“. . . and in the end,” Mrs. Le Roux finishes, “the vote was four to one.”
The Maestros all look at me apologetically, except for Mr. Pinwhistle, who’s already storming back toward Harmony Hall. I glare at his back, knowing he’s the one responsible for getting me expelled. He must have swayed them to his side. But who was the one who voted for me? I search their faces, and settle on Miss Noorani. She gives me a small, sad smile.
At least one of them saw something in me.
Half of me wants to rise up and fight, to demand answers. Why? What did I do wrong? What could I have done differently? Wasn’t I perfect? Wasn’t I everything they wanted me to be?
But the other half of me has given up. It’s tired of fighting, of reaching for the impossible.
Face the facts, Amelia Jones. You’re not your mother. You’re more like your dad—a loser. A wash-up. You’re not good enough.
You never were.
* * *
I go back to my room and change into my old clothes. I fold my Mystwick outfits carefully and store them in the closet. All my things are packed, and I leave tomorrow after breakfast on one of the zeppelins.
That’s when I lose it.
I curl up on the bed and bawl like a baby.
I’m not proud of it, but it’s the truth.
Outside, I can hear the students shouting. Rebel Clef’s spells crash against the window, just dull thumps and vague lyrics from this distance. There will be candy and cake and punch in the cafeteria, but I don’t have the heart to go get it. And I don’t want anyone to see me like this. They’ll ask why I was crying, and then I’ll have to tell them . . .
It’s better if I just sneak out. No goodbyes. Amelia Jones, gone in the night. They’ll find out I flunked out, of course, but at least I won’t have to see their faces when they do.
The only regret I have is Jai.
I hate leaving with things between us like they are. I hope he’s not too mad at me.
I hear footsteps in the hallway outside, and then three familiar notes from a whistle-key. Sitting up, I wipe my face furiously, but when Darby walks in, she must see right away that I was crying.
She blinks, then looks away.
“You’re back early,” I say, my voice scratchy.
She shrugs. “Didn’t feel like partying.”
She takes off her jacket and hangs it up, then glances over her shoulder at me. “You failed your test.”
It’s not a question.
I sigh, then nod. “I don’t . . . I don’t know what happened. I played perfectly. It still wasn’t good enough. I guess you were right all along. I don’t belong here. I’m not like your Amelia, and I never will be.”
Darby stands in front of her small desk mirror and brushes her hair. It’s grown out a bit since school began, now hanging below her shoulders. Still razor-straight and black as ink.
“Nobody could be my Amelia,” she says softly. “She was fire and vinegar, my mom used to say. A girl who knew what she wanted, and did whatever it took to get it.”
I wish I could be like that. I thought I was, before coming to Mystwick.
“You’ll be glad to have the room to yourself,” I say. “At least until they find someone to take my place.”
Darby snorts. She sets down her hairbrush and throws herself across her bed.
For a minute, I think she’ll say something almost halfway nice. Like, that she’ll miss my awful flute playing. Or that her new roommate will be even worse than me. Some insult you have to dig through in order to find the compliment, Darby-style.
But she just flops over on her side, her back to me.
So I guess that’s it.
Goodbye to you too, roomie.
Angrily, I jump up and walk to the window. It’s not even eight o’clock yet, and our curfew is extended for the holiday. Maybe I will go to the party, if only to stuff my pockets with candy for the ride home. If I slip in the back door of the gym, no one will even notice me.
But when I reach the window, all thoughts of candy vanish from my head.
I blink.
And blink again.
“Darby.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“DARBY.”
She sits up, frowning. “What?”
I shake my head. “It’s . . . It’s . . .” But my voice sinks into my stomach, and my stomach sinks to the floor. My body goes cold from head to toe, as I try to make sense of the thing outside our window.
Darby shoves me aside to look. Her eyes grow wide, and she presses her hands to the glass.
