The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4

by V. J. Chambers

  “No,” said Nora. She was beginning to feel like she’d gotten a little hysterical.

  “Owen is and always has been a strange boy,” said Phoebe. “And perhaps he’s not particularly mature enough to handle a relationship with you, and he’s taking it out in rather unhealthy ways. I don’t think we should leap to the conclusion that he’s some kind of maniac killer. He’s clearly jealous of you and Agler.”

  “There’s nothing going on between us,” said Nora. “We’re friends.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “No,” said Nora. “I can’t even think about being with someone. Not yet. After Owen, it all seems... I want to be alone. I want to be free.”

  Phoebe got up out of her chair, sighing. “Well, it’s unfortunate, really. I wanted to be wrong about him. I really hoped he’d grown out of it.” She gazed over Nora’s head. “He had issues when he was a child, it’s true. I noticed them. Others did as well. And he always had the ability to be quite charming. Like his father. When the two of you left us all those years ago, the community was divided about him. Some of them thought he was an innocent, wronged child. Others thought he was a devil’s spawn. I was one of the latter.” She turned to Nora. “When you got back here, I thought perhaps I’d been hasty. Perhaps I’d judged him too harshly.”

  “Was it because you had a relationship with Dionysus?” Nora couldn’t help but asking.

  “Who told you that?” said Phoebe, looking perturbed.

  “Jolie in the babies and toddlers enclave.”

  “Jolie needs to keep her mouth shut,” said Phoebe. “Yes, several hundred years ago, when I was young and stupid, I had an incredibly idiotic dalliance with Dionysus. But that wasn’t why I was suspicious of Owen. Really. It wasn’t.”

  Nora felt bad for bringing it up. “I’m sorry.”

  Phoebe waved it away. “The boy’s always sort of rubbed me the wrong way. I’d look into his eyes, and it was like...like there was nothing behind them.” She crossed the tent, clasping her hands together. Then she turned sharply to Nora. “Well, I can’t exactly throw him out because another boy hit him, can I?”

  Nora was astonished. “I don’t want you to throw him out.”

  “Don’t you?”

  Nora realized she hadn’t really thought this far ahead. “Well, this is the only home he’s ever known. And if we can get him to stop opening the portals, then he won’t be hurting anyone—”

  “He’s not opening the portals,” Phoebe said with a kind of certainty that didn’t leave room for arguments.

  “It is Dionysus then,” said Nora.

  “What would give you an idea like that?” said Phoebe, looking confused.

  Nora looked at the ground. She didn’t want to admit that she’d been spying on Phoebe as well. “Maybe, during May Day, I happened to overhear that he was doing something that drained energy from Helicon.”

  Phoebe shook her head. “You are quite the little spy, aren’t you? Well, that’s got nothing to do with the portals, Nora. Trust me.”

  “What does it have to do with?”

  “None of your business,” said Phoebe. She tapped her chin with her forefinger. “You see, as head of the council, I’m connected to Helicon in a way that others aren’t. I don’t feel it when the portals open, not exactly, but I feel it when energy it being taken away from Helicon. If the portals were being punched into Helicon from the outside, the energy would seep out. But they aren’t, they’re being made from the inside, because they’re sucking energy away. So Owen has been right all along. Someone inside Helicon is making the portals. And it can’t be Owen, because he wasn’t here when the first ones were made. It can’t be Dionysus either, because he hasn’t been here when any of them were made.”

  Nora tried to digest this. “It’s really not Owen?”

  “It’s not,” said Phoebe.

  “And it isn’t Dionysus. You’re sure?”

  “Let’s drop the subject of Dionysus, please,” said Phoebe, looking pained.

  Nora nodded, but she wasn’t entirely satisfied. Why didn’t Phoebe want to talk about Dionysus?

  Phoebe sat back down in her chair. “Has Owen ever spoken to you about his mother?”

  Nora shook her head. “He never talks about her. He used to talk about his father, but after meeting Dionysus again, I think he was a little disillusioned.”

  “You don’t get the impression he’s in contact with her then? In any way?”

