewelry box? Are you sure that’s what it is?”
Wrong. It wasn’t.
“What else could it be?”
“Oh, well, something else… something special… something to do with a secret.”
The music box knew, in its mechanical heart, that the princess saw dancing bears and painted wings. Ladies in gowns gliding across ballroom floors. Winter storms and fallen kingdoms.
But she didn’t recognize it.
Not yet.
The right time hadn’t come.
The music box waited some more. It had waited years; some days were nothing. After the rainstorm had passed and nightmares were kept at bay, Paris opened its heart to them - and a visit at Sophie’s revealed to the young man that this poor orphan girl was the real Grand Duchess Anastasia.
“There was a boy, a boy who worked at the Palace. He opened a wall…!”
She was the real deal.
The young man was surprised. But the music box had always known. Obviously.
That visit at Sophie’s was soon followed by a night at the Opéra Garnier. The music box listened as the ballet concluded, as the young man’s plan was revealed, and as its owner left in a huff of rage.
The princess was even less patient than her Grandmama, who had let years of thwarted hope tire her heart.
If only they were both as patient as a tiny music box.
But the young man was full of surprises, of surprises and stubbornness, as he kidnapped the Dowager Empress of Imperial Russia.
“You have to talk to her! Just… look at her. Please.”
An exchanged stare.
“I won’t be badgered by you a moment longer!”
Finally, the music box was taken out of the young man’s pocket. Once more.
“Do you recognize this?”
She did. The old woman never forgot - neither a face nor a music box.
“Oh! Where did you get this?”
Calloused hands passed the music box to aged hands. Not the right hands.
Not yet.
“I know you’ve been hurt. But it’s just possible that she’s been as lost and alone as you.”
“You’ll stop at nothing, will you?”
“I’m probably about as stubborn as you are.”
The Dowager Empress walked into the princess in disguise’s room to growled anger followed by shock. Shock at the sight of one of the last members of the Russian family standing in the doorway.
If it hadn’t lived through the revolution, the music box would have been shocked, too.
The princess and the Dowager Empress talked… ans talked… until old eyes found a necklace hanging from a neck.
“What is that?”
“This? Well, I’ve always had it. Ever since before I can remember.”
“May I?”
Once more, the music box saw the light in the Dowager Empress’ aged hands.
“It was our secret. My Anastasia’s and mine.”
A soft gasp.
Recognition.
“The music box!”
Finally, oh finally, the music box was handed back to its rightful owner. A warmth it hadn’t felt since the Revolution enveloped it.
Home.
It was home.
“To… To sing me to sleep while you were in Paris!”
And the music box was reunited with its key.
As memories flowed back through the princess’ mind, so did the memory of a song. A song that hadn’t been forgotten.
That couldn’t be taken away. Or stolen.
The music box opened like a flower after a too long winter. And its song was sung - as a duet - once more.
Hear this song and remember. Soon you’ll be home with me once upon a December…
“Oh, Anastasia! My Anastasia!”
The music box was clutched into the Grand Duchess’ hand as she hugged her Grandmama. A hand - warm and young - put it down next to a jewelry box. It watched as Dowager Empress and princess reminisced, bringing forth memories and giggles.
“In your laughter, once again I hear my Nicky, your dear father. But you have the beauty of your mother, Alexandra, Empress of all Russia.”
The music box watched as a tiara was put atop its owner’s head.
She was radiant. As she deserved to be.
Royalty once more.
It took a week, but a ball was organized, attended by those that remained of Imperial Russia. They were invited from all around Europe, coming out of hiding. The princess was dressed in the most beautiful gown. But the music box wouldn’t see it until much later; for that day, it observed as a grateful grandmother offered a sad young man a million rubles.
He refused all of it.
The music box wasn’t surprised in the slightest. But the Dowager Empress was.
“Young man… where did you find that music box?”
She crossed the room and circled around him. Eyes wide with memories.
Finally, she recognized him.
“You were the boy, weren’t you? The servant boy who got us out. You saved her life and mine. Then you restored her to me. Yet you want no reward?”
“Not anymore.”
“Why the change of mind?”
The music box knew why.
Of course it knew.
“It was more a change of heart.”
The young man left. Leaving the music box behind.
It waited. If days were nothing to the music box, hours went by like seconds. The ball started with its grand music, luxurious decor and graceful dancing. Yet that night, the princess’ mind was filled with thoughts of a young man with brown eyes.
And her Grandmama knew. The music box also knew, currently located in the old woman’s pocket. The wrong pocket, of course, but the pocket of a woman it shared a lot with nonetheless. That old woman had been the one who had had it made in the first place, after all. The Empress Dowager and the music box were made of the same treasured matter.
“I found out what I was looking for,” stubbornly said the princess when questioned. “I found out who I am. I found you.”
“Yes, you did find me, and you’ll always have me. But is it enough?”
It wasn’t.
No, it wasn’t.
And in the dark of the night, an old enemy stalked the bridges of Paris. Thankfully, he was defeated - getting what he deserved for what he did to the young man, to the princess’ family and to her, too. The cursed sorcerer didn’t take the music box owner’s life. Instead, she destroyed him. Once and for all.
The princess returned to Sophie’s house with the young man and her dog. To leave the crown and a message, and to take her key and a music box.
Dear Grandmama,
Wish me luck. We’ll be together in Paris again soon. À bientôt!
The music box was slipped into the princess’ ballgown, dirtied and torn. Yet beautiful all the same. Yes, it returned to her pocket. Its rightful place.
That night, the Grand Duchess - first a lost, then a found princess - eloped with the servant boy. And as they kissed on a boat sailing along the Seine, the music box knew the entire world was open to them.
And yet, somehow, someway, the music box also knew it would always return to Paris. Whenever it existed, in any universe, in any tale, it would always return. Together in Paris.
It wasn’t a perfect ending, no. The music box knew that, too.
It was a perfect beginning.