The Mystwick School of Musicraft Page 14

  But instead of the firewood catching flame, Darby’s baton does.

  She yelps and drops it, the slim rod crackling with fire at one end.

  “Don’t let it go out!” I yell, leaving my rock to sprint toward her. I grab the baton and cup my hand around the flame. “We can still make it!”

  Darby stares at the flaming baton. “I messed it up,” she whispers. “I was concentrating on the baton, making sure I kept the tempo, instead of—”

  “Forget it!” I say, and I take off, jumping from rock to rock, making my way toward the pile of wood. The flame on the baton starts shrinking.

  “Hang in there,” I mutter. “C’mon, c’mon . . .”

  I reach the wood just in time, managing to stick the baton into the smaller kindling at the bottom. The twigs catch fire and I desperately blow on them, for once grateful that Gran made me join Girl Scouts in her quest to persuade me to give up Musicraft. In moments, a steady blaze has spread across the wood. With a sigh of relief, I hold out my hands, relishing the warmth.

  The rest of the class gathers around, looking just as relieved, but we’re all too tired and cold to cheer. Darby hangs back, sitting on a rock with her back to us.

  Cautiously, I approach her. “Darby? Are you okay?”

  “Leave me alone, Jones.”

  “You did it. You got us to create fire.”

  “Not the right way. You’re the one who lit the signal. I couldn’t even focus long enough to finish one stupid spell.” Now she turns a bit, but doesn’t look me in the eye. “I’m an oboist, Jones. And I’m a really good one. But I’m not a Conductor. Not anymore. That was . . . that was something I only did with my Amelia. She got me into it. And ever since she died . . .” She turns away again. “Just leave me alone, will you?”

  Sighing, I go back to the fire and sit.

  A few minutes later, a rock beside the bonfire jiggles, and Jingfei—who’d been sitting on it—jumps aside with a shout. The rock slides away, and from beneath it pops Mr. Pinwhistle.

  We all stare at the Maestro, and he glares back.

  The rock was covering the way down the whole time—a deep, square hole with a ladder inside.

  “Took you long enough. Now what are you waiting for?” he growls. “I’m freezing my butt off! Let’s go!”

  It’s a long climb down the ladder to a tunnel in the heart of the mountain. My cold fingers make it hard to grip the rungs, but at least I’m not the only one. We’re all stiff and slow.

  Once on level ground, we follow Mr. Pinwhistle closely through the dark tunnel, since he’s the only one with a flashlight. The walls are rough stone, the floor mud, and eerie dripping sounds echo around us. I wonder how deep this cave system goes, and hope I never have to find out. Who knows what other kind of demented tests Mr. Pinwhistle has up his sleeves?

  And yet, for all the pain this little “exercise” was, I can’t help but feel proud of my part in solving it. Maybe now the others will take me more seriously.

  After what feels like hours of walking, the tunnel ends in the Echo Wood, just behind Harmony Hall. The dark trees are almost welcoming after the mountain. They’re still tonight, no wind to stir their magic. In silent single file, we leave the woods and make for the hall, but before he lets us go inside, Mr. Pinwhistle stops us.

  “Well?” he grunts. “What did you learn?”

  There’s a moment of silence. Jingfei coughs.

  Finally, Collin bravely raises a hand. “Um . . . to always bring a jacket to class? Just in case?”

  Mr. Pinwhistle sighs long and deep, his hand dragging across his face. “Anyone else?”

  “Music is there for those who listen,” I whisper.

  “Eh?” Mr. Pinwhistle cups a hand around his ear. “What did you say?”

  I swallow, then say louder, “Music is there for those who listen?”

  He lowers his hand, giving me a thoughtful look. “Well. Now, that is an important lesson, isn’t it? Also, for those of you who care, remember that you should never rely too much on traditional instruments. A little imagination can come in handy when you’re in a tight spot, and there’s more than one way to make music. Anyway, go inside and get your dinner. I suspect it’s cold by now. And don’t forget, we have a transposing test tomorrow.”

