Work Text:
Viktor's first Christmas Eve memory was of floating candles.
Or rather, that's how it had appeared to his five-year-old mind. A collection of evenly spaced tapers, each one surrounded by a spectral halo of gold, balanced delicately on the fringed tips of a Norway spruce and seemingly held aloft by nothing other than Christmas magic. The tree featured other adornments too: sparkling sugar ornaments crafted from ornate tin molds, strings of popcorn and hazelnuts, and imported glass baubles scattered sparsely amongst the many branches. But in this particular moment, one forever crystallized in his memory, the glittering candles left the greatest impression.
Curled up beneath the piano bench, his child self fought to retain his focus with drooping, leaden eyelids. Muffled Christmas music drifted dreamily from the hallway, seeping under the doors of the unlit music room. The band was playing a particular hymn he enjoyed, but it was barely recognizable from the distance between his hiding spot and the ballroom. I'm not hiding, he recalled assuring himself. I'm the oldest, I shouldn't be hiding. And yet, this brief reprieve from the clamor and crowds served as a balm for his overburdened mind. His unease dissolved into the ether here, receding into a form almost undetectable. In its wake, the gleaming candles flooded him with a cheery sort of comfort.
He observed the movement of the flames and savored the quiet. They glowed with a steady burn until an erratic, wild flicker overtook them, only to settle once again.
The heavy double doors of the music room creaked open. He'd anticipated that a staff member would be sent to fetch him at some point.
"Viktor, dear, are you in here?" he heard someone call into the darkness. He jerked upright at the sound of his mother's voice. With her never-ending social obligations, he was surprised she hadn't sent a maid or butler to find him in her stead.
"Mother!" he bleated timidly from his location behind the piano. There was no point in hiding from her any further. If she'd come looking for him herself, she would not rest until she returned to the ball with him in tow.
The impatient clack-clack-clack of his mother's heels reverberated across the tile, and Viktor braced himself. When she arrived at the piano, she knelt and peered under the bench.
"Why are you here, son?" Her voice lacked the sharpness he'd feared. In fact, she seemed more intrigued than annoyed.
"I wanted to see the tree," he explained weakly. In reality, he had fled from the incessant commotion and hordes of revelers. Too loud, too close, too many people. The staff had been of little help; they guarded the sweets table with impassive faces to ensure guests remained a priority and tracked his location to certify his compliance.
"Viktor, honey, there are trees in the ballroom you can look at. We must return; people are looking for you."
"Nobody is looking for me," he insisted. He felt hot tears begin to collect in the corners of his eyes, blurring the candles into smears of glowing orbs.
"I was looking for you," his mother answered. She paused a moment, then set a hand on the top of his head. "You shouldn't be hiding, Viktor. You're the eldest. You should be celebrating with the rest of us. The tree will still be up tomorrow."
"I like the dark." He sniffled.
His mother then did something he hadn't expected: she sat down on the floor beside him. "Come," she offered, her arms outstretched. "Let me dry off your face, and then we will return."
Viktor swallowed his discomfort, knowing it would likely be futile to resist. He shuffled out from beneath the bench. His mother pulled him into her arms and began adjusting his unruly hair and dabbing his puffy eyes with her sleeves.
"We are nobles," she said. "We don't have the luxury of privacy. But I do have something that may help." Viktor peered at her with wide, inquisitive eyes. "My mother used to hum this song for me. A specific Christmas tune, one passed down through our family. She never told me where it came from or who composed it, but I do recall it bringing me comfort."
She held him to her chest, and her song vibrated against his ear. She was correct—it was a uniquely soothing melody, one that reminded him of other Christmas songs but also possessed an oddly intimate tone. Something between a lullaby and a carol.
He felt his body relax over time, his tears eventually subsiding. Once calm, his mother stood him up, adjusted his clothing, and led him by the hand from his quiet den back into the bright and cacophonous ballroom. Viktor glanced back at the tree as the doors shut behind them. The delicate, twinkling candles were left to softly illuminate an empty room once more.
"Prepare yourself, Brother. This last round will seal your fate."
Viktor fanned out his cards and angled them carefully away from his brother's prying eyes. He watched nervously as Walter's hand hovered above them, passing back and forth between the two remaining cards.
Walter chose one and pulled. Queen of diamonds. The two let out a cheer and a groan simultaneously.
"Old Maid, you lose!" Walter shouted with malignant triumph, throwing the pair of queens on the table. Viktor tossed the leftover joker card on top of the pile.
