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“Do you remember what I asked you before?” Zubar asked, looking intensely at me.

I frowned, trying to remember. I had heard whispers in my dreams, things I didn’t want to mention to my psychiatrist because I didn’t trust the man. Soft questions, from a deep voice, almost gravelly. Questions I didn’t remember when I woke up, but I had known they were important. Hazy images of snow, of a fairy-tale land no one else believed in when I told them about it. But I had also learned that if I told the man who was supposed to help me about anything strange or magical, he would drug me to the gills so I couldn’t hear the voice anymore. And as confusing as those dreams had been, I had wanted to keep hearing the questions. I knew someday they would make sense to me. And this might be the day it happened.

“No,” I said reluctantly. “I know I should, but… I don’t remember a lot of my life before I was eighteen.”

Zubar looked at me, his eyes flat and hard. “I should have known,” he growled. “You would not have stayed away otherwise.”

I stared at him, confused, and wondered why I wasn’t doing the sensible thing and going back to bed. This was crazy, the whole thing, and I wondered if I was having some sort of breakdown because of being here after so long. But I didn’t want to do the sensible thing, the smart thing. I wanted to be crazy, like Rik called me, and take a leap into the unknown and stop playing safe.

“What was the question?” I prompted. “You’re being a jerk if you’re not going to ask it now, since you mentioned it.”

Zubar hesitated and then smiled. “The question is and was, do you want to go with me?”

“With you where?” I asked slowly, wondering why butterflies had suddenly taken up residence in my stomach.

“You don’t even remember that?” Zubar asked softly, moving closer.

He was close enough to reach out and hug me, but letting me have the option of moving away if I wanted. I was tempted to move closer to him just by the heat he was throwing off. It would be cock teasing, in a way, and I had been accused of that enough that I didn’t want to do it to this man. Zubar was a man and not a doll—not if he felt this warm. What had happened? How did a two-foot-tall figurine turn into a six-foot-plus man? But not a handsome prince, as if this were a fairy tale.

Zubar could still be considered ugly by many. His jaw was oversized and heavy, with a neat curly beard. His skin was dark, the color of mahogany, but his eyes were the deepest green I had ever seen. Zubar was also heavily built, his body wide and muscular, balancing his wide face. The clothing hadn’t changed from what the nutcracker had been wearing, and I wondered why he wasn’t cold with his open jacket and bare chest. Not a hint of body hair could I see on those nummy abs. And it was as bright as daylight out here even without a light source, not even the moon. Was this more of the weird magic that seemed to inhabit this place?

“There was a car accident with my parents,” I told him. “It wasn’t some grand scheme or anything.”

“That you know of,” Zubar said grimly. “Come with me and you will be safe.”

I hesitated. “I have a life,” I pointed out to him. “I can’t just run away with you.”

“If I promise you can return if you wish?” Zubar asked me, raking my form with his eyes.

“I….”

“You are cold,” Zubar said brusquely. “You’ve been in battle and are tired. I know that now isn’t the time to make these decisions.” Zubar’s voice softened and held a coaxing note. “I can promise you warmth and good cheer. A celebration for the battle you have won.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I protested. “In fact, I had to be rescued by one of the dolls.”

Zubar smiled. “You must point out the lady later, so I may properly reward her.”

I nodded, wondering how he was going to do that. I doubted she was going to end up where we were going.

“I can come back?” I asked.

I was leaving with a man who had just killed another sentient being in front of me. Granted, the Mouse King had been trying to kill me, and Zubar had been saving me from him, but he had been very skilled at shoving a sword through the king’s body. I should have been frightened, but I was just thankful he had been there to protect me.

“Of course,” Zubar assured me.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” I explained, feeling very guilty I had even asked the question. “But I don’t want Uncle Yvo to worry.”

“Yvo, not your brother?” Zubar asked curiously.

I nodded, feeling strange and somewhat guilty that I didn’t care about Rik worrying. The man had taken care of me since I was eighteen, but I had always felt I was more of a burden than a brother to Rik. Uncle Yvo, had worried and cared about me. This Christmas invitation hadn’t come out of the blue—I had been writing letters to Yvo for almost a year now. His return letters had made me feel loved and wanted, arriving when I needed to hear from Yvo almost as if by magic.

