The Mystwick School of Musicraft Page 10

  Mr. Pinwhistle grunts, nods, and turns to another student. “And yellow spells?”

  “They let us move things,” the boy says quietly.

  Mr. Pinwhistle sighs. “Name?”

  The boy’s cheeks turn red. “Collin Brunnings.”

  “Collin Brunnings,” mutters Mr. Pinwhistle, going to the chart by the door. He finds Collin’s card and moves it into last place. Everyone falls very quiet.

  I sit up a little straighter, trying not to grin. At least it’s not me in the last spot.

  “In this class, Collin,” growls Mr. Pinwhistle, “we will be specific in our answers. So who can tell me what yellow spells do—specifically?”

  Claudia raises her hand. “Yellow spells, or kinetic spells, manipulate objects. They summon, repel, levitate, ward. They can even teleport, but those are very hard to play and can end in disaster if you mess up. You have to have a special license for teleportation spells.”

  The rest of the answers come quickly as Mr. Pinwhistle calls on other students. This is all basic stuff. Even so, I take notes furiously, making sure to be very specific.

  “Blue spells are elemental,” says a girl named Aya. “They let you call up wind or fire, and affect the weather. They can also be illusion spells, because they conjure light and darkness.”

  “White spells influence the mind,” a boy named George explains, as he pushes his glasses up his nose. “They’re also called mental spells. They can charm and enchant, put you to sleep or fog your memory. And they let some people see the future.”

  “That’s not true!” Claudia cries out.

  “It is! My grandmother knew a spell that could—”

  “Enough,” grumbles Mr. Pinwhistle. “It’s true some musicians can use certain spells to discern events to come, albeit these so-called visions are usually murky and unreliable.”

  Darby pipes up softly, “Some people believe in a fifth kind of spell—black spells.”

  Everyone turns to stare at her.

  Mr. Pinwhistle makes a noise in his throat like he has something stuck there.

  “They let you talk to ghosts,” Darby goes on. “Or resurrect the dead, steal souls, stuff like that.”

  “Like the Necromuse!” says George. “He uses black spells!”

  Everyone whispers, and a few kids look frightened.

  “What’s the Necromuse?” I whisper to George, whose desk is behind mine.

  He leans forward and replies, “Your worst nightmare, Jones.”

  I roll my eyes. “Very helpful, thanks.”

  Mr. Pinwhistle’s face has turned red. “Miss Bradshaw, we at Mystwick do not trade in fairy tales. There are no such things as black spells, and attempting them here will result in severe consequences. Now, we’ll speak no more about that.” He slaps Darby’s card into the last-chair slot, bumping up Collin Brunnings, who lets out a relieved sigh.

  Huh. I lean back in my chair, tapping my pencil to my lip.

  If there’s no such thing as black spells, why would it be against the rules to try them?

  Mr. Pinwhistle gives us a few minutes to tune up, then splits us into two groups. The first group heads into the little cubicles with the clear plastic walls, while my group waits for our turn. I watch curiously as the students in the cubicles play over their apples, which they place on little clear shelves inside. I can’t hear a single note from any of them. Those walls must be thicker than they look. Each cubicle fills with sparkling motes of green light, the magic bouncing around in the small spaces.

  Behind me, George whispers, “Can you imagine farting in there?”

  He and the boys around him crack up until Mr. Pinwhistle makes a growling noise.

  Darby finishes first, holding up her perfectly peeled apple, but she doesn’t smile. Mr. Pinwhistle nods with satisfaction and moves her up two chairs, putting Collin back in last place.

  Finally, it’s my turn. I shut the cubicle door and prop the spell on a stand in the corner. The apple goes on the shelf. Before I start, I hold my flute in position and practice the spell silently, clicking the keys and hearing the notes in my head. Once I’m sure of the melody, I begin.

  But I only get three notes into the spell before the sheets in front of me suddenly slip off their stand, falling to the floor.

  My heart jumps into my throat. I grab them up and replace them, then pick up where I left off.

