The Mystwick School of Musicraft Read online

  I watch them until Gran shouts at me to look where I’m going; I’d nearly tripped over a storm drain.

  Newsstands bristle with papers, headlines screaming things like Tokyo Philharmonic Staves Off Deadly Typhoon and Nigerian Maestro Composes New Cancer-Fighting Spell—But Is It Too Good to Be True? People on the corners hawk rolled spells in plastic tubes or hand out fliers advertising “Spectacular Performances by Musicraft’s Best Illusionists! Witness Conjuration of Cosmic Proportion! One Night Only!” I take every flier they thrust at me, eyes wide, until Gran scowls and shoves them all into a recycling bin, muttering about charlatans.

  I bounce impatiently alongside her, while the sounds of the city sweep over us. My ears can’t help but pick up the melodies hidden in the noise.

  Every place has its own music, if you listen hard enough. The woods have a quiet, whispery nocturne, all swishing leaves and wind, one of my favorite sounds. It makes me want to lie down and close my eyes and just breathe. But the city is a symphony, so many sounds all clashing and blending, rising and falling: honking cars, shouting people, and of course, the street musicians who perform magic for spare change. We pass a man who offers to smooth the wrinkles from Gran’s face with a spell from his accordion.

  “Honestly,” huffs Gran, not even giving him a glance. But she looks at me with a scowl. “This is what you want to do with your life, Amelia?”

  “These people are Novices,” I point out. “When I’ve graduated from Mystwick, I’ll be a Maestro, Gran. Like Mom. You know that.”

  She always pretends she doesn’t know anything about Musicraft, like it’s not important to remember the difference between Novices and Maestros. As if pretending none of it exists could convince me to stop playing.

  Mrs. Parrish explained it to me years ago: While Novices are small-time spell workers, Maestros are more powerful, specially trained musicians. In groups called Symphonies, they travel the world, calming hurricanes and bringing rain to droughts and building bridges, all kinds of wonderful and beautiful things. Novices use their magic in small ways, like healing colds or propelling trolleys down the street, but Maestros?

  Maestros change the world.

  But to earn that special gold pin, you have to pass a series of very difficult Maestric Exams, which is almost impossible to do without the training found at the world’s top Musicraft schools like Mystwick. And they only take the best of the best.

  There are other schools, of course, like the Musicraft Academy in this very city, where Mrs. Parrish went, but not many people go there to become Maestros. Instead, they train to be Musicraft teachers or instrument makers, which are also important jobs . . . but I’ve always known that I wanted to be a Maestro, like my mom, like the people in the Symphonies on the television.

  A trolley rolls past, wheels sparking with golden magic thanks to the saxophonist standing at the back, sweat shining on his face as he plays “Over the Rainbow.” Across the street, I spot a five-piece brass ensemble in hardhats, aiding a construction crew with a hovering spell that lifts heavy beams and tools. Banners of golden magic unfurl from their instruments and slink through the air like slender dragons.

  Back in our little town, there’s only one professional musician besides our music teacher—Mr. Meadows. He’s a guitarist who mostly does small spells in his little shop downtown—curing headaches, finding lost keys and pets, substituting when Mrs. Parrish can’t teach our class. As a Novice, he can’t do high-level magic, but he’ll usually show me a few new tricks when I ask. Sometimes, he even pays me a little to help him, things like growth spells when they reseeded the baseball field or even, once, playing an elemental spell to hold off rain on the day of the big town-wide picnic. Gran knows nothing about that, or she’d probably have sold my flute on the spot, thinking I was trying magic too big for me. But there aren’t many people back home who could play such spells, and certainly no other kids my age who could pull them off.

  But here, it seems there’s a musician on every corner. I’ve never seen so much magic at work all at once; the air is thick with it, glittering light and glowing ribbons of every color. I slow in front of a Spellstones store and peer through the window at the racks and racks of sheet music for sale, with spells covering everything from Novice healing magic and illusion work to restricted, dangerous spells that can only be bought and played by Maestros. I could spend hours in there, just leafing through all those papers. I’ve always dreamed of going into a Spellstones; they’re the most famous chain of music stores in the world. They say you can find any sort of spell on their shelves—spells to recover lost memories or banish thunderstorms or slow the melting of the glaciers.

