Chapter One: The Name Only She Could See

Xia Mi handed her the sheet. Tang Li counted seven, her thumb resting directly over MIA as if the ink were invisible. A phone photograph showed only blank paper beneath the seventh name. Yet every copy Xia Mi checked contained that same impossible listing. MIA was a reflection of Mi. It was also the English name she had used in high school, known only to Wen Yu. During soundcheck, the old lighthouse stood beyond the empty seats like a pale bone in the fog. Xia Mi struck her first chord, but a woman’s breathing reached her through the monitor. Then came four bars of a melody, faint and submerged. Her hands froze. Wen Yu had written that melody before his final voyage. It had no title and no ending.