  Again, I barely even start playing, and the pages leap off the stand.

  I glance around to see the students in the other booths aren’t having any trouble. There isn’t an air vent in here, or any other way a draft might have blown in. And I hadn’t gotten far enough into the spell yet to produce any magic. Weird. Quickly setting up the papers, I try again.

  This time, a gust of wind rushes around the booth, sweeping away the papers and pulling at my hair and clothes. I shout, grabbing at the sheets, and end up knocking my funny bone on the door handle. Yelping with pain, I throw out a hand for support and knock my apple to the floor. The pages rush all around me, beating at me like enraged birds. Shrieking, I bat them away with one hand and try to hold down my skirt with the other as the wind rushes around my legs.

  The door flies open, and the wind dissipates.

  Mr. Pinwhistle is standing there, face red. I realize all the other students have finished their spells, and are sitting at their desks staring at me, as my spell sheets gently drift to the floor and my apple rolls out. Mr. Pinwhistle stops it with his shoe, then picks it up and holds it between us. It’s covered in dark bruises, and not so much as a sliver of the peel has been removed.

  I stare at it, then him, at a loss for words.

  What just happened?

  It wasn’t my playing that started that wind. It’s almost like someone was playing a trick on me. But it doesn’t make sense—I was alone in there, and no other spells could have worked through the soundproof walls.

  Mr. Pinwhistle looks disgusted. “Miss Jones, if you aren’t going to take this seriously, perhaps you should reconsider why you’re here at all.”

  “But didn’t you see that—”

  “Sit down, Miss Jones.”

  A few people snicker, and it’s clear they thought I was the one making the wind, or maybe it just looked like I was being clumsy, dropping my papers everywhere.

  “What a tragedy,” Claudia says.

  I don’t know what to say to Mr. Pinwhistle. I can tell arguing will only make things worse.

  So I mumble an apology, promising not to do it again, even though I didn’t do anything. Someone booby-trapped the booth or something. I have no idea how, but I do know who used it before me: Darby Bradshaw. I watch her closely, but she isn’t even paying attention to me. She’s just staring at her desktop. Is that a sign of guilt? Does she suspect my secret?

  Mr. Pinwhistle firmly plants my name at the bottom of the chair list, and there it remains until the end of class, when he calls me to his desk.

  He wasn’t kidding about the extra homework part.

  * * *

  That evening, what little free time I have left after all the extra work I had to do, I spend in the library. It’s not so busy now, because most of the students are hanging out in the gym or common areas. And I guess it’s still early enough in the year that people aren’t cramming for tests.

  I try to call Gran from the library phone, but just get her voicemail. My throat closes up when I try to speak, and I only manage to squeak: “Hi Gran, it’s me, I’ll call again later.”

  I send her another email instead, and find it’s much easier to lie that way.

  This place is amazing! I write. I’ve made so many friends and am doing really well in all my classes. There’s nothing to worry about, not a single thing! Everything is totally fine.

  After a moment’s thought, I erase the last two sentences, imagining Gran’s nose wrinkling up as she squints through her glasses, reading between the lines.

  I miss you a lot, I write instead. The banana pudding here isn’t half as go
od as yours. Anyway, better go—lots of homework! Love, Amelia.

  After sending the email, I go downstairs. I have to find something to do a report on for my literature class, and end up in the fairy-tale section.

  My fingers trail along the spines. The Little Siren. Snow White and the Seven Drummers. Aladdin and the Wonderful Lute. The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

  I can’t stop thinking about the spell I flubbed in homeroom, and that stupid apple rolling over the floor. And the rest of my classes today drove home one undeniable fact: I’m not as good as these kids are. Maybe with a lot of practice, I could be, but can I really improve that much in just two months? Am I wasting everyone’s time by even trying?

  What if I’m just fooling myself, and should give up now?

  Then my fingers pause on a slender blue book: The Magic Flute.

