Last Wild Boy (16 page)

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Alice sat happily on the grassy bank of the pond behind her house and watched as her daughter played. Tish was squatting down,
the hem of her lacy pink skirt soaking up muddy water while
she made tiny spiralling swirls in the clear water in front of her.

Tish clearly had a mind of her own. Even Tish's birth had been on her own terms. Alice had planned to deliver the child naturally, though her doctor had warned her that due to her youth and her small size, natural birth could present problems. As her labour had progressed, it had become evident that her doctor had been correct. However, Alice had still insisted on trying it alone. Her
doctor had been terribly concerned and had finally informed
Blanchefleur, who ordered a surgical delivery. Alice was carried
under protest to the operating theatre. She recovered rapidly,
and quickly got over her anger at her mother once she saw her child. As soon as she was physically able, she claimed complete control of Tish.

Breast-feeding had proven to be much less romantic than Alice had imagined. The soreness and discomfort had been a real disappointment. However, she'd had something to prove,
and prove it she would. She had gradually grown accustomed to the routine, and the joys and sensations of motherhood had begun to compensate for her early disenchantment.

“Tell me again how you used to come here when you were a girl,” said Tish.

“I'm still a girl,” said Alice. “I still feel like a girl inside, and
don't I still look like a girl?”

“You're still pretty, Mom. I mean when you were a young girl like me.”

Alice had aged well, and was now a beautiful woman of twenty-six years. She had gained a few pounds, giving her figure a bit more softness. If anything, though, she was even lovelier than she had been when Nora had known her.

“Did you and Grammy ever come out here?” Tish asked.

“Yes. We came here every summer.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Sometimes. For a while my friend Nora would come with us as well.”

Tish moved closer to her mother and nestled her head just below Alice's chin. Her summer-white curls smelled like air-dried laundry and flowers.

Alice closed her eyes and remembered Nora. She wondered if her friend would have run away if she'd been kinder to her.

“Did you ever come here to the pond with Nora? Did you ever sit here with her?”

Alice coughed and cleared her throat. She had difficulty speaking. “Yes, we did,” she managed finally.

“Was it fun?”

“It was fun. It was lots of fun. But nothing is as much fun as being here with you and Grammy.” Now that Tish was older, Alice and her mother had become inseparable. The summer house was alive with love once again, something she had thought would be impossible in the months following the disappearance of Nora and the outsider child.

Alice hugged her daughter and looked down on her. “We
should head in soon, darling.” When she caught herself using certain phrases, it was like listening to Blanchefleur speak to her in childhood. She expected their voices sounded the same to others. She stood up and brushed the grass and dirt first from Tish and then herself.

“Do you still know her?”

“Who?” asked Alice, still thinking of her mother.

“The girl who came here?” said Tish, taking her mother's hand and walking close enough that she could feel her mother's warmth through their summer dresses.

“No, she's gone away.”

“She died?”

“I don't know,” Alice said. “She's just gone away somewhere.”

Aahimsa had settled down into its normal routines over the past few years, and so Tish had never heard of either Nora or
Minn. Everyone had forgotten them. Everyone, that is, except
Alice and Blanchefleur. Alice thought about Nora often, but she'd almost completely forgotten the outsider child. Blanchefleur, on the other hand, had become obsessed with her fears, and was convinced that he was still out there, threatening to undo everything the insiders had worked so hard to achieve. She continually spoke of her premonitions that dangerous dark clouds were forming over Aahimsa.

Alice wondered where Nora was at this moment. Were her bones lost somewhere out in the vast spaces of the wild? Or
was she alive somewhere? And if she was alive, was she happy?

Tish walked over to the low bank at the edge of the pond. She was carrying a stick she had found on the ground and she swung it from side to side. “Can we stay here forever, Mom? I want us to build a pretty house, and you and I can live by this pretty pond.”

“Would you like us to do that?” Alice asked.

Tish nodded agreement. She stared hypnotically at her mother with massive blue eyes.

Alice smiled. “I'd like that, too. For now, though, let's pretend that the summer house is it. It would do, you know. After all, it's only you and me.”

“And Grammy,” Tish added. “She can come visit us sometimes too.”

“Okay,” said Alice. “Just you and me and Grammy.”

“Can we go for a walk in the trees, Mom?”

“I'm afraid we can't do that right now, dear. Your grandmother is expecting us for lunch, and we had better not be late. Grammy Blanchefleur and I have things we need to talk about.”

“But, Mom! I want to go look in the trees now.”

“Next time, dear. Let's get going.”

Several hours later, in the manor house, Tish sat alone playing her favourite card game. Blanchefleur had taught her to play memory one evening a few weeks ago and was now hard-pressed to beat the girl. Blanchefleur had poured two glasses of wine and led the way into her private den. Alice had followed, surprised to be invited to enter her mother's most private sanctuary. Alice wasn't sure what her mother wanted to talk to her about, but she had an uneasy feeling about the upcoming conversation.

Blanchefleur took a seat in one of the heavily stuffed leather armchairs and gestured for Alice to take the other. After years of solitary service in this room, Blanchefleur's chair was showing its age, while Alice's still had a new feel about it. It appeared to
never have been sat upon. Blanchefleur sipped her wine and
stared fixedly at her daughter.

Alice waited as long she could before speaking. Finally, she
could bear the silence no longer. “You said something urgent
needed my attention, Mother. Does this concern me?” She held her mother's eyes and sipped from her glass.

