I flipped the first page, then the next, then the next, faster and faster.
I closed my eyes, dizzy, expecting to wake up out of this dream and be back in my bed. But when I opened my eyes, the volume was still here in my hand. My music was still staring back up at me.
Mymusic. Not Woferl’s.Mine.
My hands were shaking so hard now that I feared I would tear the fine paper. I let out a gasped sob and took a step back—stumbling so that my legs gave way—and sat on the floor with my dress spilled in a circle around me. In the corner, Woferl stirred slightly in bed and rubbed his face sleepily. “Nannerl?” he murmured. “What is it?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t understand.
How could this possibly have happened? I looked in a daze around the room, then pushed myself up and rushed to my trunk. I rummaged through it frantically. My clothes, shoes, hair ties all went flying, until finally I stared down at an empty bottom.
I steadied myself against the trunk.
The neat little stack of my folded parchments, all the compositions I’d created and carefully stored away over the past months. They were gone.
In bed, Woferl sat up now, more awake and alarmed at the expression on my face. “Are you all right?” he said. “You’ve turned so pale.”
The world spun around me. “Did you tell Papa, Woferl?” I whispered, the words springing unbidden out of me.
“What?” Woferl replied. And when I looked him directly in the eye, he did not blink. He was a picture of confusion, pale from the hurt in my words. His gaze flitted to the mess of my belongings strewn around my trunk.
“Did you tell Papa about my compositions?” I said. My voice trembled.
Understanding suddenly blossomed on my brother’s face, followed by horror. “I would never,” he said.
I leaned against my empty drawer. My thoughts spun over and over until I swayed. It couldn’t be. Itcouldn’tbe. But I forced myself back onto my feet and stumbled over to look at the volume still open on the table. The pages were there. The notes were there.And my compositions were gone from my trunk, stolen away by my father.
Or by a princeling.
Hyacinth, Hyacinth, Hyacinth.The name tolled like a bell in my thoughts.
I’d been so foolish to think that he had somehow stepped quietly out of our lives. Here he was again, flitting his fingers through the air. He had always known where to hit me the hardest, had been waiting to use this against me should I ever turn my back on him. I had given up my end of our bargain. In return, he had taken my wish and given it to my brother instead.
This was Hyacinth’s revenge. The cruelty he had planned for my punishment.
Woferl called to me again from bed, but I could barely hear him. I paged through each piece in the volume until I reached the end.
Six ofmysonatas, with minor changes. They had been published in a bound volume, like I’d always dreamed of, but they did not have my name anywhere on them. Instead, they were signed by Woferl.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had stolen my music.
THEAGREEMENT
I did not scream or cry. I did not answer Woferl when he continued to ask me if I was all right. I did not change my demeanor around Sebastian or breathe a word of it to my father or mother.
What was the use?
Instead, I turned my fury inward and let it consume me.
Later the same afternoon, I retired to bed early, dizzy and sore. By the next day, I’d developed a fever that made my skin hot to the touch, and started to vomit. My muscles ached so much that I had to bite back my tears. Sebastian carried me to my bed that day. My skin turned white and slick with sweat, my eyes grew swollen and tired. Rose spots appeared on my chest. My hair, drenched with moisture, stuck to my neck and forehead and shoulders in strings. I struggled to breathe, my lungs rasping from the effort.
Mama, in a panic, sent for a doctor that the Dutch envoyrecommended and brought him to our hotel the same evening. He hovered over me in a haze of color, so that I could barely make out his grave face. He told my mother that my heartbeat had slowed, that I might be in serious danger. He bled me, then fed me a bitter tonic and left.
I drifted in and out of sleep. Days melted into one another. I had difficulty understanding what happened around me, except that the date to perform for the princess and prince—to deliver the volume of music to them—came and went. Papa and Woferl attended without me.
Sometimes I thought I saw Papa standing near my bed, talking in hushed tones with my mother. Other times Woferl’s face appeared, tragic and fearful, and tried to speak to me. I recalled his soft hands in mine. I thought I heard him say, over and over again, that he was sorry, that he didn’t know what to do or say. That he had no idea.
I would turn my face away whenever he was near. I couldn’t bear to look at him.
