“Goodnight, Mom,” said Maddie, through gritted teeth.
As they walked away with their baskets, Maddie seethed. Once they were out of earshot, Maddie exploded. “She can’t keep her mouth shut, can she? Nothing I do is good enough for her.”
“She shouldn’t have said that stuff about your weight,” Nora agreed. “But I think she means well. She cares about you. She’s your mom.”
“She’s horrible,” said Maddie. “I want to be as far away from her as I can be.”
“She’s not that bad,” said Sawyer.
“Neither of you understand,” said Maddie.
Sawyer pointed. “We’ve got to go that way if we’re babysitting the kids tonight.”
“I can’t believe she did that!” said Maddie. But she turned in the direction that Sawyer was pointing.
Nora stopped. “I’d better go back to my tent. I guess Owen will find me there eventually.”
“Right,” said Maddie. “You’re so lucky to have a boyfriend. I guess if I ever stop being fat, some guy will actually look at me.”
“Maddie,” said Nora.
“You’re not fat,” said Sawyer. This was becoming a bit of a chorus between the two of them. Sawyer sighed. “Look, I don’t have a boyfriend either. Maybe if I stopped wearing skirts.”
“And I really have no idea where my boyfriend is,” said Nora.
“He’ll find you,” said Maddie. “He’s completely, like, obsessed with you.”
“You got that right,” muttered Sawyer.
There it was again. Sawyer was always muttering things about Owen. Nora tightened her grip on her basket and waved to her friends. “I’ll see you guys later.” She started off for the tweens and rebels enclave. The longer she walked, the heavier the basket of food seemed to get. She shifted it to her hip, wrapping her arms around the bottom of it. Pleasant warmth emanated out of the bottom. Finally, she crossed underneath the archway into the enclave. No one seemed to be there. She could see that a few of the tents were lit up on the inside, probably from tweens who were sharing their dinners together. No one was in the tree house. Nora set down her basket in front of her tent. Should she really wait here? Where could Owen be?
Maybe she should just go inside her tent and curl up with Catling. If Owen showed up sometime soon, great. If not, she’d eat without him.
“Nora.” Owen emerged from the shadows of the trees. His jaw twitched.
“There you are,” said Nora. “I’ve been looking all over. I got us a basket of food—”
“Leave it.” Owen’s fingers tightened around her arm, and he yanked her away from her tent.
“But it’ll get cold,” said Nora. “It’s probably really good. Maddie’s mother—”
“Maddie,” said Owen. “I guess that’s where you’ve been all week. With Maddie?”
“No, I was making Valentines,” said Nora. She should have recognized the signs, she realized. Owen was angry. She didn’t like it when Owen got angry. Admittedly, he almost never got angry with her. But when he was mad, he could be unpredictable. She gulped. “I guess I’ve been a little busy. But I’ve been working on your Valentine.”
Owen tugged at her. “Let’s walk.”
Nora didn’t say anything. She let him lead her away from the enclave, into the woods. They walked through the trees, Owen’s fingers digging deep into the fleshy part of her arm. It hurt, but she didn’t say anything. Neither of them said anything. They walked. If she hadn’t been sure Owen was angry with her, she might have thought the bright moon peering through the shadowy leaves was pretty.
They walked through the woods until they came out on the other side in the same big field where Sawyer had been grazed by the Influence. And they kept walking. At one point Nora tried to ask Owen where they were going, but he only laughed a little and said it was a surprise. Except he didn’t sound happy about the surprise. He sounded sardonic and cold.
Eventually, after they’d walked a very long time, Nora could see that they soon wouldn’t be able to walk any further. Ahead of them, the ground turned rocky and abruptly dropped off as if they’d come to a cliff. The edge of Helicon. Sawyer had told her about it. Owen marched Nora right up to it, and they both stared down over the edge. There was nothing there. A swirling abyss of clouds and stars. Nora felt dizzy.
Owen eased his hand off Nora’s arm. She rubbed it. It still hurt a little. He moved behind her, snaking his arms around her waist. He put his lips against her neck, and his voice was silken. “What do you think would happen if you fell off the edge, Nora?”
