I pointed out that it was me who put the school in danger in the first place. And I did play a black spell, which is kind of illegal.
“Who cares?” He waved a hand. “They can’t send you home, Amelia. They know you’re a Composer now.”
Looking down at my echo tree with the Maestros standing around me, I pause and consider. Do I try Composing a spell, and risk ruining this if I mess up? I know I’ll never get another chance.
Mrs. Le Roux still doesn’t tell me what she expects. She just waits for me to play. It’s another riddle. Another shot in the dark.
Or is it?
I stare hard at the tree, my spirit rebelling. I’m tired of playing games with them, of trying to guess what they want, who they want. I couldn’t be the other Amelia for them, and I couldn’t be the perfect Mystwick student.
I can only be myself.
So that’s who I decide to play for. Not for Mrs. Le Roux or Mr. Pinwhistle or Miss Noorani.
For Amelia Jones.
Me.
I Compose a short green spell, with a quick tempo and a major key. Instead of watching my fingers to be sure I hit the right notes, instead of watching the tree to be sure the spell is working, I close my eyes and trust the music inside.
When the spell is over, I lower my flute before opening my eyes. I wait a moment, knowing the risk I took was huge, and likely will cost me my dream of Mystwick forever.
But this time, if I fail, I’ll know I truly gave it my all.
When I open my eyes, I see my echo tree leaning crookedly in front of me, bent at that awkward angle, imperfect once more. It’s out of place, it’s weird, and it’s real. Not a copy of any other tree in the whole forest—just completely itself.
I smile at the tree.
Then finally look up at Mrs. Le Roux.
She’s smiling too.
“Amelia Jones,” she says, “welcome to Mystwick.”
* * *
I catch Miss Noorani before she follows the others into Harmony Hall. We’re standing on the front steps, overlooking the glimmering lake. Beams of sunlight stream through the trees and glint on the water’s gentle waves. Hard to imagine that less than two days ago, that lake was a swirling funnel open to the land of the dead. Right now, it looks as peaceful as a painting.
“Is this real?” I ask her.
She laughs. “Go back to the Echo Wood later today and look at all those trees. Look closely.” She raises her finger, as if letting me in on a great secret. “They may look perfect, but once you get close, you’ll see each one has its flaws. Its crooked branches, its awkward knots, its lumpy bits. We never wanted a perfect musician in you, Amelia. We wanted an authentic one. Someone unafraid to be herself, even if that meant risking everything. Because that’s what Musicraft is really about—finding your own voice, and being brave enough to use it.”
Embarrassed, I look down at my shoes. “I guess it took me a while to figure that out.”
“Amelia,” she continues, “you’re a Composer. That’s no small thing, and we’re lucky to have you here. We’ll begin searching for a Maestro to instruct you. Unfortunately, none of us here have the gift, but don’t worry. We’ll make sure you learn how to use this skill, so nothing like this ever happens again.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, but it’s an inadequate word for what I feel. My own Maestro to train me in Composing? It’s more than I could have dreamed.
But there’s still something I have to say to Miss Noorani.
I try to find the right words.
“That first test, before the storm happened . . . I know it was you who voted for me against the others. I wanted to say thank you.”
Her eyebrows arch up, and she looks surprised. “Oh, Amelia. As much as I hate to admit it, I wasn’t the one who voted for you.”
“What?”
She smiles, patting my hand and then pointing down toward the lake, where a lone figure stands on the dock. “He was.”
I blink hard, sure she’s pulling my leg. “Mr. Pinwhistle?”
“I know he’s a grouch, but really, he’s one of the best teachers here at Mystwick. Mr. Pinwhistle is one of those special people who sees not how good you are, but how good you could be. And then he pushes and prods and aggravates you until you reach the potential he sees in you.”
“I thought he hated my guts!”
“Yes, I imagine he’s been a bit of a beast,” she chuckles. “But now you know it’s not because he hated you.”
