Chapter Three

The girls passed a few other students on their way downstairs and out the back of the building, but the others were busy chatting about class and studies. It was just as well; Rain didn’t want anyone to notice the pair--not that she intended to do anything to get either of them into trouble, but the woods they were headed into were sort of off-limits. Not that anyone had ever told them specifically not to go there, but no one else ever did, and it was well-known nothing good could ever come of straying too far from the other women.

Being an Agriculture student, Mist was naturally overly curious about the outdoors, so it made perfect sense she’d be drawn to the forested area. Despite her professors and the other Mothers encouraging the girls to let their curiosity be fulfilled through videos, books, and the carefully crafted learning centers available on campus, Mist had first began wandering through the woods they were headed to now when she was five or six. Rain had followed because Mist was her best friend, and she hadn’t wanted her to get lost--or hurt. At least that’s what she told herself. Though she wasn’t particularly interested in nature, there was something calming about being out of the center of activity.

They walked along the back side of the property, not speaking because Mist preferred not to most of the time, and skirted around the outside of another housing unit. They’d have to pass behind a construction site, what would be an additional home for the next group of young women ready to leave the Nursery at the medical building, as the other houses were nearly all full. Walking so close to the site worried Rain slightly. She knew the men that worked there were electronically tethered to the location, that they couldn’t step outside of the perimeter the Mothers had established for them, but it always concerned her to be so near them.

Mist must’ve been slightly frightened as well because she reached over and took Rain’s hand in hers a few paces before they neared first sight of the frame. Her expression didn’t show fear, though. Her eyes were wide with curiosity. In the distance, hammers pounded and drills blared. It would take the men a few years to finish since only six or seven of them were ever permitted to be on site at the same time. Any more than that, and they may find a way to rise up against the Mothers, regardless of all of the precautions that should prevent them from doing so. Still, considering the suffering womankind had gone through in the past, there was no sense in giving men the opportunity to reclaim their dictatorship.

The edge of the forest crept up to kiss the grass near the construction site. The girls had been entering the woods here for years, long before the building began to grow a few months earlier, and while they could have taken a different route, this was more familiar and didn’t depend upon them crossing past any other highly traveled areas where questions might be asked--not that they were doing anything wrong.

Mist’s grip increased and then she stopped abruptly in her tracks. Rain swiveled around to look and gasped.

A man stood near what would be the rear entrance of the house. She’d only seen one other construction worker in the last few months since the building had begun, and he was much older than the girls and hadn’t paid them any attention. This one was staring, his dark eyes penetrating through Mist and rendering her useless. Rain gulped down some air and pulled on her friend’s arm. “Let’s go,” she said.

Finding the ability to move again, Mist stepped forward, but it took another tug on her arm before her head whipped around and Mist crossed into the solace of trees.

They walked on for a few minutes. Rain assumed Mist wouldn’t mention the incident, seeing as though she didn’t particularly care for chatter anyway, but after they’d gone a few dozen yards into the dense woods, Mist said, “Why do you think he was looking at us like that?”

“I don’t know,” Rain admitted. There had been something haunting in his eyes. He didn’t look like any of the other construction workers she’d ever seen--from a distance, on other projects. Nor did he look like the other workers who’d been described to her. He looked too young to be a construction worker. He wasn’t deformed like the others, as far as she could tell, and he was somewhat attractive, which made her wonder why he wasn’t in IW. As far as she knew, all of the attractive men were kept there. Unless they had some other unappealing quality. “Maybe he has a learning disability.”

“Wouldn’t he have been taken to the Bridge then?” Mist asked, her voice a little louder than usual.

Rain stepped over a fallen log, not exactly sure where she was headed. Mist had been the one to find whatever it was they were looking for, so she should’ve been leading, but since she was still unsettled, Rain had to assume she was going the right way as she pondered the question. She didn’t like to think about the Bridge, but she believed Mist was right. They hadn’t gotten to that particular subject in her medical studies classes. Yet. Though she couldn’t see any differences in his legs from here, she said, “Maybe he’s lame. Who knows?”

“True.” Mist stepped ahead of her and went off in a direction Rain didn’t think they’d ever been before. She glanced behind her, telling herself she was monitoring the path, not making sure they weren’t being followed. “He looked… sad. I bet he is.”

It would be smart not to comment. They were certainly not being monitored amidst the trees, but Rain always kept her tongue still when it came to making remarks that could potentially be taken as speaking out against the Motherhood. Not that she thought Mist meant any ill-will against the Mothers. Still, she had to agree with her friend. He did look sad, but his emotions were not something the girls should be concerned with. “He brought it upon himself,” she reminded Mist, paraphrasing one of the lessons all girls were taught from the time they were small children. She must’ve said it at least a hundred times in her lifetime already, along with plenty of other proverbs. “All men are innately evil.” “Men have no emotions other than lust and greed.” “Men are incapable of love or joy.” So many others…. “Man brought his current conditions upon himself through his mistreatment of Women from the dawn of time until the age of the Claiming of Power by President Michaela and her army of Strong Women.”

At Rain’s remark that he’d brought it on himself, Mist stopped again and turned to look at Rain, her eyes slightly narrowed, her mouth ajar for a moment before she spoke. In a sharp whisper, she asked, “Do you believe that? How did he bring it upon himself, Rain? What did he ever do?”

Rain swallowed hard, surprised to hear her friend articulate such an objectionable idea. “What do you mean?” Rain stammered, tilting her head to the side.

Not saying more, Mist spun around and continued on her path, leaving Rain to follow, her forehead still crinkled as she pondered the questions her best friend had just asked her and the small seed that began to take root in her consciousness.