Page 40 of The Infinite Glade
“I’m not going anywhere until she shows us her wrists.” He crossed his arms and planted his feet. He glared at Alexandra, sure she’d try to pass off another lie.
“We can warm up inside and discuss etchings of the Gods later.” The Goddess turned her back on Minho, but Dominic held his arms out, blocking her from walking any farther.
“If you don’t have anything to hide, why not just show us your wrists?” the boy asked. “Goddess?”
Alexandra turned back to the group. The others didn’t scold Dominic for challenging the Godhead the way they did Minho. That was fine. She stood there, looking pathetic until enough eyes were on her, waiting. She sighed and finally pulled up her cloak sleeve. Even in the dark, with only the light of the full moon, Minho could see that it was just a bare wrist. Nothing there.
“What about the other one,” Minho said. “Show us your other wrist.”
Alexandra whipped her hand around her cloak so quickly that she flashed the material underneath. Thin and shiny, something the Orphan had never seen before. His dullest knife could slice through it, easily. She pushed up her left sleeve on the wool cloak and Minho wondered if her swift motions were supposed to scare him. She turned her bared wrist over to more confused looks. Nothing there.
But Minho knew what he had seen. He stepped up and held both of her wrists until he could see the faint lines of a marking. She raised an eyebrow at him when he finally let go, then rubbed at her own wrist. She rubbed at it until a growing spiral in black ink appeared. Roxy, Orange, and all the rest came closer to look.
“A tattoo? Were you in some kind of trial or ritual?” Sadina asked.
Alexandra let out a laugh. “I’m a Godhead, not an infinite God. The Trials ended long before I was born, child.”
“So what’s with the tattoo, then?” Trish asked.
“A tattoo? Just like Old Man—” Miyoko said until Dominic elbowed her.
“Old Man who . . . ?” Alexandra looked at them both, but Minho wouldn’t let the fake God know about poor Frypan.
“Nothing,” Minho said. “What’s your etching mean?”
“It’s a symbol of the Sequence of Digits. Part of my knowing. A reminder that I am one with the whole. I am a part of everything and everything is a part of me. That is what the digits mean, among other things. . . . The digits aresacred. Beyond sacred.” She spoke nonsense, as usual.
“If you say so.” Minho tried to seem unfazed, uncaring. If he’d learned one thing from the Grief Bearers, this in fact would bother her more.
“The only tattoos we ever saw were from the Gladers of Old,” Trish said.
“And on half-Cranks,” Roxy added. “I’ve seen a lot of half-Cranks with markings.”
Maybe that explained it. Maybe Alexandra was a true half-Crank.
“Come on. There are many people with inked memories.” Alexandra covered her wrist back up with the cloak. “Some of them choose patterns that aren’t their own memories but are memories nonetheless.” She motioned to a path through the tree. “Can we continue to the warmth now?”
Dominic looked at Minho. “Might be a good idea. We’re gonna freeze to death out here.”
But Minho couldn’t let this opportunity pass. “It doesn’t matter where you go, that symbol is a marking of the Remnant Nation. Which means you’re not a Godhead at all. You’re a Grief Bearer or maybe a part of some other Nation, but you’re no Goddess of Alaska.”
The group let out a collective groan. He’d lost the chance after all.
“Can we at least argue about this inside? I’m cold.” Sadina shivered to prove her point.
Minho shrugged. “Orange?” He needed her to back him up.
Orange shook her head, showed genuine remorse in her expression. Nothing, then.
Minho wished he could forget things from the Remnant Nation as easily as Orange apparently had, but even the smell of the air in the lower level called Hell was something that would never leave his inner senses. Sewage and black mold. “You don’t remember seeing that symbol? In the walls? It was a direction marker.”
Orange’s face went blank.
“There was one by the food hall?” Minho insisted. “Come on. The food hall . . . sometimes after my watch, I’d punch the marker on the wall just outside the hall, and you and Skinny made fun of me for it.”
Orange took a deep breath and squinted into a smile. “Yeah, that’s why he called youHappy.”
“Sounds about right,” Dominic said.
