The Mystwick School of Musicraft Page 13

  “What the heck?” yells Claudia. “What is going on?”

  “He hates us,” Collin moans, looking dazed. “He hates us and he sent us up here to die.”

  “Oh, stop it,” I say. “It’s a lesson of some sort. We just have to figure it out.”

  Collin moans louder.

  “Let’s spread out,” Darby says. “Look for a way down, or anything that might help.”

  It seems like the best plan. We take off in different directions, going slowly over the sharp rocks and slippery patches of ice. I work my way toward what looks like a path, only to find it ends at a cliff face. Shivering, I inch closer, until I’m a step away from the edge.

  It’s a long, long, long way down.

  With a shudder, I back away.

  Mr. Pinwhistle wouldn’t just leave us here without some way to make magic. One of the only instructions he gave us was that when we were ready to come back, we should send him “a signal.” Before we could ask what the heck that meant, Miss Myra began playing her organ, and it was so loud I could hardly hear myself think. And then—we were here.

  Hearing a shout to my right, I climb back to the others and find them clustered around Jingfei, who’s dragging something from behind a rock.

  “I found it!” she yells. “I passed it three times first, though. It was pretty well hidden.”

  The thing is a chest, which Jingfei opens at once. We all lean over eagerly to see . . .

  A stick.

  Not instruments. Not a list of instructions. Not a map.

  A stick.

  Collin lets out a wail. “We are going to die!”

  “Maybe it means something,” I say. “Like, a riddle or a clue.”

  “Or maybe it’s part of something else,” says Claudia. “Everyone keep searching! Maybe there are more chests!”

  We run in all directions, reenergized. I clamber all over the mountaintop, prying at anything that looks suspicious. The rocks are cold to the touch, and I blow on my hands to warm them.

  Collin finds the next surprise: a pile of firewood at the highest point of the peak. We gather around it, stumped. With no instruments (and no matches), there’s no way to light the wood.

  “I bet this is what Mr. P meant by signal,” says Jingfei.

  “So how do we light it?” Claudia looks ready to snap. Her hair is frizzed by the wind and her eyes look reddened. But is that because of the cold—or was she possibly up all night, snooping in our room? I watch her a little more closely, waiting for a yawn or some other sign that she’s my nighttime pest.

  “I guess we keep searching,” Jingfei sighs.

  Groaning, the others disperse. But all we turn up is rocks, rocks, rocks. I don’t know how long we’ve been out here, but it has to have been an hour already. Is there a time limit to this thing? If we’re up here too long, will Mr. Pinwhistle have Miss Myra teleport us back? After all, we still have more classes to attend, and dinner, and study hall . . .

  Surely he wouldn’t leave us up here in the dark.

  Right?

  But another hour passes, and there’s no sign that Mr. Pinwhistle even remembers we exist. We give up searching for more chests because there simply aren’t any. We’ve moved every rock we can, scoured each inch of the peak, but finally we’re forced to admit that the stick is our only hope.

  Claudia does find a sort of cave, which is barely big enough for all of us to escape the wind. We huddle together, miserable, freezing, and now starving.

  “Maybe if we beat the stick against a rock?” Collin suggests sadly. “Like, make some sort of rhythm?”

  At least he’s still trying.

  But even if that were the answer, none of us are percussionists. And anyway, creating magic with nothing more than a beat is really hard, which is why Percussos usually use something like a xylophone or a glockenspiel when they’re doing individual spellwork. So I don’t see how a simple stick would help anyway.

  George sniffs. “You know, guys, this is just the sort of place where the Necromuse would slip up behind you.”

  “Oh, for the love of Bach, shut up,” snaps Claudia.

  He shrugs and adjusts his glasses. “Just saying, watch your back.”

  “The Necromuse isn’t real.”

  “Careful. That’s exactly the sort of thing someone says . . . before he strangles them.”

  Claudia huffs and turns her back to George. But I scoot closer.

  “So who is he, anyway?” I’ve always loved scary stories, and it’s not like we’re doing anything else right now.

