Holiday at Mayfair
Carrie Horlbeck winced as she walked down First Street to school. Her shoes were too tight and pinched her feet. The clothes she wore—pants, shirt and coat—had all belonged to someone else before her and were donated to charity when their owners no longer wanted them. Unfortunately, there had been no shoes in her size.
It was December and cities and towns across America were gearing up for the holidays. Their main streets were festooned with colored lights and decorated trees. There were men dressed as Santa Claus standing on street corners, collecting money for the poor. By the twenty-third of the month, the anticipation reached a crescendo. Letters had already been written and mailed to Santa, only one window remained unopened on the advent calendars and children were on tenterhooks awaiting the annual visit from St. Nicholas.
Collier City was an exception to the rule. Once, this city on the border of West Virginia and Pennsylvania was a thriving community. As the name collier suggests, coal mining was the source of the town's wealth. The miners themselves lived in modest homes and small cabins scattered throughout the surrounding mountains while the owners and upper management lived in fine houses in a wealthy area referred to as "on the hill."
After the mine shut down, however, Collier City began to decay. Most of the miners moved away, looking for jobs in other towns in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and even Ohio. It was the people on the hill who left first. It was easy enough for them to pack up and relocate; they had plenty of money to do so. Eventually, the population shrank from its peak of over eight thousand to its current one of just under nine hundred, and those people that remained were hanging on by the skin of their teeth, to use an old cliché.
At first, the closure of the coal mine did not greatly affect the Horlbecks. Less than a week after it shut down, Carrie's father found work in a nearby A&P. Her mother, who had once cleaned house for several of the families on the hill, became a waitress at the truck stop along the highway. When they said their goodbyes to their departing former coworkers and neighbors, they counted themselves lucky; they still had jobs and were able to pay their bills.
Then, in 2015, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, founded in 1859 and once the largest grocery retailer in the United States, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and either closed or sold off many of its stores. Judd Horlbeck found himself out of work again. Only this time, he had nowhere else to go. Thankfully, Hillary was still waitressing at the truck stop. Had it not been for her paycheck and tips, the family would have been in dire financial straits. Although Judd continued his fruitless search for steady, full-time employment, he was fortunate to get temporary work and do odd jobs in and around Wheeling to supplement his wife's income.
That December morning, Carrie was only a block away from school when she momentarily stopped walking to rest her aching feet. It was a blustery winter day, and she pulled her coat up around her neck. As she frequently did, she gazed up at the grand houses on the hill. Many of them had fallen into disrepair. One, however, the largest and most impressive of all—so large it had a name, Mayfair—had been carefully maintained over the years. Indeed, on more than one occasion, her father had been hired to make minor repairs there.
"I can't imagine why the owners go through the trouble," Hillary said one night when her husband returned home from cleaning up the front yard after a dead tree had been knocked down by a storm. "No one has lived there since the mine closed."
"Maybe they hope to sell it someday," Judd hypothesized.
"Who in their right mind would buy it? Collier City is dead, almost as dead as Centralia."
"What's Centralia?" Carrie asked.
"It was a coal mining town in Pennsylvania," her father explained. "Back in the 1960s, an abandoned mine caught fire and no one was able to put it out. Eventually, the government had to step in. They bought up the property and tore down the houses and businesses."
"What happened to the people?"
"All but four of them moved away."
"Like the people of Collier City?"
"Not exactly," her father replied with an amused smile. "The people in Centralia were in danger from the sinkholes and the gases coming up from the burning coal whereas the people here left when their jobs came to an end."
"But you lost your job, and we didn't move."
"We can't afford to. I'm sure you'll be able to better understand the situation when you get older. For now, you just worry about getting good grades in school. Hopefully, someday you'll be able to get a decent job and move out of Collier City."
If I ever get a good job, she reflected, continuing her walk to school, I want to buy one of the houses on the hill.
No sooner did the childish pipedream enter her head than she saw a large moving van pull into Mayfair's driveway. She watched anxiously as the rear door was opened and workmen began unloading boxes and carrying them into the house.
