Read Online Inside the Palisade by K C Maguire - Free Book Online Page B

control for genetic abnormalities, but when a
deman
—”
    “A
deman
did that to my mother. She never had the Procedure. Why didn’t she tell me?”
    “She was trying to protect you,” Ma Temple says.
    “How do you know all this?”
    “Where do you think she gets the contact lenses?”
    Gamma bolts forward, her voice rising in pitch. “You mean you’ve helped Ma Wye all this time? Helped her lie to Omega? And to me?”
    “Honey, calm down.”
    Gamma stalks to the window, scaring away the hummingbird that has been hovering there. I can see clouds gathering in the distance. I wonder if the dry spell is going to break. Probably not. The rainclouds always appear on the horizon, but they never seem to get any closer. It’s like they’re taunting us.
    Ma Temple raises her voice. “It started long before either of you were born. We didn’t mean to hurt you. Either of you. I was on duty at the Clinic when they brought Ma Wye in from the outside. I examined her then, and worked on her later when we began to suspect that she might have become an Expectant.”
    Gamma is suddenly behind me. Her honeysuckle scent envelopes me. She reaches for my hand and our fingers interlace. Her skin is warm and soft. And reassuring. We’re friends again.
    “Maybe it was all meant to be,” Ma Temple says. “After all, motherhood was her Calling.”
    Gamma’s story is rattling around in my head when another thought strikes me. “How many people know about this?”
    “Not many. There were only a few of us on duty that night and the Elders swore us to secrecy. Your mother managed to keep everything quiet even after she decided…” Ma Temple doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t need to. I know what she was going to say.
    “My mother was going to kill me,” I say. I’m the one who shouldn’t be here. I’m the monster. My lower lip quivers. “Why didn’t she go through with it?”
    Gamma’s grip tightens around my hand.
    “She came to talk to me before she decided. She asked me if anything was wrong with the baby, with you. She wanted to know if there was any chance you could be one of them.”
    “A
deman,
” I whisper. Ma Temple regards me through lowered lashes. “She was going to kill me if I was a boy.”
    “But you weren’t.” Gamma interjects.
    “Omega. Look at me.” Ma Temple’s voice is firm as she touches my knee and leans forward. She smells of hot chocolate. “Whatever else your mother may have done, she did it out of love. How you got here doesn’t matter. She loves you. Think about it. She never had another daughter, did she? She spent her life caring for
you.
”
    “Despite what I am?”
    “
Because
of what you are.”
    “So Mom finds out that I’m a girl, normal except for my eyes,” I say.
    “We had no way of knowing about that,” Ma Temple says. “We can engineer the eye color in the embryo but not after the fetus is already growing. We didn’t know until your eye color settled. Or rather colors. You were about forty weeks old. Your mother came to see me and we worked out the plan with the lenses. I’ve been helping her ever since.”
    “And the Elders know?” I ask.
    “One does. We needed authorization to proceed with the birth. She permitted it out of sympathy to your mother and because she felt it was fated.”
    Omicron.
It must be. That’s why she wasn’t surprised when she saw my eyes.
    “Ma Temple?” I ask. “What happened to my mother’s partner? Do you know?”
    Gamma, who has remained by my side, reaches for what’s left of my hot chocolate and presses the mug into my hand. I raise it to my lips but don’t drink, waiting for Ma Temple’s answer.
    “She left your mother. Before you were born. When she couldn’t talk her out of going through with it. I don’t think they ever spoke again.”
    “What happened to her?”
    “She devoted her life to protecting others from the threat of men. She never wanted anyone else to suffer your mother’s fate. She loved her