The Midnight Orchestra Read online

  Dedication

  For Bryony,

  my magical girl

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One: The Element of Reprise

  Chapter Two: A New Arrangement

  Chapter Three: A Score to Settle

  Chapter Four: Oh Me, Oh Maestro

  Chapter Five: In Portal Danger

  Chapter Six: The Sand of Silence

  Chapter Seven: The Midnight Orchestra

  Chapter Eight: As a Meter of Fact

  Chapter Nine: An Awkward Composition

  Chapter Ten: Opus Pocus

  Chapter Eleven: Rockabye Jai

  Chapter Twelve: Staccato in the Middle

  Chapter Thirteen: Truth and Consonances

  Chapter Fourteen: A Tough Note to Crack

  Chapter Fifteen: Achy, Breaky Harp

  Chapter Sixteen: A Different Point of Fugue

  Chapter Seventeen: When Presto Comes to Shove

  Chapter Eighteen: Great Bars of Fire

  Chapter Nineteen: Preventive Measures

  Chapter Twenty: Give the Devil His Duet

  Chapter Twenty-One: Either Rhythm . . . Or Against Him

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Fear and Tremolo

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Etude, Brute?

  Chapter Twenty-Four: A Show of Forza

  Chapter Twenty-Five: The Early Bird Gets the Earworm

  Chapter Twenty-Six: All That Jazz

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Call Da Capos

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Break Allegro

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Trill of the Fight

  Chapter Thirty: The Flat Hits the Fire

  Chapter Thirty-One: Say It Isn’t Solo

  Chapter Thirty-Two: Do Re Mia

  Chapter Thirty-Three: A Spell as Smooth as Glissando

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Going for Baroque

  Chapter Thirty-Five: A Riff in Time

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Fever Pitch

  Chapter Thirty-Seven: Two Truths and a Lyre

  Chapter Thirty-Eight: Coda of Silence

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  The Element of Reprise

  AMELIA JONES, ARE YOU prepared to lose everything?”

  I stare hard at Jai Kapoor, and he glares back, his violin tucked under his chin. His dark bronze face is set in a determined frown, while a breeze makes his black hair flop over his eyes. With a scowl, he pushes it away, all without breaking eye contact.

  We’re standing on the front steps of Harmony Hall, the grand building at the heart of the Mystwick School of Musicraft. The high mountain peaks in the distance shine with fresh snow, and despite the sunny sky, the air is cold enough to turn my breath into pale, frosty mist. Dozens of other seventh-graders sprawl on the grass and sidewalk, watching the pair of us poised like two fencers about to clash swords.

  “Try not to cry when I destroy you, Kapoor.”

  He gives a harsh laugh, his British accent ringing out across the grounds as he replies, “Such big talk from such a puny girl! I’ll let the violin do my talking.”

  “That whiny, off-tune thing? There’s not much difference.”

  The other kids laugh.

  Jai scoffs. “It’s time to settle this . . . Darby!”

  Darby Bradshaw, leaning on one of the carved mustangs holding up the roof, now straightens and raises a whistle to her lips. As usual, her clothing is ironed and pleated to perfection, from her khaki skirt to her Mystwick sweater to her polished shoes. A headband pushes her shiny black hair away from her pale face. “Keep it clean, you two. No bloodshed if you can help it.”

  I purse my lips over my flute, my heart drumming in my ears.

  Darby blows her whistle, and we dive into the spell, our eyes locked. I sway with my flute, and Jai scrapes his bow over his strings. The duet is a tripping, frantic onslaught of notes, an aggressive Celtic reel that soon sends tentacles of yellow magic coiling through the air. Like all magic, it gives off a faint scent, in this case, lemon zest.

  Though we play together, our spells are two separate forces that lock horns, pressure building between us. His magic snakes through mine and tries to knock away my flute. I back up and lean harder into the melody, fingers tapping keys, breath pouring through the barrel of my instrument. Jai grins, ducking as a rippling streamer of my magic cracks like a whip.

  “Easy!” warns Darby. “Disarm, don’t disable!”

