Page 8 of The Infinite Glade
“No.” Ximena finally smiled. “The smoke isn’t loud, my inner-knowing is. Your senses are all connected to your interpretation of something . . .” She looked up and down the trail, but for what, Isaac didn’t know. “Those flour cakes at the Villa . . . I bet you were excited when you first saw them?”
“Yeah, we were starving.” He had carried Jackie’s limp body half a mile and his muscles had been shaking with hunger and fatigue when they’d reached the Villa.
“The Assistants gave them to you with big smiles. And then you held them in your hands and felt how the flour cakes were rock hard, right?” Ximena asked.
“Sure thing. And then we stilltriedbiting into the nasty buggers.” Old Man Frypan really emphasized the wordtried.
“Hard and dry like sand from our beaches.” Isaac hoped the workers in the Villa fed Jackie something better while she healed. “Did they give you those, too?” Isaac asked her.
Jackie nodded, barely, as if she didn’t want to prove Ximena right. “I could only eat half of one.”
Ximena had gained a small—a rather tiny—victory. “So your sense of sight lied to you. At first-sight you thought just because they gave you something to eat with a smile that it would taste delicious. But it wasn’t even edible. And if you saw one of those terrible cakes now, you’d know better. Wouldn’t you?” Ximena nodded as if she’d just proven the earth was round.
Isaac wouldn’t admit it, but he had packed a couple of flour cakes in his bag just in case they didn’t have anything else to eat, even though they were barely edible. Still, it seemed a silly argument compared to their circumstances.
“Yeah,” Isaac agreed to keep the peace. “So the second time we see something?—”
“No. Second-sight isn’t about seeing somethingagain. It means listening for the truth before you are even able to touch or taste it.”
Jackie looked up at the smoke trail in the air and then back to Isaac with a shrug.
“I mean . . . you really believe in this?” Isaac asked. “So, what, second-sight is like thefeelingof what you actually see?” It seemed very far-fetched.
“True sight.” Ximena lowered her voice. “And yes, I do. See the truth without attaching what you’dhopethe truth to be . . .”
Isaac had never met anyone like Ximena. He couldn’t pretend to understand these premonitions she supposedly received, but he wanted to. He really did. Isaac’s mom had feelings sometimes, ones he used to think were just a mom being overly protective. But . . . she’d had a bad feeling that morning before the storm rolled in that took her life and the rest of his family. She’d told Isaac more than once,Don’t forget where you come from,as if she knew there would come a day—soon—when she wouldn’t be there to remind him. And cheesy or not, he’d try for the rest of his life to make her proud.
“We want to find the truth,” Jackie finally relented, “but we also need to find our friends.” She stepped closer to Ximena. “You’ll stay here, then, and start a camp for us?” She gave a half-smile. It was a start. At least with Ximena making them a fire they could find their way back to her in the dark.
“No. I’ll head farther north.” Ximena took wide steps up the trail.
Cure or no Cure, Isaac didn’t want to separate from her.
“Wait. We should stick together, right?” He looked to Frypan for support.
“The boy’s right. We’d like you to stay with us. It doesn’t make a lick of sense for any of us to split up.”
But Ximena didn’t stop walking. Isaac, Jackie, and Frypan followed.
“Please . . .” Isaac asked quietly, hoping Ximena’s second-sight agreed. “When I first saw you back at the Villa, at first-sight or second-sight . . .” Isaac tried to speak her style without sounding like an idiot. “I thought you could help us—and you did, you helped us escape.” He didn’t want to lose her now. “Stay with us. Just the night.”
Ximena stopped walking and turned around. She squinted at Isaac.
“Fine. But only because you had second-sight at the Villa. And I’m hanging back in case whoever’s up ahead aren’t your friends . . .”
Isaac smiled, his own tiny little victory. “Good. You’ll see, it’ll be fine.”
He dared let himself hope. They’d get there, and as soon as he saw the others around the fire, he’d run to hug Sadina, and then Trish, and then Dominic, Miyoko, Minho, Orange, and Roxy—in that exact order. He’d have to figure out a way to tell Sadina about her mom stuck back in the Villa, but maybe Ximena could help her understand all that the Professor and the others were doing to help her mom. He’d wait to let Old Man Frypan tell the story of the Griever. Or not. Isaac still needed to process that whole thing.How big the Griever stood. The noises and clicks it made.How scared Ximena looked when it happened. Jackie’s scream when Cowan got stabbed. The Griever recognizing Frypan and trying to break the glass pod to get to him.
He shuddered, losing that brief flash of hope pretty quickly.
And so they went to check it out, after all. As they walked toward the wispy smoke in the distance, Isaac had a thought. A crazy thought. Maybe he’d experienced this second-sight thing when he’d seen the Griever. There’d been some very confusing thoughts and feelings, and not all of it fear and horror.
He decided to ask Ximena about it when Old Man Frypan wasn’t around.
Down the trail they went, brushing past leaves and stepping on bugs.
CHAPTERTHREE
