The Queen of Hell smiled as she looked through her window, down to the fishpond below. Her father had dug that fishpond, stocked it with koi, before she had been born. She thought of all the koi that had been trapped there over so many years. How many parents had lived in that pond? How many children had each of them had?
Yet the pond did not acquire more fish.
For the older ones, the graceful ones … the chosen ones, the brilliant ones, the ones gilded with darkness, with flame … were also the ones who ate their young.
29
Miss Satomi’s door was ajar.
“Hello? Miss Astrid said you wanted to see me?”
Miss Satomi waved Katrina inside.
In all her time here, Katrina had never seen her teacher’s room. She had never even been on this side of the hallway.
Miss Satomi frowned. “You’re not going out in those, are you?”
“Miss Astrid said they were okay,” Katrina said.
“Well … wear a coat when you do.”
Katrina’s eyes scanned the room. It was large. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t large—it was empty.
She had expected a lush, sumptuous room, full of tasteful items and trophies from past conquests. On the walls, there would be oil paintings, woodblock prints, concert programs written in French. There would be elegantly framed pictures of family, notes from paramours, maybe someone in a kimono. Miss Satomi would be in front of a fairy-tale mirror, lounging on a bed that was plush and velvet, with precious things made of jade and ivory next to her on an antique nightstand.
But this room had nothing. Yes, there was a mirror, bed, and nightstand. There was a simple desk and a dresser, and on the bed, Miss Satomi’s new laptop. There was a music stand in one corner and a small lamp in the other.
There were no mementos from past vacations. No souvenirs. No dried flowers. No paramours or family photos. The walls were empty as well.
Miss Satomi sat on the bed, all alone but for what was she holding.
“I just retrieved this from Lucía Matía. Please, take a look.”
In Miss Satomi’s elegant hands, the bow seemed surprisingly plain. Although it had new silver fittings and was freshly polished, it still seemed thin. The wood smelled sickly.
No, not quite sickly. Hungry.
“Many years ago, this was given to me by Tremon Philippe. At the time, I was a violinist like you—only a lot better.”
Miss Satomi held the bow like a most lovely and terrible addiction.
“As a child, when I played, the world seemed bright and happy. My parents stopped yelling. My mother would talk about her childhood, we’d watch the rain and sing, ‘teru teru bohzu, teru boh-zu.’ Sometimes my father would even pull out an old harmonica.
“As long as I played, everything was all right. After my first competition, my violin teacher cried. He said when I played, he saw his father in uniform, and his mother, her hair still soft and brown. They were all going shopping, and there were cakes with the aroma of cinnamon and clove…”
Miss Satomi shrugged.
“But then, competitions became larger and shinier. And at some point, people stopped listening.
“Oh, they still acted as if they did. They would say how beautiful I was. They would call me brilliantly exotic, a China doll. They gave me awards. They praised me. Yet, little by little, what they wanted eclipsed what I was, until they even forgot that I was from Monterey Park. And my music?
“Well, for a while, I thought if I won enough trophies, enough certificates, people would listen again. But no, there were just bigger performances, bigger cities, and bigger spotlights. A conductor would give me his hotel key; a sponsor would brush her hand where she shouldn’t. I tried to play louder to make them listen. I tried to play harder so they would understand. I tried to play and play and play, because as long as I played, everything would be okay.
“But then my hand started to hurt. And then the pain got worse. Much worse—to the point where I would touch the violin and my entire arm felt like it was on fire.”
She held up her hand, the same one Katrina had thought perfect and beautiful.
“It was not the best of times. I went from expert to expert. Some doctors said nerve damage. Others said soft tissue, or bone. A few even insisted the pain was in my mind.
“By then, I could no longer play. I thought my parents would be heartbroken for me … but instead they were furious. Soon, they divorced. Two years later, my father disappeared. My mother blamed me until the day she died.
“My childhood friends had long since drifted away. And my colleagues? They avoided me, perhaps afraid that whatever had happened to me might be contagious.”