The silence in her head after that spoke volumes.
Mrs. Quigley stepped up onto her conductor's stand and said some words of encouragement, but Lilly paid them no heed. She was too miserable to care right then, and even if she weren't, it wasn't like she could believe anything the possessed woman said.
And then, the curtain opened.
For most of the first piece, Lilly lagged a half-count behind and missed notes and runs that she normally could have played in her sleep. She just couldn't get into it between her renewed heartache and the anxiety, bordering on outright fear, that she had been fighting all night.
When the song finally ended, and the audience, mostly hidden beyond the glare of the spotlights that shone from the back of the auditorium, applauded, she had a powerful urge to ge
