Let’s talk a bit about Odette. I feel I’ve already skirted the issue long enough, and it’s time to address it more in depth. I don’t want people to start saying, “Can you stop teasing us with your cheesy backstory? It’s annoying.” I understand.

People who are desperate for a wish to come true give off a particular scent that freelancers can detect. It’s like the aroma of burning wood, but sweeter. We use it to identify good clients. Tara gave off a strong scent. Odette had one of the strongest scents I had ever smelled.

I met her during her last year at the music conservatory. My ads weren’t returning many clients, so I resorted to hunting people down in the streets. This is always a tricky activity, because you want to be careful not to creep out potential clients. You have to pick out people with strong scents, make small talk, determine whether they might be open to requesting the services of a freelancer, or whether they are even willing to believe freelancers exist.

That day, I detected a scent emanating from a park near the conservatory, not far from the city center. I walked around the whole place; the scent became so strong, I thought I was about to meet face to face with some human shred who had nothing left to lose.

It was shortly after noon, the sunlight shattered on the dome of the conservatory in a rain of blinding sparks. In the shade of a tree, a young girl sat on a bench with headphones on her head. A violin case laid on the ground at her feet, beside a schoolbag. I thought I had made a mistake at first. How could such a strong scent of despair come from a girl who was clearly fortunate enough to afford studying music?

I pretended to sit beside her purely by coincidence. Long strands of black hair obscured her face. She was dressed in jeans and a baggy sweatshirt.

I had a quick look at the website of the music school and then I said as pleasantly as I could, “Do you study here?”

She flickered a moment before deciding that I mustn’t have been talking to her. I repeated, “Are you a student?”

She reached tentatively for her headphones and slid them away from her ears. “Excuse me?”

My smile twitched. “You’re a music student?”

She turned her head toward me by about five degrees and immediately turned it away. I saw just enough of her face to notice that a great part of the skin had some weird texture, as though it had been badly burned. I tried to keep any reaction to myself.

“Yes,” she answered. Her voice was so shy, I barely heard her reply.

“Does Eric Schultz still teach?” I found that name on the website. My strategy was to pretend I was a former student. She might ask questions in return, and then we would have a conversation going.

“Yes.”

Okay, bad start. Let’s have a go at an open-ended question. “What do you think of him?”

She shrugged. With anyone else, I would have given up. No need to insist. It’s just that the scent was so strong, I needed to give it another try. “What are you listening to?”

“Ysaÿe’s ‘Ballade.’”

I was so happy she replied that I blurted out, “Oh, I remember Ysaÿe!”

Ah, crap. Ysaÿe was born in the middle of the 19th century. I wasn’t supposed to remember him. The girl remained silent. The wind rustled the leaves of the maple trees above us.

“You play the violin?” she finally asked.

“Actually, I play the piano. I’m a teacher.”

“I play the piano, too… I study violin and piano.”

And so, my attempt at making small talk was rescued. I did my best not to stare when she let me see her face. Later on, after many more conversations turned us into friends, she said that she’d burned the skin on the left side of her face in an accident involving boiling water when she was a kid.

Even though at first I had been motivated by the contract I might get from Odette, the more I got to know her, the more I felt like I wanted something different from her. She was a musical prodigy. Talent is an elusive concept that’s tricky to define, but if anyone ever had talent, it was Odette. She had talent and determination and relentless discipline. I never got tired of listening to her play. Unfortunately, her scars made her too self-conscious to assert her skills among her peers and teachers.

The Black Claws started as an idea I had to allow Odette to display her compositions without having to worry about her appearance. Along with another student, Jayda, we started putting up music online.

Soon, we blew up. It all went well until Jayda talked about going on tour and meeting our fans. Obviously, the thought filled Odette with dread. While I also preferred remaining anonymous, I realized that Odette might end up missing out on her dream if she kept holding herself back.

One day, I went up to her and made her an offer. I don’t know where she’d heard of freelancers before, but she wasn’t surprised to hear me propose a contract. She was the one who suggested that I could take her violin as a price. It sounded like a good idea; the object was precious, yet easy to replace. And I offered my own “talent” because I thought it would make her trust me more if I had a big penalty on the line. I was too sure of myself to even imagine I could fail.

I made her a potion that should have repaired her skin. We agreed that I would have one week to make the potion, and then I would leave her one week to drink it and see if it worked. I gave her the vial one night, and the next morning, she was gone.

I gave her the vial, and then, she disappeared.

It was the first snowfall of the season. We searched and searched for her through the white curtain that soon covered any tracks she might have left. One week later, though, the contract came to its end and I paid the penalty. Ever since the moment we found her empty car near the bridge, my greatest regret has been to even suggest that she should change herself. I never told anyone about it.

***

A light chuckle woke me up in the morning. It took me a few seconds to remember why I wasn’t alone in bed. I cracked my eyes open and saw Eva lying beside me and laughing at something on her phone.

“What’s funny?” I muttered.

She looked away from her phone and whispered, “Did I wake you up?”

A bit, maybe, but it was fine. I really enjoyed the sound of her voice at this moment. It was raspy from sleep.

“I’m reading the news about the concert. They can’t figure out what happened. They say it’s probably the fault of a very confused technician.”

Oh, well. For all we knew, it might be the case. Eva rolled to her side and brushed my hair with her fingertips. “My friends can’t believe I was there.”

“Are they awake this early?”

“Early? It’s almost noon.”

That explained the subdued light that poured in through the window. It reflected in Eva’s brown eyes like shards of gold. I took her hand in mine to kiss her palm.

Eva had midterms coming up, so she spent the rest of the day cooped up in her place, buried in books. I didn’t hear from Tara either. It was possible she at last understood the importance of boundaries.

***

The next day, I went up to the big studio of the MBT. There were already a bunch of dancers there stretching before the start of the class. Tara was at the barre, holding one of her legs straight up to her head. Even though she saw me coming nearer, she didn’t bat an eyelash until I was right next to her. “Hey, Tara…”

Her startle was somewhat impinged by her position. She let go of her leg. “Sorry, I didn’t notice you.”

A hint of bitterness clouded her voice. She ignored me and stretched her other leg.

“What did you want to show me last Saturday?”

“Oh, nothing much.”

Her tone froze the air around us. “I’m sorry, but you can’t just show up at my place like that anymore! How am I supposed to explain that to…” I stopped myself from saying Eva just in time, “…to my neighbors?”

Tara dropped her leg and went up on pointe. I don’t know if it was on purpose, but this way she was a bit taller and in just the right position to look down at me. She came down again and started doing little prances to warm up her feet.

“Fine, I don’t care anyway,” I grumbled as I went to take my new usual spot at the front of the studio.

“It’s about the video we recorded.”

She walked away from the barre and pulled me out of the studio. Great. I had the feeling the video was about to give me some grief.