“You didn’t have one,” said Owen.
“What do you mean? She’s dead?”
“You were a baby in the babies and toddlers enclave,” said Owen. “Sometimes muses feel like taking care of babies would damage their creativity. So they leave them in the enclave. Everyone takes care of the babies. It’s not like they’re neglected or anything, but muses don’t always raise their own children.”
“You’re saying my mother dumped me in the enclave because she thought I’d get in the way of her creativity?” Nora felt angry suddenly. Something about that offended all her sensibilities about the idea of motherhood. “I guess neither of us had very good mothers.”
“It happens all the time,” said Owen. “It’s not that big of a deal. You’ve been in Helicon for a while. You know the most important thing for a muse is to be creative. If a baby isn’t going to make you more creative, then you aren’t serving your purpose as a muse. So you do what’s best for everyone and leave the baby in the enclave. It all works out.”
Nora thought it sounded like a big deal. “Well, if the babies are being taken care of by the whole community, aren’t they just a big drain on everyone’s creativity?” She hadn’t realized she’d be so bitter about this. She’d never given a second thought to her mother, but suddenly, she felt as if she’d been simultaneously given the possibility of one and had it ripped away from her.
“No,” said Owen. “Some people are more creative because of babies. It all depends on where a muse’s strengths lie. Don’t be mad at your mother. You were happy in Helicon. She did the right thing for both of you. The people who took care of you loved taking care of babies.”
Nora didn’t know if she accepted that. “So she could be anyone in Helicon, you’re saying? She left me, and no one knows who I really belong to?”
“You belong to Helicon,” said Owen. “You belong to me.” He tried to kiss her again.
Nora pulled away. “I notice you aren’t saying the same kind of stuff about your own mother.”
“Nora, I’m not angry with my mother for abandoning me,” said Owen. “I’m angry with her for leaving me in Helicon and then taking me away. I wanted to stay here. You understand that, right?”
Nora took a deep breath. She guessed that was true as far as it went. She chewed on her lip. “You say it happens in Helicon a lot?”
“Not a lot maybe,” said Owen. “But it’s common, sure. It doesn’t make you weird or anything. The muses set up a way to take care of babies. Truthfully, I guess it doesn’t happen very often because muses can stop themselves from aging. So, if a muse finds out she’s pregnant, she usually just stops aging until she’s ready for it, you know?”
Maddie had actually explained to her how beneficial this whole halting aging could be. Even though most of the tweens were still aging normally, Maddie had explained to her that it was really useful when it came to menstruating. All Nora had to do was halt her aging for one week a month. Then she could go into the showers and catch that week up. It made her period last two minutes. It kind of made the showers resemble a slaughterhouse, though.
“Muses also use it as birth control,” said Owen. “If you aren’t aging, you aren’t fertile, you know.”
And Nora guessed that if you could save up a week for your period, if you had nine months saved up, you could move through a pregnancy pretty fast too, making it easy to hide the fact you’d ever had a baby, if you wanted to dump it the babies and toddlers enclave and be rid of it. “Yeah,” she said, “Maddie and I talked about that.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you doing that?”
“Not really,” said Nora. The concept was relatively simple, apparently. If you halted your aging for five days after you had sex, the sperm would die or something, and you could resume your regular cycle. So, technically, she guessed she could do it at any time. But all of this stuff wasn’t something she particularly felt comfortable talking with Owen about. “I mean, I guess I could start doing it if I needed to, but I don’t, so... Can we talk about something else?”
“I was just thinking...” He reached out to caress her chin. “Maybe you could stay here tonight.”
Nora stood up. “Owen, I don’t think we should...” When they’d been in the mundane world, Owen had never once tried to get her to have sex with him. She’d thought about it before, sure, but, even though she loved Owen, it seemed like a big step.
Owen grabbed one of her hands and tugged her back down so that she was sitting next to him again. “I didn’t mean to freak you out or anything. But I thought it might help.”
