It all started when I picked up a guitar, it was bigger than me at the time, but that didn’t stop me.
A worn, tried and true acoustic, barely tuned, I’d never held one before, so at first I just held it and strummed, but then I did the impossible , without hesitation or fault, played ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ stunning the whole room.

From then on my musical skills improved , once I heard a song once I could replay it on any instrument.

I now can play twelve different instruments, and I’m only 14.

I’ve never played for any orchestra or band, except for with my two best friends, Sarah, the singer , and Luke, the drummer.

Drums were the only thing that I never could understand, something about them just didn’t click, but Luke was a master.

We had been friends for a year before we met Sarah. I was alright but Sarah was legendary.(Luke sounded like a dying frog) We never did much with our little band, we didn’t have the fancy stuff that people look for. Besides, we never really wanted to be famous.

Thus the Outcasts were formed. After five years , our abilities did something that we never expected,

evolve.

We were playing at the local farmer's market when it happened. We mostly played cover songs, but Sarah had started writing songs a few years ago and now we sometimes played those.

It was a blazing-hot Saturday afternoon at the park, and I tried not to sneeze on pollen as I worked my way through the outro of Free Bird (hey, the old dudes always loved it). It was a very long, complicated guitar part, but those were honestly my favorites. Call me sentimental, but guitars were my first love ever since that battered old acoustic I picked up when I was little. After the last chord, I glanced at Sarah and silently asked, What are we singing next?

After so many years of performing together, we had developed our own sort of sign language for the songs we knew. We used it for other things, too. Like when we were bored in class but the substitute teacher had a comically thick Southern drawl, so Luke looked at us and made the signal for Ring of Fire and we started cracking up. Or when Sarah ended conversations with the signal for Call Me Maybe so we could continue the conversation later. It was fun to have secret communication no one else knew about.

She paused for a moment, then held up two fingers and twisted them in a tight circle. Her newest song, Wild Woods, inspired by the time she went camping with her cousins who she didn't like. It described them like squirrels and bears hiding in the trees, which I thought was funny. It was kind of bluesy, a little slower than I preferred, but I didn't mind because it was fun.

We launched into the song after I took some time to blow my nose. These allergies were going to kill me.

Luke counted us off and we started the song. I launched into the guitar riff, sliding across the strings, as Sarah started singing. Nothing strange happened until halfway through the second verse, when I started noticing a weird light coming from a few rows away.

I squinted in the sunlight, trying to see what was going on. Maybe some teenager was waving their phone flashlight at us. It happened sometimes.

As the shape solidified, I realized this had to be something else. An honest-to-God bear, glowing with white light, had appeared in the middle of the farmer's market. It waddled around the local honey stand, sniffing at the jars of golden liquid, and no one else seemed to notice.

Well, not no one else. Sarah's voice hitched as she started the last chorus, and Luke's jaw gaped. We finished the song, somehow, and then watched the animal disappear in a puff of glittering light.

"Did that just..." I mouthed to my bandmates.

"Yeah." Luke looked down at his drumsticks. "Let's not talk about it right now."

Sarah just nodded and signaled Call Me Maybe, and that was that.

We finished out the show, playing some more rock and country covers, and nothing else strange happened. But as I sat at home that afternoon, waiting for everyone to be available to call, I heard a knock on the door from below. My mom answered it, some guy started talking who sounded like he might be a door-to-door salesman, and I didn't think much of it until I heard the guy talk about my band.

"Is this where the lead guitarist of the Outcasts lives?" he asked, his voice suddenly much deeper and more intimidating. Hearing this, I dropped my ear to the vent in the floor so I could listen more closely.

"Yes!" I could hear my mom smiling. "He doesn't just play guitar, you know. He can play ten different instruments!" Twelve, Mom, I thought.

"A Prodigy, then." The word sounded important. "When you see him next, give him my information. I'd love to... collaborate sometime."

The stranger's words reverberated through my skull, sending cold shivers down my spine. I silently prayed that Mom wouldn't tell him I was here now. But thankfully, the door closed and I heard him walking down the driveway, away from the house.