  “They say he’s the devil’s right-hand guy,” says George, who, I have to admit, has a pretty fantastic scary-story voice. “He was banned from Musicraft a few years ago for playing black spells. He even has the Bars to prove it.”

  I know what the Bars are—metal staples clamped onto the ears of musicians who use magic for evil purposes. If they try to play a spell, or even get too close to someone else who is playing one, the Bars will set off a high-pitched tone in their ears that is really painful, enough to make them faint or claw their ears until they bleed. I’ve seen it in movies, and it’s awful.

  “The Necromuse is the bane of the Musicraft world,” says George. “He raises the dead and binds them to his will—”

  “How?” I ask. “If he’s Barred, how can he even play spells?”

  He gives me an annoyed look. “He plays through the pain. That’s, like, his signature. You can tell who he is because his ears are always bleeding. Now as I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted, he raises the dead and—”

  “Why?” I ask.

  George blinks. “Why? Well . . . because he’s evil, that’s why.”

  “Yeah, but he still must have a reason to raise the dead. What does he want?”

  “Want? He’s a bad guy. Bad guys just like doing bad stuff. You know, for the heck of it.”

  I sigh. “I’d hoped this would be a better story.”

  George puts out his hands like he’s a zombie and goes after Jingfei, pretending that he’s trying to eat her head. Jingfei slaps his arm, not in the mood for dumb games.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” says Claudia. “I can’t believe I’m stuck up here with nothing but a bunch of idiots and a stick.”

  “It’s not a stick,” says Darby.

  “Of course it’s a stick. Don’t be a—”

  “It’s a baton,” says Darby. “For Conducting.”

  Everyone blinks.

  “Oh,” says Jingfei. “Really?”

  “Why didn’t you tell us that an hour ago?” Claudia asks.

  Darby shrugs, twirling the baton. “What use is a baton without musicians to Conduct? We have no instruments.”

  “You still could have told us!”

  For once, I agree with Claudia.

  The others have given up, clearly. A couple of kids have curled up like they’re going to sleep. No one talks. I guess now the plan is to wait until Mr. Pinwhistle swoops in to take us home.

  Well, the others may be content to fail, but I’m not. The problem is, I don’t know the first thing about Conducting.

  But I know someone who does.

  I go sit beside Darby, and as usual, she pretends I don’t exist. But this time, I’m not going to give her what she wants by also pretending I don’t exist.

  “It was meant for you, wasn’t it?” I say quietly. She’s still holding the baton, and I point to it. “You knew it was. That’s why you’ve had it all this time.”

  Her fingers tighten around it. “I’m not a Conductor.”

  “But I saw you, in that video with the other Amelia.”

  She sucks in a breath, shaking her head. “That was just for fun. We were . . . being silly.”

  “Well, we could really use some of that silly right about now. Darby, the baton wasn’t put here by accident. It was meant for you. You have to get us off this mountain.”

  “How?” she demands, so loudly that the sleeping kids wake up. “How, Amelia? Even if I could Co
nduct, who would I Conduct?”

  She turns away, hugging the baton to her stomach and hunching her shoulders.

  With a sigh, I lean against the cave wall, staring out into the darkening sky. The wind is picking up, colder than ever. I pull my arms inside my shirt to keep them warm, but even so, I’m shivering so hard that my teeth clatter.

  Then I see her.

  A girl, standing just outside the cave.

  “Hey!” I shout. “There’s someone out there!”

  Everyone jumps up. “Where? Who?”

  “I don’t see anyone,” says Claudia.

  I peer into the gloom, but the girl seems to have vanished.

  “Jones’s brain must have frozen,” Collin gasps. “How long before all our brains freeze?”

  Rolling my eyes, I take a quick count. All the Aeros are accounted for, so whoever I saw, it wasn’t one of us. But I know someone was there.

  “I’m going to look,” I say.

  “You’re crazy!” Claudia shouts. “Come back here!”