  An hour later, I’m finally lying in my bed, full after a meal of tomato soup and grilled cheese—which, contrary to Mr. Pinwhistle’s prediction, the cafeteria had kept warm for us. Phoebe even brought us hot chocolate, with a knowing look on her face that tells me the mountaintop test must be a yearly thing.

  Darby is a silent bundle of blankets across the room, probably already asleep. We haven’t spoken again since Mr. Pinwhistle appeared to take us back, and I realize it was too much to hope things between us might have changed. She still seems determined to ignore me and everyone else.

  But right now, it’s hard to be upset about that. I’ve never been so happy to be so warm.

  Then I remember the girl on the mountain.

  The see-through girl who hovered in midair and attacked me as if she was trying to make me fall off the cliff.

  My mind spins like a hamster wheel.

  The wind that messed up my apple-peeling test. The person shining lights in my room all night long. The girl who tried to drown me during my test in the Shell.

  Somehow, I just know they’re all connected, and the girl I saw on the mountain is the cause.

  Maybe it’s time to finally admit the truth I’ve been too afraid to face:

  Someone at Mystwick is trying to sabotage me.

  And that someone is a ghost.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nothing but Treble

  “THE SECRET OF COMPOSING,” intones a deep, dramatic voice from behind the library shelves, “has nothing to do with the notes written or the key chosen; rather, a spell’s purpose is directly linked to the emotional desires of its Composer.”

  “Jai,” I groan, “I told you to leave it alone.”

  It’s been several days since the mountaintop test. I’m trying to find a book on memory spells—maybe there’s something here that can help me recall the drowning memory I still haven’t been able to remember—but he’s been following me around for the past twenty minutes, reading from a Composing book, trying to get me interested. I pull out an index of white spells and Jai’s face appears in the gap left behind.

  “Hey,” he says defensively. “I said I was going to help you, and that’s what I’m doing.”

  “By getting me kicked out? Composing is against the rules. And where did you even find that book?”

  He waves the copy of Composing: Basics for Beginners. “Snagged it from behind the librarian’s desk when she was helping Collin find a spell to cure his pimples. There are all kinds of books back there they don’t want us to know about. I heard my dorm captain talking about them—apparently only teachers have access to that shelf.”

  I roll my eyes and slide the index back into its place, having found nothing useful in it, but Jai comes around the corner, the book open in his hands.

  “According to this, whether a spell is green, blue, white, or yellow has nothing to do with the notes themselves, which is why two spells can sound very similar but do totally different types of magic. It’s all about the Composer, and what they were thinking when they wrote the spell for the first time. So when you Composed that snow spell—”

  “I was thinking about snow,” I murmur.

  He nods, his eyes bright. “See? It’s not complicated at all. You just have to focus really hard on what you want the magic to do when you Compose the melody. According to this book, it’s all about maintaining something called purity of focus.” His eyes scan the page. “Some people think every spell has a piece of its Composer’s soul trapped inside of it.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I say, even as my scalp tingles at the thought. “Seriously, Jai. I can’t think about Composing right now. I have bigger problems.”

  Now that I’ve realized I’
m being haunted, I’ve started seeing evidence of my ghost everywhere.

  A few days ago, in Orchestra, Mr. Pinwhistle had us play a concerto that should have made us all levitate an inch off the ground. He told us that if we wanted, we could experiment with harmonies, improvising a little to add to the spell’s strength, like a lot of students did during the Planting Ceremony. I decided to follow the written notes, figuring it’s better to nail the melody than to try something fancy and end up ruining the spell for everyone.

  Except that when I’d tried, I’d lost control of my flute.

  The keys started pressing in weird combinations with a mind of their own. I stared in shock, my own hands frozen as my instrument went completely bananas. I stopped blowing, but the keys kept clicking, pressed by invisible fingers.

  It was then that I’d realized I was not alone.

  It was her, trying to mess me up.

  “No!” I’d shouted. “Just leave me alone!”

