Page 88 of Into the Heartless Wood
He looked at his own Soul with a telescope. What seemed all irregular, he saw and showed to be beautiful constellations, and he added to the consciousness hidden worlds within worlds.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge,Notebooks
Chapter Thirty-Four
SEREN
AFTER MY MOTHER SANG A HALF-LIFE INTO THE HEARTLESS TREE, before she created me and my sisters,
she made my brothers: the Pine Princes.
They are the only beings I have ever heard of
who defied her,
and lived.
I do not remember them.
I was only three winters old when they left our mother’s court forever.
She had not meant to make them so powerful.
When she made my sisters and me
we were only given the powers
of song,
strength,
growth.
But my brothers were created
with drops of her own blood.
Her power took root
inside of them.
I have never known what they did to defy her.
My sisters would not tell me.
I have never dared ask my mother.
I do not even know
if they still dwell within the wood,
or if they left it long ago.
But they are my only chance to change what I am.
My only chance of shedding this form,
of leaving behind