“Help?”
“Well, because you said you noticed that you were pulling away, and I thought if we, you know, took the next step, it might make us closer.”
“I wasn’t pulling away,” said Nora. “I’m not pulling away. That’s why I came to see you.”
“Come on, Nora, you admitted it when you came into the tent,” said Owen. “You can’t take it back now.”
“That’s not what I said.” What had she said? “I think I said I was preoccupied, and that’s not really the same thing.”
“Well, that’s what I meant,” said Owen. “If you’re preoccupied, it’s because we aren’t close enough. So maybe you’d be thinking about me more often if we were—”
“Having sex?” Nora felt terrified. She couldn’t look at Owen. Were they really talking about this? And why was it scaring her so much more than it was scaring Owen?
Owen kissed her. “Don’t you want to?” His voice was a smooth whisper. He kissed her again, drawing her tight against his body. His arms encircled her, and it felt nice. Owen felt nice. She liked his kisses and his closeness.
“Well, someday.” She was whispering too. It made it easier to talk about it somehow. “But it seems sort of fast. We don’t have to rush into it, do we?”
“Rush into it? Nora, we’ve been together for years now.”
Was it years? When had she and Owen started kissing, anyway? Owen had always been older than her. He’d made it all seem so natural and right, and he was everything to her, so she’d never questioned it, just accepted. “We’ve always been together, Owen. But it hasn’t always been, um, romantic.”
“I love you,” he said. His hands were roving over her skin, fingers pushing inside her shirt. She gasped at the feel of his touch on her stomach. His lips found hers again, and she felt adrift in all the sensation, bewildered by his presence, his touch, his lips.
“I love you too, Owen,” she said. But she pulled away. “And I want to. I mean, at some point, yes, I want to make love to you, but not yet.”
Owen leaned back. “Why not?”
Why not? Why was he being like this about it? “It’s a little scary is all. I don’t want to feel afraid of it before I do it. I want to feel, you know, like excited about it. Ready for it.”
“Hey,” said Owen, “it scares me too. It’s not like I’ve ever done it either. But you don’t scare me, Nora. Do I scare you?”
“No...” She felt so disoriented, like she was being a big baby about the whole thing. Everything Owen did threw her off-balance right now. Maybe Owen had always had that affect on her. She wasn’t sure. She knew it had been tough to ever stay mad at Owen, no matter what he did. She loved him. But she wasn’t giving in on this, even if it was what Owen wanted. This wasn’t the right moment, or the right time. “I’m sorry. I can’t explain why. But I don’t want to. Let’s change the subject.”
Owen’s face turned stormy for a second. He looked away from her.
“We were talking about what you said at the council tonight,” she said, trying to distract him, “about how the holes in Helicon were made from the inside. That means someone in Helicon made them, right?”
He still wasn’t looking at her. “Yeah, that’s what it means.”
“Why do you think Alexander said that you were wrong?”
Owen looked back at her. “I don’t think he could see it. Alexander might live in Helicon, but he’s
really just a regular human, you know. I have abilities he doesn’t have.”
“You don’t think he’s hiding something?”
Owen looked confused. “What could he be hiding?”
“Maybe he’s making the holes himself, because he’s jealous of the muse powers,” said Nora.
Owen laughed. “Get serious, Nora. There’s no way Alexander could have done that. This place is his home too, no matter whether he’s a muse or not.”
* * *
Nora packed a little snow in the sculpture of Catling’s flank. The sculpture was basically done. She was adding a few finishing touches. When she’d woken up that morning, it had been relatively early—midmorning—and no one else in the tweens and rebels enclave had been awake. She’d gotten some food for Catling and herself, then trundled down to check out the sculpture. Now it was somewhere near noon, and she was pretty sure she was finished with it. Next to it, a half-finished sculpture of a middle finger languished in the snow. Apparently, Dirk and his friends hadn’t gotten down to work on their sculpture yet.
