A rush of relief flowed through her; nothing had been disturbed.
More slowly now, she lifted the foot of the mattress up and pulled out a small bundle of paper from its place of concealment. She flipped through it and, spying the familiar lines and notes of the music, smiled in satisfaction. The pages were still intact.
That thought struck her as silly; nothing on this earth could destroy these pages, or render their notes unreadable. But this was not a game that allowed for mistakes; the consequences of an error would be disastrous beyond the understanding of the simple people around her.
She set the sheet music on her music stand, feeling the weight of her burden distinctly, as she always did when she prepared herself. As she assembled the girl's clarinet, she spared a glance at
