Page 44 of Into the Heartless Wood
by
one.
Agony bursts
behind my eyes.
I cradle my hands
to my chest.
She will kill me,
if I do not sing.
I
do
not
want
to
die.
I have no soul.
When I am gone,
there will be no part of me
left to remember
that I lived,
that I looked at the stars
with Owen
on a hill.
But I will not sing.
I will not be the monster
my mother made me.
Not even to fight the Soul Eater.
My sister sings.
Her song coils through the wood
and the men drop their hammers.
They turn to her.