Is someone moving in? she wondered with envy. Lucky them! What I wouldn't give to live there!
* * *
Mrs. MacKelvie, one of only three teachers left in Collier City, taught kindergarten through fourth grade. The other two teachers shared responsibility for the children in fifth grade and above. Even before the mines closed, few students graduated. Many quit in the eighth and ninth grades. Since the closure, only one person from Collier City went off to attend college, never to return to his slowly dying hometown.
"All right, children, settle down," Mrs. MacKelvie said, raising her voice above the noisy students. "I have an important announcement to make."
Since the last important announcement, two months earlier, had concerned a case of headlice in the school, the students were understandably reluctant to hear it. But they obediently took their seats and waited quietly for their teacher to speak.
"As you all know, tomorrow is Christmas Eve."
Unlike most children in America, those in Collier City were not expecting to receive piles of gifts on Christmas morning. Not one of them would get an iPhone, an Xbox, a tablet or any other hi-tech device. There would be no LEGO sets, American Girl dolls, skateboards, Lionel train sets or remote-control cars. The children's presents would consist mostly of homemade clothing items and used toys purchased at the Good Will thrift store. Most families could not even afford a Christmas tree. Yet for some reason, Mrs. MacKelvie thought December 24 was a cause for great celebration.
"In honor of the holiday," she continued, "we're going to have a special field trip."
Field trip? Carrie wondered. In the cold weather?
"I don't think any of you are old enough to remember the Pangborn family who used to live up on the hill."
"I've heard Pa talk about someone called 'Old Gerald Pangborn,'" one of the boys in the class said. "He blames him for the mine closing and everyone being out of work."
"Well, some people do feel that way, I'm afraid. You see, the Pangborns owned the mines. Be that as it may, Miss Geraldine, Gerald Pangborn's daughter, wants to do something nice for the children of Collier City this Christmas. She's invited you all to see a performance of The Nutcracker ballet, which will be held at her house. Afterward, there will be a party, and Santa will have a gift for each of you!"
The announcement was received with a chorus of oohs and ahhs, more for the prospect of getting a present than seeing a ballet.
"So, tomorrow when you come to school, there will be a bus to take us all up to Mayfair."
Mayfair! Carrie thought. I'll finally get to see the inside.
Having made her announcement, Mrs. MacKelvie told the children to open their social studies textbooks, old and worn volumes that were printed when Ronald Reagan was in the White House. The school lacked the funds to buy new books, let alone computers for the students.
How can I think about Christopher Columbus now? the little girl wondered, staring down at an illustration of the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria embarking on their journey to the New World.
Somehow, she and her classmates got through not only the social studies lesson but also math, spelling, reading and science. After the three o'clock dismissal, Carrie hurried home, ignoring the cold and the pinch of her shoes. She only paused once along the way and that was to turn around and gaze up at the houses on the hill.
I'm actually going to Mayfair! I can't wait until tomorrow!
* * *
After a day of serving diners at the truck stop restaurant, Hillary came home and cooked for her family. Since Judd lost his job at the A&P, they had to rely on food stamps and handouts from the local food bank. Although they lived paycheck to paycheck, always fearing an unexpected bill would devastate them, they at least ate three meals a day.
Assuming her husband would be home late, Hillary fed Carrie at five o'clock.
"Where's Daddy?" the little girl asked.
"Working, I imagine. This close to Christmas there are a lot of stores, restaurants and delivery services looking for extra help."
At ten minutes past seven, Judd entered the house.
"I wasn't expecting you until much later," his wife said. "I'll go heat up your supper."
"I didn't drive to Wheeling after all," he explained. "I was working right here in Collier City the whole day."
"Doing what?"
"Setting things up for a big party to be held at Mayfair tomorrow. I expect Carrie will be one of the children Miss Geraldine invited to it."
