Kira at Tanglewood
Copyright© 2026 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 1
Rachael Morgenstern plumped the bed a few times and grinned at her young friend, Kira Kinkaid. “Good old Miss Hall’s beds! I think they make them uncomfortable on purpose, so no one will stay a minute longer than they absolutely have to. Otherwise, none of us would ever want to leave.”
Kira sat down on her bed. “Mine seems fine.”
Rachael was short and dark, in her late twenties; Kira was tall and fair, finally a teenager. And now, today, away from home and on her own for the second time in her life. Three weeks this time, not two days!
Rachael laughed. “That’s because you are interested in things other than a good night’s sleep.” Rachael waved at the bathroom. “Have a shower, relax, and unwind. I have to see some people about things. I’ll be back in an hour or so, then I’ll freshen up and we’ll see about dinner. Afterwards, we’ll rehearse.”
Kira took a shower and did feel more comfortable and relaxed. From the things that Rachael had said about Tanglewood, she’d rather expected to be a lot more nervous and excited than she was. Instead, in a few minutes, she felt sleepy and curled up in her robe on her bed and was asleep a second later.
Rachael woke her, finally, by shaking her shoulder. “Rise and shine, dear Kira. It’s time we got a little dinner; I’ve arranged for a rehearsal room for after.”
Kira yawned, and Rachael shook her head. “I’m going to tell people you weren’t here an hour before you were asleep on one of the beds. No one is going to believe it!”
Kira dressed while Rachael was in the shower, and the two of them went to dinner. Then Rachael drove them to the Tanglewood Center proper.
Rachael led Kira to a largish room, and the two of them warmed up. Kira thought Rachael was delaying for some reason. Two of them, it turned out. An older man peeped his head in the door, grinned, and came in. “Rachael!”
Rachael went across the room. “Anner! Pleased you could come!” A moment later, a younger man, oriental, and a little heavyset, came in. Kira missed hearing his name as she ran through a part of Tree Symphony as a last bit of her warm-up.
Another man poked his head in, also much older than Rachael and very well dressed. He was a very spare man with a neat beard and mustache. “Can I sit in?” He gestured at Kira but spoke to Rachael. “I watched the tape Taylor sent me. I listened just now. Please.”
The two other men laughed, and Rachael stammered agreement. Kira had seen the last man someplace but couldn’t remember where, although obviously Rachael knew them all.
Rachael handed each a copy of the concerto, then she and Kira played through once. Kira was surprised; usually, Rachael played better. Rachael seemed to know it, too. “You’ll have to excuse me; I don’t think I’ve played this badly since my first recital,” her friend apologized, blushing.
The first man to come in laughed, looking cheerful and merry. “Just pretend we’re not here.”
They played a good part of it again, and Rachael was much better.
“Dueling Strings, you called it,” the same man said after they stopped. “A tacky take-off, but apt.” He shook his finger at Rachael. “You will play it better soon, eh?”
Rachael blushed and simply nodded. The man walked over and asked Kira if he could see her cello. Reluctantly, Kira let him hold it, but Rachael at least seemed unconcerned. The cello was a family heirloom of the Morgenstern family, and they treated it much the same way people treat their close family.
The visitor ran the bow over the strings, listening carefully. “What a marvelous instrument.” He nodded at the second man to come in. “Yours is better, I think.”
The other shrugged. “A little. Maybe. May I?”
He too played a few notes; a little more organized than the other, playing something complicated, not just a scale. The man glanced in Rachael’s direction. “Your great-grandfather made this, I understand, before the turn of the century?”
Rachael nodded. “This one and twelve more. One we know is in Warsaw, this one is here; the rest vanished during the War. Someplace in Germany, someplace in Russia, someplace in between, perhaps destroyed? Who knows?”
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