He believed in me.
When everyone else had written me off, there was Mr. P., fighting to keep me at Mystwick.
I don’t think I’d have been more surprised if she’d told me it was a humfrog who’d voted on my behalf.
Miss Noorani pats my shoulder. “But Amelia . . .”
“Yes?”
She sweeps her hand, gesturing at the mess around us. The storm has left debris all over the grounds. Leaves, sticks, plants torn up by the roots, broken glass and trash blown out of bins, all scattered around the lake. “You’re not totally off the hook.”
* * *
All things considered, getting stuck with groundskeeping duties is a pretty light sentence, even if I’m not allowed to use magic to do it.
After breakfast, I head out with work gloves and a wheelbarrow to start on the mess. Looking around, I sigh, realizing it’s going to take days to get the grounds back to normal. But it’s a small price to pay for staying at Mystwick.
I start by the girls’ dorm, picking up sticks and cracking them in half before tossing them into the wheelbarrow. Soon I get lost in the work, and it’s much nicer than transposing homework.
“It’d go faster if you didn’t crack the sticks before throwing them away,” a voice points out.
I spin around. “Jai!”
He’s standing with his own set of gloves and wheelbarrow. He grins. “Did you think I’d let you have all the fun? I mean, grounds work? Hello! It’s the best. Gives me a chance to show off these.” He flexes his skinny arms.
I laugh. “Yeah, keep that up and you’ll pop those balloons you call muscles.”
Then I see six more students walking up with wheelbarrows, gloves, and rakes. All are seventh-grade Aeros, including George and Claudia and Collin.
Seeing me stare, they just shrug.
“The storm knocked out the internet,” George says. “No computer lab until it’s fixed, and classes are postponed until the afternoon. What else are we going to do? Study?”
We all laugh like he told the world’s biggest joke.
The sun rises higher. It’s the warmest day we’ve had all month. I toss my jacket aside and work in my I’LL BE BACH T-shirt.
Good thing chicken poop washes out. It’s my favorite shirt.
There’s a fallen branch jammed in a pear tree at the corner of the gym, and I struggle to pull it loose. Instead, it breaks in half and I topple backwards, landing hard on my butt.
“Need help?” someone asks.
I slowly turn around, sure I can’t be hearing right.
Darby rolls her eyes and steps around me. With her height, she easily dislodges the branch and tosses it in the wheelbarrow. “Honestly, does it suck being so short all the time?”
With a grin, I take the hand she holds out, letting her pull me to my feet. “Does it suck being so tall that everyone thinks you’re in tenth grade?”
“Actually, it’s kind of awesome.”
We stand awkwardly for a moment, then Darby blurts out, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did, or blamed you for things way out of your control.”
I shake my head. “You don’t have to apologize. Really. We’ve both had a rough time lately.”
She pulls off a glove and holds out her hand. “I guess we’re even, then.”
I grab her hand and shake it. “Even.”
She coughs and puts her hands in her pocket, looking suddenly shy. “So. Phoebe told me if we still want to change rooms, we can do it over winter break.”
“Oh.” I look down, wincing. “So . . .”
“So . . . I figured, it’s just a lot of work to change rooms and I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who can sleep through your snoring, so—”
“I don’t snore!” But I start to giggle. “Okay. Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll let you be my roommate in the spring, Hamako Bradshaw. But only because I’m lazy and don’t want to move.”
“Right. And only because I’m too selfless to inflict you on any other poor girl.”
“You really are a saint.”
“Yeah, well, all I can say is they better put a statue of me down by the lake. I did kind of save the whole school.”
“You did?”
“You said it yourself. You couldn’t have done it without me.”
Impulsively, I step forward and hug her.
After a moment’s surprise, Darby hugs me back.
“Oh, and Miss March asked me to pass on a message,” she says. “When you’re done cleaning up, she needs you to clear out your mailbox. Apparently it’s overflowing.”