“Is that . . . a tornado?” she whispers.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Crescendo
“OH MY GOSH,” I whisper. “Oh. My. GOSH. That can’t be real.”
Lightning flashes in the sky, and the windows rattle when the thunder claps. What I’d mistaken for Rebel Clef’s drums was really the storm. And now the clouds over Orpheus Lake are bulging downward, while the water is rising up, forming a dark funnel, half cloud, half water.
It’s a tornado, all right, spinning over the water. The sky is black, darker than midnight. The trees around the school whip wildly around. As I watch, an oak by the lake cracks with a sound like a gunshot and crashes into the water. Tiles peel away from the roof of the boys’ dorm and are sucked into the dark vortex.
It looks like a scene from a movie, not real life.
This must be the thing the Maestros were worried about. But I wonder if even they could have anticipated something so huge and terrible. Is it magic? Some sort of black spell?
Either way, at this rate, the school will be destroyed.
I spot a group of people at the lake’s edge, illuminated by a familiar blue light, little more than silhouettes holding instruments.
“It’s the Maestros,” says Darby. “Hey! Where are you going?”
Flute in hand, I yank open the door. “To see if they need help.”
“Help? It’s a freaking tornado! You can’t help!”
But she follows me out, her oboe under her arm.
We race down the hallway and down the stairs and out the doors, then across the grass toward the lake. Other students are gathering there too, still in costumes, most with their instruments out. I see superheroes and cats, zombies and witches, and a group of older kids too cool to dress up, but now looking as terrified as the rest of us.
“What’s going on?” I yell to Claudia, who’s holding her clarinet like she might use it to bash the tornado. She’s dressed up as a pop star. George is with her, in a Beethoven costume, and a bunch of other seventh graders are gathering around us.
Claudia turns, her face pale. “They say it’s a spell gone out of control.”
An adult—Mr. Ahmed, the history teacher—is moving through the clustered students, shouting, “Back inside, all of you! Now! Go to your dorms and wait in the halls! You know the drill!”
Students are starting to disperse, some running back to the buildings, but some resist, trying to watch.
George yelps as his Beethoven wig flies right off his head. “Someone said it’s a black spell!”
“The strongest spell they’ve ever seen,” adds Claudia.
My skin turns cold. That’s not the first time I’ve heard a spell described that way in the past month. I look at Darby, and Darby looks at me.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Rosa would never—”
But I’m already off, dodging Mr. Ahmed and running toward the Maestros. They’re lined up on the bank, instruments ready, but no one is playing. They seem to be arguing about what spell to perform.
“No one could work a black spell on school grounds!” Miss Noorani is shouting. “We would know the moment they began, thanks to our wards.”
“It’s elemental,” insists Mr. Walters. “It must be. If we try Concertina B—”
“That’s only going to make it worse!” Mr. Pinwhistle shouts. “You idiot, are you tryi
ng to destroy the school?”
“Look at that thing! Mystwick is going to get destroyed either way!”
But weirdly, the twisting cyclone isn’t moving like a tornado would. It’s just twisting over the lake, clouds and water wrapped together. The roar of it is deafening. Spray thrown by the funnel lashes my face.
“Miss Noorani!” I shout. “I think I know—”
“Amelia!” She waves me away. “Go inside, now! It isn’t safe!”
Frustrated, I look around, until I spot her—Rosa Guerrera. She’s standing with the other members of Rebel Clef, watching the tornado with her mouth hanging open. She’s dressed up in her usual black leather, pink hair dye, and crazy tights, but for Halloween, she’s taken it up a notch, adding a black cape with red feathers on the collar, and black lipstick.
I sprint toward her, leaning into the wind that roars off the lake.
“Did you do this?” I pant.
She looks down at me, her lips twisting. “Excuse me?”
“The musicat, the spell you wrote down, was it this?”
She blinks. “What? That was just one of the spells that maintain the school wards, sort of like the password to get in. I needed it so my boyfriend could sneak onto campus and bring me some real food. That cafeteria slop is only fit for guppies and animals.”
