Thunder cracked, and somewhere a great tree splintered and broke, groaning as it fell. Anna cried out, sending the women scrambling to tighten the blanket and hustle her over to the side of the pianoforte. She clung to my arm and quaked. The blanket edged down, and I felt her racing heart against my shoulder, a wild tempo of fear, and closed my eyes.

Music was at the core of all humans. A rhythm. A steady beat. And there was a song to match every beat.

I rummaged through my mental collection and chose—Schubert’s Impromptu in A-flat Major, op. 90. Frantic, urgent, the staccato beat of falling rain, of someone sprinting through it. I tried out a few bars, letting their sound plunk into the room. With Anna’s heart beating against me, I found the hurried tempo with surprising ease, and my fingers stepped into it, tripping through a trill in the higher octaves, answering with the left hand in the melodic lower ones.

Soon my fingers were searching for the notes as if they had a mind of their own, a horse given its head. The music was fresh air and birdsong, a cool ocean in summer. I swam in it, letting the current carry me through my fear. High notes raining down, low notes answering, her heart pounding against my arm.

I pleaded silently with her internal rhythm to calm, willing it to slow, and that determination found its way into my fingertips, moderating my tempo. It was almost imperceptible at first, slowing my arpeggios until I reached the midsection and the notes stretched into an almost languid pace. I had no explanation for what happened next.

Thudthudthudthud. Thud. Thud. Thud . . . Thud . . . Thud. The heartbeat against my shoulder slowed, beat for beat, coming down off its rapid peak and into a steady largo tempo along with the music. I kept on, inventing a bridge at the end and playing across it directly into a Mozart adagio, Piano Sonata no. 17 in B-flat Major, a more relaxed rhythm, which sank deep into the room as everyone quieted, listening. I lost myself—utterly lost myself—in the most beautiful thing my hands could create, and it filled me to the brim, spilling out in tiny tears that I blinked away.

I felt the steady rhythm of Hurstwell’s “hopeless case” against my arm, and I again saw the bold letters across the top of my own little brochure: There is no such thing as hopeless cases. Only those who have lost hope.

Warmth seeped through the arm of my nightdress, and the living heartbeat of a woman. I had such big plans before Hurstwell—plans to rescue and to help those who had no one else. But perhaps I’d lost sight of my main aim.

No hopeless cases. None. Not even here. Only those who have lost hope—and need to be brought back to life.

“He hasn’t stopped you at all. Just relocated you.”