  But then I see the tall building ahead, and I grab Gran’s hand.

  “There it is!” I shout. “The hotel where the auditions are!” I recognize it from the search I did on the library computer back when I first submitted my application. I glance at Gran’s watch; my audition slot is in just twenty minutes. If we’d made the earlier train, I’d have had time to practice beforehand, but now I’ll be glad if I just get a chance to change clothes first.

  Gran shakes her head. “Go on, then. I’ll catch up to you. But Amelia, be careful! Watch out for—”

  “I’ll be fine, Gran!” I don’t need to be given permission twice.

  I race ahead, pushing through the crowds on the sidewalk and clutching my flute case to my chest. I skid around the corner and then find myself standing right in front of it: the Hotel Rhapsody.

  Tall and glass and modern, the building is fancy.

  Seriously fancy.

  I almost wait for Gran to catch up, but being even a minute late might cost me everything. So I put one foot in front of the other and walk past the two sparkling fountains to a huge revolving glass door.

  The lobby echoes with voices and the splashing of an artificial waterfall that tumbles from the third floor. A valet walks and plays a guitar, and from it, yellow streamers of magic unfurl to carry a line of suitcases for a guest. I stare at him for a few minutes, wondering how he can juggle so many pieces at once. The silver music note pinned to his uniform designates him as a Novice, but the spell sounds pretty complicated, his fingers a blur as they pick the strings.

  Off to one side is a table with a little sign on it: MYSTWICK SCHOOL OF MUSICRAFT AUDITIONS. A woman sits behind it, shuffling through a stack of papers.

  I hurry over and set my flute on the floor, then cough to get the woman’s attention.

  She looks up, frowning. “Cutting it close, aren’t we?”

  I wince. “Sorry. There was this chicken and it was stuck and then we missed the first train—you know what, never mind.”

  She sets aside her papers. “Name?”

  “Amelia Jones. Twelve years old. My birthday is April third—”

  “Just the name will do, thank you.” She hands me a paper with the number 242 on it, and as I give her my audition fee—mostly cash I earned charming chickens and doing odd jobs for neighbors—I think, There are 241 other auditions today?

  “Um . . . how many spots are there?” I ask.

  She blinks at the stack of mostly one-dollar bills, then sighs. “There are one hundred seats available in the freshman seventh-grade class, with four openings for flutists.”

  My heart drops.

  Kids fly to the United States from all over the world just to audition. Who knows how many more are trying out all together? There are auditions being held all over the country this week, so probably thousands, all of them just as eager as I am to get into Mystwick.

  “Young lady?” The woman at the desk eyes me. “Are you all right? You look pale.”

  “Uh . . . fine,” I mumble. “How long till they call me?”

  She consults a paper, then says, “You have about ten minutes, I imagine. You’re lucky I let you in at all. Punctuality is key in a Mystwick musician.”

  I smile weakly. “Right. Sorry.”

  Looking out the front windows, I spy Gran waiting for a light to c
ross the street. Figuring I’d better use this time to clean up, I hurry past the waterfall and a restaurant where fancy people are eating fancy little meals. Glancing across the lobby, I see Ballroom A, where I’m supposed to wait for my audition to start. Looks like there are a bunch of kids there already, and I can hear them warming up. Discordant notes echo through the lobby, the woodsy drone of cellos beneath plinking piano and aggressive trumpets.

  In the marble bathroom behind the restaurant—I wonder if the gold faucets are actually gold—I look into the mirror and groan.

  On a good day, my hair is curly and bouncy, like copper coils. But on a bad day? Frizz-a-palooza. And yep, today is definitely a bad day.

  Giving up on the hair, I put my bag on the counter and unzip it—and my stomach turns inside out.