“My what?” I look at her blankly.
Darby gives me an odd look. “Your mailbox. Where you get your mail. In the back of Harmony Hall. You didn’t know about it?”
“Nobody told me I had a mailbox!” I bet it was announced the very first day, when all the new students had arrived—but I was up in the headmaestro’s office, finding out I was never supposed to be at Mystwick in the first place. “I don’t even have a key for one.”
“Do you have your whistle-key?”
“Well, yeah,” I reply, taking it from my pocket. “But—”
“Give it here, dummy.” Darby grabs my key and twists it, and to my shock, the holes realign to form a new sequence of notes. She hands it back to me, and I twist it back and forth, my mouth hanging open.
“You mean you haven’t checked it even once?” she says. “You’ve probably got forty million letters in—”
But I’m already running away, ignoring the branches and leaves I’m supposed to be cleaning up. I run as fast as I can to Harmony Hall, where I finally stop to ask a senior where the mailboxes are. She looks at me like I asked where the sky is, and points to a hallway. Racing down it, realizing I’ve definitely never been back here before, I can feel my heart pounding.
Skidding to a halt in a room lined with little mailboxes, just like in the post office back home, my eyes fix on one with my name on it in gleaming gold letters. I twist my whistle-key so that the second set of notes is ready, then play them in quick succession—F–F#–B.
The mailbox bursts open at once, and a torrent of letters falls out. I stumble back and stare at the envelopes piling up on the floor. It takes a while. The last one, bigger than the rest, lands with a little thunk.
They’re from Gran.
They’re all from Gran.
She must have written almost every single day since I’ve been gone. And all this time I thought she was ignoring me on purpose!
Sorting through the pile, I find the envelope with the earliest date on it and rip it open. The letter inside is full of the kinds of things I’d expect—Gran asking if I remembered my shampoo, if I liked my roommate, if the food had enough fresh veggies in it—but the last line catches my eye: PS There’s no use in emailing me, as I have forgotten my password.
My stomach sinks.
All this time I was emailing Gran, and all this time she was writing to me—and neither of us knew it. She must think I was ignoring her!
“Amelia?”
I turn around and see Miss March staring at my pile of letters in astonishment.
“Is it okay—” I stop and have to swallow, because I realize I’m on the verge of bursting into tears. “Can I have the morning off from cleaning? I swear I’ll get it all done after—”
“It’s fine,” she says gently. “Let me get you a bag for all this.”
Minutes later, I walk out of the mailroom hauling my bag of envelopes. It’ll take hours to read all of Gran’s letters, and then I know I have to do what I’ve been putting off for weeks—I have to call her and tell her the truth. The whole truth.
One envelope I keep in my hand; it was sent just last week, and it’s the one that was heavier than all the rest. There’s some kind of little box inside it.
I rip it open as I walk back through Harmony Hall. In the lobby, a few older students are lounging on the sofas and rugs, glued to a news story on the TV about some castaways being rescued from a tropical island.
“Wait a minute,” says one of the kids. “I know those people. Isn’t that—”
“Move, guppy!” calls out another, just as I walk by. “You’re blocking the screen!”
“Sorry,” I mutter, scurrying off as I unfold the letter.
My Dear Amelia,
I suppose you’re still upset with me for lying all these years about your mother, and I want you to know I understand, and that I will always love you, even when you don’t wish to speak with me.
I pause to wipe my eyes. No, Gran! That’s not it at all! I have to explain everything to her. Wait till she hears I met my mother! That I got to hug her!
Gran’s letter continues:
This was your mother’s. I suppose it will do more good in your hands than it’s done sitting in my jewelry box. She would have wanted you to have it. I expect in a few years you will have one of your own, but until then, perhaps this one will encourage you to always follow your heart even when a stubborn old goat like me is too afraid to let you go.
Love,
Your Gran
With a little gasp, I turn over the envelope and a little jewelry box slides out into my palm. Inside it is a glittering gold music note.
