“We’ve seen plenty,” he growls, pulling more and more of his mustache up and onto the table. It coils there like a pile of brown yarn. “Where are those scissors?”
I’m still blinking at them, pleas gathering in my throat, as I hear the doors behind me open and the woman outside runs in and slams a pair of scissors onto the table.
Then she pulls me away by my elbow. I don’t even have time to put away my instrument. I can only bundle my flute under one arm, grab my case in the other, and shuffle quickly after her.
“Wait! Please!” I shout. “I can do better, I promise!”
I’m pushed through the doors to find myself staring at the other kids, who watch with wide eyes. Tears run down my cheeks, and a pressure builds inside my chest. I can’t breathe.
“Two-four-three!” the woman yells.
I run through the ballroom and into the lobby, out the front doors, bursting into the sunny parking lot. Gran shouts my name but I don’t stop. I just want to get as far away from here as possible. Back to the train station. Back home.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper, doubling over as a sob rises in my lungs. “I tried, but I—”
The words stick in my throat. I guess I’m nothing like you after all.
Chapter Four
The Treehouse Blues
MY TREEHOUSE IS HIDDEN deep in the forest, out of sight of any other houses. I climb up and sit on the edge of the floor, legs dangling. After two weeks of shutting myself up in my room and crying into my pillow, I was finally pushed—literally—out the front door by Gran, who told me my “sulk-athon” had gone on long enough, and some sunshine would do me good. So I slunk off, taking my flute with me.
The world didn’t end because I screwed up one audition.
It only feels that way.
The woods here seem silent at first, but if you know how to listen, you can hear a whole symphony, magic of an entirely different sort: wind shivering through the needles, pines creaking as they lean, squirrels chirping and birds trilling. Little white mushrooms stubble a fallen log below, beneath the long, glossy ferns that are starting to turn brown at the tips of their leaves. Looking at all the growing things around me, I’m reminded of my audition tree.
So young and fragile and hopeful, only to end up mangled and broken.
My flute case is beside me; I snap it open and take out my instrument, sliding the pieces together without even having to look.
Then, lying on my back, I stare up at the roof of my treehouse and try to think about what Mom would do.
I wish I could talk to you, I think.
Putting my flute to my chin, I begin to play.
Instead of choosing a spell, I just let the notes flow from my fingers. I close my eyes and stop thinking, and just feel the melody.
Usually I know what notes are coming, because I’ve studied the spell and practiced it a hundred times. But this time, each note is a surprise. The melody begins slow, then races faster and faster, falling like rain and then skittering upward.
Where the music comes from, I don’t know. I’ve never tried anything like this before. Always, I’ve had my sheet music or memorized the spell, striving to hit each note perfectly.
But this time, it’s like someone else is playing through me. It’s like I’m crossing a foggy river, jumping from one stone before I can even see the next, landing each time with a flutter of surprise and relief. The notes rise up from the bottom of my soul and carry me along, pulling me deeper into a strange melody, asking me to follow.
I let them guide me, trusting them, and as I do, I think about my mom, laughing in her graduation gown, confident. Happy. Beautiful. Her new, golden Maestro pin gleaming on her collar. Whatever happened to that pin, I wonder? It wasn’t with the flute, and Gran has never mentioned having it.
I wish you could tell me what to do.
I wish you were here.
I shut my eyes and let the music take over, until I forget how long I’m lying there on the hard floorboards, the cool wind rolling over me and the trees sighing all around. The music is instinct. It’s my heartbeat spun into sound. It’s a spell entirely my own. My fingers seem to play with a mind of their own, like I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.
The wind sweeps across the forest, getting stronger, rattling and rustling the trees around me, stirring my hair and leaving a trail of goose bumps up my arms. For a brief moment, my whole body feels cold.
I hear a rustle nearby, and when I open my eyes, I see rainbow tendrils of magic swirling from my flute and coiling upward. All around my treehouse is a spiraling column of pine needles and twigs and leaves caught up in the spell, a slow and gentle tornado of woodsy debris borne on the current of my music. The funnel rises to the treetops, glittering and twisting. The air smells of burned matches.