  In my rush, I didn’t check the grape juice cap, and now it’s poured all over my nice dress. And not just that, it’s soaked my sheet music too.

  I lean back with a groan.

  “Okay,” I mutter. I look in the mirror, take a deep breath, and plant two fists into the countertop. “No panicking. Pull it together, Amelia Jones. Think.”

  I quickly zip my bag shut, grab my flute case, and run out of the bathroom. There’s an exit to the back of the hotel to my left.

  I bust through the back door and into the parking lot behind the hotel. A dumpster sits to my right, and I duck behind it and spread out the contents of my bag: one soaking, grape-juice-stained dress and three pages of Handel’s Sonata in E Minor. With everything laid out in front of me, I unsnap my case and take out my flute, sliding the pieces together until it’s nearly the length of my arm.

  I take a moment to exhale, lick my lips, and try to still myself.

  Breathe in. Breathe out.

  Find the tempo.

  When I’m ready, I begin to play. Not Handel’s Sonata, but a simpler tune everyone knows: “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” It’s an easy drying spell, for when you spill water on the floor or your laundry comes out damp.

  As I play it now, bursts of blue magic float from the flute and settle on the soaked items like butterflies. The air around me starts to heat up a little, which means the spell is working.

  But in my impatience and nervousness, I play a little too fast, and that, plus the heat of the summer, equals disaster.

  Because the papers and the dress burst into flames.

  With a yelp, I stumble backwards, nearly dropping my flute. The blaze leaps up, close to catching the garbage piled in the dumpster. Heat rushes over my skin.

  I raise my flute, hands shaking, and try to think of a spell to conjure water. “Rain, Rain, Go Away”? No, that’s another drying spell, the opposite of what I need. To reverse any spell, you have to transpose it to a parallel key, major to minor or vice versa. But that takes a lot of preparation, and I’ve never reversed this particular spell before.

  My mind races, but it feels like every thought in my head caught on fire too. All I can do now is watch the flames leap higher and higher, just like the panic in my chest.

  If I burn down the hotel, will they still let me into Mystwick?

  Focus, Amelia!

  Out of nowhere, I hear a swift flourish of violin music. I don’t recognize the melody, but it’s some sort of tarantella—fast and reckless, notes popping in the air. I look around in confusion—when a deluge of water dumps from the sky and douses the fire. It’s like someone upended a bucket from one of the windows above. It splashes over my sneakers, washing a bit of the mud away.

  In the resulting puddle lie the remains of my dress and papers—mostly ashes now.

  Gasping, I look up to see a boy standing at the end of the dumpster, a violin tucked under his chin, his fingers flying over the strings, his bow slicing the air. He’s wearing a black suit with shiny lapels, and I wonder faintly if he’s here for a wedding or something. He looks very formal.

  He plays for another minute, closing the spell, then lowers the violin. He has brown eyes and dark hair that flops in all different directions, and the biggest ears I’ve ever seen.

  “Wow,” I say. “You’re really good.”

  He grins. “Drying spell gone wrong?” He has an accent, British I think.

  I blink, then nod. “Itsy-Bitsy Spider.”

  He laughs, tucking his instrument into a case lying open at his feet. “I think your spider’s a pyromaniac.”

  I let out a long sigh; my hands are still shaking a little. Without my sheet music, I’m going to have to play my audition spell from memory. Great. “Thanks for that. I could’ve burned down the hotel.”

  “I’m sure you’d have handled it,” he replies with a shrug. “I just happened to be out here for a quick practice, and thought I’d pitch in.”

  Taking a second look at him, I ask, “You’re auditioning?”

  “You bet.” He opens his jacket to reveal the number 241 on his chest. “I’m Jai. Jai Kapoor.”

  “Amelia Jones.”

  He frowns. “Amelia Jones . . . I feel like I know that name. Have you ever played in any of the big concert halls? London? Paris?”

  “Yeah, a real famous one called My Treehouse,” I laugh, thinking he’s joking.