At first she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “What?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” he breathed. “I’ve got you. But if I let go. If I pushed you, what do you think would happen?”
Nora felt cold all over. What was this, some kind of sick joke? “Owen?”
He pulled her tight against him, rubbing the outside of her thigh with one hand. “Answer the question, Nora.”
“I...”
His hand slid around, his fingers brushing the inside of her thigh, the more sensitive part. Little thrills went through her body. Her heart beat fast. “What would happen if you fell off the edge?”
“I’d die.” Her voice was hardly a whisper. Why was Owen saying this?
“You’re right,” he said. “I think you would.” He spun her around so that she faced him.
Now she couldn’t see the gaping chasm behind her. “Owen, let go of me.” There was fear in her voice.
“I’ve got you,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling. “Don’t you trust me?”
What was the right answer here? “Of course, I do.”
“Do you?” he said. And then, abruptly, he did let go of her, and she was so startled that she lost her footing for a second, hurtling backward, her arms flailing. Owen grabbed her hands and pulled her away from the edge. She sprawled in a heap a few feet from the edge, her breath coming in gasps. “See, I don’t trust you, Nora.”
Why was Owen doing this? What was going on? It was Valentine’s Day. Nora felt like crying.
“How can I trust you,” said Owen, and his voice was getting louder, “when you’re never around?”
So this was what this was about. Nora thought she understood now. Hadn’t she thought earlier that Owen might have been upset about the fact that she’d been away most of the week? “I’m sorry. I got so into creating things at the visual arts enclave. I guess I should have thought about how that would make you feel, but I was just enjoying myself so much. I made you a really awesome Valentine. I have it back at the tent. Why don’t we go back, and I’ll give it to you, and maybe the food isn’t cold and—”
“Stop talking,” said Owen. “Do you know what it’s like for me when I don’t have you, Nora? It’s like falling off the edge of this cliff. It’s like dying. You have no idea how much it hurts. Being without you is like being ripped apart.”
“I’m sorry,” Nora said softly. She hadn’t meant to hurt Owen.
“You’re sorry now,” said Owen, “but for the past few days, I haven’t even seen you. And you weren’t sorry then. If you don’t see me, you don’t even think about me.”
“That’s not true,” said Nora. “I spent all week thinking about you. I was making you a Valentine.”
“What do I want with a piece of stupid heart-shaped paper if you’re ignoring me all the time?”
“I...” Maybe he had a point. “I’m sorry, Owen. I won’t do it again. I promise I’ll make time for you. For us.” Would he calm down if she said that?
But Owen was getting enraged now. His face twitched. “Make time? Make time?” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Don’t do me any favors. If I’m such an inconvenience to your perfect, fun life, I don’t want to bother you anymore.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Nora. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just didn’t think—”
“You don’t think very often, do you?” said Owen, sneering. “You’ve never been one to really spend time t
hinking about stuff. You didn’t try to figure out how to get us back to Helicon, did you? I did that. And now that we’re here, you aren’t even grateful. I don’t mean anything to you.”
“That’s not true. You mean everything to me.”
“Do I?” said Owen. “Because you have a funny way of showing it.”
Nora wasn’t sure what to say. He had an answer for everything. No matter what she said, it was wrong. She hugged herself. She hated the idea that she was hurting him so much. Sometimes, he seemed so strong and capable, and she forgot that deep down, he was vulnerable. She should have thought about him more this week. Why hadn’t she thought about how Owen would feel if she wasn’t spending time with him? She guessed she could understand why he was so upset. He must feel abandoned. And what had he said to her before? That she was the only person who’d never abandoned him? She felt horrible. “I’m so sorry.”
Owen was still standing up, and she was huddled at his feet. He glared down at her, his blue eyes smoldering. He twitched, and she flinched.
The flinch seemed to catch him off guard. His expression changed, went from one of rage to one of worry, and it was as if all the tension fell out of him at once. His shoulders slumped. “Fuck,” he whispered. “What am I doing?”