  I grin apologetically and send another punch of magic at Jai’s violin. He dodges and gives me a dirty look.

  He retaliates with a burst of staccato notes that wash me in sparks, and I have to dance backwards to keep them from clogging my instrument.

  Back and forth we spar, music and magic crackling between us while the kids below cheer and clap in tempo. A few Maestros and older students wander over to watch.

  I yelp when a lash of magic stings my cheek, and Darby blows her whistle at Jai, marking his first foul.

  “Sorry,” he mouths.

  When Jai challenged me to a Sparring duet, I thought he meant it to be somewhere more private, like one of the practice rooms. But I should have known better. There’s nothing private about Jai. The bigger the audience, the happier he is.

  Besides, he has an ulterior motive.

  “I have to prove to the Sparring Club that I can do this,” he’d said. “They almost never let seventh-graders join. But if I show them how awesome I am at it, they’ll have to let me in, right?”

  It doesn’t take long for Jai’s magic to overpower mine, golden light encasing my hands like gloves, freezing them in place, preventing me from pressing the keys.

  Jai completes the spell with a triumphant flourish, then bows dramatically to the applauding audience. But his face falls a little as he looks around. I don’t think any of the Sparring Club members showed up for his exhibition.

  “Make sure you tell everyone what you saw here today!” he tells the audience. “Jai Kapoor! Already a Sparring champion at age twelve!”

  “Literally the only person you’ve Sparred with is me,” I point out as the crowd begins to break up.

  “And literally I have never been defeated,” he adds, giving me a grin that clearly says shut-up-right-now-you’re-ruining-everything.

  “Fine! I surrender. You’re the champion. Though I don’t get why you’re going out for Sparring. I thought you were finally going to sign up for the rock elective?”

  “Yeah . . .” He toes a clump of grass. “About that. My dad sort of found out about it, and, well, let’s just say he can be very persuasive.”

  “Oh, Jai.”

  “Don’t oh, Jai me. You don’t know the guy.” He shudders.

  Jai’s an incredible violinist, but I know his heart is in a different kind of music. I’d thought he finally worked up the nerve to tell his dad, but I guess not.

  Clearly not wanting to talk about it more, Jai exchanges a fist bump with me before rushing off to his strings ensemble class.

  I shiver as a sudden cold wind rolls over the campus, making the Echo Wood that surrounds the school creak and rustle. The last few leaves of autumn break loose and tumble through the sky. Kids pull on their heavy coats as they head to their next classes or to the library, hauling instrument cases of every size and shape. Someone’s thoughtfully left a knitted winter hat atop the statue of Beethoven; the old Composer looks as miserable as ever despite its happy shades of pink and yellow.

  Darby nudges me. “Did you get a note this morning from Phoebe?”

  “Yeah. Something about a meeting tonight in the Shell. Do you know anything about it?”

&nb
sp; She shrugs. “It’s probably about whoever’s been leaving hair in the shower drains again. Sometimes I think she takes this dorm captain job a little too seriously. They could appoint her Maestro of room checks.”

  “Speaking of new Maestros . . .” Unable to hold back a grin, I continue, “My Composing teacher is supposed to get here tomorrow.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Nervous?”

  “You could say that.” It’s only been a few weeks since I learned I could Compose, or create new spells, a rare ability among musicians. And it’s been just a few days since one of my Compositions—a spell that kinda accidentally loosed a horde of ghosts—nearly tore the school apart.

  Since I’m the only person at the Mystwick School of Musicraft with this strange ability, there wasn’t anyone to tell me what it all meant and what I should do next. Which is why the Maestros are bringing in a real, live Composer to be my teacher.

  “Well, see you at this mysterious meeting of Phoebe’s,” Darby says. “I’ll save you a seat.”

  She blends into the crowd of students heading to the cafeteria for lunch. I smile to myself, watching her go.