  Then I realize he might actually be serious.

  “Huh,” he says. “Must have been someone else I was thinking of. So, Mystwick, huh?”

  I kneel to pack my flute away. “Been dreaming of it my whole life. You?”

  He shrugs. “Don’t really have a choice. My parents went there, and my grandparents. We Kapoors are a tradition at Myst­wick, they say.”

  It’s strange talking to someone who’s been dreaming of Myst­wick too. Strange in a good way. Like meeting a person who’s read all the same books as you. There were other music kids at my school, of course, but none of them cared about Mystwick the way I do.

  “You’re brave, going in for flute,” Jai says. “That’s the most competitive category, after piano. You’ll have to outshine twice as many musicians.”

  I smile weakly. “Brave. Yeah, that’s me. Just, you know, always trying to do things the hard way.”

  I should have guessed flute would be one of the more popular instruments.

  They say you can tell a lot about a person by the instrument they choose. You can play any spell as long as your instrument is capable of carrying the melody, but certain instruments have their specialties—brass like tuba and trumpet are good at wards and hovering spells, for example, and flutes are particularly good at healing magic. Percussion is known for energizing spells, which is why you see drummers at sports matches a lot, and if it’s elemental magic you need, the best choices are cellos or harps.

  Mrs. Parrish had told me years ago, when I’d first told her I wanted to go to Mystwick, that choosing a less common instrument like the euphonium or organ would make it much easier to get in, with fewer musicians vying for those spots in the Mystwick roster.

  But for me, choosing flute has always been based on one totally different and nonnegotiable reason: it was my mom’s instrument. And if that means facing tougher odds, then I’m ready.

  My insides may be slowly melting into trembling lumps of jelly, but I’m ready.

  “Violin for you, huh?” I ask.

  He nods, sighing a little. “It’s not my favorite, but it’s my strongest instrument. I wanted to go for guitar or saxophone, but my dad—”

  “Jai!” shouts a stern voice from the hotel door, and we turn to see a tall, serious-looking man in a suit like Jai’s standing there. He has a Maestro’s gold pin on his lapel, polished to a shine. He has the same big ears as Jai, but a lot less laughter in his eyes. “You are supposed to be practicing.”

  “I was, Dad,” Jai says. “But then—”

  “But then you thought you’d waste time clowning around?” The man shakes his head, his eyes stormy. “Get inside and take your seat, and focus! It’s time you got serious, son.”

  I lower my gaze, but see Jai grit his teeth. “Right,” he says. “Coming.”

 
We walk in together, Jai’s dad several steps ahead, his shoulders stiff and his black hair perfectly combed.

  “My dad says sax and guitar aren’t serious instruments,” Jai finishes in a whisper; then he makes a face.

  In Ballroom A—which leads to a set of double doors labeled Ballroom B, where the auditions must be taking place—a bunch of kids are pacing around as they sing or hum the melodies of the spells they’ll be performing for the audition; singing doesn’t produce magic, so it’s a safe and quick way to run through a spell. Mrs. Parrish calls it solfège, and sometimes we spend whole class periods just singing spells instead of playing them.

  The kids look like strange, animated dolls, their eyes unfocused and their hands holding up invisible instruments. The sounds of all their voices and different melodies clash and harmonize. I can identify many of the spells they’re practicing and realize most of them are way more difficult pieces than my sonata. But that doesn’t bother me. It’s better to nail a simpler spell than flub a fancy one.

  Still, I eye a few flutists, trying to judge how good they are, though most of them scooch aside and stop their warm-ups as Mr. Kapoor pushes through.

  “Your dad went to Mystwick too?” I whisper to Jai.

  “Yeah. Now he’s with the Austrian Philharmonic. My mum was supposed to bring me to the audition, but she got tied up with work back in London.” At my blank expression, he adds, “She’s the Minister of Musical Affairs for the UK, same as my grandad was before her.”

  Geez. Is there a nonmusical person in this kid’s entire family?