Nora held her breath. Was he better now? Was the anger gone?
He knelt down next to her. “You look scared of me.” He buried his face in his hands. “I think I’m losing my mind.”
Nora tentatively put her hand on Owen’s back. She didn’t want to set him off again.
He looked up at her. “I’m so sorry. I don’t...” He ran his hands through his hair. “I get so angry. I feel like I can’t control it. It scares me.”
Nora had seen Owen get angry before. She’d seen him freak out on people like Laura. But he’d never done it to her. “You get angry with me?”
“I don’t mean it.” He looked so pitiful suddenly. “I can’t believe I dragged you out here like this, that I said those things to you. You’re so important to me, Nora. But I just can’t think.” He turned away from her again, swallowing hard. “I’m not like everyone else. I have these powers and abilities, and I don’t understand them. Sometimes I feel like they take me over, and I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t want to be like that, though. I don’t want to be angry and scary. Do you believe me?”
She did. Of course she did. But she still felt frightened.
“It’s better when you’re around,” said Owen. “You make everything clearer. You were gone all week, and I started to lose it.” He grabbed her hand, and the look he gave her was so earnest it made her chest hurt. “But you’re here now, and I’m okay again. As long as you stay with me... You will, won’t you? You won’t leave me alone again?”
She shook her head. “No, Owen. If I help you, if I make it better, then we’ll be sure to spend time together. I won’t leave you alone again. I promise.”
He gripped her hand tighter. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
* * *
Sawyer woke her up the next morning to ask if she wanted to come to breakfast with him and Maddie. She got dressed quickly and joined them as they walked. “How was babysitting last night?”
“It was actually really fun, wasn’t it, Maddie?” said Sawyer.
Maddie gave him a dark look. “There was nothing fun about it at all. It lasted forever, and we didn’t get back to our tents until too late to do anything else.”
“I thought it was fun,” said Sawyer. “We organized a really big game of hide and seek. Maddie came up with a pretty cool hiding place, and I couldn’t find her for almost an hour.”
Maddie brightened a little. “It was a nifty hiding place, wasn’t it? And you were really good at finding people.”
“Yeah,” said Sawyer. “If only I was that good at finding out the person who opened those portals in Helicon. Then we’d all feel safer.”
“Oh,” said Nora. “That reminds me.” She recounted to them the conversation she’d had with Alexander earlier. “What do you think? Do you think he was only saying that stuff because he didn’t want to seem suspicious?”
“I don’t know,” said Maddie. “Maybe. Did he seem like he meant it?”
“He really did,” said Nora. “I wanted to believe him.”
“Maybe we’re completely wrong to suspect him,” said Sawyer.
“But then we’re back at square one,” said Nora.
“Well, there hasn’t been a portal opened in a while,” said Maddie. “Maybe it’s over.”
Sawyer suddenly grabbed Nora’s arm. “Hey, Nora, what happened?”
Nora looked down. The place where Owen had gripped her arm so tightly last night had turned into an ugly, greenish bruise. She yanked her arm away, pulling her sleeve down over it as best she could. “I, um, have no idea. I must have run into something in the woods last night when Owen and I were walking.” She could try to explain to them, but somehow, she didn’t think they’d understand. He hadn’t meant to do it. He really hadn’t. But if she said that out loud, it would sound like he was some kind of abusive person or something, and he wasn’t.
“It looks like marks made by fingers,” said Sawyer.
“Does it?” Nora laughed. “Weird.”
“Nora,” said Sawyer, his face serious, “did Owen—”
“No!” said Nora. “Owen would never do anything like that.” She was going to have to put on a long-sleeved shirt after breakfast. Maybe she’d be hot, but she didn’t want to deal with anyone else asking questions about it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The days were sweet and warm, and they ran into each other. There was no real marker of time by the weather, but the days began to get longer, and the nights shorter. Nora sometimes found herself contemplating what she would have been doing if she’d still been in the mundane world. As March toiled on, she remembered that, in the mundane world, she’d usually have a spring break from school. While her classmates would have been excited about it, Nora wouldn’t have greeted the news with any emotion whatsoever. Her life before Helicon had been dreary and hopeless. She’d slogged through it, trying to keep her head up, but never being able to give in to her deepest passions and desires. Never being able to create. And here in Helicon, creating was all she did.