“This is adorable!”
Nora looked up to see Theia Spring, the head of the visual art enclave, wading through the snow over to her. Nora looked back at the giant-sized Catling. She was pretty proud of it. “Thanks. It’s my pet.”
“I’ve seen the cat-ducks,” said Theia. “Mack is going to love this.” She winked at Nora. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m almost certain we’re going to pick this for the fire pit at the end of the week. You’ve really got an eye for things like this. For someone who spent her whole life outside of Helicon, I have to say I’m impressed.”
“Well, I didn’t do it by myself,” said Nora. “Sawyer and Maddie helped.”
Theia nodded. “I’m sure they did. But I’ve seen you in the enclave before. I know talent when I see it.”
Nora couldn’t help but feel good. She’d been hiding her abilities for so long, it was a relief to be able to display them now, and it was gratifying to have them appreciated. No one had appreciated anything she’d created since those kids outside the middle school all those years ago. But she didn’t know what to say, so she only said, “Thanks,” again.
“Looks like one of your helpers is on his way over,” said Theia. She pointed, and, sure enough, Nora could see Sawyer approaching. He was holding two steaming mugs.
Nora waved at him.
“Hey, Nora,” said Sawyer. He closed the distance between them and handed her one of the mugs. “I figured you were down here. Brought you some coffee.”
Nora sipped at the mug. “I completely skipped coffee this morning. Thanks so much.”
Sawyer walked around the Catling sculpture. “No problem. You’ve really got this almost finished, I see. It looks good.”
“It looks amazing,” said Theia. “I was just telling Nora how impressive her work is.”
Sawyer nodded, grinning. “I’d have to agree. You’re going to pick it, aren’t you? For the end of the week?”
Theia only smiled. She waved at the two of them and continued on to look at some of the other sculptures.
“Well, I came down here to help, but it looks like you’ve got everything under control,” said Sawyer.
“No,” said Nora. “There’s still stuff you can do. I mean, we could work on the texture a little more maybe, or—”
“It’s okay. You taking charge is just fine with me.” He settled on a snow bank and sipped from his coffee mug. “You find anything out about Alexander from Owen last night?”
“No. Owen said it was ridiculous to suspect him.”
“It might be,” said Sawyer, “but I think we should keep our eye on him just in case. Maybe since you brought it up to Owen, he’ll be on the lookout as well.”
Alexander seemed like the furthest thing from Owen’s mind last night. He’d kept trying to get the conversation back to the two of them getting it on until Nora had finally gotten sick of it and left. But she didn’t want to talk to Sawyer about that, so she nodded. “Maybe.”
“Maddie would have come too, but she ran into her mother at breakfast, and her mother starting going on about how she never sees Maddie and how much she misses her, so Maddie had to stay there.”
Mother. Nora’s stomach dropped out at the mention of the word. She set her coffee down in the snow and started to smooth some of the snow on Catling’s ear. “Well, it’s nice that her mother cares. Maddie’s lucky.”
“Yeah,” said Sawyer. “I mean, she’s got a mother, right?”
Nora looked up. “Don’t you?”
“Technically, sure,” said Sawyer. “But I don’t remember her at all. I was born in the mundane world to regular human parents. Apparently, I was like two years old the first time I did something really creative. The muse police swooped in and grabbed me right as the Influence struck.”
Nora was horrified. “So, they took you away from your mother?”
Sawyer nodded. “Yep.”
“And she doesn’t know what happened to you?”
“I guess not,” said Sawyer.
Nora picked her coffee back up. “There’s got to be a better way to deal with muse babies than to steal them from their families.”
“Well, you grew up in the mundane world,” said Sawyer. “How hard was it to not be creative?”
Nora chewed on her lip.
“It sucks,” said Sawyer, “but I’d rather be alive than dead, you know? And it’s never really bothered me, not having a family.”