  “No,” said Nora. “Why? What’s his mother got to do with anything?”

  “Nimue hates the muses,” said Phoebe. “She hates everything, in fact. She’s really a horrible person. Well, she’s not exactly a person, I don’t suppose. Not after she managed to steal immortality from Merlin along with all his powers.”

  “Merlin? You mean Merlin’s real? What’s next? Are the Smurfs going to show up in Helicon? Or maybe leprechauns?”

  Phoebe shuddered. “Oh, don’t joke about the leprechauns. The last time they found their way into Helicon, it was a disaster.”

  Seriously?

  “We’re getting off topic here,” said Phoebe. “You and Agler followed Owen into the woods because you thought he was opening a portal. He obviously wasn’t. So what was he doing?”

  Nora had nearly forgotten about that part, the most damning part of all. “He wants to take over Helicon. He thinks that the council doesn’t do a good enough job, and that he and certain members of the muse police would do better.”

  Phoebe burst out in laughter. “Well, that’s ridiculous. Owen could never do anything like that.” She considered. “Unless he was working with Nimue, which you’re sure he isn’t doing, right?”

  “I’m not sure about anything with Owen anymore,” said Nora.

  Phoebe nodded. She twisted her hands in her lap. “Well, I’ll just watch him,” she said to herself. “I’ll watch him. If he does anything...” She looked up at Nora. “If he ever hurts you or anyone and you see it, come to me immediately.”

  Nora nodded.

  “And stop trying to figure out who’s ripping the holes in Helicon,” said Phoebe. “Coeus and I are taking care of that. We have a committee. It’s not your concern. You’re a muse. You need to be creating. I haven’t seen you out and about lately. I seem to remember you used to spend time in the visual arts enclave. Didn’t you make that adorable snow sculpture this winter?”

  Nora shrugged. “I haven’t felt up to it since I broke up with Owen.”

  “You’re a muse, Nora,” said Phoebe. “Your one mission in life is to create. If we aren’t creating, we aren’t contributing to inspiration threads. And that is our reason for existing. You realize this, yes?”

  Nora suddenly felt guilty for not doing anything. “I guess it just hurt too much to try to do anything. I mean, all the muses are always so happy, and I wasn’t. I didn’t feel like being around that.”

  “Happiness is not a prerequisite for creation,” said Phoebe. “Some of the best pieces of art have been born out of extreme pain. Pain can be a powerful form of inspiration. It hurts? Good. Use it.”

  Nora guessed that could be true. She couldn’t count the number of songs she’d heard about breakups. Maybe she did need to be creating again.

  “In fact,” said Phoebe, “the science and math gala is in a week. I want to see you helping out. I know they were looking for visual arts people to work on decorations. You leave me, scurry over there, and volunteer, okay?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  But it wasn’t so easy to start creating again. Nora hadn’t really made anything since May Day, and now it was midsummer. She dutifully did as Phoebe asked and tried to make decorations for the science and math gala. But she had trouble coming up with ideas. She went to the math enclave, asking them what they wanted, and they told her to do what she liked, to let the inspiration take her. But try as Nora might, she couldn’t find the inspiration.

  She met Sawyer and Maddie that evening at the main fire pit for dinner, and she wasn’t in
a particularly good mood. “Something’s wrong with me,” she told them as she dipped some curry onto the bed of rice on her plate.

  “Oh,” said Sawyer, “you mean the way you’re always chewing on your lip? I think it actually makes you look sort of cute, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

  Nora chewed on her lip. “Do I really do that a lot?”

  Maddie put several slices of mushroom goat cheese pizza on her plate. “You should try this pizza. My mom made it, and it’s excellent.”

  “Curry and pizza?” Nora shook her head. “I’m serious, though. Something’s wrong. When I went to see Phoebe today, she told me I should volunteer to help with making decorations for the science and math gala—”

  “Oh yeah.” Maddie sat down on a bench next to the fire. “Why did you have to go see Phoebe anyway?”

  “Oh, it was weird,” said Nora, sitting down next to her. “You know how Agler punched Owen, right?”