  I take down the book and crack it open, recognizing the illustrations, because it’s the same edition as the one I have at home. It’s the story of a prince and an enchanted flute that could transform sadness into joy, and how he rescued his love by playing the most wonderful spells. When I was smaller, I used to read this one over and over, until I could repeat whole sections from memory. But as much as I love this one, I need something longer for my book report.

  I start to close it, but then a card slips out the back. I bend over to pick it up—and freeze.

  It’s one of those old cards people used to write their names on when they checked out a book. The list is old, because everything’s done with barcodes now; the dates are all from twenty years ago. But it’s not the dates that catch my attention.

  It’s the name that practically leaps out at me: Susan Jones.

  I gasp, staring at the little card like it’s a million-dollar bill.

  She checked it out seven times.

  Like it was her favorite book, too.

  My hands start to shake. I sink to the floor, cradling the book, gripping it until the pages crinkle. She held this. She read it, over and over. She came to this spot, took it off this shelf, stood right here. I turn through every page, in case there are any other signs she left behind, but all I find are smudges left by dirty fingers. They could be anyone’s.

  I slowly close the book, staring at the worn cover and imagining it in her hands. I can feel her so intensely at that moment that it’s like her arms are around me.

  And I realize I can’t give up.

  Because if I do, I’ll spend the rest of my life never knowing who I really am—am I my mother’s daughter, or am I my father’s? Do I stick by my dreams, or do I run away when things get hard, the way he did?

  If I get expelled from Mystwick, let it be because I wasn’t good enough.

  Not because I was a coward.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Second Rule of Musicraft

  ON OUR FIRST FRIDAY MORNING, all the seventh graders gather in the main auditorium, called the Shell. It’s the huge, vaulting concert hall at the far end of campus, shaped kind of like an armadillo shell. The whole seventh-grade class fills up only one small section of the seats. In front of us is an enormous stage, dark except for a lone spotlight shining down on a microphone stand.

  I slump in my seat, yawning from staying up late to study my homework. I sat for hours in the dorm’s shared bathroom, feet pulled up on the toilet seat so no one would notice me and make me go to bed. But my first week of classes proved one dire fact: I am very far behind my classmates. They play on a level I didn’t even know kids my age could, and if I’m going to catch up and earn my place here, I can’t waste time sleeping. So I’m tired and cranky, and my feet are sore from being squished inside my tiny shoes all week.

  At the end of the first day of class, I shoved my old boots deep into the closet. If being the perfect Mystwick musician means curling my toes all day and hobbling a bit when I walk, so be it.

  Mrs. Le Roux herself walks out. I haven’t seen her since the Planting Ceremony. Today she wears a bright, multicolored caftan. A gold comb in her hair sends up a spray of feathers that sway as she crosses to the microphone.

  “Good morning, students. Today’s lesson is one of the most important you will learn here,” she says.

  I sit up straighter. If it’s important enough that they’ll call a full assembly and Mrs. Le Roux, I better not miss a word.

  “I know you’ve all heard the Rules of Musicraft over and over again.”

  We all groan, nodding.

  But Mrs. Le Roux doesn’t smile. “Unfortunately, sometimes we can hear a thing so many times that it begins to lose its meaning. Tell me, students, what is the Second Rule of Musicraft?”

  Together we recite: “Lest you be doomed by your own art, always finish what you start.”

  Mrs. Le Roux nods seriously. “We all know what this rhyme means: that it is very dangerous to leave a spell unfinished. An incomplete spell leaves all sorts of uncontrolled and unstable forces hanging about.”

  She takes a long pause, letting the words sink in as her eyes slowly sweep over our faces.

  I know the rule well. It’s why when you’re just practicing a spell, you should always skip the first few notes, so you don’t create any magic that might get out of control. Playing a few measures over and over in practice is harmless, but if you start at the beginning, trigger the magic, and then don’t finish it, you end up with a spoiled spell, and those can be very dangerous depending on how powerful the spell is. Even if you mess up, you have to pull it together and keep going, or let someone else jump in and finish the spell for you—which is always embarrassing.

