What kind of music is buried in the soul of a bitter, evil man?
 

     Sixteen-year-old Maiya Lemesa first noticed the man at the back of a crowd of mourners around the deathbed of old Mr. Winters.  Perhaps it was the unusual intensity of his presence that drew her eyes to him when she should have been concentrating on the dying man.  He was at least six feet tall with dirty blond hair and a scruffy beard.  He stood at the back of the room, leaning on the wall with his arms folded across his chest.  He spoke to no one and did not appear to grieve.  But it was not his appearance that attracted Maiya’s attention.  It was the rhythms of his body, the harsh tattoo of his heartbeat, the tension in his muscles, like something wild and ferocious barely held in check.  His song coursed through the room, twisting its way through all the other melodies.