I’ve never seen magic like this before, made of every color, instead of the usual yellow or green or white spell. For a moment, I’m awestruck, caught up in the strange beauty of it.
Then, panicking, I break off the spell, and the bits of leaves and sticks all rain down on me. I sit up and wipe them from my face and clothes, heart pounding.
Fooling around with music is a dangerous thing. What if I’d started a wildfire?
They should add a new rule of Musicraft: Mess around, you burn stuff down.
A shadow crosses my face. Shielding the sun, I look up and see a butterfly drifting through the trees. It circles, then swoops toward me, wings lazily flapping.
Startled, I jump to my feet. It’s like no butterfly I’ve ever seen before. It’s white, almost as if . . . The butterfly is completely made of paper. Like an origami bird.
I stare in shock as it lands on my outstretched palm, wings falling still. Then, before my eyes, it unfolds itself into an envelope, sealed with a gold foil sticker shaped like a treble clef. Written in elegant letters of gold ink is my name, Amelia Jones, and below that is the crest of the Mystwick School of Musicraft, a harp wreathed in ivy, below a banner stamped with AUDIENTIBUS MUSICA ADEST, the school motto. Music is there for those who listen.
My heart sinks.
I knew I’d get the rejection letter. I just didn’t expect it would come flying like a butterfly. But still, maybe it’s better this way: I can get it over with. I can put Mystwick and that awful audition behind me forever.
Might as well rip off the Band-Aid, right?
But as I slide my thumb between the two halves of the paper, my heart does a flip.
For a moment, I imagine a different future, in which the words inside bring a smile to my face. In which I run into the house shouting for Gran, opening my suitcase, packing my clothes and my flute. Leaving for the big wide world and my future as a Maestro.
Finally following my mom’s footsteps.
But as soon as I open the paper and see the actual words inside, it will all be over.
No more daydreams.
So I put it in the pocket of my skirt, still folded, and head home, my flute case swinging at my side. It’s getting dark anyway, and maybe it’ll be easier if I wait and open the letter in the morning.
All I want to do is go to bed and sleep, but Gran catches me and forces me into the kitchen.
“We need to talk,” she says.
“Can we do it tomorrow?”
But she pulls out a chair from the kitchen table and points at it, relentless. With a sigh, I sit and plop my case on the floor.
Gran stands across from me, her arms folded. “I won’t have you moping around this house for days on end, young lady. We need to find something constructive for you to do.”
I groan and let my head fall onto the table. “Please don’t say you signed me up for swim team again, Gran. You know how many times I’ve nearly drowned? Water and I do not mix.”
“There must be something else that you want to do.”
I lift my face. “I wanted Mystwick. That’s all I ever wanted.”
She frowns, uncrossing her arms. “Why? Why do you want to go to this school so
badly?”
“Because—because I wanted to show you and everyone else that I could do it, that I could be a real musician! That I could be . . .” I pause to swallow, then whisper, “That I could be like her.”
“Your mother.”
I nod, my eyes dropping to the tabletop.
“Amelia . . .” Gran sighs heavily. “Your mother would have been so proud of you, even if you didn’t go to this school. She’d tell you that you don’t need to prove anything, that you’re a strong, smart girl with or without Mystwick.”
I scowl, my hands knotting into fists on my lap. “How would I know what she’d say? You never talk about her! It’s like—it’s like she never even existed. Even Mrs. O’Grady tells me more than you do!”
Gran turns away, shaking her head. “You don’t understand.”
I stand up, my fists planted on the table. “I understand that my music reminds you of her, and that makes you sad. And I understand that’s why you don’t want me to go to Mystwick. I understand that you’re happy I blew my audition.”
“Is that what you think?” she whispers, turning back to me.
