The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4

by V. J. Chambers

  There was a loud cracking sound, and in front of her, the fire pit lit up purply-red.

  Nora stood up, hugging Catling to her chest.

  A huge beam of crackling purple energy emanated out of the fire pit, reaching for the sky. At its ends, sparks bent off like branches on a tree, bolts of lightning like she’d seen the day she’d shown the picture. They were like sparkling fingers, reaching out from the fire pit.

  Nora tried to back away, but her feet got tangled up in the bench she’d been sitting on and she thumped down hard onto it again, her backside stinging.

  There were screams and yells as other muses nearby had noticed the strange light in the fire pit.

  “Get away from there!” yelled a voice, and then someone had her by the arm, dragging Nora away from the bright thing—which now resembled a kind of octopus made of lightning, tendrils of light sweeping out over the landscape of Helicon.

  “Down,” said the voice at her ear.

  Nora shot a glance at the person who was now yanking her to the ground. It was a girl, maybe her age. She had a round face and dark hair. Together, they lay flat against the ground.

  The tendrils were striking things—trees, tents, benches, the ground—and as they did, they shriveled up, their ends solidifying, dropping solid biscuit-shaped red things to the ground where they’d hit something. One of the red cylinders rolled over in front of Nora’s face. She eyed it, her breath coming in gasps. What was going on here?

  As the beams of light hit things, they gradually all began to transform and shrivel, until there was nothing left but a glowing mass of light in the fire pit. The girl who’d pulled Nora to the ground sat up, so Nora did too.

  “Nora!” Owen was rushing to her. He skidded to the ground, his arms going around her. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “What was that?”

  He crushed her against him. “I thought it was going to get you. It’s the Influence. Don’t you remember it?”

  The Influence? Why was it coming out of the fire pit in Helicon?

  Phoebe’s voice rang out. “Alexander!” Phoebe was standing outside her tent at the edge of the fire pit.

  A man in jeans and a white t-shirt hurried forward. “Here,” he said. He must be Alexander, Nora decided.

  “You need to take a team and close this portal,” Phoebe said. “Clearly, the path that Owen and Nora used to get to us last night has been left open and the Influence has found it.”

  Nora put a hand over her mouth. This was their fault?

  Owen stood up. “I volunteer to be part of the team.”

  Nora stood up behind him. He was leaving her again? Typical Owen. And she didn’t know anyone here. Plus, it might be dangerous, not that Owen particularly cared about that. She touched his shoulder. “Owen, stay.”

  Owen patted her hand, but didn’t respond.

  Alexander was sizing Owen up. “You opened this portal.”

  “Which is exactly why I should be the one to help close it,” said Owen. “I’m not vulnerable to the Influence like the muses are. Let me help.”

  “Phoebe,” another man spoke up, “how do we know this boy didn’t open this portal on purpose? Maybe he’s leading our people into a trap.”

  The muses who’d gathered around mumbled amongst themselves, eyeing Owen with suspicion.

  “I didn’t know the portal would stay open,” said Owen. “I wouldn’t want to put Helicon in danger. This is the only place I’ve ever been welcome. Let me correct my mistake.”

  Nora bit her lip. She didn’t want Owen to go, but she didn’t want everyone suspicious of him either. And if they were suspicious of Owen, perhaps they’d also be suspicious of her.

  “We don’t have time to debate,” said Phoebe. “Alexander, I leave it up to you.”

  Alexander jammed his hands into his pockets. “You can come,” he said. “But we’re keeping an eye on you.”

  Owen nodded once, apparently satisfied.

  Alexander yelled out five or six more names, and more people dressed in jeans and t-shirts came running to him. He spoke softly to them and to Owen, and Nora couldn’t make out what he was talking about. Then, without warning, all of them turned and leapt into the middle of the glowing pit. They disappeared.

  Nora felt queasy. What had just happened? She was so confused. At her feet, Catling rubbed against her ankles and mewed. She picked the tiny furball up. Where had Owen gone? Was he going to be okay?