"Yes, I am," his daughter cried, running into the kitchen, eager to hear about what her father had seen and done at Mayfair. "Mrs. MacKelvie said we're going to see a ballet called The Nutcracker, and that there will be a party afterward with Santa and presents!"
"The Pangborns moved away years ago," Hillary declared, suspicious of the woman's motives. "Why this sudden concern for the children of the families her father put out of work?"
"Apparently in Philadelphia, where she now lives, she's known for her charitable deeds. Every year, she hosts a Christmas party for underprivileged children. This year, I suppose she took that old saying about charity beginning at home to heart."
"She may have been born here, but Collier City is hardly her home! Even before she went off to that fancy school in New York, she and her snooty mother were always off traveling somewhere—London, Paris, Rome."
"Miss Geraldine was a youngster then. We can't hold it against her for what her family was like. I think it's damned nice of her to want to do something for the children of this town."
"I suppose so," his wife begrudgingly agreed.
Most of the families in Collier City felt the same way Hillary did. The name Pangborn was not a popular one when the mine was still open since the company paid low wages for life-threatening work. It became anathema when the mine closed and the family moved away. Still, parents were willing to swallow their pride and let bygones be bygones for the sake of their children.
No doubt Christmas will be much brighter up on the hill than it is down here below, Hillary thought as she looked with tear-filled eyes at the half-dead, two-foot-high Christmas tree decorated with only homemade paper snowflakes and a string of stale popcorn.
* * *
"I'm glad to see everyone is on time today," Mrs. MacKelvie declared when she walked into the classroom five minutes before the morning bell rang and saw all her students sitting at their desks. "And everyone looks so nice!"
Like her classmates, Carrie Horlbeck wore her best outfit: a pale pink dress with white eyelet trim. Normally, she wore it only to church on Sundays, but this was a special occasion, and it called for more formal attire than worn jeans and a sweatshirt. Boys and girls alike not only dressed up for the day, but they were also on their best behavior. There was none of the usual pushing or name-calling as they boarded the bus, no arguing on the drive up the hill and no rude comments about the Pangborn family when they stood in front of the enormous mansion pretentiously named Mayfair.
Carrie's eyes opened wide with wonder as she gazed upon the portico, its two-story-high white columns seeming to reach to the sky.
It's like a castle!
Moments later, Geraldine Pangborn walked through the towering front doors to greet her young guests. If Mayfair were truly a castle, she would be a fitting queen. Wearing a red velvet gown accented with a strand of cultured pearls and a diamond broach, she would have looked right at home at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle.
"Welcome to Mayfair. Won't you come inside?" she asked with a regal air that made her seem older than her years.
The children approached the building with some trepidation. For most of their lives, they had heard tales about the houses on the hill. One of the more bizarre stories was that the homes were haunted by the spirits of dead miners from the Great Cave-in of 1936, the worst tragedy ever to hit Collier City.
Upon crossing the threshold, however, Carrie and her peers were dazzled by the holiday décor. The banisters were covered with pine garland and red bows, and lighted wreaths were hanging on the walls. Just beyond the foyer, the doors were open to the grand ballroom, at the far end of which a wooden stage had been constructed for the ballet. Flanking the stage, there were two nine-foot-tall Christmas trees, draped with red and green garland and laden with delicate glass ornaments.
"Please take your seats," Miss Geraldine requested, once the children were all inside. "The ballet is about to begin."
Carrie quickly found an empty spot on one of the front benches. Moments later, the chandeliers above the audience were dimmed and spotlights were shined upon the stage. For the next two hours, she was engrossed by the tale of young Clara Stahlbaum and the nutcracker given to her by Godfather Drosselmeyer, the toymaker, one Christmas Eve. Everything about the production was magical: the sets, the dancers, the costumes and Tchaikovsky's immortal music. Upon hearing "Waltz of the Flowers" and "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy," she wanted to get up from the bench, stand on her tippy toes and twirl about Mayfair's ballroom in her pale pink dress. But she wisely remained in her seat, tapping her foot to the music instead.