An evening glass of red wine together was a ritual that they'd begun following Tish's birth. It had been a concession on Blanchefleur's part, acknowledging that Alice, as a new and responsible parent, was clearly now an adult. But even after all these years, Alice had never drunk her wine in Blanchefleur's study.

“I believe it very much of direct concern to you. How much of a concern, I can only guess. As I told you the last time we spoke, I've changed the strategy concerning the deployment of the rangers. I put an end to the sloppy random and endless search patterns. They were too ineffective. Instead I ordered the rangers to concentrate in the area where the verified contact recently occurred. And the controllers began to keep careful and detailed records of even their most inane observations. The results have been surprising and informative. We have discovered that there is a sizable community of old outsiders who were supposed to have been terminated that are instead living out in the wild. Someone has most certainly been issuing false documentation from the Manuhome.”

“How does this concern me?” asked Alice. Her cheeks were mildly aflame, but she decided not to worry, since it would only make matters worse to panic. She knew where her mother was going with this, but chose not to say anything on the matter until she had to.

“Well, my darling. You know how much I rely on intuition. I've burdened you enough with my worries recently. But tonight I feel certain about what happened all those years ago. Recently two of our more intelligent rangers chanced upon an outsider child about nine years old in the wild. For a long time I felt that Nora might somehow have survived in the wild with that child. Now I know how she did it. I'm so positive that I'm ready to make my move.”

“You think Nora's alive?” asked Alice. Her chest tightened and her heart felt as if her mother had seized it between her hands and crushed it. Alice had long pushed her feelings for Nora into the depths of her subconscious, and now they had been suddenly and brutally yanked back to the surface.

“I not only think that Nora's alive, but she has a healthy and complete outsider child with her. I might as well be frank, my darling, and tell you that I'm still simmering over your refusal to be truthful about what happened at the summer house when Nora left.”

“What difference does it make now?” asked Alice, her voice shaking.

“Possibly none. I'll get to the point. Two of our diligent rangers discovered a well-worn pathway near the place where the boy was sighted, a valley along the upper Humble River where there were once large buildings. Hotels, I believe. I've ordered surveillance of the area. We think that the old ones have been living in the derelict buildings, which they've renovated — quite ingeniously, I might add. It appears that they have somehow even connected their residences to the power grid. Of course, you have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?”

“No, I don't. First of all, who are these old ones?”

Blanchefleur chuckled. “The valley retreat was created by
those who the rangers refer to as ‘the walking dead,' old outsiders who were past their serviceable years and were supposed to have been terminated, but somehow managed to escape into the wild.” The mayor's eyes were locked on Alice, who, in spite of her efforts to show no emotion, was breaking down in front of her angry mother. All she could think of was Nora, and where she fit into all these plans.

“So how will it be solved?” Alice asked, although she could see only one possible outcome.

“I'm about to send the rangers in to retrieve Nora and the child.”

“And what about the old ones?” Alice asked. “The rangers will kill them, won't they?”

“Of course they will,” said Blanchefleur. “There are certain realities that are difficult to accept. However, it is best to remember that these outsiders are legally already dead. They've just managed to slip by their termination date and steal a few extra years in the wild.”

“But that's murder!” said Alice, aware how the remark would upset her mother.

“Alice, you know perfectly well that these outsiders are not being murdered. Murder is an illegal act. We do not commit illegal acts. We obey all of the federation's laws. The healthy, useful parts of these workers' lives are over, so they are gently terminated for their own good. It isn't pleasant to get old and useless. In many ways, they're the lucky ones.”

“Why not just let them go free? They're not hurting anyone by living out their last days in the wild.”

“To be perfectly honest, darling, I've suspected that this was going on for some time. I thought that the old ones were wandering off into the wild to die. If they survived, so what? But it has suddenly become a problem. The Central Council has learned of the situation and they have determined that this dangerous outsider community must be destroyed. Their logic makes perfect sense. We cannot allow an unregulated outsider society to operate completely beyond our control. They make it possible for persons who threaten us to survive and flourish in the wild. If we do not remove all trace of them, the Central Council will move in and occupy our city and we will face severe discipline. It would mean the end of Aahimsa and the destruction of our way of life. Our homelands would be shut down, and everyone who works there, young and old, would be terminated, including the rangers. All reproduction would be carried out by cloning, and all of our city's rituals and ceremonies would no longer exist. All traces of half of the gene pool of our species would be eradicated.”

“Can't you convince the Central Council to back off?”

“Are you worried about the old ones, or about your friend?” Blanchefleur asked bluntly. “Or is it the child that you and Nora found back at the summer house that you stand up for?”

“I don't care about him!”

“Ah, then you admit you harboured the child, and that it was a
him
. Please, Alice, I must be sure.”

“What will happen to Nora?”

“Nothing, I hope. Of course, there's always the possibility of
an accident, but we have extraordinary controllers, and there
have been few problems with the rangers. The Forest Rangers is a well-trained frightening force, however, and it's difficult to maintain control of them sometimes. The controllers have warned the council that there is a high likelihood of a killing frenzy in a large operation like this. There have been incidents recorded in the distant past of such occurrences. Blood tends to cause a sort of insanity among the rangers.” She paused and took a sip of her wine. “I'll ask you again, Alice. Did Nora escape with an outsider child?”