Amelia

OCTOBER 30, 2024 - Anne Ryland, famed author of the Jazzy Jones Kid Detective series, was laid to rest yesterday; the cause of death has still not been reported. A literary hunt has been underway ever since Ryland’s death was announced, since the much-anticipated final book in the Jazzy series has reportedly been written but not yet published.

*****

Lovely Amelia,

Oh, how I wish you weren’t reading this letter. How I wish I was sitting right there beside you, holding your hand, braiding your hair. I suppose it’s been a very long time since I’ve braided your hair, if I ever even did.

Other mothers did. They braided their daughters’ hair. I think, Amelia, that you have at times been jealous of those daughters. I think you have sometimes wished that I was different. That’s perfectly understandable, and from you, I will accept that. From the rest of the world - I reject their judgment. Who is anyone in this world to say how another person should show up as a parent? We all have different tastes for food, different hobbies, different physical capabilities. Why do so many of us think that as parents, we have to do it all the same way?

Keep in mind, I understand the judgment, and I felt twinges of it myself throughout my life as a mother. I judged women who didn’t read bedtime stories, mothers who fed their children fast food. I suppose that pales in comparison to me, a mother that was constantly away from home on book tours, a mother who was emotionally distant when she was home. Five years ago, I would have dismissed any criticism about my parenting. But for these last few years, as we've mended our relationship and grown closer, it all feels different. And now, if the threats I've been receiving are credible, it seems my life is about to end.

It is, Amelia. I am about to die. And all over a book. Can you even believe it?

Not that I don’t understand how important the book is; of course I do. I have been thrilled to be the author of such a popular series. I loved writing Jazzy Jones. I wrote the first six books in the series happily, and the world has been waiting for the seventh book; my editor, Hannah, has been pestering me about it for years. But the truth is that, while there is a seventh manuscript - I can tell you that now, Amelia - I do not wish for it to be published. Not yet; maybe not ever.

The publishing industry is a madhouse, Amelia. Your grandmother used to say it over and over. She told me wild stories. Every editor had a secret safe hidden somewhere in their office to hide manuscripts they didn’t want stolen by rivals - even by jealous co-workers within their own publishing house. Hannah has a safe hidden within a dog bed in the corner of her office. “The last place anyone would look,” Hannah would say, laughing, when she told me about it. There were decoy safes hidden all around Hannah’s office as well - behind picture frames, inside books on the bookshelf.

How could anyone operate under such paranoia? Then again, of course she was paranoid. She was the editor of one of the most popular book series in the world - the one that made me a millionaire.

Everyone loved the books, Amelia. I know you know this; I know you loved them, too. But sometimes, I wish they hadn’t. That kind of success - the kind I dreamed of when I was younger - has made things incredibly complicated. It’s impacted the way I raised you and you brother and sister, my romantic relationships, my friendships. When I think about what it’s done to my relationship with your brother Rhett, I cringe and wish the idea of a spunky kid detective had never occurred to me.

Growing up with a millionaire mom can’t have been easy for any of you - you, or Rhett, or Evelyn. Growing up with only one parent after your dad’s heart attack made it even harder. Then, when you add on that I refused to raise you as rich kids and have all of your inheritance set aside, not to be accessed until either you are fifty years old or I die - well, it’s a wonder that it’s not one of you three that wants to murder me.

Amelia, I do suspect Rhett and Evelyn sometimes; I do wonder if they’re behind all of this.

Really, I suspect almost everyone. The threatening letters started arriving six months ago, and it’s clear that the author wants one thing - my manuscript. Well, that and me dead.

Dead.

Everyone in the world, Amelia, except for you, would rather have my manuscript than me, alive and well in this world. Do you think that’s an exaggeration?

Never mind. We haven’t the time for that. I have a feeling that whatever is going to happen is going to happen tonight.

Understand this, Amelia - no one is going to find the Jazzy manuscript. It is so carefully hidden that it will never be found.

Not unless I decide that I want it to be found.

Dear Amelia, I suspect many people of being behind the threatening letters. They are typed and they’ve all been hand-delivered, which really narrows down the list of suspects to:

Evelyn. Your older sister. I cared for her differently than I did you, because I was not quite so successful as she was growing up. She may not resent me the way you do. However, Evelyn is a determined woman, and I know her husband just recently lost his job. She is desperate for the Jazzy money in a way that you are not.

Rhett. Your older brother is a drunk and a drug addict, Amelia. Of course, again, he is ten years older than you, and so I’ve been a much better mother to him all these years. I probably did braid his hair when he was younger.

