Every evening, Mira sat on the underpass steps and played the same eleven notes. She never named the tune. It just showed up in her fingers one cold winter and stayed. Coins dropped into her open case while she played. But tonight a padded envelope was already waiting on the step. The address was written in her own slanted handwriting, even though she had never mailed a thing in her life.

Mira tore the envelope open. Inside was a single folded page covered in music notes, with one line written at the top: 'Play it backward.' The notes were her eleven, but flipped end to end. Her hands went cold. She set the page on her knee and picked up her instrument.

She played the eleven notes backward. The sound came out wrong and right at the same time. The streetlights flickered. For one second Mira saw herself sitting on the steps from above, as if she were floating up near the ceiling. Then she snapped back, breathing hard.

Mira looked into her case. The coins were gone. In their place sat eleven smooth stones, each one glowing faintly. As she stared, one of them dimmed, like a candle going out. Somehow she knew she had eleven chances, and she had just used the first.