  Everyone turned to look at me, a few students falling out of tempo and missing notes, but they recovered quickly. Because, after all, they weren’t being targeted by some maniac from beyond the grave.

  My face had been on fire. I couldn’t exactly explain to them that I was yelling at a sabotaging ghost, could I? I raised my flute, hoping I could still salvage the situation, but then Mr. Pinwhistle marched up to me and took it right out of my hands.

  “Miss Jones,” he growled, “if you wish to act like a child, you ought to use a child’s instrument.”

  I had to play a plastic kazoo for the rest of the class, like a five-year-old.

  Things just got worse after that.

  The next day, in Theory of Musicraft, my report on traditional Egyptian healing magic flew off my desk like there was a strong wind. But we were indoors, and it didn’t happen to anyone else. Even Miss Noorani looked irritated with me. Jingfei—whose presentation on Chinese navigational spells was interrupted by me chasing down sheets of paper—“accidentally” spilled her apple juice on me at dinner as payback.

  In my one-on-one session with Mr. Pinwhistle later that day, I’d stared in horror as behind his back, the magnetic music notes on the whiteboard began to move, rearranging themselves to spell a word, R-E-S-O-P- At first I didn’t get it, but then I realized the ghost was spelling backwards—the word POSER. I rushed to the board and scrambled them before Mr. Pinwhistle could see, my heart racing.

  He’d stared at me like I’d gone insane.

  But what could I say? That a ghost was trying to get me expelled by telling him I’m a poser, a fake? It’s not like he doesn’t already think it every time he looks at me. The other students might not know I’m here by accident, but the Maestros do, and everything the ghost does to trip me up only makes me look worse in their eyes.

  The more it’s happened, the more convinced I’ve become that it’s not just my imagination.

  The ghost is real, and she’s determined to get me expelled.

  Looking at Jai now, his nose glued to the book on Composing, I almost tell him everything—about me taking the other Amelia’s place, my upcoming test to prove I belong at Mystwick, the ghost . . .

  But if he believes me, he’ll probably just try to fix that too. I can’t get him on the ghost’s bad side with me, not after everything he’s done to try to help me. And if he doesn’t believe me, he’ll think I’m nuts and probably stop hanging out with me at all. Or worse, he’ll realize I don’t belong here, that I’m not the musician he thought I was, and he’ll know I’ve been lying to him this whole time. He’s my only real friend here. If I lose him, I think I might lose hope altogether.

  “Thanks,” I say to Jai. “Really. But even if I might be able to Compose, I can’t risk it. I can barely play normal, not-against-the-rules spells—I’d definitely blow something up trying to invent my own music.”

  “Look,” Jai says, shutting the book. “We’re friends, right?”

  “Um, I guess so.”

  “You guess so? That’s your problem right there!”

  “Huh?”

  “Confidence, Amelia Polly Jones! We are friends. You are a good musician. Why can’t you just believe that instead of always feeling sorry for yourself? Your magic is only as strong as—”

  “—my belief. I know, I know!” I throw my hands up. “You keep saying that!”

  He sighs. “And yet it never seems to stick. If you could just try Composing again—”

  “Will you stop pushing me? I told you a million times, it’s not going to work!” I turn and walk away before he can start reading from that stupid book again. He’ll get in who-knows-how-much trouble if Miss March catches him with it, anyway.

  “Hey!” he shouts, getting a loud shushing from everyone else on that floor.

  Ignoring him, I mumble something about needing to practice and hurry away.

  But instead, I go back to the dorm, having come to one terrible and final conclusion: I have to fix this myself. And before I can do that, I need to know why this is happening to me.

  It’s time to have a chat with the ghost.

  * * *

  I plan my ambush for Friday night. Even though I’m so tired I could collapse, I sit up on my bed after Darby nods off. I’m prepared—I snuck some ice cubes from dinner in my pocket. They’re mostly melted now, and my clothes are soaked, but there’s enough left of them to hold in my hands, put down my shirt, anything to keep me awake.