  The girl who’d pulled Nora away touched her tentatively. “Hey, he’ll be okay. The Influence only hurts muses.”

  Nora turned to look at the girl. She was smiling. She was young enough that she hadn’t shed a layer of baby fat, but her figure let Nora know that she wasn’t a little kid. “Thanks for getting me out of the way.”

  “Sure,” said the girl. “I’m Madeleine Salt. Most people call me Maddie, though.” She offered Nora her hand.

  Nora shook it. “Nora Sparrow.”

  Maddie looked away shyly. “Yeah, I know who you are.”

  Right. Nora guessed that she was probably the talk of Helicon, showing up the way she had. “What do you mean, it only hurts muses? Weren’t the other people who jumped into the portal muses?”

  “Oh, no, they’re the muse police,” said Maddie. “Officially, they’re called the security enclave, actually. They aren’t creative.”

  Nora didn’t understand.

  “The Influence sucks away creativity,” said Maddie. “That’s how it hurts muses. If you aren’t creative, it can’t hurt you.”

  “There are people who live here who aren’t muses?” Nora didn’t know that. Owen had never told her.

  “Sometimes,” said Maddie. “It’s because muse blood’s gotten mixed in with human blood over time. Once every four years or so someone sneaks into the mundane world and some human falls madly in love with them and then there are half-muse babies. That’s what the police do. Whenever anyone feels the ripple of a muse in the regular world, they go and get the muse and bring him here. And then because of the mixed blood, sometimes babies who aren’t creative are born to muses. So the uncreative people usually end up in the police—the security enclave. They can fight off the Influence. They have weapons and things.”

  Nora shivered, thinking of the bolt of purple lightning that had struck Owen instead of her three years ago. The Influence, as Owen had explained it to her, was the direct opposite power of the muses. The muses had powers of individual creativity. The Influence was the concentrated power of conformity. It tried to stamp out creativity wherever it could, and that included killing muses. According to Owen, it was okay for conformity and creativity to coexist for humans in the regular world, but if the Influence touched a muse, it destroyed that muse.

  Before Nora could ask anything else, Phoebe Rain’s voice carried over the conversation that had broken out after Owen and the others had disappeared. She was holding up one of the red cylinders. “You should be able to pick these up now,” she said. “Gather them up and bring them to me. They’ll have to be destroyed.”

  There was one at Nora’s feet. She reached down to pick it up. Almost immediately, she felt a surge of exhaustion go through her.

  “Don’t hold onto them for too long,” Phoebe continued. “They can be dangerous.”

  Nora showed the red cylinder to Maddie. “Do you know what these things are?”

  Maddie shook her head. “Not really. But the last time the Influence got into Helicon, those things showed up too. It’s like when it touches anything here that’s not a muse, it turns into these.”

  “Why do they make you feel so tired when you touch them?”

  “I don’t know. They probably still have some of the Influence in them,” said Maddie. She spied one a few feet away and went over to pick it up. Nora followed her. Maddie picked up her skirt so that it formed a little indentation for the red things, like carrying berries in an apron. She held it out to Nora and Nora dropped hers in. “So that Owen guy is like your boyfr
iend?”

  Nora shrugged. “Kind of.”

  “And you two really spent your whole life living in the mundane world, acting like humans?”

  Nora nodded.

  “Whoa,” said Maddie. “Was it horrible?”

  Nora had to grin. “A little bit horrible, yeah.” She considered. “Okay, really, really horrible. But...it’s all I’ve ever known, you know?” She glanced around at the tents and grass in Helicon. “Owen always told me this place would be better. But I don’t know anyone. And I don’t know what to do with myself. And apparently we opened up a portal getting here that nearly killed everyone.”

  “Not on purpose,” said Maddie. “They’ll fix it anyway, you’ll see. The police fix everything.” She picked up another red cylinder. “And you know me now, so it’s not like you don’t know anyone.” She smiled.

  Nora smiled back. A friend? She’d never really had one, not besides Owen, anyway. “I’m glad to know you, Maddie.”

