The Search for the Red Dragon - James A. Owen [81]
Jack was still there; he hadn’t moved. But there was less of him. It was as if the winds of childhood had swirled around him and drawn off some of his substance.
His face was Jack’s face, but the north wind took away the leanness and sharp angles, leaving new, softer geometries in its wake.
His body was still Jack’s body, but the south wind had taken length, and breadth.
His hands were still Jack’s hands, but the east wind made them smaller and more eager, as they once had been.
His voice was still Jack’s voice, but the west wind took his words and transformed them into memories, and when he spoke, John and Charles felt a shiver pass through them and felt younger themselves for having heard him:
“Olly Olly Oxen-Free!”
PART FIVE
The King of Tears and the Queen of Sorrows
They cared about running…they cared about climbing apple trees…
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Tunesmiths
The old man’s face was ashen. His captor had not returned to the cave, nor had the children who were dressed in the animal skins. He hadn’t been tortured or beaten—again, anyway—but nevertheless, he was dying.
To live, a man must have food, water, air, and shelter. Everyone knew that. But not everyone knew—or if they knew, believed—that it was also necessary to have spirit.
One’s spirit can be gone for a time, to no ill effect. And it was possible for a man to reject his own spirit, although the ties are never completely broken. But if a spirit leaves of its own accord, then the man it belongs to is weakened. And the old man’s spirit had already been gone for too long.
“It’s no use,” the woman in the mirror said. “No one is coming.”
“Have faith, Medea,” the old man pleaded. “It isn’t over till it’s over.”
The woman in the mirror rolled her eyes. “Child’s logic, Peter.”
“That’s the best kind,” he replied weakly. “It allows you to believe what you need to believe despite all evidence to the contrary. Children do that all the time, and it works more often than you’d think.”
“Not often enough, or else you wouldn’t be here.”
He chuckled. “Thus speaks the cynicism of adulthood. And you wonder why I gave it all up.”
“Oh yes,” she said, mocking. “That explains your gray hair.”
“No,” the old man replied. “I just finally found my balance. I have the advantages of being a Longbeard, but I didn’t have to give up my child’s point of view. That’s what allows me to have hope.”
The reflection in the mirror scoffed. “Your child’s logic sounds a lot like faith to me.”
At that he smiled. “Sure. What’s the difference?”
“A belief in things not seen makes no sense, Peter.”
“And yet,” he replied, “a man with no shadow and a woman who exists only as a reflection in a mirror are being held captive by a creature who exists mostly as a disembodied voice. I wouldn’t have believed in any of that, either. But it’s happened.”
“If you’d behaved more like an adult instead of living as a child, perhaps it wouldn’t have, Peter. If you’d acted more like a father—”
“That’s the only father I knew,” said the old man, indicating the head in the back of the cave, “and while his example was imperfect, he was here when I needed him to be, and he gave me the knowledge I needed to survive. And he never left me alone, Medea. Can you say the same about your own children?”
But there was no reply. The mirror had already gone dark, and the cave lapsed into silence once more.
The only problem, John surmised, with depending on the judgment of a child to decide a course of action that would determine the fate of two worlds was that children, as a general rule, didn’t care about the fate of the world.
They cared about running, as fast as they could run; they cared about climbing apple trees; they cared about telling terrible jokes, and laughing anyway. They cared about being children. Which was as it should be—except when, as John kept trying to point out, the fate of two worlds actually did depend on the judgment of a child. All of which he would have explained to Jack, if he could just manage to talk the