  It’s been less than a week since Darby stopped hating my guts, and it’s been nice to actually have a friend for a roommate. Now I spend every meal sitting between her and Jai. She even started telling me about her life outside school—about her parents, her summers spent with her grandparents in Japan, and how she’s hoping to join the famous Tokyo Philharmonic after graduating from Mystwick.

  Darby’s a bit like a hedgehog. Prickly at first, but the more you get to know her, the softer she turns out to be.

  I have a bit of time, so I stop by my mailbox in Harmony Hall. There’s the usual care package from Gran, this one informing me that soon she’ll be heading out on her first-ever cruise, she’s sure it’ll be a terrible experience, and here’s twenty dollars for allowance and a purple scarf and hat she knitted for me.

  But there’s something else today as well—a black envelope with no return address on it. Inside is a matching black note card, the paper velvet soft and the letters metallic silver calligraphy.

  Amelia Jones,

  You are invited to witness the Midnight Orchestra.

  A doorway will be provided on the next full moon.

  Cordially,

  Mr. M.

  Weird. I look around, but everyone’s gone now, and there’s no telling who wrote the note or what on earth it means. What’s a Midnight Orchestra? Who’s Mr. M? What doorway? I have no idea when the next full moon is.

  It’s probably just some stupid prank, but I refold it and put it in my pocket. Maybe Jai or Darby will know something about it.

  I head back outside and breathe in the chilly cedar-scented air, my breath a frosty cloud. The campus is quiet, the grounds still and serene. The snowy mountains reflect on Orpheus Lake, which is as smooth as a mirror today, especially around the edges where the water is slick with ice. The Echo trees surrounding the school have shed the last of their golden leaves, and piles of them dot the grass where the groundskeepers have been raking. Slender white trunks stretch high in all directions, but even bare, their branches knit together to form a magical protective barrier around the school.

  There’s almost no sign now of the events of last week, when I accidentally unleashed a horde of malevolent ghosts on the school—as well as the spirit of my own mother. Staring at the dock on the lake, where I’d last seen her, I can almost envision her hovering there, translucent blue. I can hear her last words to me and feel the tug of a question I never got to ask her . . .

  Out of nowhere, I hear a strain of piano music, faint and distant. First I glance over my shoulder into Harmony Hall, where the shining grand piano sits in a beam of sunlight. But no one’s at the keys.

  Then the air at the bottom of the steps starts to . . . wrinkle. It looks like a hot road in summer, when the rising heat makes everything go wavy and warped. The scent of cinnamon fills my nose, so I know there’s only one possible explanation:

  Teleportation spell.

  Sure enough, purple smoke starts swirling on the drive. Then, with a swelling crescendo of piano music, the smoke parts, and a long, sleek limousine appears, engine idling, windows tinted black.

  I look around. No one else is in sight to greet the limo.

  As the music fades, I hesitantly move down one step. I’m pretty sure Mystwick doesn’t have any teleporting limos. Who could it be? Obviously someone important. Someone fancy.

  Like . . . my mysterious Composing Maestro? Maybe they’re arriving a day early.

  Stomach filling with butterflies, I walk down the steps and approach the car just as the driver—a man in a black suit with spotless white gloves—exits. He ignores me and goes to the rear car door, opening it crisply and then standing back. I can just glimpse the telltale black-and-white keys of a piano, built into the vehicle itself. A pair of pale, delicate hands runs over them, completing the teleporting spell with a long, sustained note.

  I pause, uncertain. They never told me who my new Maestro is, so I have no idea what to expect.

  The hands pull away from the piano keys, and then a leg pops out, clad in a shiny red boot.

  Another follows.

  Then a girl slithers out of the car. She’s wearing a fuzzy pink coat and sparkly sunglasses. Shiny brown hair tumbles in waves down her back, and the earrings she’s wearing look like actual diamonds. She wobbles a bit, the heels on her shoes giving her trouble on the gravel drive.

  I blink. I’m pretty sure the new Maestro isn’t supposed to be a girl my own age.

