Wand Maker

Chapter 17

I stared at the things in front of me. The fire had been put out for fear of catching the woods on fire, and boy, there were a lot. A lot of woods, yes, but also a lot of vials containing parts of animals I didn't know existed, a lot of metals- precious or otherwise- a lot of gems, and a lot of plants. All of this was strewn across the floor in no particular order, and it was about to give me vertigo. Not because of the disorganization, but because everything had it's own voice, and all of them wanted to be heard.

Quite literally: everything was talking extremely loudly in my head.

All of the best wands are made of silver lime! one wood announced, presumably silver lime. They work better, they're made better, and they look better.

Ah, don't listen to him, doll, another wood said, in a British accent, for some reason. Silvers are flashy, but you're better off with sturdy blackthorn.

As IF! A loud voice shouted. DOGWOOD IS THE BEST AT E V E R Y T H I N G, INCLUDING HOW IT LOOKS.

dOgwoOD iS tHe beSt At eVErythInG, blackthorn drawled out sarcastically.

"Shut up!" I yelled. The voices calmed down.

"They can be a tad overwhelmin', I know," Professor Beauvais looked amused. "But you don' need to tell 'em to shut up for them t' do it."

"Hey, it works." I said. "So what exactly do I need to do again?"

He sighed. "I told you, I don' know. The secret of how wand makers make wands is a closely guarded secret an' the methods are widely varied. There's a reason why one person can tell the differ'nce between an Ollivander wand an' a Gregorovitch." He pronounced "Gregorovitch" as "Greg-er-vich". "I can only tell ya that it's gotta come from your heart an' soul. Listen t' yourself. And when ya figure it out, come on outside." With that, he and Amira left the room, and the voices started up their loud chatter again.

Okay. Listen to yourself. I closed my eyes. The voices meshed together, making a tapestry of tangled strings so complex that I couldn't see the picture it wove. It descended in front of my eyes, searing my retinas.

Without thinking, I started to detangle it. Lower voices in muted greens and blues got sorted out first, and I worked my way up until I was coaxing a string of vowels out of a knot of bright pink high C's. The strings organized themselves into chords, and soon I was looking at multiple pieces of music. I listened to them intently. All of them seemed nice, but none called my name. None of them came to me saying that I should make them for me.

Except...

A high, haunting melody wound though the rest of the music like a trail of smoke. It was made by a violin, but the playing was so pitch perfect, you could've told me it was electric and I would've believed you. I followed the trail. The closer I got, the more I could hear- a guitar played underneath, a strange combo that somehow worked. The key was a modal, so I couldn't figure out what the chords were. But it was beautiful.

I got there. The song was documented out in front of me, moving just slow enough for me to read. A lilac haze hung over it, making it seem special or highlighted just for me. I reached out my hand and touched it. The music dissolved into small particles. I took a step back in surprise. Before I could even comprehend what happened, a girl stood in front of me.

She was Indian, with gold rings decorating her hands and earrings hanging from her earlobes. A chunky necklace hung around her slender neck. She had full lips, a round face, and a tall nose adding to the proud air about her. Her eyes were very unusual, almost supernatural. They were gray, tinged with green and ringed with an ink black. She had no pupils. Her hair was braided back, but I could see hints of dark violet starting an ombré halfway down her hair. A plain cotton dress brushed her knees. She was barefoot. But the biggest thing was that she seemed to be made out of the barest threads of sunlight. The edges of her form were blurred, and she looked like an unfinished painting.