“I swear to you, Yvo will know where you are,” Zubar said solemnly.

“He turned into a giant owl, so I’m a little worried about him,” I said.

I didn’t expect Zubar to throw back his head and laugh when I said that.

“Yvo is not one to worry about,” he assured me when he was done laughing. “The man is clever and can take care of himself.”

“And how do you know my uncle?” I asked suspiciously.

Zubar laughed again. “I can tell you of the many adventures we’ve had as we ride on my sleigh to my… a wonderful place I know you will enjoy.”

I wanted to scoff at either man having adventures, but I could tell Zubar wasn’t lying. This wasn’t a ploy to get me off someplace dangerous. While I didn’t have any reason to trust the former nutcracker, I doubted he was whisking me away to lock me in his sex dungeon, even though the thought did stir my almost nonexistent hormones. I hesitated and then did the only impulsive thing I had done in my life.

“I would be honored to go with you,” I told Zubar with a formal bow.

I
WAS
happy with my choice a couple of minutes later. Zubar had bundled me into the sleigh underneath incredibly soft and warm furs. I didn’t know what they had been before they had been turned into rugs, and I didn’t ask.

Zubar stood at the front of the sleigh and took the reins in his hands. He shouted a word or two in a language I didn’t think I had even heard before, and the reindeer trotted through the snow like the huge sleigh was made of paper instead of wood.

“I’m sorry we aren’t going to be able to talk,” Zubar said loudly as the vehicle picked up speed. “But there is no driver.” He turned and grinned. “And I enjoy driving too much.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “It’s not like they know the way.”

Zubar laughed heartily. “If they didn’t know the way, the sleigh wouldn’t be here. But it is a bit tricky navigating back.”

“Back to where?” I asked him, as Zubar faced forward to keep an eye on where we were going.

I couldn’t see much besides woods, the smell of pine, and the crunch of snow underneath the hooves of the reindeer. We could be anywhere there was snow, from Antarctica to the North Pole. This experience was beginning to feel timeless… just like in a dream.

“Back to where?” I demanded, starting to feel uneasy.

I was the child of the twenty-first century. “Stranger danger” had been drilled into me for as long as I could remember. I wasn’t climbing into a van because Zubar had promised me a puppy or candy, but I was going away with him and not telling anyone I was going. It didn’t matter that Zubar had been an inanimate nutcracker up until an hour ago. This was stupid. I was the idiot my brother had always said I was. I was starting to think about jumping out of the sleigh, risking a broken bone or worse to get out of there—I had gone from all right with this to panic in a split second. I opened my mouth to ask the question again, but Zubar finally answered.

“We’re in the Christmas Woods,” Zubar called back.

I looked around, noticing that most of the swiftly passing trees had been decorated like Christmas trees with candles and glass balls, along with many other decorations.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, starting to calm down from my moment of panic.

I watched the scenery pass: beautifully decorated trees, and none of them seemed the same. I didn’t know how long we had been traveling when the trees thinned out and a small stream started to parallel our path. It wound around rocks, and while the rest of the wood was covered in snow, the banks of the stream sprouted odd flowers. There was a heavy, sweet smell in the air, a mixture of flowers and something sharper.

“That is the Stream of Mead,” Zubar said.

“Mead?” I asked.

“Mead, alcoholic honey,” Zubar explained. “Have you not drunk it before?”

“I haven’t,” I told him. The medications I had been on in college to keep me “normal” didn’t mix well with alcohol, so I had never developed a taste for it.

“We must try it, then,” Zubar said, signaling the reindeer to stop.

The sled slid to a stop, and I was aware it was a little warmer here. I tossed back the rugs I had been tucked into, and then shivered in the sudden cold. Zubar frowned as he looked down at me.

“You’re not dressed for this journey.”

I was painfully aware of my cold feet in their damp socks. I probably should check for frostbite or something. And I was shivering, because all I had on was a ratty T-shirt with the saying “Thank you for calling tech support, your ignorance is my job security” and scrub pants.

“I kind of realized that before,” I said.