The food enclave asked for volunteers to help with planting new crops for the year, and Doreen volunteered Maddie without asking her. “Typical,” she muttered when she found out. But to keep her from being too upset about it, Nora and Sawyer joined in the planting as well. They all ended up under the direction of Silas Sower, whose excitement over planting was infectious. As they plowed fields and sowed seeds, he told them all about each plant they were growing and explained the germination process in incredible detail. Nora thought that if she’d been taught this in school, she probably would have tuned the entire thing out. But there was something about hearing it from the lips of someone who found it so interesting that made it interesting to Nora as well. And working hands-on kept it from being as boring as sitting in a classroom.
So March passed in a flurry of planting and learning. When April rolled around, Nora suddenly found her days free again, and she wasn’t sure what to do with them. Sawyer immediately returned to the clothing and fabric enclave. “What can I say? I love clothes?” he said, grinning. Maddie went back to dancing. Both invited her to come along, but Nora wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. She followed Sawyer for a few days, wandering around the clothing and fabric enclave. Sawyer spent most of his time in a tent full of sewing machines. When he wasn’t making things, he perused fabric that other muses were spinning and weaving in a tent full of looms, old fashioned spinning wheels, and balls of yarn. The enclave even had its own collection of live silkworms, which were treated with reverence. They had names, but Nora couldn’t tell them apart.
During those days, Nora decided to make herself a patchwork skirt, like the ones so many of the muses wore. Sawyer wrinkled up his n
ose when he found out. He didn’t approve of patchwork. He thought it looked homespun. Nora said she liked homespun.
She didn’t do too badly of a job at it. Even Sawyer admitted her choice of fabrics was inspired. The skirt sported several different shades of blue, with a few patches in paisley blue patterns. It turned out nicely, and Nora enjoyed wearing it. The sewing machines, however, were a headache and a half, because no matter what the muses did to them, it seemed that the tension randomly went “bad,” which meant a long process of rethreading. When Nora complained about this to Sawyer, he shrugged. “That’s what sewing machines do. We tried to convince engineering to work on fixing the problem, and they claim they’re working on it, but more pressing needs seem to occupy them a lot, like breaking toilets.”
But finally, Nora left the clothes and fabrics enclave. She liked her skirt, and she’d had fun making it, but making clothes didn’t sing to her in the same way it sang to Sawyer.
Over the next few weeks, she flitted about. In the back of her head, she kept thinking about returning to the visual art enclave, but she didn’t. Instead, she visited Maddie for a little bit and got some more ballet lessons in the dance enclave. Then she spent a few days in the food enclave, where Doreen taught Nora to make a cherry tart. She spent a full week in the poetry and writing enclave, working with a few other muses to make perfect heroic couplets. They were writing an epic poem about a mouse named Theo. Apparently, it was meant to be satiric, since mice were not particularly epic or heroic. Nora was good at rhyming and rhythm, but not so good at understanding the tone of the poem. After several of her verses were rejected because they weren’t funny enough, the poet muses said she should possibly visit the drum tent in the music enclave.
The music enclave sat right next to the main fire pit. It was sprawling and massive, and Nora understood that Phoebe was part of it. Phoebe had a positively beautiful voice. Nora could have gotten lost in and among all the tents there. The music muses made most of their own instruments, and there were a bunch of tents devoted to instrument craft. Then there were tents in which muses practiced playing their instruments, which were divided according to type. Strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion. Within each of these, there were even more divisions, making the place a confusing labyrinth of tents. The music enclave seemed a wee bit more organized than the visual art enclave, but it was also clear that it had grown organically, and that the muses had accommodated this growth the best they could, even if it disturbed some original plan.
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