  Maddie beamed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Tweens and rebels enclave?” Nora asked as she and Maddie climbed a hill a few hundred feet away from Mack’s tent. Catling was small enough to tuck into one of the pockets on Nora’s skirt, and the tiny furball was curled up and asleep there. The area here was wooded, but there were tents pitched between the trees. The shade of the leaves made the air cooler here. “This is like the enclave for preteens?”

  Maddie giggled. “Oh no. I’d forgotten they’ve started using the word in the mundane world like that. In Helicon, tween means anyone from twelve to twenty-four. Actually, someone put it in an inspiration thread and J. R. R. Tolkien used it to mean pretty much the same thing in The Lord of the Rings. Of course, he didn’t have his hobbits come of age until thirty-three, and in Helicon, you can start making inspiration threads at twenty-five.”

  The two crested the hill and passed under an archway constructed of welded scrap metal. A sign, spray painted overhead, said “Tweens and Rebels.” There was a fire pit in the center of the enclave and tents of various shapes and sizes flanking it. Behind the fire pit stood a massive tree house, with at least ten levels. Some had roofs and walls, others were only platforms. They extended all the way up the trunk of the tree, so high that the top levels were obscured by branches and leaves. The levels were navigable by a spiral staircase that wound around the tree, traveling higher into its leafy greenery.

  Nora stared up at it, her mouth open.

  “Cool, huh?” said Maddie. “A group of tweens made it years ago. They all ended up in the architecture enclave as you might expect. They’re the ones who founded the enclave.”

  “Can we go up in it?”

  “Sure,” said Maddie. “But the very top levels are off limits except to the oldest tweens. They get really annoyed if you go up there. They’ll start mumbling about tradition and privilege and all this other crap.” Maddie rolled her eyes. She strode past the fire pit and started up the spiral staircase.

  Nora was right on her heels. She’d never seen a tree house so elaborate. “I would have loved this when I was a kid,” she said.

  “Oh, you should see the tree house in the kiddie playground,” Maddie threw over her shoulder. “It’s seriously like a castle. It has turrets and stuff. And it spans a ton of trees, so you can roam all over on this awesome swinging rope bridge.” Maddie signed wistfully. “I’m too big for it now, though. They made it the perfect kid size, so adults couldn’t fit.”

  They’d gone past two or three platforms already, when Maddie swung off the steps and ducked underneath a roofed platform. They were about halfway up the tree.

  Nora stepped onto it as well. It was very sturdy underneath her feet, but there wasn’t enough room to stand up completely. The roof was too low. The area had obviously been made for sitting. Sure enough, on the platform were three round cushion-y things that resembled beanbag chairs. The chairs, the back wall, the floor, and the ceiling were all completely covered in spray paint. The back wall was a detailed mural of the sunset, but the rest of the place was simply a sort of graffiti mishmash, like the side of a boxcar or the bottom of an underpass.

  Maddie flopped down on a chair. “This room’s neat. I like it.”

  Nora sat down too. The chairs didn’t have the kind of squishy give of a bean bag. Instead, they hugged her body the way a stress ball might, taking the impression of her limbs as she sat in it and holding the shape. Once she settled, Catling woke up, crawling out of Nora’s pocket. She squawked at Nora once and then curled up in Nora’s lap, going back to sleep immediately. “Who did the painting?”

  Maddie shrugged. “Lots of people probably. There are paint cans down in the camp, and you can add to it if you want. Do you like to paint?”

  “I’ve never tried,” said Nora, stroking her sleeping cat-duck. “But I like to draw.”

  “We can go to the visual art enclave later if you want. Of course, between everyone being tired from the Solstice celebration last night and freaked out about the Influence coming through that portal, it’s possible no one’s really doing anything.”

  Nora realized that it was Christmas Day. If she hadn’t come to Helicon, she’d be in the double wide with Laura and Tim, forced to watch Christmas movies and stare at their gaudy, fake tree. Laura always insisted that Christmas was a time for family. Nora had always preferred to be alone, because she could create things without anyone seeing them. “So the...tweens don’t live with their parents anymore? You guys live here, all on your own?”