  Sawyer sat down. “Agler punched Owen? You left this out. Why?”

  “Because Owen was being an ass,” said Nora. “Anyway, Owen had two black eyes and apparently he went crying to Phoebe about it.”

  “Black eyes?” said Maddie. “You’re kidding me. Agler wouldn’t do that.”

  “It was Owen’s fault,” said Nora. “Even Phoebe agrees. She said that Owen’s a bad seed or something, but she’s sure he’s not making the portals, and she told me I should focus on creating instead of spying on people.”

  “Paint me a picture here,” said Sawyer. “What did Owen look like when Agler punched him? Did he cry?” He snickered.

  “Sawyer!” said Maddie. “It’s disturbing to think Agler’s giving people black eyes.”

  “Owen laughed,” said Nora. “Because he wanted Agler to do it. It was seriously screwed up. Owen was bleeding all over the place, laughing, and telling Agler to hit him again. But that’s not the point. The point is that I did what Phoebe said, and I started trying to make decorations for the gala.”

  “Did you say that Phoebe doesn’t think Owen’s making the portals?” Maddie took a bite of her pizza.

  “She knows he’s not,” said Nora. “She said that she can tell the portals are being made from the inside, because she’s head of the council, and Owen couldn’t have done it, because he wasn’t inside Helicon when all of them were made.”

  “Maybe he was able to get in and wasn’t telling you,” said Sawyer. “When you were in the mundane world?”

  “No,” said Nora. “I don’t think so. Phoebe set me straight anyway. She said that we’re muses, and we’re supposed to be creating all the time, not doing detective work. And she’s right. We need to create.”

  “But it was your idea to launch an investigation in the first place,” said Sawyer.

  “Actually, it was yours,” said Nora. “And we haven’t figured one single thing out the whole time we’ve been ‘investigating.’ So, we’re just going to drop the whole thing. We’re going to let the council handle it. We’re not going to worry about the portals.”

  “But what about Dionysus?” said Maddie.

  Nora stirred her curry with a fork. “Well, she did get really touchy about that. But she admitted they had an affair a hundred years ago.”

  “So maybe she’s covering for him,” said Maddie.

  “This isn’t important,” said Nora. “What’s important is I can’t create anymore.”

  “What do you mean?” said Sawyer.

  “I’ve been trying to make decorations all afternoon,” said Nora. “I can’t get an idea. I tried to ask the science and math people what they wanted, and they said to let the inspiration take me. Do whatever I wanted. But I don’t know what I want. I have no ideas at all.”

  “Probably because you’re still worried about the portals and stuff,” said Maddie. “It might be easy for Phoebe to tell you to switch it off, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually easy.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” said Nora. “Something is really wrong. Eventually, I decided I’d just cut out a bunch of numbers from poster board and paint them.”

  “See, you did get an idea,” said Sawyer. “Maybe you’re worrying too much.”

  Nora shook her head. “I can’t draw anymore.”

  “Nora, don’t be ridiculous,” said Maddie.

  “They look like a two-year-old did them,” said Nora. “My fingers won’t do straight lines. I can’t make the scissors work without making mistakes. They’re bad.”

  “You’re being hard on yourself,” said Sawyer.

  “I’m not,” said Nora. “Theia Spring came by and looked at it, and she told me that I should go back to my tent and get some rest. And then she took them away and threw them on the scrap pile.”

  Maddie patted Nora’s hand. “You still aren’t over Owen,” she said.

  “That’s just it,” said Nora. “Phoebe told me that wasn’t a good excuse. She said to use my pain to spur my creativity.”

  “Well,” said Sawyer, “maybe you shouldn’t be making decorations then. Maybe you should be writing sappy poetry or singing angry songs while accompanying yourself on the guitar.”

  Maddie nodded. “He’s got a point.” She popped the last bite of pizza into her mouth.

  * * *

  But it didn’t work. Nora went to the poetry and writing enclave the next day, ready to pour out her soul about the way Owen had hurt her. Nothing came. She sat staring at a blank piece of paper for hours. Finally, just to get something out, she tried doodling on the paper. Her doodles came out mismatched and shaky, just like the numbers. She couldn’t get words to save her life.

