“The Message” • by Helen French

I hide messages in ice, where I hope my captors won’t think to look.

There’s an extraordinary amount of data in a single snowflake. Each one unique, each one able to tell a story.

I can’t make snow, but I can rewrite its form, so this is what I do from my cell. I stare out the window, I harness the power inside of me, and I magic my message into ice, adding a duplication code so that wherever this particular blizzard falls, the message falls with it.

My daughter is far cleverer than I and she will be waiting for a sign—so I’ve sent millions of them.

Nevertheless, I’ve been doing this for some time now and silence has been the only response. What if she’s been captured too?

I keep hoping because hope is all I have. It’s built-in to me, just as cold is built into ice. There’s always a way forward. I just have to find it.

Mid-thought, my door rattles open. Breakfast time.

“Good news,” my captor says, as he places my food on the floor. “Spring is on its way.”

And then even hope begins to melt.

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Helen French is a writer, book hoarder, and TV-soaker-upper who grew up in Merseyside near the coast and now lives in Hertfordshire, UK, with her young family. Her short stories have appeared in venues such as Stupefying Stories #23, Shoreline of Infinity, and Flash Fiction Online, and she is currently buried in novel-writing. You can find her on Twitter at @helenfrench.