  “Ugh!” She looks around and wrinkles her nose. “I knew this place would be a dump. I told Daddy this would be a disaster! But nooooo. ‘It’ll build character,’ he said. Whatever. Straighten you out is what he meant.” She squints at me over her sunglasses. “Hello? You, girl! Are you just going to stand there staring, or are you going to take my bags?”

  The man in the suit opens the trunk and hands me two heavy suitcases. I take them, because I’m so bewildered I don’t know what else to do, and I struggle not to fall over from their weight.

  “Are you the only person they sent to greet me?” the girl asks in an offended tone.

  “Uh . . .”

  “Typical.” She yanks off her glasses.

  And I gasp.

  Because I do know this girl.

  I’ve seen her before, not in person, but on the internet. In magazines. On television.

  In a little silver picture frame above Darby’s bed.

  I stammer. “You’re . . . you’re . . .”

  “Oh, great, a fan.” She sighs. “Hello. Yes, I’m Amelia Jones.”

  Chapter Two

  A New Arrangement

  THE MYSTWICK CAFETERIA BUZZES like a beehive in a hurricane.

  Kids stand on chairs and tables, craning to see over each other’s heads. They completely drown out the voices of the Maestros telling them to get down. Flashes of light spark as my classmate Jingfei shoves her camera wherever she can to get a good shot, taking her new job as reporter for the school newspaper very seriously. Claudia, a clarinetist from my Aeros class, sobs dramatically on the floor, her friends trying to calm her down.

  And I sit frozen on a plastic yellow chair, my hands clasped on my lap, staring at Amelia Jones.

  The other Amelia Jones.

  Alive and in the flesh.

  Is this really happening? I feel like I’m stuck in some sort of dream. Not just because the other Amelia happens to be rich, famous, and a musical prodigy—but because she’s supposed to be dead.

  But there she stands in the center of the room, a space cleared around her, as if fame surrounds her like a barrier spell. I hadn’t known what else to do with her but bring her to the cafeteria, where all the Maestros would be eating lunch. Only seconds after we walked in, Claudia had recognized Amelia Jones and started screaming.

  Chaos followed.

  Through all the commotion, one person drifts through t
he crowd, as if in a trance, to take Amelia’s hands in her own. A reverent space clears around the two girls.

  “It’s really you,” Darby whispers.

  The other Amelia squeezes my roommate’s hands. “It’s me, Darbs.”

  “It’s just . . .” Darby swallows. “I’m having a hard time believing it. You wouldn’t be the first ghost I’ve seen this month, Mia.”

  Darbs and Mia. They have their own names for each other. But then, of course they do. They were—are—best friends. Because Mia is definitely no ghost.

  I should know.

  “I don’t understand,” Darby says. “How are you here?”

  That’s the question everyone around us is trying to answer. But finally Mr. Pinwhistle takes out his trumpet and plays a silencing spell. A fog of yellow magic spreads through the room, muffling all sound but that of his trumpet. With a loud, final note, he lowers the instrument and glares at everyone.

  “Enough!” he growls. “All of you, sit down and finish your food. You two”—he points at Darby and Mia—“come with us.”

  He and Miss Noorani gather the girls and escort them out of the cafeteria. I start to follow, then stop myself. This doesn’t really have anything to do with me.

  And yet . . . it kind of has everything to do with me.

  After all, when I first arrived at Mystwick, it was only because I’d received the other Amelia’s acceptance letter by mistake. They said she’d died, and so her letter got rerouted to me by magical accident. The Maestros had given me a second chance anyway, letting me prove that I had what it took to be a real Mystwick student.

  And I had done just that—though not exactly without some trouble along the way. In fact, I’ve only been an official, permanent Mystwick student for one week now. Everything has only just started to feel normal.

  Until today.

  I sit beside Jai and stare at the peas and mashed potatoes on my tray.

  “Well,” he says, staring wide-eyed at me. “Wow.”

  “Wow,” I agree.

  “I mean . . . wow.” He gives me an odd look. “You okay?”

  “Of course she’s not,” snipes a voice. It’s Claudia, who leans in between us. “The real Amelia Jones has arrived, so what does that mean for our little impostor?”