  By midnight, though, they’ve all melted, and I have nothing but wet pajamas to show for it.

  Leaning against the wall, I squint hard into the dark, waiting to see if my nightly visitor will appear. This time, she’s not getting away with it. This time, I’m prepared.

  As long as I don’t lose my nerve. It’s not like I’ve ever dealt with a ghost before.

  I borrowed a camera from Jingfei, telling her I wanted to take pictures of the campus to send to my gran. But in truth, I’m going to try to get a picture of the ghost. The camera’s in my hand, turned on and ready to go at a moment’s notice. My flute is in my other hand. I’m not sure what I’ll need it for, but it’s best to be prepared.

  Just got to stay awake.

  Just got to keep my eyes open.

  Just got to . . .

  * * *

  I wake with a start, panicking.

  Darby’s clock beams that it’s almost three in the morning. In the dim glow, her form hunches under her covers, black hair spread across the pillow.

  After I fell asleep, I must have slumped over onto the sheets. There’s a wet patch of drool under my face, and it comes away in a gross string as I sit up.

  I snatch up the camera and turn it back on, thinking something must have woken me up.

  And that’s when I get the chill.

  It starts in my scalp and creeps down my body like a ring of ice. I have goose bumps straight down to my toes. It’s like I jumped into the cold lake. When I exhale in surprise, my breath forms a little white cloud over my face.

  Then I feel it: a presence in the room, right behind me.

  I whirl around toward the door, raising the camera. The shutter clicks, flooding the room with light and momentarily blinding me. Darby bolts up with a yelp.

  “What the—”

  Then she stops, because she sees it too:

  The ghost.

  It’s a girl, all right. Or something like a girl. Long dress, long hair, her back to us, every bit of her silver-white and transparent. Her feet hover above the ground and her hair floats around her shoulders. But as soon as we set eyes on her, she turns, too fast for me to see much more than a flash of startled eyes.

  Then she’s gone, vanishing all at once.

  “Find her!” Darby shouts, falling out of bed and fumbling for the knob.

  I gape at her. “What?”

  She doesn’t wait for me, but yanks open the door and bursts into the hallway. Gritting my teeth, I drop the camera and run after her, my heart pounding and my whole body cold. I’ve never been so scared in my l
ife, but I can’t let Darby get murdered by a ghost in the middle of the night.

  Or can I?

  As I run after her, I do, for a minute, reconsider.

  But in the dark hallway, I don’t see that Darby has stopped dead. I smack into her, and we both crash to the floor.

  All down the hallways, lights flicker on. Doors open and heads poke out.

  Darby and I untangle ourselves. She’s pale and breathing hard, looking . . . well, like she’s seen a ghost.

  “Gross,” she says. “Why are you all wet?”

  “It’s not what you think!” I say quickly.

  “What is going on?” Our captain, Phoebe, storms down the hallway, clearly not impressed with us for waking everyone up.

  I start to say “Gho—”

  But Darby throws her elbow into my ribs. Hard.

  “She means, we were going to the bathroom,” Darby says. Then she glares at me.

  “Well,” says Claudia, snickering at me, “looks like you were too late.”

  “It’s ice!” My face flushes with heat. “Ice melted on my PJs!”

  “Everyone back to bed!” Phoebe orders. “If you have to pee, go now, because I don’t want to hear a single peep for the rest of the night!”

  Darby and I head back to our room, enduring a lot of glaring eyes on the way. She walks rigidly, sticking close to me like she’s worried I’ll break and tell everyone what we saw. I don’t know what she’s playing at, but clearly she wants to keep this between us.

  Once we’re back in our room, she shuts the door and whirls to face me.

  “Don’t. Tell. Anyone.”

  “Why?” I pace the narrow floor between our beds, my hands digging through my hair. “Darby. That was a ghost. There was a ghost in our room.”

  I remember the camera and grab it off the bed. I pull up the screen and click through a million selfies of Jingfei before I finally find it: the photo I took just before the ghost ran away.

  Darby looks over my shoulder.