"Sticking me with the joker is particularly cruel."
"How so, Dearest Brother?" came an imperious, high-pitched voice to his side. Viola leaned forward, studying her brother's face with a put-upon detachment. "Tired of being a joker? Would you rather be the Old Maid?"
"Have the Old Maid," he groused at his sister. "I didn't say I was the Old Maid."
Alice entered the room with three champagne flutes in hand. "If anyone should be the Old Maid, it's me," she jested. She passed two flutes to the men but hesitated in front of Viola and eyed her husband with an unspoken question.
"You are not an Old Maid, and I will hear nothing of it," Viktor insisted, accepting the glass from his wife.
"Well, until recently I was a maid," his wife countered. "I suppose I'm 'old' in that sense."
Viola made a grab for the final glass, and both brothers shot her a disapproving glare.
"Absolutely not," they reprimanded in tandem.
"Come on," Viola whined. "Just for a toast. It's Christmas Eve and Mother's not here."
"Viola, no," Walter barked. "You're sixteen. Maybe when you're—"
"It's entirely unfair, Brother, that you think you can dictate my—"
Viktor weakly cleared his throat. "Ah, I lost. Didn't we say I had to do whatever you wanted, Walter?"
Walter's eyes gleamed with a predatory interest. "Yes, we did. Now to decide what your punishment will be…" Judging by his calculating smile, the concept was bringing him entirely too much pleasure.
"Oh, I know! The piano!" Viola suggested. Alice had removed Viola's glass and transported it back across the room without her noticing. "Have him play a Christmas song!"
Walter, who very clearly had not thought through exactly what he'd planned to force his brother to do, nodded in reluctant agreement. "That's fine. I will be the head of the household, after all. It's good to practice magnanimity."
Viktor rolled his eyes dramatically. Alice returned to his side, stifling a laugh. He stood to deliver her a peck on the cheek, then motioned the group to follow him to his study.
A fire had been kept blazing and left the modest study snug, warm, and hospitable. Though the private room generally remained vacant of visitors, the couple had still taken care to embellish every corner of their new flat with festive details. Holly and evergreen boughs bedecked the doorways and windowsills. An array of Christmas cards sat atop the coffee table, the more elaborate of which were propped on the mantle above the fireplace. Viktor seated himself at his upright piano, adorned solely with a single three-arm candelabra, while his siblings flanked him on either side. He lifted the fallboard and stretched his fingers in preparation.
"If we were at the villa still, I could play this on the grand."
"This piano has a warmer tone. More intimate," Alice said as she entered the room. She handed a different glass to Viola, something with a slight pinkish hue. Viktor couldn't quite place what she'd poured, but the thought was purged from his mind with Viola's sudden exclamation.
"Something festive!" his sister commanded. "A carol. I don't care which one, just don't pick anything sullen or gloomy."
"I don't—" Viktor shot back, but he decided to let it go. He racked his brain for options. "How about this?"
He placed his fingers purposefully on the keys and began. With no sheet music at his disposal, he'd clearly chosen a song that had been committed to memory. Tender and nostalgic—it had a vague holiday feel to it, but was more soothing than the average carol. It instantly enshrouded all three siblings in a nearly palpable blanket of nostalgia, and they grinned at each other (Walter, even!), faces alight with recognition.
"That's Mother's song!" Viola exclaimed. "When did you learn to play that?" She took a sip of her drink, and her eyes widened in Alice's direction. Alice winked and placed a single extended forefinger in front of her lips. The two shared silent smirks.
Viktor nodded with a smile, then repeated the simple tune. "I've had bits of it committed to memory for the longest time, but I've never worked on transcribing it until this year. Something about having the curse removed…it seems to have uncovered some of my older memories."
"It sounds accurate to me," Walter said. "Though it's been some time since Mother sang it to us."
"Hummed it, more like," Viola said. "I don't think it ever had words." She took another sip, digesting an idea. "I'd like some sheet music for it. I'm guessing it will be easy to adapt to the violin."
"Ah, me too!" Walter cut in enthusiastically, then dropped his voice to a more measured tone. "I mean, since you're going through the trouble anyway."
The three traded past childhood memories and shared humorous asides as Viktor repeated the tune several more times. Alice brought her husband a blank sheet of manuscript paper from his desk, and he began to work on transcribing the song, accepting corrections from the rest of the room. By the time the clock struck midnight, all three siblings held copies of the completed song in their possession.
"Viktor, sweetheart, can you help me? Please? Twenty minutes. Just to regain my sanity."
