Every day, under Shizuka’s instruction, she became just a bit better. Every night, she took what she learned and channeled it into her next recording. With Shirley’s help and technology, the type of content they were producing began to outstrip anything Shizuka could have imagined.

Katrina and Shirley enhanced all that was heard and seen. She could fight dragons, seduce a ghost, fly through space. She could be elf, faerie, Japanese spider woman … With a wave of the hand, she could alter her features, change her proportions, or obscure herself in a forest.

But Katrina never showed herself unaltered. Furthermore, Katrina asked Shirley to remove live footage of her from the Internet, even the Temple City footage. People constantly asked her do interviews, to go on tour, all of which she graciously declined.

She said she wanted her music to be front and center and that seeing who was actually making the music would only get in the way. Of course, there was more to her decision than that.

For outside the violin world, she was still transgender. She knew how cruel and hurtful people could be in person. Just imagine how they would be online.

More and more, Shizuka realized how the world was not the same place for Katrina. One morning, Shizuka had menudo. The menudo place down the hill had new tablecloths, cute curtains, and flower vases on every table. But the owners were very Christian, and the customers were city workers on lunch break, arriving in trucks and utility vans.

They had always been kind to Shizuka. But how would they serve Katrina? These were good people, most of the time, weren’t they?

In the end, she sent Astrid, who brought the menudo home in large Styrofoam cups.

The irony was almost unbearable. For Shizuka, not to have live footage of herself was a curse. But for Katrina, anonymity was salvation itself.

Shizuka could do nothing about so much of the world Katrina faced each day. But the violin could shield her from at least some of its ugliness.

Perhaps Shizuka would show her the speed and response of the Russian bow hold—especially since she was carrying far less tension in her wrist. There were more videos online—she had barely begun to show Katrina anything Baroque—which was criminal, considering how much video game music was influenced by Bach.

Did Katrina even know about Baroque violins?

Or she could go the other way. Perhaps she might want to teach her of a rising star like Philip Glass. Or, heck, maybe someone misunderstood to this day, like Bartók.

Oh, what would Katrina do with Bartók?

Shizuka shivered, then looked outside. It was already dark.

One could dream. One could wish for a world like Katrina’s, where one did not have to kill to be saved.