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.

Mira folded the page and tucked it away. She would play the normal way, like always. But when her fingers touched the strings, the old eleven notes wouldn't come. Her hands only knew the backward version now. The first tune was simply gone, and she finally understood she was never meant to keep it.