My good children

Issue two: flash fiction by Sandy Parsons

Charles J Staniland’s (1838-1916) ‘The cockhorse regiment: a medieval episode’ (1880). The image shows a group of children, known as the Cockhorse Regiment, who took part in the children's crusade of 1212.

My children asked for nothing I can not not give. There is nothing I can give them while in my cell, save my words. Mort and Yasmin smuggle news of the war to me in the form of misfilled crossword puzzles. Enison, ever the pragmatist, won't risk it, but I do. Most of the guards are illiterate. They think I’m composing very ugly artwork. Even when Mort and Yasmin were captured and the deception squeezed from them, the knowledge was safe. Even the brightest guard, who sometimes looks over my shoulder and makes suggestions, can’t parse the code hidden in the grid. The last clue I deciphered—eight across—said that Winnie had infiltrated her first cell. It was a tainted joy I felt at reading that. I’d wanted to raise my children in a world where war was unnecessary.

Winnie was the youngest, yet in her I sensed the most important weapon of all.

Save for Heath, who took the elixir of illusion, my good children were not born from my body. I took each one in as they were orphaned, fed them, taught them that the rules of this war were not the rules of life. I understood morality, but I let the words of authors, who'd had more luxury to think than I, impress upon them how life might be lived. Enison was not the oldest, but he had a keen mind, read fast, and he was ambitious. He said there was no absolute morality. He rationalized the killing, the means justifying the ends, and I, mute in my prison, could offer no counterargument. In my stead, he brought the resistance to a head. Our oppressors could no longer ignore us when Enison succeeded me. Ten down in my latest crossword told me that Mort had slit the throat of the despot’s daughter. A necessary evil hidden in thirteen across. My jailers empathized with my tears, assuming I grieved death, and gave me a swig of their acerbic liquor, which they shared at victory and loss alike. Yet I was not mourning soldiers, unknown.

If I were free perhaps I could have shown my good children another way. There’s a middle ground with our enemy, but it can only be achieved by slow and perspicacious progress. Enison believed progress came after the yoke, but having known war more than peace he doesn’t know the yoke of freedom guides a different animal. The night Heath left the safety of our encampment wearing the clothes of our enemy and hidden by the elixir of illusion, Enison warned me to stay away. He discovered me whispering into my son’s ear. 

‘What did you say?’ Edison’s disdain was clear, thinking I’d poison the plan with pity. I answered with a riddle I hoped might let Edison cogitate on what his own desires had created.

What I actually told Heath: A heart is won by words in a line, and time.

Mort was only twelve when he brought me three of our enemy’s children. He told me his plan was for us to love them and then return them. Triumph without violence. It was a lovely and smart plan. I didn’t tell Mort that I had the same plan, but mine was on a grander scale. The good that came of Mort’'s effort was we got Winnie in the prisoner exchange. The bad was that our enemy killed Harold before we got to negotiations. The worst was a field of children, my good children and the good children of the enemy, all dead. I failed to teach Mort that war was merely a balance sheet of lives lost. 

Enison sent Mort back to the enemy. As with Heath, Mort came to me, trembling, anger and fear commingling, a war of its own without end. ‘We have no more elixir,’ said Mort. ‘They will know me this time as the enemy.’

Enison had told Mort that only the first one needed the disguise, a statement that contained both a truth and a lie. 

‘You must find Heath, and he will help you assimilate.’ My assertion was an unintentional fraud. We’d lost track of Heath long ago, yet I could not convince myself of his death.

Illustration from the Kassel ‘Willehalm’ codex, Folio Seven (1334).

It’s Mort I’m thinking of when the stone walls shake. My guard prods me away from the cracked wall with his chiseled branch. That makeshift weapon had given me hope. If supplies are down, perhaps food trumps fighting. He is very skinny while I’m strong from the protein-filled crickets I’ve been crunching for months. I snatch the stick from his hand and lurch the guard to the bars. Before he can react I’ve thrown the stick and pulled the keyring on his belt to the lock. His sagging pants unbalance him and help me escape.

The other guards have gone. Saggy Pants follows me. I realize he’s more scared of the explosions than me. I mime protecting him, and he nods. The yard has changed since the day I was brought here. The plants have grown, then withered. I weep at the size of the sky. 

Rumbling and crashing jolts me, and I run toward it, knowing I cannot hide. The battle has been harsh, but oddly, appears to have ended long ago. 

We come to a fence built with the skulls of the dead. Enison’s head is fresh enough to be recognizable. Saggy Pants and I turn toward a cacophony. The sound arises from ordnance, repurposed to destroy the fence. The enemy is there, but my good children are among them, working together. Winnie, resplendent in unmarred armor, leads. She waves and points to the other side of the fence.

My eyesight has dimmed from my time in darkness. Yet despite that, and despite the effects of the elixir, the strange garb, and the intervening years, I recognize Heath, with his good children, all in a line.

Sandy Parsons is a Pushcart-nominated author and the winner of the 2022 ServiceScape fiction contest. Her stories can be found in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Escape Pod, and Reckoning, among others. In addition to writing, Sandy narrates audio fiction. More information can be found at http://www.sandyparsons.com