Free Last Wild Boy by Hugh MacDonald Page A

powerful wall defenses. Even standing as far back as she could from the invisible barrier that guarded the entire dome of Aahimsa sky from unwanted intruders, she could feel her hair responding to the forces and standing excitedly on end.
    She stepped out of the terrifying current and into the tiny insulated guardhouse to her right. Immediately she felt relief from the pulsing energy that had been coursing through her. She walked over to the window. From here she could see a long way up and down the wall. The area immediately below and outside the wall was bleak and desolate. The silver-white glow of the full moon emphasized its starkness. The only break in the monotony came from a miserable hut that sat on the edge of the dead zone.
    Alice stared off into the distance, watching how the moonlight danced on the vast sea and glinted here and there on the narrow face of the Humble River, emphasizing the pathetic emptiness of the dead zone and its little hut. She squinted and stared into the outside, searching for any sign of Nora, even though she knew in her heart there was no chance her friend could have made it out of Aahimsa. A silent tear rolled down her cheek as she turned and headed back to the house.

C h a p t e r 9
    â€œNora 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.”
    â€œOdd thing for Nora to be tired,” said Blanchefleur. “She wasn’t sick, was she?”
    â€œOh, 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.
    â€œIf 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.”
    â€œOf 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.”
    â€œThe dead woman and the outsider child,” blurted Alice.
    Blanchefleur turned sharply toward her. “What would you know of this outsider child?” she snapped.
    â€œNora 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.
    â€œI don’t recall discussing an outsider child, even in council.”
    â€œBut 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.
    â€œWhat 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.”
    â€œAre you sure she was pregnant and that she had a