Eventually, like Dorothy and Toto returning to Kansas from Oz, Clara woke up in her bed on Christmas morning, having visited the Land of Sweets with the Nutcracker Prince the previous night. After taking their bows to the children's applause, the dancers left the stage, and Miss Geraldine took their place.
"I hope you enjoyed that wonderful performance," she said, to which the assembled children cheered their approval. "Now, let us all enjoy a holiday meal together."
Doors were opened to a formal dining room, nearly as large as the ballroom. In addition to a massive table for the teachers, the hostess and the dancers, there were a dozen smaller ones set up for the students—all covered with red and green linen tablecloths. At each place setting were porcelain dishes decorated with holly, stem glassware with a matching pattern, real silverware (not stainless steel) and white linen napkins. For the children, a Christmas cracker had been placed on each empty plate.
"The crackers are not for decoration. You can open them up," Miss Geraldine explained, demonstrating how it was done since none of the children had ever seen one before.
Once the crackers were opened and the children were all wearing the paper crowns from inside them, their hostess gave the signal for the meal to be served. It was more food in one place than any of the youngsters had ever seen: roast turkey, sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes, honeyed carrots, cranberry sauce and buttered biscuits.
"I feel like my stomach is going to burst," one of the third-grade boys laughed after having cleaned his plate.
Carrie was happy she had not stuffed herself when she saw the desserts being wheeled in on tea carts. It was a selection that would meet the approval of the Sugar Plum Fairy herself: pumpkin pies, apple turnovers, ice cream sundaes, strawberry shortcakes and, Carrie's favorite, a chocolate-frosted Yule log with meringue mushrooms.
This is the best day of my life! she thought, licking the chocolate ganache from her fingers. If I live to be a hundred years old, I'll never forget it!
"Has everyone had enough to eat?" Miss Geraldine inquired, receiving an immediate affirmative response to her question. "Good. Now, let's return to the ballroom where Santa has gifts for all of you."
The benches had been removed, and a throne-like chair was placed in the middle of the room. A man dressed in a red velvet, fur-trimmed suit and hat sat upon it. Beside him were several large burlap sacks filled with wrapped presents. As the children encircled him, he reached inside the nearest bag, pulled out a package and read the name on the tag.
"Elmo Sparks."
Red-haired and freckled Elmo ran up and took the package, remembering to thank St. Nick for his generosity.
One by one, the names were called and the children received their gifts. Ribbons and bows were quickly torn off the packages and the wrapping paper was tossed aside. There were no used toys beneath the holiday trappings. Everything was brand new, from Tonka trucks and baseball gloves for boys to baby dolls and Disney princess dress-up costumes for girls. Toys of all kinds were given: sports equipment, board games, action figures, arts and crafts kits, puzzles and roller skates.
Santa was down to his last bag when he announced Carrie Horlbeck's name. The little girl ran forward, and he handed her a long, narrow box.
It's too big to be a Barbie, she thought as she pulled off the snowman-themed wrapping paper. Maybe it's one of those fake American Girl dolls they sell at Target in Triadelphia.
But it was not a doll at all. It was a nutcracker, just like the one Clara had received from Godfather Drosselmeyer in the ballet. Tears came to Carrie's eyes. It was, without a doubt, the best gift she had ever received.
Once all the presents had been distributed, Santa wished everyone a Merry Christmas and left Mayfair, allegedly to return to the North Pole where he would make final preparations for his annual flight later that evening. The children were given one last treat before the festivities came to an end: homemade cookies and cups of hot cocoa with marshmallows as they gathered together to sing carols. Finally, the day came to an end. Mrs. MacKelvie and her two fellow teachers rounded up their students and led them to the buses.
After a short ride down the hill to the school, the children were dismissed.
"I hope everyone has a good Christmas," the teacher called, eager to get home and begin preparations for her family's holiday meal. "See you all back here in January."