Theodore. Oh, how I hate that I suspect my own husband, Amelia, and I especially hate revealing that to you, knowing how you and he have never gotten along.

Hannah. No one has pressured me to reveal the final Jazzy manuscript more than Hannah. She’s been my best friend for forty years, of course - but she’s also my editor, and sometimes I wonder which relationship comes first for her.

Each of these four have reason to want the Jazzy manuscript, Amelia, and the only thing standing in their way is me.

Because it is finished, Amelia. It is. I’ll tell no one but you - my youngest child, my neglected daughter. I missed so much of your life - you spent so much time with your grandparents. Of course, I had no idea my mother’s husband would turn out to be such a monster - but he’s long dead, Amelia, so you’ll have let go of that by now.

I hate suspecting the people I am supposed to love - the people that are supposed to love me. I dearly hope I’m wrong, Amelia. I’ll do anything and everything I can to prevent them from getting me, of course. I don’t want to die.

Really, I don’t. And you’re the only person I trust.

Can I trust you, Amelia? You’re the one who has the most reason to despise me. I haven’t done right by you. But you are not money-hungry like your siblings, like my husband, like Hannah. If only they knew that I’ve rewritten my will so that my entire fortune goes to you. Maybe then, whichever one of them was tormenting me would let all of this go. That first letter - I know you remember, I called you the moment I received it - it terrified me, Amelia. And then, it’s been strange, the longer this has gone on - it’s like I’ve been preparing myself to die, readying myself so that when my life is taken, it will be less of a shock.

How could anyone kill someone they love? And over a book? I know it will make them all a lot of money, Amelia. In fact - I hadn’t thought of this until now - but maybe one or all of them do know about the change in my will. Because while my fortune goes to you, the royalties from this final book will be divided among the five of you, and that would be enough money to support all of you for a lifetime. Even though the book is rubbish.

That’s the truth, Amelia. It’s rubbish. The book is terrible. It is my deepest wish that the final Jazzy book will never be published. If it ever happens to come into your possession after I’m gone, I want you to destroy it. It is not a piece of work that I’m proud of. The world and Hannah believe that I’m holding out on publishing because I’m trying to keep the world anticipating it, so that the payoff will be even greater when the book comes out. But it’s not true. I’m holding out because I keep hoping to write something better, a truly spectacular final novel for the series. Yet it doesn’t matter, Hannah tells me. Whatever the book is, it will make money. It makes me ill to think of it.

Really, it does.

Each day that passes, I’m filled with more regret that I wasn’t the mother I should have been to you. I know that you know this, and I’m grateful that you’ve forgiven me these last few years, that we’ve grown closer, that you’ve spent so much time with me. Everyone cares more about the book than they do my life. But not you, Amelia. You’ve assured me every day for the last few years that you’ve forgiven me for my past mistakes. I am so grateful that you have. Amelia, I do have a plan to keep myself safe. I have retreated somewhere that only you and I know about, and you and I possess the only keys. I won’t write it here, in case this letter is discovered. But you will know exactly the place. And if you need to search for anything, know this: Amelia Christine Ryland, only simpletons think it challenging.

Ever yours, your mother, Anne

*****

DECEMER 26, 2024 - In a news story that has turned the literary world upside down, the final book in the Jazzy Jones Kid Detective series has been discovered in a garden on the property of the author’s late great-grandmother, buried beneath a birch tree in the backyard of the five-acre property. The author of the Jazzy Jones series, Anne Ryland, died in August 2024, and the cause of death has now been ruled as murder and an arrest has been made.

Ryland’s youngest daughter, Amelia, discovered the manuscript after decoding a letter her mother left for her to read in case of her death. Amelia Ryland was arrested a week after selling the manuscript to the highest bidder when items linked to her mother’s death by poisoning were found in her possession. Amelia Ryland reportedly has given a full confession; her attorney has indicated that a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity may be entered as soon as this week. Other family members are attempting to block Amelia from the manuscript sale, due to the alleged murder charges and to their belief that Anne Ryland did not wish for the manuscript to be published.

“We will fight for as long as it takes to honor our mother’s wishes,” reads a joint statement from Ryland’s other two children, Evelyn and Rhett.

“My mother and I shared a love of words,” Amelia Ryland said in a press statement before her arrest. “She loved words, and puzzles, and me.” She smiled slowly at the crowd before adding, “She left a puzzle that she trusted only me to solve, and that was her own fault for trusting me. She was a terrible mother, you know.”