  “Let her go,” says Darby, but not in a helpful sort of way—more of a hopeful, maybe-she’ll-fall-off-a-cliff sort of way. My roomie really knows how to warm the heart.

  Ignoring them all, I step into the icy wind and call out, “Hello?”

  It’s darker than I thought. I can barely see where I’m stepping, and the wind pushes at me so hard that I have to lean into it. The snow has turned to ice, which pelts me like bits of glass.

  “Hello? Who’s there?”

  “Amelia . . .”

  I whirl around, but can’t tell which direction the voice came from.

  Moving faster, clambering dangerously over the cold rocks, I search everywhere, until I lose sight of the cave and everyone inside. I force myself to slow down a little or else I really will fall off a cliff.

  Then I spot her again.

  She’s standing . . . in midair.

  And then I realize I’ve seen her before.

  During my test in the Shell.

  She tried to drown me in Miss Noorani’s illusion river.

  I can’t make out anything except her vague form, like she’s made of light, not flesh and blood, just like she was the last time I saw her. Is she some sort of illusion? A spell? If so, that means there’s someone around here with an instrument. Someone with a way off this horrible mountain. But I don’t hear any music.

  “Hello?” I whisper. “Are . . . are you real? Why are you following me?”

  I edge closer to the girl, holding out a hand, feeling for where the rock drops away.

  Then she lunges at me.

  With a scream, I fall backwards, my whole body going cold as she swoops through me. I hit the rocks hard, knocking the breath from my lungs. When I turn, I see no sign of the girl.

  “Where are you?” I shout hoarsely, clutching my ribs. I stumble upright, raising a hand to block the sleet from stinging my eyes. But I’m completely alone again.

  And suddenly, I know what the girl is.

  The word is right there in front of me, but I’m almost too scared to think it.

  Ghost.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Music Is There for Those Who Listen

  THAT’S WHAT SHE LOOKED LIKE. That’s what she felt like. But that’s impossible, right? I mean, ghosts aren’t real. It had to be an illusion—or, like Collin said, my brain’s too frozen to think straight.

  What am I doing up here?

  How did I end up on a frozen mountain peak, thousands of miles from home, and now with a ghost following me?

  At that moment, despair washes over me.

  Maybe I don’t belong here. Maybe I’m fighting for something I can never have.

  It was easy enough to say I could do it when I had my flute in my hands, but right now, I have nothing. I came here to get answers about my mom—who was she? Am I anything like her? But instead, all I get is a possible, honest-to-Bach ghost. And she’s not the only thing haunting me. I can still hear the squeaky A note from my audition, howling with the wind, reminding me every second that I’m not good enough.

  Wait a minute.

  That note isn’t my imagination.

  It’s coming from above me.

  I turn and look up, squinting in the gloomy light, until I see it: a hole in a rock, as neat and round as if it had been cut out with a pair of scissors. The wind is howling through it, creating an almost perfect A note.

  Weird.

  I stand up and walk closer, only to trip over another jutting rock. I reach out to pull myself up, and find another hole.

  Then I see them everywhere.

  All across the mountaintop, there are rocks with holes in them. You’d miss them completely if you weren’t looking for them, because they’re impossible to see without eyeing them straight on. That’s probably why we didn’t see them earlier. When I get closer, I can hear the wind howling through them at different pitches.

  And then it all makes sense.

  It’s just like the school motto: Music is there for those who listen.

  I run back to the cave as quickly as I can, shouting for the others. Because of the wind, they don’t hear me until I’m just steps away. I skid to a halt, breathless, and gasp out, “I know what to do! I know what to do!”

  A few people look up curiously, but Claudia scowls. “Let me guess. You saw an entire freaking elephant this time?”

  Ignoring her, I walk to Darby. “You said if we had instruments, you could Conduct us.”

  She looks up. “That’s not exactly what I—”

  “I found instruments.”

  Now everyone jumps up, looking interested. Even Claudia folds her arms, waiting for me to explain.