The students quickly dispersed, running home to play with their new toys. Despite the below-freezing temperature and her tight shoes, Carrie was euphoric; she could not wait to show her parents what Santa had given her. Halfway home, however, as she replayed the day's events in her mind, she had the uncontrollable urge to take the nutcracker out of its box and look at it again. When she did, she dropped him on the ground, and his right arm came off.
Hillary could hear her daughter crying even before she entered the house.
"What's wrong? Do your shoes hurt that much?"
"I broke him!" she cried, showing her mother the damaged nutcracker.
"He's not broken; he's only wounded. I'm sure your father can fix him."
Carrie waited by the window, keeping watch for Judd. When she saw him returning from yet another temporary job, she ran to the door to meet him.
"A little glue and he'll be as good as new," he promised once he examined the broken arm.
After dinner, he found a container of Elmer's wood glue in the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink. He glued the arm to the body and held it in place for several minutes.
"Now, you put him someplace safe where the glue can dry overnight, and tomorrow he'll be just like new."
Fashioning a makeshift cot from the nutcracker's empty cardboard box and one of her mother's dish towels, Carrie placed the wounded wooden soldier beside the diminutive Christmas tree to recuperate overnight.
"You have a good night's sleep," she told him before going upstairs to bed. "I'll come to visit you first thing in the morning."
* * *
Many children find it exceedingly difficult to fall asleep on Christmas Eve. Anticipation of what awaits them the following morning keeps them up. This was not the case for Carrie Horlbeck. For her, Christmas Day would pale in comparison to her wondrous trip to Mayfair. No sooner was her head cushioned by her pillow than she drifted off to sleep.
At midnight, the bells from St. Michael's Church rang out. Carrie's eyes fluttered open, but it was not the sound of church bells that woke her. It was the sound of tiny, scurrying feet on her bare floor. A small mouse had taken up residence in the Horlbecks' house, and he bravely snuck out of the wall at night in search of food. However, half-asleep and confusing reality with events in The Nutcracker, the little girl imagined it was the Mouse King come for the Nutcracker Prince.
"I have to save him!"
She got up from her bed and raced toward the stairs. Halfway down, she caught her foot on a ripped tread and tumbled down, hitting her head on the banister as she fell. When her eyes opened several minutes later, the first thing Carrie noticed was the Christmas tree. What had once been little more than a branch was now a towering pine. Its limbs, draped with red and green garland and laden with delicate glass ornaments, pressed against the ceiling and walls of the Horlbeck's living room. Defying both logic and science, the room grew in size to accommodate it.
Am I seeing double? she wondered. There are two trees, not one.
Then her addled mind began to clear.
This isn't my home. I'm in Mayfair, but how did I get here?
The nutcracker was still beneath one of the trees. He had grown in size as well. He was now slightly taller than Carrie herself. As the little girl looked on with astonishment, his painted wooden face began to move as though he were human.
"You ... you're alive!" she cried as he got up from his makeshift bed.
"Yes. I was once a prince, but the Mouse King cast a spell on me and turned me into a nutcracker."
"Just like in the ballet."
A scurrying sound came from inside the walls. It was much louder than it had been in the Horlbeck's house. It sounded as though there were dozens, possibly hundreds, of rats scampering behind the sheetrock.
"Hurry! We've got to get out of here," the nutcracker warned. "If they come through that wall, I won't be able to fight them all off. Especially not with this injured arm."
"I'm sorry for that. I didn't mean to drop you."
"Apologies can wait. We've got to get to safety."
The nutcracker grabbed Carrie's hand and led her down to the cellar. It was a dark, dank cavern of a room that ran the width and breadth of the immense house. A half dozen sixty-watt overhead bulbs were the only source of illumination, and the impenetrable shadows they created around the perimeter frightened her.
"This isn't at all like The Nutcracker," she realized. "There are no dancing flowers or snowflakes; no Mother Ginger, Sugar Plum Fairy, Columbine or Harlequin. Where are the sweets? The hot cocoa, the marzipan, the candy canes?"
