With her limited school budget, Ms. Kaplan went to Marl’s Boutique of Magnificent Sounds where the clerk led her to a piano made of fingers. She played some notes across several octaves to test it out. Some of the lower keys stuck a bit, but it would be manageable. It was a well-loved piano. The white and black fingers had grown wrinkled and stiff. The few, new, supple, young fingers—must be a recent repair by the store—stuck out like the bright young children at the decrepit school.

Ms. Kaplan showed the music club the basics of how to play this instrument. Sarah, Beatrice, Violet, and Grace crowded around the piano with Angela and Dahlia hanging back.

“Place your fingers in between the knuckles for proper grip,” Ms. Kaplan told Sarah.

Sarah adjusted her position and pressed down on a few wrinkly keys, experimenting. The students giggled at the noise. It was powerful with even the lightest touch.

“What happened to the old piano?” Dahlia asked from the back. “What happened to its fingers?”

It decayed like all things, Ms. Kaplan thought, but she told the class, “We gave it away and upgraded to this. Doesn’t this sound better?” Sarah continued playing and none could argue the new piano wasn’t an improvement.

Sarah was the student who needed hardly any instruction. She had never played before but was a natural. Ms. Kaplan might finally get to use her free time to teach some actual music in this after school club, something beyond the basics. But Sarah also excelled at Finance, Managerial Benevolence, The Hierarchy of Faces, Fabrics, Harvest, and Fervor, like any good girl should.

And so it wasn’t Sarah who took to the piano’s charms, but Dahlia.

Dahlia was shy and so the other students assumed she was extra smart and learned things in private sessions where she got ahead of everyone. But when she spoke, everyone laughed at how blunt and basic her speech was. She wasn’t any dumber than average, she simply had a speech impediment. She was a victim of raised expectations brought about by her silence.

Ms. Kaplan found Dahlia lingering with the piano after the rest of the club left. Dahlia approached to see some of the fingers were dry. She used her own lotion to rejuvenate the keys, to ease the pain of prolonged exposure without moisture. Then she began to play.

Dahlia played loud. The timbre of her playing had the snap of bones with the warmth and ache of still living skin. Clair De Lune never sounded so warm or curious. Many professional piano players struggled to get the fingers to stay in tune with each other, as they often strained to escape the instrument, but Dahlia had a way with them.

Ms. Kaplan was pleased with what she heard and made sure to splurge and buy some fresh fingers from the premium market on her way home.

With fresh digits, the piano only sounded better, and Dahlia was happy to see a teacher take interest in her, since she was struggling in Finance and Fervor. Dahlia worked hard and wrangled the piano for every performance. She also put her own feelings into it. It was all going well enough that Ms. Kaplan would soon be able to plan a recital and, if received well, perhaps get music put onto the official curriculum. It might have happened if Dahlia didn’t make the same mistake as before: opening her mouth.

“Where do the fingers come from?” Dahlia asked.

“No. We don’t ask questions here.” Ms. Kaplan said gently.

“I’ve been having dreams ma’am. I think I already know.”

“Then you know you need to stop chasing that idea.”

“It’s cruel. It’s unfair. I won’t do it.” The words seemed righteous, but she sniffled through her little rebellion. This was the problem with finding musicians. They were either so un-attuned to emotion as to only produce passable noise, or they were so sensitive that the entire operation put them off.

“You’re the first of your family to attend school, correct?” Ms. Kaplan asked.

“Yes.”

“Leave it to the third generation to question the bigger things. They’ll have the resources to weather it. For now, you may use this.” She handed Dahlia a blindfold.

And so training began in earnest. Dahlia had to wear the blindfold 24/7, like all students who had found their Focus. During the day, they trained with a plastic keyboard with sleek, but tough, mannequin fingers. At night, the blindfold dampened Dahlia’s pesky dreams, so that the massive, liquid feeling of gnosis was kept at bay to allow her to adequately prepare for her big performance.

Dahlia performed beautifully at the recital. Backstage afterwards, as Ms. Kaplan waited to congratulate her, she observed Dahlia removing her blindfold to see her adoring family.

Her younger sister screamed. Her parents flinched. The teachers, although they would later deny it, recoiled as they had never seen a student whose Focus was music. They didn’t know the risks. When Dahlia put together what had happened she sobbed . Ms. Kaplan was there to comfort her and offer coping methods for her new way of seeing with her eyes made of newly grown fingers, knotted and stuffed into her sockets, squirming and desperate to touch.

Dahlia, unwilling to grow into her Focus, dropped out of school to convalesce. And so Sarah became the star piano player. But Sarah wasn’t as sensitive or interested in the art form, so she used her musical skills as a resume builder and Focused on the Hierarchy of Faces, just like each member of her beautiful family.

Ms. Kaplan shook away the doubt that no child would have the perfect temperament to flourish under her tutelage as she fastened a tarp over the piano and locked the room up for the summer, leaving the fingers confused, restless, and alone.

* * *

Ⓒ Abigail Koury