  “Often in your life,” Mrs. Le Roux continues, “you will find yourself playing in situations that are distracting or unsettling. Anger, sadness, and other powerful emotions can compromise your composure, causing errors or even preventing you from completing your spell. Sometimes, you’ll be with other musicians, who can close the spell if you’re unable. But the leading cause of magical injury—from bruised hands to charred instruments—comes from unfinished solo spells, especially if you’re dealing with Maestro-level magic.”

  I swallow hard, thinking suddenly of my mom.

  Is that what happened to her? Did she fail to complete a spell?

  Mrs. Le Roux flicks a finger, and the four class Maestros come walking solemnly onto the stage: Miss Noorani, Mr. Walters, Miss Becker, and Mr. Pinwhistle. They stand in a row and watch us grimly. I start to feel uneasy, wondering where this is leading. It doesn’t sound like we’ll be peeling apples or conjuring butterflies. Mr. Pinwhistle’s sour gaze sweeps over us, and lingers a second too long on me, and I could swear his nose wrinkles a little more than usual.

  “Each of you will soon enter a room,” Mrs. Le Roux says, “and there you will play a simple spell. Meanwhile, your Maestros will be playing another spell that you will not be able to hear. But you will see its effects. They will try to unsettle you, to make you angry, afraid, even terribly sad. Your simple task will be to control yourself and finish what you start. Play through the emotions.”

  As she leans in to the microphone, it’s like she’s staring straight into my soul.

  “I cannot impress upon you the importance of this exercise, except to say that one day, your lives may depend upon it.”

  With that, she leaves the stage, vanishing as suddenly as she appeared.

  In silent, solemn rows we file out of the auditorium and through a door that leads behind the stage. There we find a bunch of little soundproof rooms, sort of like the cubicles in the Aero classroom, except these ones aren’t see-through. We’re split into lines, to take our turns four at a time. I don’t know which Maestro I’m paired with, but I assume it’s Mr. Pinwhistle.

  I end up in the back of my line. Jai’s at the back of his, too, and he gives me a smile, but it’s a weak one.

  So we’ve finally found something that makes Jai Kapoor nervous.

  That doesn’t make me feel the least bit better.

  We can’t see into or hear anything coming out of the practice rooms
, so I have no idea what form the exercise will take. As the kids ahead of me finish their turns and leave, they don’t stick around to give the rest of us tips. Instead, most of them hurry away as fast as they can, looking like they’re about to puke. A lot of them are crying. One girl sinks into the corner, hugging her viola, shaking so badly I worry she’s in shock. But then Miss March appears and takes her gently away.

  Jai and I exchange looks.

  “Did your parents ever tell you about this?” I whisper.

  He shakes his head.

  It reminds me a little of the auditions, which of course sets me to panicking. Then I remember the point of this is to not panic, so I start panicking about panicking.

  Great.

  This is going to go fan-fiddle-tastically.

  Finally, my turn comes.

  Rabiah leaves the room I’m about to enter, sobbing quietly, trembling so much she can barely move her cello. I give her a questioning look, hoping she’ll give me some clue what to expect, but she just shakes her head and shuffles away.

  “Good luck,” Jai whispers, before stepping into his little room.

  Drawing a deep breath, I walk inside, shutting the door behind me.

  My hands are sweating so much that I worry I’ll drop my flute. I wipe them on my skirt and look around.

  There’s not much to see. Just padded walls and a bare linoleum floor, and a metal stand with a three-page spell on it.

  Someone has written in tiny letters by the door: It’s all an illusion. Keep your cool.

  Thanks, random student.

  That’s very reassuring.

  No one tells me what to do, so I figure I’m just supposed to start. First I read through the pages. It’s Rêverie, an illusion spell by Claude Debussy for conjuring light.

  I find the fingerings easily enough; it’s not an easy spell, but it’s not too difficult either as long as I keep my cool. I play slowly, lips pursed slightly as I blow across the embouchure.