"We should be safe here," the nutcracker said. "At least until I can find a way out of the house."
Carrie was about to suggest they make their way down the hill to her home when something brushed past her leg. She jumped and looked down. A dust ball, grown to the size of a basketball, rolled across the floor. Soon others joined it, and they were all headed toward her and the nutcracker, as though an invisible bowler were deliberating trying to knock them down like pins.
"Quick, get behind me!" the nutcracker ordered as he bravely fought off the dust balls with his sword.
"If only my mother was here with her vacuum cleaner!"
"You don't have a mother."
"But I do. She gave me a dish towel to make a bed for you. And I have a father, too. He's the one who glued your broken arm."
"Carrie Horlbeck may have had those things, but she doesn't exist anymore. Everything you once knew is gone: your family, your parents' house, your school, Mrs. MacKelvie, all the other homes on the hill, Collier City, the abandoned mines—all gone."
"What's left then?"
"You, me, Mayfair, these dust balls and, of course, the rats in the wall."
When the last of the dust balls were beaten back, another creature that populated their bizarre new world appeared, one much more frightening. Although there was no music from Tchaikovsky to accompany them, the spiders moved with the grace of ballet dancers. Grown to the size of German shepherds, they emerged from what had once been a coal bin, their eight legs carrying them across the cellar floor with remarkable speed.
Carrie screamed with fear. She and the Nutcracker Prince were surrounded. How could one soldier, no matter how brave he was, fight off so many arachnids?
Suddenly, one spindly spider leg reached out and knocked the sword from the nutcracker's hand.
I always wanted to live in Mayfair, but I never dreamed I would die here! the little girl thought with despair.
The spiders seemed to sense her fear and moved closer.
"Please don't eat us!" the terrified child cried aloud.
"Silly little girl. We're not going to eat you," the largest, ugliest spider claimed. "We're going to paralyze the two of you with our venom, wrap you in our webs and then slowly drink your blood."
Carrie shuddered with revulsion when the first sticky strand of silk touched her arm.
"That's enough!" a forceful voice shouted.
The Mouse King, although wearing a crown and royal robe, looked as menacing as the most disease-infested rat that ever crawled out of a city sewer. Even the spiders were frightened by him.
"Leave them be. They are mine."
Despite their superior numbers, the spiders obeyed. At the Mouse King's command, their eight legs carried them back to the shadows from which they had come.
"It's me you want," the Nutcracker Prince said. "Let the girl go."
"I'll make a bargain with you," the Mouse King hissed. "The two of us will duel. If you win, she will go free. If I win, she will live here with me as the Mouse Queen."
Although she had so often wished to take up residence in Mayfair, Carrie always envisioned her parents being there as well. Queen or no queen, she had no desire to live inside a wall with the loathsome Mouse King.
Dorothy Gale returned to Kansas at the end of The Wizard of Oz, and Clara Stahlbaum woke up in her own bed in the final act of The Nutcracker. Perhaps there was a way Carrie's tale could have a happy ending, too.
Dorothy used the ruby slippers, she recalled, her mind desperately trying to devise a plan to escape her captivity. And Clara threw her slipper at the Mouse King and saved the Nutcracker Prince.
She looked down at her bare feet in anguish. She had no footwear to save the day.
The Mouse King magnanimously allowed the Nutcracker Prince to retrieve his sword. Once the stalwart soldier had the weapon in hand, the duel commenced. Metal clashed with metal as the combatants parried and thrusted. Despite the clanging sound, Carrie could hear footsteps. The Mouse King's army of marauding rats was approaching. If the Nutcracker Prince was the victor of the duel, would the Mouse King's minions abide by their leader's terms and set her free? She doubted it.
No matter the outcome of this fight, I'm doomed! she concluded pessimistically.
His arm weak from having been broken off, the Nutcracker Prince was losing ground to his enemy. Perspiration beaded up on his brow as he tried to ignore the pain that tore at his body.
