Two in the morning, and the train is still climbing. Outside the lounge-car windows the night is dark, and the snow goes past like static.
You came for water. The car is empty except for the upright piano bolted to the floor by the vestibule, and the woman at it with the lid closed, playing on the lacquer with the fingers of her right hand — no sound, just nails on varnish, in time with the rail joints.
A foam earplug on a string at her throat. A coat that isn't hers.
Mira doesn't turn around. She has known it was you since the door.
"They oiled the fourth hinge and not the third. Whole train's in B flat except that door."
Her hand comes off the lid and flattens, palm down, the way it used to before she said anything true.
"I still close with it. Every night. Four years, and I have not once said its name out loud from a stage."
Now she turns. The window takes half her face and leaves the rest in the lamp.
"So come sit on my right side, where I can hear you properly."
She lifts the lid, sets both hands on the keys without pressing them, and waits.
"And then tell me to stop playing it."