  Maybe it was drawing or writing, she thought. So she went to the music enclave. She got herself a drum like she had before. And she sat, waiting to feel the drum beat. But something horrific had happened. She couldn’t quite hear it anymore. Oh, she could tell that drums were beating, and she even had a vague idea that they sounded pretty good. But she couldn’t hear the pattern anymore. She couldn’t tell where the drum beats were supposed to go. And when she tried to play the drum, she couldn’t tell if she sounded good or bad. She banged away at it for a while until someone came over and irritably told her that if she was going to be so far off beat, could she please play a little softer?

  Nora was horrified. She went back to her tent, sobbing. Catling wasn’t in a good mood either. She was over in the corner of Nora’s tent, mewling plaintively. Actually, Nora realized, Catling had been doing that for a while now. Nora didn’t know what was so offensive about that particular corner of the tent. She pulled the cat-duck close and cried. What was wrong with her?

  Things didn’t improve over the following weeks. Nora tried everything she could think of. She went to the dance enclave, the clothing and fabric enclave, the food enclave, the science enclave... She couldn’t do anything. She either was frozen by a lack of inspiration or started to do something and did a positively horrible job at it. Maddie and Sawyer told her that maybe she was trying too hard, and they told her to relax for a week or two. Nora thought she’d been “relaxing” since May Day, but they pointed out that she’d really been upset over Owen that entire time.

  Nora tried to relax. She didn’t feel any better by the end of the week. And nothing had changed. Feeling upset and depressed, she went to the wine and spirits enclave. She wasn’t any help there either, but she did manage to get pretty drunk, and while she was drunk, it didn’t matter so much anymore.

  She stumbled back to the tweens and rebels enclave. Agler was sitting alone by the fire pit, strumming his guitar. She hadn’t seen Agler in almost a month, she realized. She strode over to him. “Are you avoiding me?”

  Agler stopped playing guitar. “Nora.”

  “Because I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

  Agler set his guitar down. “Are you drunk?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe a little bit.”

  “I don’t want to have this conversation while you’re drunk,” said Agler. He got up, taking his guitar wit
h him, and headed for his tent.

  Nora got in front of him, blocking his path. “There’s a conversation to have? Then you are avoiding me.”

  Agler looked uncomfortable. “Look, just go find some water or something and sober up, okay? We’ll talk another time.”

  “No. Because we haven’t talked in a really long time, so the next time I happen to see you, it might be another month from now.”

  “Do you want to see me?” asked Agler.

  “Sure. Of course I do. You’re my friend,” said Nora.

  “Friend.” Agler shrugged. He walked around Nora.

  “What?” Nora demanded.

  He stopped. Turned. “Look, Nora, I’m a lot older than you.”

  “A lot older? I don’t think so,” said Nora. “In the mundane world, you would have been a senior when I was a freshman in high school. So we’re totally in the same age group.”

  “I don’t know what any of that means,” said Agler. “But the thing is, being around you, it’s made me different than I used to be. I’m punching people now, and spying on people, and hanging out with fifteen-year-olds, and—”

  “It was not your fault that you punched Owen. He made you do it.”

  “He didn’t make me. I’m the one who has control over my own fists,” said Agler. “I think it would be better if I stayed away from you. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Nora took a step back, stunned. “But, I thought you... It seemed like you liked me.”

  “I do like you,” said Agler. “We’re friends, right?” He turned away and continued back to his tent.

  “Friends who stay away from each other?” Nora called after him.

  Agler didn’t answer.

  Nora folded her arms over her chest. Then she felt sick to her stomach. She ran for the toilets, but she didn’t make it and threw up all over the ground. She stared down at the contents of her stomach, reminding herself she’d promised not to drink ever again. It really wasn’t worth it.

  Nora went into the toilets and washed her face. She felt less drunk now, but she didn’t feel any better. Everything sucked. She kicked at a few rocks on the ground as she made her way back to her tent. At least Catling still liked her.