"Run, Clara!" he said through gritted teeth. "Save yourself."
"I won't leave you!"
Once again, the sword fell from the Nutcracker Prince's hand. The triumphant Mouse King was about to deliver the coup de grâce when he felt the ground literally move beneath him. His beady rat eyes widened in dread as the cellar floor split open and revenants began to seep up through the cracks.
The ghosts, human in form, wore protective helmets with battery-operated lanterns, which identified them as miners.
They must be the spirits of those men who died in the Great Cave-in of 1936, the frightened child theorized. People have always claimed they haunted Mayfair, the home of the man many blamed for the tragic accident.
Those long-dead men, their pale faces blackened with coal dust, considered Carrie Horlbeck, whose parents both came from a long line of coal miners, one of their own. Thus, they saw it as their duty to protect her. With fierce swings of their shovels and pickaxes, they scattered the rats, who slunk back into the walls, abandoning their leader to his fate. When one of the ghostly miners raised his axe to strike down the Mouse King, the little girl turned her head and closed her eyes. It was a sight she did not want to see.
* * *
The sound was deafening, loud enough to wake everyone in Collier City from their slumber.
"What was that?" Judd asked.
"I don't know. I hope Carrie is all right," Hillary said, getting up from her bed and running into her daughter's bedroom. "She's not there!"
Her husband quickly joined in the search.
"Carrie!" he cried when he found his child lying at the base of the staircase.
"Daddy?" she replied, regaining consciousness.
"Did you fall? Are you hurt?"
"I'm back home!" she declared, smiling with joy.
"You've got a bump on your head," Hillary observed, fussing over her daughter.
"I'm okay. Really."
"You're lucky you didn't break your neck."
"I might have been killed by the dust balls, but the Nutcracker Prince saved me. And then the spiders threatened us, but the Mouse King sent them away. Finally, an army of rats threatened to attack, but the spirits of the miners from the Great Cave-in of 1936 appeared, and they ran away."
"You were having a nightmare," her mother told her.
"No. It was real. I was in Mayfair with the Nutcracker Prince, and we were trying to find a way out."
"That must have been some bump on the head!" Judd exclaimed. "And after all the excitement you had at Mayfair today, no wonder ...."
The sound of shouts outside in the street interrupted him.
"What's going on?" Hillary asked, seeing their neighbors leaving their homes and running out into the street.
"You two stay here," her husband said, putting on his heavy coat and shoes. "I'll go find out."
He returned to the house twenty minutes later.
"It's gone!" he announced with a mixture of confusion and disbelief.
"What's gone?" his wife asked.
"Mayfair."
"What do you mean it's gone?"
"It must have been an earthquake or something. The ground opened, and the whole house fell in."
"That's ridiculous!" Hillary exclaimed, not willing to believe such an impossible story.
"I spoke to Oleg Switzer. He went up the hill and saw it for himself. The house is gone. There was nothing left but a horde of rats fleeing for their lives."
"It was the miners," Carrie said. "When they came up out of the ground to save me, they must have caused the ground to collapse."
Hillary, who was not one to waste time in foolish conjecture, suggested they all go back to bed.
"Thank heavens tomorrow is Christmas. No one has to work or go to school, so we can sleep late in the morning."
Before following her parents upstairs, the little girl looked beneath the two-foot-high Christmas tree with the handmade paper snowflakes and string of popcorn. The makeshift cot fashioned from a cardboard box and dish towel was empty; its injured occupant was gone. Carrie would not bother to look for him; she instinctively knew where he was. The Nutcracker Prince was buried beneath several tons of rubble that had once been Mayfair. His courageous spirit, she had no doubt, now kept company with the souls of the miners who died in the Great Cave-in of 1936.
Note: Different productions of The Nutcracker use different names for the characters (i.e., Mouse King versus Rat King; Clara versus Marie).
Salem once changed himself into the Nutcracker Prince so that he could chase the Mouse King. However, he became distracted by all the dancing sweets.