Only then did I feel safe walking downstairs and looking at the business card he had left with my mom. A solid black rectangle with gold edges, the words D. Argent, Producer written in loopy script. What was happening to the Outcasts? And what did this guy want with us?

Luke hopped on the video chat first, holding his phone, sitting on the porch in front of his house. His screen moved back and forth with the porch swing, smearing white and brown across the call in the slight static. He looked at me, confused, as I waved my arms around in a chaotic, stressed swirl. "What's going on?" he asked. "We played our songs, and we summoned some kind of ghost bear, and now you look like you've just seen a vampire. Please tell me you have an explanation for this. Like, mass hallucination or special effects or something."

"Sorry, just more questions. Where's Sarah? Do you know?"

"I think she's out with her mom, picking up her sister from ballet practice. Why?"

I explained the creepy guy who had come to our house, D. Argent, and how he had been looking for me. I could tell Luke didn't fully believe it at first, but as I went on, he started nodding. When I was done, he stopped the swing and focused his full attention on the video screen. "Whoa," he said. "That's crazy. But what was that he called you? A Prodigy?"

"Yeah, that." People had called me that before, on account of my unusual musical talent at such a young age. My music teacher in first grade, for instance. And the one in fourth grade. And the one at the local community center. But this felt different than that.

I switched to another window on my computer and looked up D. Argent, Producer. Diavolo Argent, as it turned out, really was a music producer: he owned a studio on the south side of town. But as I scrolled down, I found more and more unsettling news stories. Five years ago, a group of teenagers had entered the studio and were never seen again. Three years before that, a song recorded in the studio had to be removed from all streaming services after it caused everyone who heard it to break out in seizures. But somehow, Argent always got away without any repercussions.

I swallowed. "Luke, this is really bad."

"What is?"

"The guy who wanted me to 'collaborate' is probably a serial killer or something. And he's probably looking for you guys, too."

"The cops can stop him," Luke promised, but I wasn't sure he actually believed it. I sure didn't.

I closed that tab and opened up another one. This time, I looked up "Prodigy." I got a lot of unrelated results, but after ten minutes of digging, I found the archived website of a band called the Red River Prodigies. Their picture reminded me of us: a girl with a microphone, a boy on the drums (at least I thought it was a boy--he was pretty androgynous, with the long black hair of an early 2000s emo), and a boy surrounded by different instruments, all sitting in the middle of the desert surrounded by old cars sticking up from the sand. The website was ancient--nothing had been posted on it since 2005. But the very first post caught my eye.

We are the Red River Prodigies, an alternative band from North Texas bringing you the sickest new music anywhere this side of the solar system! We aren't just musicians, we're wizards! That's right: we aren't called Prodigies for no reason.

A Prodigy is someone who channels magic through uncommon musical ability. They're very rare, and we're the only ones we know of right now. But they always come in groups of three, each with a different specialty: Harmony, Melody, and Rhythm.

Our lead singer, Caroline, has the power of Melody. Just like the chorus of a well-written song, this power is moving: it works by interacting with peoples' minds, creating beautiful illusions or making feelings extra-powerful!

Raul, our guitarist and all-around instrument wizard, uses the power of Harmony to get in the groove with the world around him. It transforms physical objects, especially natural ones, giving them new properties--like levitating guitar picks, or setting the roof on fire in a club!

Jax holds it down on the drums with the power of Rhythm. That's the hardest power to explain, and we're not sure he understands it either. Every drummer needs a precise sense of timing, but Prodigies can alter time itself with their talent, making it so they never miss a beat!

I could almost dismiss it as a marketing gimmick. That felt like something an alt band would do to advertise themselves. However, I had just seen us summon an illusion bear, and D. Argent, whatever his agenda was, seemed to take all this seriously.

"Luke," I said, "I think we have magic."

His eyes widened, not even bothering to question me this time. "I've always wanted to be a wizard!"

Sarah picked that moment to hop on the call. I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief that she was okay. "What did I miss?" she asked.

Luke and I both groaned. "So much. So much."