T aking my shoes off, I pad as slowly as I can, closer to the Jeep.
There are about twenty children, and for some reason, they’re shown out of the Jeep again. One of the machine gun men tells them to wait next to a huge mushroom tree—haven’t seen one before, really, but hey, I could still be imagining things.
Once the kids are alone, I approach them, worried they’ll shoot or resist me because I’m foreign or something.
But they don’t.
They actually look at me as if they know me, anticipating whatever I have to say.
“I’m Alice,” I begin. “I will get you out of here. You want to get out of here, right?”
They nod eagerly, and I realize they don’t speak my language, but they seem to understand me, still. Maybe freedom and children’s rights are a universal thing. No language is really needed.
“Look,” I try to explain things with my hands while I talk. Common sense sign language should work, right? “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but how about you all get into that Jeep again. I can drive it away until we figure out what to do next.”
They follow my pointing finger to the Jeep, guns still in their hands.
“No,” I say. “No guns. You don’t need them.”
They’re reluctant about it but cooperate eventually. One after the other they get into the Jeep, smiling at me. It’s lovely how a child’s smile makes your life seem worthless in order to save them.
But it’s not funny at all seeing each one of them is missing knuckles on their last two fingers, starting from the pinky. I can’t explain how this breaks my heart. I suddenly feel embarrassed complaining about shock therapy back in the asylum. At least no one cut off a piece of me.
“Hey.” I stop a boy and kneel down to face him. “Who did that to you?” I point at the missing fingers.
“The Executioner.” Of course.
“Why?”
“Mark.”
“Mark?” I blink. “Who’s Mark?”
“No.” The boy waves his forefinger. “Slave. Mark.”
My hands reach for my mouth to cup a shriek. “It’s a mark? Like a tattoo? You’re a salve?”
“Executioner slave.” The boy taps his chest and then points to the rest of the children. “Travel. Drug. Sell.”
“Not anymore.” I hug him closer. “I will take care of you.”
The boy smiles broadly, as if I have bought him a gift. I mean, God, he doesn’t even know what they are doing to him, trapped within the walls of mushroom all around.
Before he gets in the Jeep, he turns around and touches my hair. “Alice,” he whispers. “Mother say Alice come. Alice save us.”