The Greatest Sound You've Never Heard
Joanna sat down at a bench in Pioneer Square, watching all the coming and going. She liked this park. Besides having a fountain, a personal preference of hers, it had an old-city feel to it, which was the whole point, to be honest. The totem pole it was known for was the real thing. Not one of those gaudy things rich white people liked to put out in the open so people could see that they're ever so culturally open.

She took out her violin and laid down the case. She didn't consider herself a panhandler, specifically, she held down a regular job, after all, but on the occasion that anyone wanted to express their appreciation of her music, it was a handle place to drop their coins. The case in place of a hat or bucket wasn't what she knew made people stop and stare. It was the veil. The damned stupid ugly fundamentally necessary veil she wore when she played. It wasn't like it really inconvenienced her. Papa, in all his sometimes appropriate paranoia, had taught her to focus enough on her hearing to keep anyone from ever getting the drop on her. All the music she played in public were pieces she'd written herself or knew by heart. She didn't need to see, she just needed to not be seen.

The familiar sense of anticipation shuddered through her as she put the bow to the strings, and started playing. Tartini's violin sonata in g major. The Devil's Trill. Her absolute favorite piece of music in the whole entire world. The classical version, not Mae's variant, although she loved that too. Still, she felt it happening like always, a couple dozen measures in. She could feel the energy coarse into her skin and hair. She felt her organs and heart growing more still, even though she seemed fine outwardly. She was turning into a monster. The same damned curse that made her so wonderfully talented now was the reason she had gotten through music school with one forged medical excuse after another, because she couldn't play in front of others.

Still, she played beautifully, and people could hear it, even if they couldn't see her face. That was something.