“Really? You don’t feel like something’s missing?”
“Sometimes, I guess,” said Sawyer. “But everyone in Helicon has issues. There’s no real...normal, exactly.”
“Except for not being transgender that is,” said Nora.
“It’s not like that,” Sawyer muttered. “It’s not as simple as that.”
Nora realized she shouldn’t have pushed. She tried to think of something else to say. “Hey, if you didn’t have a family here either, then we must have been in the babies and toddlers enclave together.”
Sawyer nodded. “Right. Yeah, we were. I remember you a little bit. I remember Owen too.”
“Yeah, you did say you remembered him.”
“He’s hard to forget.” And Sawyer was muttering again.
She couldn’t say anything without upsetting him this morning, could she? “Phoebe says he was an odd child.”
“He was mean,” said Sawyer. “To everyone except you. I was only five when the two of you left, so I don’t remember much about it, but I do remember that I was kind of afraid of him.”
Nora didn’t understand. Owen had never been mean to her. But she guessed she had seen him treat people without a lot of respect. She sighed. She didn’t want to think about it.
* * *
Sawyer pulled bundled-up fabric out of a bag. He’d just bounded into the tweens and rebels enclave. The big feast and dance was set for that evening, and the sculpture of Catling was prominently displayed around the main fire pit. Nora had just gotten back from helping to make sure it was set up properly. Sawyer handed the fabric bundle to Nora and then pulled out another one to hand to Maddie. He had a huge grin on his face.
“What is this?” Nora asked, unrolling the fabric.
“They’re just a little something I made the past couple of days,” said Sawyer. “For you two. For the dance tonight.”
It was a dress. It was made from the same fabric that the snow clothes had been made from, but Nora’s was a light blue and Maddie’s was deep mulberry. The sleeves, collar, and skirt were edged with fur. The bodice was crisscrossed with dark ribbon. “It’s beautiful,” said Nora.
“I figure you should be able to size it with the ribbon,” said Sawyer. “I couldn’t measure you guys if I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Sawyer you made this?” said Maddie.
He nodded. “Well, yeah. It’s the winter dance. You need new dresses, right?”
“Thank you,” said Nora. She’d never gotten a present from someo
ne that the person had actually made himself.
Sawyer shrugged, looking a little self-conscious. “You may or may not have noticed, but I’m not exactly the most popular person around here. The past couple of days, you’ve been hanging out with me, and...well, I wanted to say thank you.”
“None of us are popular,” said Nora. “Are you kidding?”
And then there was a lot of hugging. While Nora was squeezing Sawyer, he managed, “Don’t get too excited. I mean, you haven’t seen my dress yet.”
As the sun began to set, pouring purples and reds over the white snow, they all retreated into their tents to get ready for the dance. Nora was pleased that the dress fit perfectly, but she wasn’t exactly surprised. After all, here in Helicon, things seemed to work out that way. She sat on her hammock, combing her hair and petting Catling, who was purring away in her lap.
Someone pulled aside the opening of her tent. “Nora?”
“Come in,” she said, thinking it was Sawyer come to see how well his dress fit.
But instead it was Owen.
She scrambled off the hammock, knocking Catling askew. “Owen. Hi.”
Owen was taking in her dress, which hugged her torso and hips, but flared elegantly around her feet. “You look amazing.”
Nora wasn’t sure if Owen had ever complimented her appearance before. Their relationship had not been a typical one. He’d never asked her on dates and she’d never pined away while watching him from afar. They’d always been...together. So she found herself blushing to know that Owen liked the way she looked. She smiled shyly, twisting back and forth so her skirt flared out a little. “Thanks.”
“I saw your sculpture near the fire pit. It looks great.” He walked across the tent to her, brushed a strand of her hair away from her face. “You’re in your element here, you know. You’re a muse. You’re stunning. You’re not my little Nora anymore.”
The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4 Page 10