“It’s what I know. I know you hate Musicraft and Mystwick, but it’s all I had of her, and now I don’t even have that. And now I—I don’t even know who I am or what I’m supposed to do! I wish she’d never gotten in that car eight years ago!”
Gran’s face creases. She rubs her arms like she’s cold and stares through the window by the fridge, into the murky twilight. “It wasn’t a car accident, Amelia.”
I freeze. “What?”
Gran sits, picking nervously at her nails. “Your mother didn’t die in a car accident. I didn’t tell you the truth because . . . because the truth is, I don’t know how she died. There are still so many unanswered questions, and I wanted you to have the closure I couldn’t have. So I . . . I lied, telling myself I’d set the record straight one day. But sit down, Amelia, and I will tell you the truth. Or as much of it as anyone knows. You deserve that, and I’ve kept it from you for too long.”
I stare at her, stunned.
The story she always told me, when she spoke of it at all, was that my Mom died in a car crash. It’s what I believed for eight years. Now she’s telling me that was a lie? That something else happened, and she’s kept it hidden all this time?
She picks up the flute case and sets it between us, slowly opening it so that the silver barrel glints in the light coming through the window over the sink. She takes out the photo of my mom and sighs deeply, her thumb gently rubbing the paper.
“Susan was exceptionally gifted,” Gran says at last, her eyes shiny with tears. “Your grandfather and I were delighted. We gave her everything—the best lessons, the best instruments. She could play such spells . . . There was no doubt of her getting into a good school, but even we hadn’t expected she’d make it to the famous Mystwick. The day her acceptance letter came was the day we finally realized how truly special our Susie was. She would become a Maestro. She would make a difference in the world with her magic. How proud we were.”
Tears pricking my eyes, I whisper, “What happened, Gran?”
“Amelia,” Gran says, looking up at me, “even with all her talent and training, your mother still fell victim to Musicraft’s darker consequences. No one knows exactly what happened that night, and you were too young to remember, but all we could determine was that she’d attempted a spell beyond even her skill. She was found beside a river, the trees around her all scorched to ash. All that remained was you, perfectly unscathed, asleep in a patch of green grass amid the destruction. And of course, there was the flute. We know from the scorch marks found on it that it had to be the source of the magic that killed her. It’s a wonder the thing could be salvaged.”
She draws a shaking breath. “When you get into that dangerous magic, the sort Maestros play, it can have terrible consequences. The smallest mistake can have the most devastating results, and whatever your mother tried to do that night by the river, it didn’t work. And it killed her.”
My body goes cold. Musicraft killed my mom? I’ve heard of people getting seriously hurt or even dying from spells gone wrong, but it takes extremely powerful magic to do that kind of damage. There are some spells even the best Maestros won’t attempt.
What was my mom doing the night she died? What sort of magic had she tried to work?
I guess that’s what Gran meant by unanswered questions. And now I know why she has always disapproved of Musicraft—not just because it reminds her of Mom, but because it reminds her of how Mom died.
Gran rests her elbows on the table and covers her face with her wrinkled hands. There’s still flour dusting her knuckles. She looks so sad that I can’t even feel mad at her for lying to me.
In fact, I can’t feel anything at all.
It’s like I’m made of concrete, hardening in my chair. The tears in my eyes have dried up and I stare at the tabletop.
“What about my dad?” I whisper. “Where is he? Did you lie about him too?”
She shakes her head, looking angry, but not at me. “I never liked Eric to begin with. He was a wanderer, coming and going, never able to settle in one place. Couldn’t even sit still long enough to marry your mother. For weeks he’d be gone, leaving the two of you alone, then showing up with piles of presents and smooth apologies. And of course, after your mother . . . well, he never turned up again at all.” Then her face softens a little. “But she loved him fiercely. That’s for sure.”
“Was he . . . a Maestro too?”
“He dropped out of Mystwick in their senior year. He was talented, but that’s all he was—lots of talent and no discipline.” She stops, pressing her lips together. “It’s better we never hear from that man again.”
Did he have something to do with her death? I know Gran must be thinking it, judging by the look on her face. I always thought my father ran away because he was heartbroken.
But what if it’s because he was guilty? The thought makes me feel slimy inside,
“So that’s why you don’t want me to be a musician,” I say. “You think I’ll get hurt too, like her.”
“Yes, I admit some selfishness in trying to discourage you, and maybe I should have just said no from the beginning. But I realized years ago that if I stopped you from playing altogether, I would lose you entirely. So you see, that was also selfish of me.” She reaches across the table and takes my hands in hers. Her eyes are nestled in wrinkles. “But your mother wouldn’t have wanted you to live in her shadow. You don’t have to prove anything to her or me or anyone else. Amelia, she would want you to be yourself.”
I pull my hands away. “Well, I tried that. And it turned out my self wasn’t good enough.” I take out the Mystwick rejection letter and put it on the table. “I guess you got what you want—I’m nothing like my mom.”
Gran picks up the letter. “You haven’t opened it.”
“I know what it says.” I jump to my feet, my chair sliding noisily across the linoleum floor. “Maybe I’ll sign up for swim team after all. At least they’ll take me.”
I run to my room and shut the door. Curled up on my bed, I hug a pillow and stare up at the ceiling, where years ago I hung a poster with the Mystwick crest on it. On the wall is a calendar counting down to audition day. In my closet are clothes all in Mystwick navy blue. Everything I’ve done was for her, and now it’s all falling to pieces.
How do you just give up a dream you’ve had your whole life?
Gran knocks on the door. “Amelia.”
“Go away.”
“Amelia.”
With a groan, I force myself to my feet and go open the door.
She’s standing in the hallway with my flute assembled, and now she holds it out to me. The silver barrel reflects both our faces, warped into caricatures.
“Take it,” she says, an odd look on her face.
“I don’t want it. I shouldn’t ever have picked it up in the first place. I don’t deserve it.”
“Amelia—”
“Maybe donate it to someone. Give it to some other, better musician. Someone better than me, who’ll do Mom proud.”
She starts to argue, then shakes her head. “Fine. If that’s what you want. But it’s going to be mighty awkward when you show up at school without an instrument to play.”
I blink. “Huh?”
Gran pulls the Mystwick letter from her pocket. She’s opened it up, and now she raises it to my eyes. I can’t help but glance at the words, my stomach reeling.
Then I freeze and read it more slowly, start to finish.
Reaching out, I take the paper from Gran and grip it so tight that it rips a little.
Dear Miss Jones . . .
I read the letter a third time, and do not breathe even once until I reach the Cordially, Euphonia Le Roux, Headmaestro, Mystwick School of Musicraft at the very bottom of the page, over a wax seal stamped with Mystwick’s crest. Fixed to the bottom of the paper is a shiny purple ticket.
“Gran . . .” I look up at her, my hand starting to shake. “I got in.”
Chapter Five
The Flight of the Purple Bumblebee
A MONTH LATER, I STAND at the end of the driveway with a duffel bag, my flute case, and a tin of cookies baked by Gran, pinching myself because I’m still not sure this day is actually happening.
I’m wearing my favorite pair of hiking boots, a brand-new pair of overalls, and a jacket tied around my waist. Gran wanted me to wear a dress, but the only one I liked is the one that I burned to a crisp, and the only other one I own is pink and lacy and I am not showing up at my new school looking like I just crawled off the Easter Bunny’s lap.
It’s so early there’s still fog hunkered in the pines, and though it’s light out, the sun hasn’t yet risen. Everything’s wet with dew. Down the road, Mrs. O’Grady’s rooster is screeching to the sky.
“It’s almost six thirty,” I say. “What if they forgot to come for me?”
Gran grunts, like she hopes they have.
My stomach is twisted up with nerves, but mostly I’m too excited to feel scared. I’ve never been further than a two-hour train ride to the city, and now I’m going halfway across the country.
The Mystwick School of Musicraft Page 4