My mother’s Maestro pin.
Heart pounding, I go back to my dorm room and spend the next three hours reading Gran’s letters, my heart pinching every time she asks me why I haven’t written back or called. The rest is mostly updates on our neighbors’ vegetable gardens, and Mrs. O’Grady’s chickens, and how Gran’s book club is feuding again over what to read next—in other words, all the normal, boring, wonderful stuff I’ve missed most about home.
When I’m done with the letters, I carefully pin my mother’s golden music note on the bulletin board over my desk. One day, not long from now, I will earn the right to wear it myself. If I work hard, and practice often, and always stay true to myself, then I can become anything. Even a Maestro.
But for now, I grab my flute case and head for the door.
As of today, I’m an official, no-strings-attached, honest-to-Bach student at the Mystwick School of Musicraft.
I’ve got class to attend.
Acknowledgments
As the third rule of Musicraft states: The more who join into the spell, the greater will its power swell. Mystwick would never have been possible without the influence, insight, passion, and time poured into it by so many people, each lending their own unique harmonies to this story.
The first to ever meet Amelia was my little sister, Madelaine, the original frog wrangler and chicken charmer, whose enthusiasm (and fan art!) was just the encouragement I needed to believe in this story. Thank you, Maddy, for believing in Amelia first, and lending her your red curls and freckles.
Several early readers were instrumental in this story’s development. Megan Shepherd, thank you for all your insights into the tuning of Amelia’s voice. Jessica Brody, you are always one of the first people I go to with a new story, and your wisdom, encouragement, and staunch faith are a steady beat that never fails. Ventia McConnell Webber, flutist, music teacher, conductor, reader, and friend—where in Bach’s name would this story be without you? I am forever in your debt for the advice and musical expertise you so graciously shared. A Maestro position at Mystwick is waiting just for you!
My agent, Lucy Carson, thank you for that flash of inspiration when you saw just what this story could become long before I ever could have, for the incredible lengths to which you have gone for
Mystwick and for me, and of course, for lending Amelia her name. All my love.
Heather Alexander, editor, inimitable Conductor of this orchestra of words and sounds, thank you for taking this story on with such tenacity and vision, and for keeping its many moving parts in sync. Thanks to everyone at Audible Originals and brilliant narrator Suzy Jackson for bringing this story to life in a whole new way for listeners everywhere.
Nicole Sclama, the other half of this peerless editorial duet, thank you for being Amelia’s champion on the page and pouring such care and love into this book. Thanks to Opal Roengchai for her design work; Helen Seachrist, Christopher Granniss, Mary Hurley, Megan Gendell, and Erika West for their deft editing skills; and Alia Almeida and Anna Ravenelle for promoting this book. Everyone at HMH Kids who had a hand in this project, you have my deepest thanks.
A sonata of gratitude to Federica Frenna, whose illustrations perfectly captured these characters and brought Mystwick to life. I am so happy that you’re a part of this story! Nat Osborn, you gave Amelia her most important voice—her music—and I am deeply grateful to you for the beautiful, poignant compositions you created for her.
Always and forever, my family, for giving me the time, encouragement, and support to do this work, for believing all these years, for enduring those hours of awful violin, piano, and recorder playing I did in third grade . . . ok, ok, and on through high school, too. I may not be Mystwick material, but my parents taught me to love music. Thank you, Mama, for all the Loreena McKennitt, and Daddy, for the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Elton John.
Ben, always. I love you.
About the Author
Photo credit: Susan Yang
JESSICA KHOURY is the author of many books for kids and teens. In addition to writing, she is an artistic mapmaker and spends far too much time scribbling tiny mountains and trees for fictional worlds. Her spare hours are spent video gaming, painting, and cooking badly. She lives in Greenville, South Carolina, with her husband, daughter, and sassy husky, Katara.
The Mystwick School of Musicraft Page 24