“That’s all?” I blink. “But . . . that’s so . . .”
“Boring?” she asks. “Yeah, well, I have a reputation to uphold, you know. And the fact that you think I did this”—she waves at the tornado—“means it’s working.” She smirks, but her eyes still look uneasy.
“But if it wasn’t you, then who?”
“Someone with a lot of power,” says another voice, from behind me. “Someone dangerous.”
I turn around and see someone covered in face paint and wearing an enormous, frizzy wig. Judging by the inflatable electric guitar they’re holding, they’re supposed to be some kind of rock star, but with the black paint around their eyes smudged down their cheeks, they look more like a crazed racoon.
I stare. “Jai?”
He blinks, almost looking like he’s about to reply. But then he must remember our fight, because his jaw clamps shut and he looks away.
George holds up a hand. “Whoa, did you two finally break up?”
Suddenly the sky seems to crack, and we all duck, even Rosa. But it’s just a clap of thunder, so loud and close I can feel it vibrating in my rib cage.
“All right,” Rosa says. “Come on, guppies. It’s time to go inside.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” says Jai. “I want to see—Hey!”
One of the Rebel Clef players grabs him and hoists him over his shoulder. It doesn’t take much effort; Jai is a skinny kid and the senior has arms like tubas. He starts up the hill, while Rosa grabs my hand and pulls me along.
“I may be mean,” she says, “but I’m not leave-a-kid-to-get-struck-by-lightning mean.”
I go, because I know I’m pretty much useless out here anyway. The Maestros will handle . . . whatever it is out there. But looking back, they seem so small against the storm and the strange, stationary tornado.
It’s odd.
As I stare at the funnel, there’s also something about it that seems familiar to me. The way it’s twisting, the pattern of the water, the smell of burned matches—
CRRRRAAAACCKKKKKK!
The sound hits us with physical force. Me, Rosa, Jai, and the guy holding him are all thrown flat to the ground. The wind is pressed from my lungs.
“What happened?” groans Rosa.
Gasping for breath, I roll over and look down at the lake—and feel my heart shrink to the size of a walnut.
“Whoa.”
Inside the tornado, it looks like someone hacked at the sky with a giant pair of rusty scissors. What’s left is a jagged dark crack, through which there swirls a murky, infinite darkness. Wind rushes from the opening, pushing at the grass and the people and the trees in the distance.
The Maestros are all climbing to their feet, struggling to stand in that terrible wind.
And then, from the hole inside the tornado, things start to emerge.
I almost miss them at first, they’re so faint. But then more and more swarm out of the void beyond and there’s no mistaking the ghostly silver forms. They flicker through the air, circling like vultures, fluttering like strips of airy white cloth.
“Dios mío,” gasps Rosa.
“Watch out!” someone screams.
I turn, then duck just in time—one of the silvery forms is diving straight at us. Just as I hit the ground, it swoops overhead and soars away, aiming for Mr. Ahmed.
“Ghosts,” I say in horror. “They’re all ghosts.”
Mr. Ahmed doesn’t dodge fast enough. The thing passes right through him, and Mr. Ahmed seizes up—then topples to the ground.
I’m up and sprinting toward him before I half realize what I’m doing. All I can think is that we have to help. Rosa and Jai are right behind me.
“He’s alive,” Rosa says, pressing her fingers to his neck.
“Agh!” Jai shouts, stumbling back when Mr. Ahmed’s eyes flicker to him. The man can’t move, but his eyes still flit around. He looks terrified.
“He’s paralyzed,” says Darby. “And look—he’s not the only one.”
The silvery creatures are chasing down all the adults, paralyzing the Maestros one by one. Something about their touch is enough to lay a person flat. Before our horrified eyes, they get Mr. Walters and Miss Noorani, then Miss Becker. Mr. Pinwhistle and Mrs. Le Roux stand back to back, playing a furious duet, him on his clarinet and her with her cello, but it’s not enough.
