Otto meets three mysterious sisters in the forest and agrees to pass on their enchanted harmonica so it may one day save a life.

Friedrich follows strange music into the factory's abandoned machinery area and discovers a harmonica painted with an 'M' in a drawer.

Elisabeth Schmidt returns home and announces she has joined the League of German Girls, shocking her father and brother.

Brown Shirts arrest Martin Schmidt and send him to Dachau after the family's escape plan is discovered.

Elisabeth sends Friedrich money hidden in a cookie tin's false bottom, funding the plan to bribe their father's captors.

On his last day at the factory, Friedrich slips the harmonica into a shipping box and then boards a train toward Dachau.

After their grandmother's death, Mike and Frankie Flannery are placed in Bishop's Home, a Pennsylvania orphanage.

Mr. Howard adopts both Mike and Frankie on behalf of Eunice Sturbridge, refusing to separate the two brothers.

Mr. Howard buys Mike a harmonica painted with an 'M,' and all the instruments in the shop resonate at once.

Believing the adoption will be undone, Mike tries to flee with Frankie and falls from the tower window.

Ivy's father announces the family is moving from La Colonia to tend the Yamamoto farm property in Orange County.

Ivy is turned away from Lincoln Main and sent to Lincoln Annex, a segregated school for Mexican-American students.

Mr. Ward opens a hidden door in the Yamamoto house to reveal a room full of pianos and instruments stored for interned families.

Ivy gives Kenneth Yamamoto her harmonica so he will have the comfort of music while serving at war.

The harmonica stops a bullet aimed at Kenneth in a German prisoner-of-war camp, saving his life and freeing Eins, Zwei, and Drei.

This pool traces the enchanted harmonica as it passes through the hands of three young musicians across different times and places. In Germany, Friedrich Schmidt discovers the harmonica and draws courage from it before sending it forward into the world. In Pennsylvania, Mike Flannery receives it and fights desperately to keep his brother safe while stumbling toward an uncertain future. In California, Ivy Lopez carries the harmonica through segregation and wartime suspicion before giving it to soldier Kenneth Yamamoto. The harmonica ultimately stops a bullet aimed at Kenneth in a German prisoner-of-war camp, fulfilling the prophecy made in the forest prologue. This lifesaving act frees the three sisters, Eins, Zwei, and Drei, completing the magical chain set in motion at the very beginning of the story.

The harmonica's journey through history and its life-saving mission.

Otto reads a fairy tale in the forest and gets lost after staying hidden too long during a game of hide-and-seek.

After being beaten up in the schoolyard for conducting in front of classmates, Friedrich is pulled from school and apprenticed at the harmonica factory.

Martin Schmidt hosts a chamber music evening with his Jewish friend Josef; a guest named Rudolph refuses to sit alongside him.

Uncle Gunter and Friedrich devise a plan for Gunter to leave for Switzerland first while Friedrich stays behind to free Martin.

Friedrich is stopped and questioned by soldiers on the train, one of whom was involved in his father's arrest.

Frankie Flannery bites a prospective foster father when it becomes clear the couple intends to take only one of the brothers.

Pennyweather reveals her plan to send younger boys to a separate home so she can take in more boys of working age.

Mike plays the grand piano in Eunice's living room; Eunice appears in the doorway looking stricken, then turns and flees.

Groundskeeper Mr. Potter teaches Mike and Frankie to play the blues on the harmonica.

Mike advances through the harmonica competition rounds with a blues-infused rendition of 'America the Beautiful.'

Ivy recalls the day her brother Fernando enlisted in the army and she first received a harmonica painted with an 'M.'

Victor Lopez tries and fails to have Ivy transferred to the integrated Lincoln Main school; his only recourse is joining a lawsuit.

Ivy and her mother enter the Yamamoto house and, while looking at family photos, Ivy spots a hidden door at the back of a closet.

The flower beds and vegetable garden Ivy planted at the Yamamoto house are torn up and destroyed overnight.

Mike performs the piano solo in 'Rhapsody in Blue' at Carnegie Hall, channeling both his grief and his enduring hope.

This pool highlights the secondary events that shape each character's journey and deepen the novel's themes of prejudice, resilience, and family. Friedrich is driven from school by bullying and must navigate the daily cruelties of a Germany increasingly hostile to anyone deemed different. Mike and Frankie endure the scheming of an exploitative headmistress before being thrust into Eunice Sturbridge's confusing household of grief and unspoken emotion. Ivy confronts a racist school system in Orange County while quietly investigating the Yamamotos' mysterious property and watching her careful act of goodwill get destroyed overnight. Together, these events reveal the everyday hardships each character endures alongside the larger historical forces surrounding them. The pool closes at Carnegie Hall, where Mike channels years of sorrow and hope into a triumphant piano performance.

The struggles and setbacks behind each character's story.

The three sisters play the enchanted harmonica in the forest and its notes sound like three melodies at once, binding their spirits to it.

Friedrich plays the harmonica for the first time and feels an unfamiliar sense of courage and protection, as if nothing can stand in his way.

Elisabeth discovers Friedrich had seizures as a baby and announces that Nazi law now requires both of them to be sterilized.

Martin tells Friedrich that any injustice the Nazis impose on Jews will also be imposed on anyone else they deem undesirable.

Friedrich uses a rehearsed alibi with Anselm that backfires, giving the Brown Shirts the evidence they need to expose the family's escape.

Friedrich plays a final harmonica concert alone in the empty house, choosing Brahms's Lullaby as his farewell song.

Mike tells Mr. Howard that if only one boy can be adopted, Frankie should have the home even if Mike must go to work on a farm.

Mike overhears Eunice telling Mr. Howard she plans to see her lawyer to undo what has been done with the adoption.

Eunice and Mike sit together at the piano and adapt 'America the Beautiful,' bonding as their relationship begins to warm.

Mike finds a letter stating that an appeal to undo the adoption has been granted, sending him into a desperate panic.

Ivy's family learns the Yamamoto owners are confined to an internment camp and that Mr. Ward has been buying up Japanese-owned properties.

Susan Ward tells Ivy her father blames Kenneth Yamamoto for her brother Donald's death at Pearl Harbor, filling Ivy with suspicion.

Ivy enters the Yamamoto house's secret room alone and decides it is her patriotic duty to reveal what she has found.

Victor Lopez rebukes Mr. Ward by revealing that the people seen carrying items into the Yamamoto house were musicians protecting instruments.

The epilogue reveals that the 'M' painted on the harmonica stands for Messenger, the surname of the craftsman Otto who made it.

This pool focuses on the pivotal moments of revelation and choice that define each character's arc across the novel. For Friedrich, these moments include feeling the harmonica's power for the first time, confronting the Nazi threat to his own body and future, and making the quiet decision to play one last farewell concert before leaving Germany forever. For Mike, the key turning points are his selfless offer to sacrifice his own adoption for Frankie's sake, the devastating moment he overhears Eunice's intentions, and the panic that drives him to a near-fatal fall. For Ivy, the arc turns on learning the full truth about the Yamamotos' situation, being infected by her neighbor's suspicion, and ultimately choosing courage over fear when she enters the secret room alone. The pool closes with the epilogue's revelation that the 'M' on the harmonica stands for Messenger, the name of the craftsman Otto, weaving together the novel's magical and historical threads into a single, unified design.