Last Wild Boy (7 page)

C
h
a
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t
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r 9

“Nora didn't return with you?” asked Blanchefleur as Alice walked
into the kitchen of the main house later that morning.

Alice considered telling her mother everything then and there, but for the moment she lied. “She was tired.”

“Odd thing for Nora to be tired,” said Blanchefleur. “She wasn't sick, was she?”

“Oh, no. She just didn't sleep well last night. That's all.”

Blanchefleur gave Alice a searching look, then took a bite of her toast.

“If you don't mind, Mom, I'm going to go back to the summer house once we've had our breakfast. I want to pick some berries for a pie.”

“Of course I don't mind,” said Blanchefleur, wiping a crumb from the side of her lip. “Oh, how I envy you, my darling. It's good that you're indulging your whims while you're young. In the future, you'll look back wistfully on these times. When you come into your inheritance, and should you, as I expect, elect to try on the shoes of the mayor, you'll discover that they pinch. You'd not believe the day I had yesterday.”

“The dead woman and the outsider child,” blurted Alice.

Blanchefleur turned sharply toward her. “What would you know of this
outsider
child?” she snapped.

“Nora and I watched the news and part of the council meeting on the viewer at the summer place,” Alice answered as matter-of-factly as she could. “I know I shouldn't have been snooping on council business, but I missed you and felt like looking in.” She hadn't anticipated this reaction, and she worried how well her mother would read her face.

“I don't recall discussing an outsider child, even in council.”

“But you said that the dead woman's baby could be a male. You did, Mom. I watched you say it on the viewer.”

The mayor didn't answer. She chewed quietly on her last corner of toast, then pushed the plate away and took a sip of her coffee.

“What happened to that woman?” Alice ventured. “Is there anything that wasn't brought up in the council chamber? Was that outsider really just trying to help her? I thought outsiders were all dangerous?”

Blanchefleur cleared her throat before she spoke. “I'm not aware how much of the deliberations that you overheard, but overall the evidence seems to point to a simple hypothesis. It appears that the woman, Minn, became pregnant through elicit relations with a young temple donor, and in an act of remorse for her actions or carelessness on her part, she jumped or fell from the wall around the city.”

“Are you sure she was pregnant and that she had a baby?”

“Positive…absolutely positive. All of the signs were in her body,” said Blanchefleur. “And the baby?” Alice asked. There. She'd done it. She'd asked the question she'd wanted to ask. She hoped she hadn't given too much away. She put on her best poker face and waited for Blanchefleur to answer.

“The child was never found. It may have survived the fall somehow, or it may be somewhere inside the city, left behind by its distraught mother. Minn disappeared from work months ago and must have gone underground somewhere in the city. Maybe the baby is still there. Either way, the danger to the city is very real, and will remain so until we've found the child.”

“Oh, Mother!” Alice said, trying to sound nonchalant. “It
is
only an infant, for heaven's sake. How much trouble could it possibly cause?”

Blanchefleur's voice turned cold as granite. “Babies grow up. An infant male will become an adult male. Just one outsider could potentially return the world to turmoil and suffering. At the very least, this incident could give the federation the reason they need to involve themselves in our city politics. We can't let that happen. You, of all people, must learn this fact. If you don't, you may live to regret it.”

Mother and daughter stared intensely at one another.

“There is something important I have to tell you,” Alice finally said. She watched as one of the housemaids walked into the kitchen and starting clearing the breakfast dishes. “In private.”

Blanchefleur turned and led her daughter to her office, then closed the door behind them. The two women sat down on a small sofa under the office window.

“Well?” said Blanchefleur. “What do you have to tell me that's so important?”

Nora braced herself for her mother's reaction and the cross-examination to come. “Nora's gone.”

“What do you mean, ‘Nora's gone'?” Blanchefleur asked, concern washing over her face. “Nora's gone where?”

“When I went to sleep last night she was there in the summer house and when I got up this morning she was gone.” Alice knew she couldn't tell her mother the whole truth, but she had to at least account for Nora's disappearance. There was no way that her mother wouldn't notice that.

“Did you look for her on the grounds?” Blanchefleur asked.

“I looked everywhere,” Alice said, breaking down into tears.
“I went all around the grounds. I even called the transporter
office, but they hadn't registered any pick ups anywhere near the house last night.”

“There has to be more to this than you're telling me,” Blanchefleur said, putting her arm around her daughter. “Sometimes you don't treat Nora as respectfully as you should. Did you have a disagreement?”

“Not really a disagreement,” Alice sniffed, “just a stupid little tiff. I was rude to her yesterday, treating her like a servant.”

“I've spoken to you about that before, Alice,” Blanchefleur said sternly. “Nora isn't a servant anymore. You have chosen to take her on as your companion, and we have welcomed her into our home as part of our family. You will have to learn to treat her with more respect when we find her.”

“
If
we find her,” Alice sobbed almost hysterically. “I don't know what to do.”

“We'll find her,” Blanchefleur said, stroking her daughter's long blonde hair. “Don't worry. I'll put out a search order at once.” She looked straight into Alice's eyes. “Is there any more to this than you're telling me?”

“No, Mom,” Alice lied.

“Forgive me for asking,” said Blanchefleur. “But we're in the middle of a major crisis, and now all of a sudden we have another minor one — or let's hope it's minor. I just had to make sure.”

Alice lay her head down into her mother's lap. She stayed there, crying, for a long time. She couldn't recall the exact moment she fell asleep, but it came while feeling regret that she hadn't told her mother the whole truth.

C
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r 10

Nora was awakened by the sound of loud, unfamiliar, alarming feminine voices in the distance.
The police
. Her legs were hurting badly from the fall she had taken from the debris pile, but she forced herself to stand up and prepare to head out.

