Free Last Wild Boy by Hugh MacDonald

and soared around the empty spaces in the room.
    What should have been the baby’s soft round face was suddenly the face of a large rodent, beady eyes staring viciously at her, pointed teeth threatening her from its gaping, frothing mouth. Suddenly, Nora disappeared completely, and as the fog cleared Alice woke up and found herself in bed. She sat up, heart pounding, and rubbed her eyes.
    Thank the Goddess! It had been a nightmare!
    Alice looked down to see that she was lying on top of the covers, still wearing the dress from the day before. A magazine was splayed out on the bed beside her. I must have fallen asleep as I was waiting for Nora to get back, she thought to herself. She looked over at the clock on the wall. It was nearly four in the morning.
    She got up and walked out into the main room to look for Nora, but there was no sign of her. She searched the rest of the house, calling Nora’s name out, but the longer she searched, the more obvious it became that she was home alone.
    Within moments Alice was close to panic. Nora had been gone for hours, and there were no signs to indicate that she had come back home during the night. Alice closed her eyes in hopes of quelling her dizziness. She had to think this out properly. Should she call security? No, it was too soon. And what could she possibly tell them?
    â€œWhat have you done, Nora?” Alice said out loud.
    Alice returned to the bedroom and hurriedly changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. Then she ran out into the main living area and began to search for a flashlight. As she yanked out drawer after drawer, she realized just how much she normally relied on Nora. Nora knew where everything was stored and had always been so willing to wait on her. At first it was just because she was paid to do so, but later on it became clear that she took such good care of Alice because she cared about her.
    Finally, just as Alice was about to give up, she found a working flashlight. She grabbed it, threw her sneakers on, and burst out the door. Outside, the moon shone brightly in the night sky and the grounds were alive with shadows. Alice became more and more frightened as she moved from moonlit patch to shadow. She wanted Nora to materialize out of the darkness and return to her before it was too late. That was their only hope. It was madness for her to try to avoid the authorities. There was nowhere to hide inside of Aahimsa unless you were rich and powerful enough to buy safety. Nora was neither of these. Without Alice and her mother to protect her, there was nothing ahead of her but servitude, or worse.
    By now Alice was completely aware of just how dangerous a game she and Nora had been playing when they’d picked the baby up and taken it home. Yesterday everything had been under control. They’d been safe in the summer house. They could have dropped the baby off somewhere and it would eventually have been discovered. Now everything had changed.
    Alice spent hours combing the grounds of Aahimsa, searching for Nora. But as the sun started to rise, she still hadn’t been able to find even a sign of her. Her search eventually brought her to a grassy meadow below the wall that surrounded Aahimsa. A long set of steps led up to the top of the wall. She remembered the last time she had climbed up those steps to the top: feeling the frightening power radiating off the electronic moat, seeing the trees spanning out for what seemed like forever into the wild, following the river as it snaked along through the countryside, and taking in the magnificent view of the vast sea, dotted with ships carrying manufactured goods from Aahimsa to the other remaining cities of the world.
    Before she was even aware of a plan she found herself slowly making her way up the steep and winding stairway, holding tightly to the rusted iron rail as she went. As she neared the top she read the signs that warned of the dangerous energy moat. She was nervous as she drew nearer to the