Viktor looked up to meet his wife's utterly fatigued expression with his own slightly less bedraggled one. "Of course." He set down his novel and rose from the parlor sofa. "Bring her here."
"She's fed, but she still won't stop." Alice's wavering voice strained to reach him over the sound of his daughter's wails. She shifted the newborn to flop across the rag draped over her shoulder and patted her gently, then with increasing gusto. An indiscreet burp, a wet gurgle, and the baby paused a moment before returning to her crying.
"You're falling asleep on your feet, Alice," Viktor noted as he received his daughter. "Take more than twenty minutes."
Her tired eyes sparkled with renewed energy. "A nap?"
He chuckled. "Merry Christmas, love." His wife nearly melted on the spot.
As Alice headed to their bedroom, Viktor began searching for the best way to appease the squealing bundle of discontentment. A trip to their Christmas tree, all trimmed and festive with candles and sweets, did little to mollify her. He returned to his seat and laid his daughter across his lap to look her over for possible hidden ailments. Her tiny fists curled readily around his extended finger. He pedaled her plump little legs, rubbed and prodded her stomach, and checked her feet for a possible unseen hair wrapped around a toe.
All appeared normal. The truth was, sometimes a crying spell was simply a crying spell.
"I might as well accompany your Christmas Eve caroling," he announced to the empty room. His own deranged laugh indicated he would likely benefit from more sleep as well. His irrational humor, however, did nothing to abate his daughter's fury.
Viktor lifted her body and tucked her carefully underneath his cardigan (she's far too small for a human, he thought) and rose to retrieve the burgundy wool scarf his wife had knitted him years ago. He walked her to his study, wrapping the scarf around himself and tying it securely to hold her in place against his chest, making sure to support her fragile neck. She continued to screech, but the steady warmth of his body and compression from his sweater began to still her movement.
His hands braced her tiny form as he lowered himself to his piano bench. "Now that I've got my hands free, Madeline, what will it be? Bach? Brahms? Tchaikovsky wrote that new Christmas ballet…" The caterwauling continued, the baby offering no indication of her preferences. Luckily, a handwritten page of music was already waiting for them on the piano's music desk. "Well, seeing as how it's Christmas Eve, let's start with this."
Viktor brought his hands to the keys, reflexively warming up with a few scales, then diving into the same Christmas ballad his mother had hummed to him all those years ago. The first pass through was somewhat rough, with the particulars of the piece escaping his memory, but they returned to him readily enough. Each additional round came out clearer and easier than the one before it.
His daughter gradually began to settle. He added a rocking, weaving movement with his upper body, and the combination seemed to be even more effective.
"Your mother has a much prettier voice than I do," he bantered aloud. "I'll leave the singing to her, the piano to me." Madeline responded with a series of snuffling snorts, somewhat like a hedgehog resisting its own progressive relaxation.
Several rounds in, Viktor began growing weary of playing the same piece over and over, but its effectiveness could not be disputed, and he soldiered on. Sniffles turned into peeps, which evolved into yawns, and by his sixteenth rendition his daughter's indelicate little snores caught his attention.
"You and your mother both," he said affectionately, gently stroking the back of her head. She appeared thoroughly good and passed out, so he held her carefully in place as he reentered the parlor to lie on the sofa.
Alice returned some forty minutes later to find her husband stuck in place, not daring to move.
"Has she been sleeping on you this entire time?" He nodded, pleased (and perhaps a touch envious) to see his wife's bleary eyes, still clouded with sleep. "What did the trick?"
"My mother's old song," he whispered. Alice gingerly accepted the bundle and left to place her in her crib. Viktor opened his arms at her return, and she draped her body across his own, her head resting just below his collarbone.
"The one you transcribed for your siblings?"
"Yes," he said, stroking her hair. "Apparently its calming effects are generational."
"I'm surprised you didn't fall asleep yourself with how little rest you've been getting." Alice snuggled her face into his chest, closing her eyes. "Not a very thrilling Christmas Eve, hmm?"
Viktor covered a yawn with the back of his hand. "There's no other way I'd rather celebrate it."
He continued to hold his wife as she took up the carol, this time as a melodic hum. Viktor focused his gaze on the merrily flickering candles bedighting the tree until his eyelids began to close. When the two of them awoke hours later, well into Christmas morning, neither could remember who had fallen asleep first. Viktor admitted he was likely the culprit, as his last memory was of drifting off to his wife's mellow, comforting tune.