It was a warm day. Judging from the overhead sun, it was nearly noon. The sound of the voices was getting closer, and there wasn't a minute to waste. Nora scurried about, smoothing out every footprint and mark she could find, then gathered up her bags and picked up Adam's basket gently, careful not to wake him. She limped quietly down the grassy bank and into the stream, moving her painful legs slowly in the soothing, cool water so as to make as little sound as possible.

She stumbled along the gravelled riverbed until she discovered a narrow path that led in the opposite direction of the voices. She followed it in grim silence, her heart drumming in her chest, her aches and pains forgotten in her desperation. She had no idea where she was going, or what dangers awaited her in the wild.

Adam was awake now, wheezing softly in his basket. Nora stifled a cough as she watched the expression on his pale, chubby face as he glanced curiously around with his dark brown eyes, as if mesmerized by his surroundings.

The path opened up to a clearing on top of a hill. Nora adjusted her load as she paused and scanned the horizon, peering into the blind distance. After a few moments of searching — for what, she had no idea — she came to a decision and began to move. After a few moments, she turned to glance back toward the city wall, now barely visible. It hit her, right then and there, just what she'd done when she'd taken Adam from Aahimsa. She had, by an act of her own will, given up her position of privilege and luxury for a life of uncertainty, or possibly even death. She could never go back to the safety behind those walls. The enormity of it all came crashing down on her. But there was no time to mourn.

Her heart heavy, Nora hurried along, trying to leave as much distance between her and the threatening voices — and whoever else might be roaming these woods.

What seemed a long time later, she left the path and climbed a steep bank into an area of shadowy trees and rustling grasses. Nora stopped for a moment. For just an instant, she thought of Alice, and wished for the protection of the summer home.

Adam gurgled cheerfully, breaking Nora out of her trance. She looked down to see him swaying in a kind of mystic dance in response to some inaudible music. “What are you so happy about, little one?” she asked him, following his gaze up to the fluffy clouds floating in the sunny sky. “This is all just an adventure to you, isn't it?” He made a small contented noise and she felt herself smiling.

Nora ventured on, dragging her heavy burdens, trying to put as much space between herself and the wall as possible. Time seemed to stand still as her weary legs carried her along the path, which stayed monotonously the same. Her throat was killing her, her legs were sore and swollen, and she felt hot and nauseous. She was ready to collapse. Only her fears for Adam's safety kept her moving.

She drew in great gasping breaths and focused on the purity and the sweetness of the air, which improved as they travelled deeper into the wilderness. She wondered which of the many plants and flowers she'd seen was the source of the amazing smell. But there was nobody to ask. Her heart seemed to shrink as she realized how alone she was and how lonely she would always be from now on. She walked on, deep in contemplation, until she realized that she had almost forgotten to listen for the voices. She stopped and cocked her ear in the direction she'd come from. She couldn't hear or even imagine them here. It was like they had never existed.

There wasn't a single sign of Aahimsa this far into the forest. There were tall trees on every side and the great wall had long since disappeared over the horizon. A gurgling river flowed beside her. She could hardly believe that she was here in the wild, travelling as quickly as possible into forbidden acres, carrying a dead woman's child.

Every instinct warned her of the insanity of what she was doing. She felt a huge sense of uncertainty. She had done this to save Adam, the outsider child. But to save him from certain death, she may have killed them both. At very least, she'd killed any chance of a normal future. But on top of all her fear and loss, she also felt an odd excitement. And, for the first time in her life, freedom.

Nora continued walking even as the sun started its descent toward the horizon. It wasn't until Adam started to cry that she finally stopped for a rest. She found a small clearing and set her load down, then carefully lifted Adam out of his basket. He needed something to eat and a diaper change. Nora located what she needed and accomplished both tasks. When she was finished, she did her best to clean the diaper off without using too much of her water. She made a mental note to fill her bottles up the next time she came to a river or pond. After she had finished cleaning the diaper, she hung the wet cloth from her belt and hoped it would dry quickly so she could return it to one of the bags.

By the time she stood up to leave, the sun had nearly disappeared below the tree line. She gathered her things, noting that the light was fading much faster than she liked. She decided to keep moving until darkness put an end to her travels.

She walked for a while longer, getting more and more apprehensive as the light faded and unfamiliar sounds emerged from the shadowy forest around her. Suddenly she felt the sudden compression of the air, heard the friction of wing against the sky. She ducked down instinctively and raced forward through the trees, too afraid to look back and see what had swooped down so close to her head. She wasn't used to this life in the raw, where things were totally outside of her control.

Back in Aahimsa, where all things were measured and controlled, walking at night was a time of contemplation, of silence. On the inside, the moon cast its blue light around the still shadows of the grass. It was safe. There were no wild animals to be wary of. Nothing flitted in the shadows or scurried under the trees. But here in this place, wild things lurked in the dark shadows and decided if passers-by represented danger or food.

Nora shuddered as she felt a tiny creature crawling across her bare skin. A bug of some kind, biting her neck up close to her hair. She shook it off, but it just buzzed around her ear and then attacked her with vengeance. She checked on Adam, and almost screamed in disgust when she noticed several tiny flies crawling across the baby's face and around his big eyes. She quickly brushed the insects from his face and rearranged his clothing and blanket to shelter his skin from the hungry creatures. She had to stop and find a way to protect them before they were eaten alive.

Nora found a sheltered spot in a small, open clearing nearby and set Adam down. She tugged two large, heavy blankets from one of the bags. She spread one over a low branch like a tent and placed the other one on the ground underneath it. Then she picked Adam up out of his basket, lay him down on the blanket, and crawled in beside him. Tired and scared, she and her baby curled up in the warm comfort of their simple shelter and fell asleep.