  Maddie nodded. “I mean, you don’t have to come live in the tweens and rebels enclave if you don’t want. You can still live with your parents. I guess before they founded the enclave, that’s what everyone did. And even though it’s its own enclave, it’s the only one that doesn’t have a voice on the council, because you have to be older than twenty-five to be on the council.” She leaned back in her chair. “I couldn’t wait to move in here, though. I still see my mom and dad whenever I want, but it’s nice to have your own space, you know?”

  “Yeah.” Even though Nora didn’t really know. She’d never really had anything she could call her own space. With Laura and Tim, she shared a bedroom with another of the foster kids they kept, and in most other places she’d stayed the same had been true. Even if she did have a room to herself, it wasn’t Nora’s space. Not really. It belonged to her foster parents. And Nora had always been moving from one place to another, meaning that nothing had ever seemed very permanent. But she guessed that now... “So I can stay here too?”

  “Of course you can,” said Maddie.

  “And Owen? He’s seventeen.”

  “And Owen.”

  “Even though he’s not a muse?”

  Maddie thought about it for a second. “Well, you don’t have to be twenty-five to join the muse police. They take younger recruits. So he might want to stay in their enclave. But there aren’t any rules about it, not really. So he can stay here too.” She smiled mischievously at Nora. “So Owen’s your boyfriend, huh?”

  Nora shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. “Maybe he is. I don’t know. We never really talked about it. It’s always been me and him. He’s the only person I’ve ever trusted.”

  “I’ve never had a boyfriend. No boy has ever even looked at me twice. I guess it’s because I’m fat.”

  Nora squinted at Maddie. Maybe she was a little pudgy, but it was a very pleasant amount of pudge. Nora liked the way she looked. “I don’t think you’re fat.”

  “Growing up in the food enclave, you get fed,” Maddie said. “And it would probably be fine if I were staying in the food enclave, because muses there tend to look well fed. But I want to dance, and I don’t think anyone wants to watch a fat dancer.”

  “You shouldn’t keep saying you’re fat,” Nora said. She’d overheard conversations like this amongst other girls and always thought they were sort of silly. She’d assumed those girls were fishing for compliments. Talking to Maddie, though, she realized the girl was really insecure, that it wasn
’t a front. She wished there was something she could do or say to make Maddie feel better. “It’s not true.”

  Maddie shook her head, but didn’t say anything else.

  Nora could see she hadn’t convinced her. She tried to think of something else to say, some way to show Maddie how attractive she actually looked.

  But Maddie was standing up. “If you’re going to stay here, we should go to the architecture enclave and see if they have any spare tents for you. We can set it up so that you have someplace to sleep tonight. It’s much nicer to sleep here than anywhere else, because it stays cool under the leaves, and you can sleep until noon.”

  Nora grinned, glad of the subject change. She picked up Catling, tucked her back in the pocket of her skirt, and stood up. “Can we get a tent for Owen too?”

  “Absolutely,” said Maddie.

  * * *

  The architecture enclave was like another world. It was located on the other side of the stream, down from the main fire pit. Surrounded entirely by high stone walls, they entered through iron gates, wrought into the shapes of leaves and flowers and fairies. Unlike the haphazard archway in the tweens and rebels enclave, these gates were deliberate and ornate. Inside, the enclave had streets and sidewalks and buildings of varying heights and styles, all made from different materials. Maddie strode through the streets without giving them a second look; she was familiar with the place. But Nora spent so much time gazing at her surroundings, she had to run to catch up with Maddie more than once.

  There was a stone cathedral, complete with gargoyles and bas relief figures. A high dome rose out of its center. There was a cluster of towers, like a castle, with a moat and a drawbridge. There was a circular house made of wood with a bright copper-colored roof. There was another house, constructed entirely of big rectangular planks. A waterfall ran over it, powering a watermill at its base. There was a strange underground house with a chimney peeking up from the ground and windows in the dirt. Everything was odd and intricate, like a funhouse of buildings on display.