Divide and Conquer

— Short Fiction —

Illustration by Rachel Frankel

Marlena’s father gave her the soldiers on her sixteenth birthday. First they’d had giant slices of coconut cake with her grandparents and her brothers, and then he’d taken her hand and guided her to the shed behind the house. It was padlocked and only he had the key; a tiny silver thing with a blue plastic top shaped like a sunfish.