Page 7 of The Infinite Glade
She turned swiftly away and continued walking down the coast toward theMaze Cutter. Trish, Miyoko, and Dominic—he with awhatcha gonna doshrug—followed in support, but Roxy waited behind for Minho.
As they stormed off to theMaze Cutter, it had definitely become clear that something about Sadina had changed from the moment they anchored the ship in Alaska. Desperation and death. With every half-Crank they had killed, their perceptions had changed. Minho knew the human-looking things, chained together, were probably the first real threat the islanders had ever seen, let alone had to kill with their own hands. He brushed off Sadina’s dramatic exit. Every time he’d had to kill a trespasser back in the Remnant Nation, he felt like he had to prove something afterward—that he didn’t kill for nothing.
“Come on.” Roxy waited.
Minho shook his head and looked back to the woods where the Pilgrim cloak disappeared. “I’ll catch up to you.”
“No, no. I’m not having that.” Roxy pleaded, “The only thing in those woods is danger, and I cannot lose you. Who cares about the Godhead, if she’s the Godhead or not. Let her go. If she comes back, we’ll deal with it all then.” She took two steps and then another toward theMaze Cutter. “Come on, son.”
The Godhead who Minho refused to call a Godhead, or a God, or a Goddess, traveled into the woods alone for a reason . . . and Minho needed to find out why. “I’m sorry.” He knew it would disappoint Roxy terribly, but he needed to know.
“I’ll come back, soldier’s promise.”
“Come on, we’ve got to see who it is.” Jackie locked eyes with Isaac, and he knew what that look meant. Hope. He couldn’t say it out loud but he knew exactly what his friend was thinking.What if something happened to the Maze Cutter and the others never made it to Alaska?What if around that fire up ahead sat Minho, Orange, Sadina, Trish, Miyoko, and Dominic? Hope needed every question and every curiosity answered, or hope would only multiply itself before turning intowhat ifs.
Isaac nodded to Jackie. Sometimes hope is what made you take the next step.
The smoke rising up into the sky wasn’t far from where they stood. “You both can stay here.” Isaac turned to Ximena and Old Man Frypan, still parked on the log. “Jackie and I can reach there before it gets too dark and come back to you.”
But Frypan leaned hard on his walking stick and stood up. “Can’t sit here just stirring on it. I’ll go with you. They were all in agreement . . . except for Ximena.
“You’re kidding, right?” Ximena asked, then mumbled something else that Isaac didn’t catch.
“What?” Isaac asked.
“La verdad quedará enterrada. Extraños nos enterraran.The truth will remain buried and strangers will put us in the ground.” She said it with so much confidence that Isaac felt dumb for wondering what it meant.
“Strangers will put us in the ground?” he repeated.
“Just say what you’re trying to say!” Jackie shouted at Ximena. “We don’t know every last one of your stupid Village riddles!”
Isaac stood between the two in case another fight broke out.
“Second-sight . . .” Ximena sighed. “Your elders didn’t teach you?” She looked to Old Man Frypan as if he were responsible for everything they did and didn’t know. And in a way, he was.
“We taught them well . . .” Frypan cleared his throat. “They’re good kids.”
“Yeah,” Isaac said defensively. “We may not have the same history as your Village, and we’re not going to know all the same things, but I bet there’re things the Gladers of Old taught us that you don’t know.”
Isaac had heard every legend of the Gladers of Old, how they had their memories wiped and were left to learn everything all over again in the Glade. There were a few times Isaac wished his memory could be erased, but that was before he found the forge. Forging gave him steps to remember, things to learn, a reason to have memories again. He imagined that’s what the surviving Gladers who established the island communities went through as well, all those years ago after their nightmare ended. And whether Ximena thought so or not, the islanders knew things—Most important of all, they knew how to survive.
He tried to sound conciliatory. “Look, there’s a chance the fire up ahead could be our friends, that maybe they never made it to Alaska. We have to find out.”
“You’re saying what you want to be true.” Ximena shook her head. “You see fire up ahead with your sense of sight, and you want it to be your friends so bad that it’s all you’re thinking about. Every one of you.” Ximena pointed to the islanders. “And me, I see that smoke going up to the sky and I see danger.” She looked to Old Man Frypan. “They’re looking at what they see—but all things we see, lie.”
Isaac didn’t think his eyes were lying. “You see the smoke too, right?”
“Yes, but . . .” Ximena sighed at the sky as if to rebuke it. “You need to look beyond what you see at first to what you feel or hear afterward.”
“So we’re going to head over and pay real close attention to what we see?” Frypan asked, tapping his walking stick against the ground.
Isaac waited for Ximena to agree or disagree, but she just looked frustrated.
“It doesn’t matter, come on Isaac.” Jackie motioned for him to join her in investigating the smoke.
“No. Wait.” Ximena held her hand up. “Please. It’s so loud. Give me a minute to explain . . .”
“What’s so loud?” Isaac asked. “Can you hear smoke all of a sudden?”