  Skipping the part about the ghost, or illusion, or whatever she was, I tell them about the holes in the rocks, and how the wind makes different pitches as it whistles through them. At first they look doubtful, but then they follow me out to have a look themselves.

  “Listen!” shouts Collin. He puts a hand over one of the holes, blocking the wind and stopping the sound it makes. Then he removes his hand and the note sounds again.

  “This is it,” says Claudia. “The mountain is our instrument!”

  “The holes are spread out,” I say. “But there are twenty-five of them. We each take one and put our hands over the holes, then remove them to play the spell. It’s sort of like handbells, where we all are in charge of different notes. This is how we light the signal fire!”

  “But there are only twenty-five holes,” says Claudia. “And there are twenty-six of us.”

  I nod. “That’s because Darby has a different job.” I turn to look at my roommate, who stands silently with the baton at her side. “Every orchestra needs a Conductor. She has to be in charge of the spell, making sure we play together.”

  Darby looks down at the baton, then up at me, her eyes wide. “I—I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can,” I say. “Or is someone else here trained to Conduct?”

  No one volunteers.

  “Well, that’s settled then,” Claudia says. “Darby’s Conducting, and each of us takes a wind-hole thing. Anyone have an idea for a spell to light the firewood?”

  “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider,” I say at once.

  She rolls her eyes. “That’s a drying spell, Jones.”

  “So speed up the tempo. Trust me. It will work.”

  She looks doubtful, but shrugs.

  It takes a few minutes to get everyone organized, and then we have to figure out which holes make which notes. We arrange ourselves in a scale, after discovering that all together, the holes cover four octaves. It takes a bit of arguing before we settle on an arrangement that uses all the notes. As I point out, it’s going to take each of us playing to generate a powerful enough spell to light the cold, wet firewood. Finally, though, we get it worked out and move into our places. Some of the holes are difficult to reach, and a few students have to lie on their stomachs or stand on tiptoe.

  Darby reluctantly takes up position
where we can all see her, though we can’t all see each other. She somehow has to remember which of us has which notes, and get us all to play them at the right time. Meanwhile, we each have to focus on the pile of firewood, which we can see above us on the highest rock, behind Darby.

  “Ready?” Darby shouts over the wind.

  I nod, my hand clamped over the hole in my rock. Claudia’s on my left, and Collin on the right.

  The first time we try to play the spell, it goes terribly. Darby mixes up the notes, and we don’t even produce a single wisp of magic.

  Frustrated, she has us start over. Her baton bobs to keep the tempo, but more importantly, she points at whoever’s turn it is to play. The second time, Collin misses her direction and doesn’t release his note in time, and the spell bungles again.

  “Hey, Collin!” shouts George. “Pay closer attention to your A hole!”

  George laughs so hard at his own stupid joke that we have to wait a whole minute before starting again. Three more times we fail, but on the fifth try, we finally manage to get a bit of smoke off the firewood.

  It’s still not enough.

  “We have to play faster!” I say.

  “This spell isn’t working!” Claudia argues. “We should try Haydn’s Fifty-Ninth Symphony.”

  “Claudia.” I give her a flat look. “We’re playing with rocks. We can’t exactly grind out a symphony here.”

  “The problem isn’t the spell!” shouts Darby. “It’s me! I keep messing up.”

  “You’re doing great!” I call back.

  “No, I’m not!”

  “Just try one more time!”

  Her eyes are glittering with tears, but she raises her baton. I draw a deep breath, then focus myself once more. This has to work.

  This time, we succeed—sort of. As our notes sound—hollow, breathy tones that remind me of a pan flute—streams of blue magic curl from the rocks, looking ghostly in the twilight. I’ve never seen magic done like this before, and it makes my skin break out in goose bumps that have nothing to do with the cold. This isn’t just any spell.

  This is big magic.

  This is what I came to Mystwick to learn.

  I watch the flickering magic as it coils through the air, hoping it will reach the wood, that the signal will light, that we’ll finally get off this mountain.