Two of the creatures swoop at them, and Mr. Pinwhistle drops like a stone. Mrs. Le Roux tries to fight them both off, yellow magic blossoming from her cello. But pinned between the pair of them, she falls quickly.
Everyone looks stunned. I don’t think any of us expected the Maestros would actually fail to get control of the chaos. We trusted they could protect us from anything.
“What do we do?” Jai whispers.
We all look at Rosa, because she seems to be the most likely one to take charge now that all the adults are lying paralyzed on the ground. She is wide-eyed, her face pale, looking nothing like her usual, tough self.
“I . . . I think we should go inside,” she says. “Maybe the Maestros—”
“Look out!” yells Darby.
A silver ghost is swooping toward us again. This one is clearly a girl, because she’s wearing a skirt that flutters around her. Her long hair sways over her shoulders. She seems a little more solid than the others, all silvery white lines. While the others scream and start running, I stand transfixed, watching her get closer, because I know this ghost.
It’s Amelia Jones.
And she’s coming straight for me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Ghost of Dissonance Past
I RUN.
Not toward Harmony Hall with the others, but to the left, trying to draw Other Amelia in the opposite direction of my friends. This is between us, just her and me. The two Amelias.
But that doesn’t mean I want to face her.
I tear across the grass, clutching my flute. Lightning streaks overhead, as if pointing the way, and a few drops of rain land on my skin. I pull my jacket over the flute and run faster. My heart pounds in my ears, screaming at me to go back. But I don’t dare stop. If the ghosts can paralyze the Maestros, there’s no telling what Other Amelia will try to do to me.
Is she behind all this?
Has she been waiting all this time, just toying with me, while planning her real attack? She’d seemed mostly harmless before—annoying, infuriating, and scary—but not deadly.
Now, I think she might be fully capable of throwing me off a cliff or drowning me in the lake.
She knows what she wants, Darby had said. And she knows how to get it.
Apparently, getting revenge on the girl who took her place was enough
to make her break through the wall between life and death. And she brought all her ghost friends with her.
I round Harmony Hall and break for the woods. After all, didn’t Mrs. Le Roux tell me the trees are there to guard the school? Maybe they can guard me now.
The trunks of the echo trees fly past as I dash deeper into the forest. Looking back, I see Ghost Amelia flickering behind me, still pursuing, but losing ground. Feeling surer of my path now, I charge onward.
But no matter how fast I go, Ghost Amelia is always behind me, a faint silver light in the trees. I can still hear the roar of the tornado, but it’s distant now, and mostly I just hear my own panting.
My strength starts to flag. My legs grow weaker and my feet scream inside my too-small shoes. It feels like I swallowed fire, my lungs are burning so badly. Every breath is a painful gasp.
“Please,” I find myself saying, “please leave me alone. I’m sorry! I never meant to take your place!”
If she hears me, she doesn’t care.
The woods around me are unfamiliar. I realize I’ve circled the school, getting lost in my panic. Instead of going deeper into the Echo Wood, I turned right at some point and kept going, and now I’m completely confused. But when I try to stop and get my bearings, I feel Other Amelia’s cold fingers brush the back of my neck.
Chills slide down my spine.
I’ve felt that touch before, the day Jai found me Composing in the woods. I fell into the stream and a strange hand pulled me out.
Why did she help me then? What made that day different?
When the ground beneath my feet starts to crunch with rocks and not leaves, I realize I took the wrong direction completely.
I’m running toward the cliffs below the school.
With a yelp, I slide to a halt, but not fast enough. The edge of the cliff lunges out of the darkness, and suddenly I’m tipping over it. I drop my flute in an effort to regain my balance.
Even so, my feet slide right off the edge, and then, so suddenly I can’t even scream—
I fall.
Everything is silent
The Mystwick School of Musicraft Page 21