Ceralynn loved nothing more than to play. The magic in it: the vibration from the bow as an extension of arm, of heart, through the wood shaped to curve like the neck of a swan, a ballerina, an otherworldly beauty that sung with the beauty of a vineyard and enraptured with the intoxication of its fruits.

It was a form of private worship, placing her sheet music upon the stand like an anointing, crossing the room in soft-soled shoes to sit, cradling the instrument in her arms. Her fingers ghosted its neck, brushing the strings as she tightened them, slackening and loosening at her touch until its body sang at the right frequency, humming alongside the melody stuck in the channel of her throat. To place the instrument down softly, in a velvet-lined bed moulded to its perfect contours, and turn her attention to the bow sat above it. She plucked it from its resting place, index and thumb pinching the small knob at its base and twisting until the thing was wound tight, brushing the rosin over it until the hairs married string in sonic matrimony.