Page 31 of The Infinite Glade
“Your mother?” Alexandra asked.
“Isaac and the others took her to the Villa along the coast. She had a bad rash and a cough. . . . Do you think it was the Flare?” The dear girl looked at the Goddess expectantly.
Alexandra’s own throat itched at the thought. “I’m sure she’s fine.” The coast wasn’t a place for unskilled travelers.
“Can you go into the Infinite Glade and ask?” Sadina leaned in closer to Alexandra. “Please?”
The Goddess nodded. She needed to know if Sadina’s mother had the Flare because if she did, it meant Sadina’s blood might not be as pure as she’d assumed. Everything Alexandra hoped for could be lost. Gone further than those past The Gone.
Alexandra went into her mind, fought to relax so she could walk through the doorway to the Infinite Glade. But the sounds of the children were distracting. She could hear Dominic mouth-breathing. “Breath through yournose,” she snapped. The deep mouth-breaths shifted to nose-whistling.
Alexandra inhaled for three seconds, held her breath for three, exhaled for three. Again and again. Then, she asked the Infinite about the girl’s mother, and without much effort at all, she saw things expand, her vision spreading toward the southern coast. “They got her to a Villa . . .” She saw a dozen or more workers at this Villa. She fought with her mind to relax, not to question what this Villa did and if Nicholas knew about it. “A Dr. Morgan . . . helped her . . .”
But then, like a jolt of electricity, what flashed into Alexandra’s Infinite, she couldn’t say out loud.A Griever walking toward Sadina’s mom.Alexandra’s heart raced.Why was everyone trapped behind glass except her mother?The Infinite never lied. Alexandra closed her lips tight at the sight as she watched in her mind the Griever attacking Sadina’s mother.
It stabbed the woman with a long needle, right in the soft flesh of her shoulder.
Why would they let it stab her?
A pain ricocheted through Alexandra’s body as if she’d taken the biting sting.
“Is she okay?” Sadina asked, a bit frantic.
“She’s . . . alive.” The Goddess didn’t have to tell the whole truth. But the girl’s mother truly was alive. Stabbed by a Griever, but alive.
“Really?”
“Yes . . . she’s alive.”Why must they question the Goddess?Alexandra searched her mind’s eye for what else she might be given in her state. She knew about the Grievers of Old.Who on Flare’s Scorched Earth hadn’t?But she had never seen one. All the countless times she’d gone down into the sight of the sacred Maze, she had never considered the Grievers of Old or if they could still be active. She had assumed not.
She had assumed wrong. Nicholas had assured her there was nothing in the Maze that could harm her.What else did he lie to her about?Were there dormant Grievers down there, somewhere?
Her heart pounded ten beats for every breath. She pinched the bridge of her nose to stop the pounding. 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144 . . . She recited the digits in her mind to slow the chaos she felt but even the digits were useless. Alexandra opened her eyes. She’d walk further into the Infinite Glade later.
“I’m so glad she’s still alive!” Sadina shouted, breaking into tears. “I have to go tell Rox!” Sadina ran up the stairs of the cabin with Newt’s book sticking out of her back pocket. The others followed Sadina one by one.
The Goddess sat alone again in the ship’s underdeck as the pain in her head grew. Buzzing in her ears carried through her whole body. She quieted her mind, slowed her heartbeat. She rubbed her temples and the back of her skull until the buzzing quieted.
Quiet.
Until the screams.
Wild screams of terror from above. At first it seemed an echo of the Infinite, but then she realized it was all too real, sounding from above like hysteria.
Alexandra rushed up the steps to the screams of the children . . . and to all the beauty of the aurora. Reds, blues, purples, greens—ribbons of light streamed across the sky. Mixing together, like the Immunes joining the Godhead. A comfort to Alexandra. She stood under the beauty with her arms out wide.
“Don’t be scared. It’s the aurora that has returned.” She tried to calm the children’s fears, but they were more manic than a maddened Mikhail at his cheery worst.
“Thisis what?” Miyoko questioned.
“The sky is on fire!” Dominic yelled.
Trish’s exclamation almost had a squeak to it. “What’s happening, is there poison in the air?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it . . .” Roxy mumbled. “Not a good sign if you ask me.”
No. Alexandra had not asked her. The Goddess clasped her hands together and drew all the patience she could from within, then waited until one by one they all calmed down from their ignorant panic and looked to the one true Godhead for her explanation. Now, more than at any point since she’d met them, she needed to say something profound, something they’d never forget. Another manipulation. And so she did.
“My Dear children, that sky is a gift. Everything is going to change.” She paused, the oldest oratory trick in the book. Then, with all the solemnity she could summon:
