Freya tried to communicate telepathically with the Starball during the cab ride home, but it would not respond. At home, she tapped on the orb in morse and set her phone beside it with a blank note open, but nothing got a reaction. Freya wondered if the Starball understood language at all, or if it only reacted to emotion. She tried making herself feel angry and happy, but she only felt like a loon for making faces at a marble.

After she failed to connect with the orb, Freya fried three eggs, drizzled green El Yucateco on top, and devoured them. She could have cooked the whole dozen, but she hoped to go for a run after guitar practice. Her appetite was back in a big way.

It was almost time for her lesson. She brought the Ovation into the living room and tuned it. She put her foot up on the coffee table as she warmed up her fingers. Lassa would have shouted, but she was gone. Freya strummed a few chords, looking for whatever she’d felt this morning and trying to sort out what was her, and what was the Starball. She didn’t find it.

Mr. Mathis arrived, dressed in black as always. He carried his guitar case inside with halting steps. Freya could tell his arthritis acted up again, but she knew better than to try and carry his case for him. Randall had done that once, and Mr. Mathis had nearly bitten his head off.

“We doin’ our thing out here, Miss Freya?” he asked, uncertainty in his eyes as he glanced around. Ancient and ornery as Mr. Mathis was, he was still wary of Lassa’s wrath.

“She’s away. Let’s work here. How are you, Mr. Mathis?”

“Same as it ever was,” he said, the words as rehearsed as any song he knew. Every lesson she asked him the same thing, and the reply never changed.

He settled onto the leather armchair by the couch, shifting back and forth, and then nodding in approval at the new arrangement. He bent and opened the guitar case. It was plastered in so many layers of stickers, Freya thought there might not be any leather left under them.

The latest additions were a string of Devin’s Blues BBQ locations from the Midwest. The stickers were oval-shaped, each location a different color of the rainbow.

Mr. Mathis removed his guitar from the case as delicately as if it were made of glass. It was a piano black teardrop D’Angelico New Yorker with gold accents, and he tuned it the same way he’d taught her, first by ear. Then he checked each string with the battered Korg chromatic tuner, nodding when everything was perfect.

He ran his fingers along the fretboard and warmed up, his eyes narrowing from arthritic pain. He strummed four c chords and tilted his head, listening to the sound decay in the high ceiling of the living room.

“Sounds better in here,” he said, nodding to her room. “The acoustics are improved, but how about the playing? What have you got for me?”

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Freya played “Stormy Monday,” and he nodded, acknowledging the little joke.

“You know something I don’t about the weather?” he asked, raising his eyes suspiciously to the triangular window facing the east. “Don’t smile. You flubbed twice in a row on that solo. Whole thing’s too fast, settle down. Play it more like this.”

If his fingers ached, Freya couldn’t hear it. Mr. Mathis played the solo perfectly, then slowed on the part she’d struggled with and played it again. She tried once more and made the same mistake.

“Fingers here, like this. Slower, you got all the time in the world. Easy to make that mistake. Try again.”

It took four tries to nail the solo, but she got it. Freya loosened through the last play, not letting her hands get ahead of her. Mr. Mathis tilted his head as he listened and nodded when she got it right.

“That’s right. What else you got for me?” he asked, and she strummed through a few more of the songs they’d worked on. Freya played well, but she still wasn’t reaching the place she had that morning. She wondered if she’d only dreamed it.

The hour was almost up when Freya tried playing “Wild Horses” as a last shot to recapture the feeling. She couldn’t quite find it, and as she strove, she fumbled the notes. She tried to go on, but Mr. Mathis held up a hand to stop her.

“Getting ahead of yourself. You’re forcing it. Try something you practiced more. Song needs a twelve-string anyhow.”

“Let me try one more time,” she asked and, again, there was that tilt of his head, but he nodded.

“It’s your hour,” he said.

Freya took a deep breath and shut her eyes, then opened them again. Mr. Mathis watched her closely, a tired look in his ancient brown eyes. He didn’t expect that much from her, and she wanted to surprise him.

Freya played, trying to focus on nothing but the music. With each note, more of the effort slipped away until she found herself dancing a step ahead of everything, hitting ever note just right. All the suffering of the day bled out of the guitar, and the song was alive on the air, slow and mournful.

When she finished, she still felt the Ovation humming in her hands. She looked up at Mr. Mathis, wondering if he would just nod and say, “That’s right,” the way he always did.

Instead, he grinned at her, with his smile full of gaps and snags. He brought his hands together with three soft claps, too light to hurt.

“I been waiting six years to hear that,” he said. “That right there, that’s what all that practice is for. You keep it up, and you’ll get there, time and time again.”

She didn’t spoil his words with her own. She just beamed, and there was no awkwardness between them. They had an understanding. At last, he looked at his gold watch and nodded.

“Got something for you,” he said, delicately returning his guitar to its case. From his breast pocket, he took out two pale blue tickets and held them out for her. Joe Bonamassa was playing at Swallow Hall in Bangor on Friday night. Ezekiel “Miracle” Mathis was the opening act.

“When that man was twelve years old, he opened for BB King. Now, I’m sixty-six and ‘bout to open for him. Time don’t make no sense,” Mr. Mathis complained, but he still smiled.

“Oh, wow. Thank you!” she said, clutching the tickets. “I’ll be there.”

“Those are good seats, too. Bring your mama if you want to. I can’t speak for Joe, but I’m gonna put on a show.” Mr. Mathis had a sly little grin. But when he lifted his case, he grimaced it away. He made his slow way out the door and shut it behind him. Freya tucked the tickets into her wallet and brushed her fingers against the Starball in her pocket.

Playing better.