The future sting of failure clustered in her mind.
Shauna chastised herself for not having enough strength of imagination to see it differently.
Like a swarm of wasps her doubting laid suffocating lies in her self faith, a depository of loud fears.
Her insides felt papery thin with her emotions clawing around in the dark of the unknown.
The expectation of success was not assuaged by their words " You are ready to do this".
She practiced and practiced. She had fasted on just air and words , well that’s what it felt like at times.

Night would not come yet , a full sun smeared the day in her face.
The evening would find her soon enough and the clock would tick for them all.
Her image in the mirror seemed to be smiling back at her.
“Fool” she called back at her reflection.

Her family was poor and struggled without complaint when she needed more to keep her going.
She was the lynchpin to hinge together a possible path to the new country.
They were always there eagerly pushing her forward and forward….. make us proud, make us a new life.
Change the blueprint…

Her slender hands held the long neck of her instrument firmly.
She commenced her recital and pulled from it’s strings a song of sirens that lulled the audience into a honeycomb of musical seduction.

She finished playing.
It was quiet, a paused quiet that pinned her ears back in painful expectation.
Then in the next breath from her heart the applause ruptured the air thunderously and he was standing in rapturous appreciation.

They would not go on the train to that place of no where like the others.
She would play music again for the evil one.
Her family would live while her music soothed the beast of the new country.