Hannah!” Mary gasped. “Don’t—”
“Guards, help us!” I screamed. “We need a doctor! My sister’s hurt!”
Laughter came back to me, as hard and brutal as a blow. “Good for her, then! If I was you two, I’d get my dying done now, too,” growled someone on the other side of the wall. “For if you don’t, you’ll soon hang before a crowd.”
I was about to scream again—to plead for our lives, to promise anything in order to save us—but Mary put her small hand on my arm.
“Hannah,” she said softly. “Please, just sing.”
I didn’t want to sing. I wanted to save her. To save us. “Mary, let me bind the wound first,” I urged. “It’ll only hurt worse for a moment. We have to stop the blood.”
She shook her head. “Please,” she said. “The lullaby.”
I licked my swollen lips. My mouth was dry, and my throat throbbed in pain. But Mary was telling me, without saying so outright, that singing was all there was to do. That it was the only help I could give.
I gently pulled her close, smoothing the tangled hair from her forehead as tears slipped down my cheeks and fell onto hers.
I’d sung the song to her for years, and together we’d sung it to Belin and Borin when they were little, cradling their soft heads in our laps the way I now held Mary’s.
Close your eyes, for night is nigh
A thousand stars dance in the sky
The redwing sings a song so sweet
There is no sorrow when you sleep
Hush my sweetling, and do not cry
God keeps you safe, and so do I.
I sang that single verse over and over again as my body began to shake with sobs. God keeps you safe, and so do I. I wanted more than anything to believe it. But it was just another awful lie.
Mary’s breathing grew quicker and more shallow. She shivered in my arms as her life’s blood flowed from her side, running slick along the dungeon’s stones.
“Sing it with me,” I begged.
The redwing sings a song so sweet
There is no sorrow when you sleep
“I can’t,” she gasped.
I bent down and rested my head on her chest. Her heart was beating as fast as a bird’s. I kept singing as her breathing slowed, and as it began to come in ragged, irregular gasps.
“Mary, Mary, stay with me,” I begged.
She didn’t answer. Her little body strained against itself, and her spine arched. She was fighting with all her strength, but she couldn’t win. She let out a tiny, halting cry. And then she died in my arms.