“Sit here, and I will get us the mead,” Zubar ordered me with a smile. “I don’t wish you to be injured.”

I sighed and sat back, and Zubar draped one of the rugs over my lap. Then he fiddled inside the left side of the sleigh up front, and I was surprised to see a small cupboard open and Zubar take out a couple of small crystal glasses.

“Wait a minute, and I will be right back,” he assured me.

I watched him walk down to the stream. He dipped each glass into the stream and then walked back to the sleigh. I was impressed the reindeer had stood still for this stop—if I didn’t know better, I would have thought they were statues.

Zubar returned to the sleigh with a smile, handing one of the glasses to me.

“You will like this,” he assured me.

I studied the glass I had been given, wondering how smart it was to drink liquid from a stream. There could be anything in this glass along with the mead, from fish pee to industrial waste. I sniffed it. It smelled sharp and sweet at the same time.

“You don’t have to drink it,” Zubar said softly. “I just thought….”

I smiled at him. “I’m just having a moment of stupid, as Rik likes to say.”

“Your brother is the one lacking in wits,” Zubar snapped. “He is a fool and sees what he wants to see, not what is true. You have always seen true.”

“Have I?” I asked.

I looked at the mead and then back at Zubar. “It can’t hurt.”

I tossed back the shot and gasped at the burn in my throat. It was sweet and fiery, warming me down to my toes.

“How do you like it?”

“I think it’s an acquired taste,” I said.

His face fell.

“One I would like to acquire.”

Zubar smiled and sipped at his own drink. That might be a better way to try mead, and if I had another taste of it, I wouldn’t treat it like vodka.

“I thought….”

“You thought what?” Zubar asked when he realized I wasn’t going to finish my thought.

“I remember….”

Was I really remembering, or was it just wishful thinking? But I was getting a feeling of déjà vu. I had done something like this before, almost. The sleigh and the reindeer were beginning to come back to me, but the mead wasn’t.

Zubar watched me, still waiting for me to actually finish a thought. Was I drunk? I felt too good, but I didn’t have a lot of experience with drinking. Rik had showed me that overindulging was never a good idea. And there were all those drugs I had been on in college. None of them had mixed with alcohol, unless I wanted to stop breathing.

“It was something else before?” I finally asked him. “Just plain honey, wasn’t it? Before. We stopped….”

Zubar smiled. “We did. But what else do you remember?”

“Not much,” I said regretfully.

Zubar sort of shut down as I said that. There wasn’t any other way to describe it—I could see the joy leaving him.

“I don’t remember much,” I apologized. “Most of my memories before I was eighteen are really spotty. But I remember I felt safe here.”

“Spotty?” Zubar echoed.

“I remember my parents and Rik. I remember I enjoyed Christmas, but I don’t remember any Christmas before my eighteenth,” I explained.

“You don’t? Why?”

Zubar looked both angry and sad. He reached out and laid his hand on mine.

“There was a car accident on the way home,” I said softly. The Mouse King had mentioned it, but I needed to explain to Zubar what had happened so he wouldn’t think I had run away from him.

He was warm and comforting, even though he was angry. I knew he wasn’t mad at me, just upset I had been hurt. Unlike Rik’s anger, his emotion didn’t make my stomach churn.

“My parents and I…. Something ran out onto the road…. The driver who saw it happen swore it was some sort of wild animal, but he couldn’t tell what kind. But we hit a patch of ice trying to avoid it, about the only one on the road, and we slid into a tree. My parents were killed instantly.”

“I’m so sorry,” Zubar said, and then he enveloped me in a hug. I sagged into his embrace, feeling his comfort all the way down to my bones. I wrapped my arms around him, drinking in the support he was giving me.

“I hit my head and was out of it for a couple of days,” I continued, my head unconsciously moving to his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “It was weird. We were all wearing seatbelts. The police…. None of us should have been hurt.”

“I grieve for your loss,” Zubar told me, kissing the top of my head. “To lose so much of your
self
is tragic, along with the loss of your parents.”

“You understand,” I mumbled.

But then he had been trapped as a nutcracker, cursed because of a selfish princess and a vengeful mouse, so he understood what I had lost. How did I know that? I didn’t feel comfortable talking to him about it.