“Oh you’re welcome darling. Nora’s such a dear. And with that beautiful red hair. You were quite a pretty sight at the Maypole. You’ll make a fine dancer.”
“Well,” said Nora, “I don’t know if that’s what I want to do or not. That’s what I love so much about Helicon. You can do whatever you’re inspired to do.” She added the last bit a little pointedly.
It went right over Doreen’s head. “Well you’ve got to try things out before you know if you’re inspired to do them, don’t you? And that’s all I’m saying to you, Maddie. Why don’t you try cooking before you knock it?”
“I grew up in the food enclave, Mom. It’s not like I’ve never cooked before.” Maddie ate some more bread.
“Well, that’s why I told Silas you’d be helping with the planting again this year.” Doreen beamed. “So you can try out new things.”
“Mom,” stormed Maddie, “you volunteered me for that last year without telling me. I’ve tried it. I don’t like it. And I’m not losing another whole month this year. I won’t do it.”
Nora had volunteered last year to keep Maddie company. She’d actually enjoyed the planting. It had been fun to learn all that stuff.
Doreen pointed at Maddie with the bread she was holding. “You most certainly will do it, young lady, and I don’t want to hear any more of that attitude from you.”
Maddie gritted her teeth. “I’m sixteen years old, Mom. You cannot boss me around like that anymore. I’m not doing it and that’s that.”
Doreen’s face was getting red.
“I’ll do it,” Nora said. “I’ll take Maddie’s place.”
Maddie turned to her. “Nora, you don’t have to do that.”
“I want to,” said Nora. “I enjoyed it.”
Doreen’s face was still red, but she’d composed her features, apparently trying to keep herself from losing control. “Well, that’s very kind of you, Nora. You really are a darling.”
* * *
Later, in the tree house in the tweens and rebels enclave, Maddie sulked on a cushiony chair in the corner. They were sitting on one of the mid-level platforms. “That was horrible.”
Nora’s feet dangled off the edge of the wooden floor. She peered down at the fire pit through the foliage. “It could have gone better,” she admitted.
“I’m only glad Daryl didn’t have to be there for that. I would have been mortified.” Maddie leaned her head back against the massive trunk of the tree. “You and Sawyer are so lucky not to have to go through that. You don’t have anyone telling you what to do. You’re completely free.”
Nora turned to look at Maddie. Okay, so the whole thing had been tense and awkward, and Nora had to admit she could think of better ways to spend her evening, but she still didn’t think that qualified her as lucky not to have a family. “Come on, it’s not that bad.”
“Were you at the same dinner I was at?”
“You wouldn’t really change things so that you’d never even known them if you had the chance, would you?”
Maddie started to answer right away and then caught herself. “I guess not.” She sighed. “But seriously, would it kill her not to be so terrible all the time?”
“Terrible?” Sawyer swung into the platform they sat on, settled on the floor, and arranged his skirt around his legs. “So, it was that bad, huh?”
Nora looked back over the edge, down at the enclave. She could see the small figures of Jack and Agler wandering near the fire pit. “How come you’re not down there with Jack?”
Sawyer shrugged. “He’s having Agler time. Apparently we all can’t hang out together.”
It had been weeks since Valentine’s Day, but Agler still wasn’t speaking to her. Nora chewed on her lip as she looked down on him.
Sawyer grinned at Maddie. “Did she tell you to become a cook again?”
Maddie made a face. “Does she ever not tell me that?”
“Sorry,” said Sawyer.
“She said I was fat again too,” said Maddie.
“She did not.” Sawyer was horrified. “But you lost weight.”
“And yet,” said Maddie.
Sawyer shook his head in disapproval. “Your mom can be idiotic, that’s for sure. But the good news is we’re all boyfriendless tonight, so we can have girl time.” He shrugged. “Well, sort of girl time anyway. Because I’m not really a girl.”
“Sure you are,” said Nora. “If you want to be anyway.”
Sawyer wrinkled his nose. “Sometimes, I’m really not sure what I want.”
Maddie leaned forward. “Well, regardless, we’re going to have to have sort-of girl time another night, because I’m meeting Daryl in an hour or so.”
“I thought he was fixing toilets,” said Nora.
“Well, as long as he’s done, anyway,” said Maddie.
“Fine,” said Sawyer. “It’ll just be Nora and me, then. You can go off and make out with Daryl all night.”
“All night?” said Maddie. “Hardly.” She sighed. “Look, I don’t want to complain, because I know that someone like me should be happy with what I get, but Daryl and I still haven’t kissed with our mouths open.”
“Whoa,” said Nora. “Let’s dial that whole thing back for a second. ‘Someone like you’? Maddie, with the way you put yourself down, you don’t even need your mother to say anything. Besides, I thought you liked Daryl. Since when are you only taking what you can get?”
“I do like him,” Maddie said. “But three months, no tongue? You guys would tell me if I had bad breath, right?”
“Your breath is fine,” said Nora.
“Well, is that normal? I mean, how long was it before Agler French kissed you?”
Nora thought about it. “Um, five minutes or so...? But that doesn’t mean anything necessarily.”
Maddie turned to Sawyer. “And you and Jack?”
Sawyer picked at his skirt. “Yeah, it was pretty quick. But, you know, maybe Daryl’s shy or something.”
“Have you talked about it?” Nora asked.
“Sort of,” said Maddie. “At the beginning, we decided it would be best to take things slow. I was on board with that. After all, he is my first boyfriend. But this isn’t just slow, it’s watching-paint-dry slow.”
“Hmm,” said Sawyer. “A guy wanting to take things slow?”
“They do exist,” said Nora.
“No, they don’t,” said Sawyer. “You’re right, Maddie, something’s up.”
Maddie’s shoulders slumped. “I knew it.”
“Don’t freak out. It could be something as simple as him being worried about his breath.”
“Maybe he’s not attracted to me,” said Maddie. “Maybe he’s gay.”
“He’s not gay,” said Sawyer.
“And of course he’s attracted to you,” said Nora. “He came up to you and asked you out, out of the blue. That took guts. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t like you.”
“I don’t know,” said Maddie.
“Look, he told me that he wanted to protect you from Owen, but he was too scared,” said Nora. “Maybe he thinks you’re still sort of fragile or whatever, and he wants to be careful with you.”
“You think?” said Maddie.
“I wish Agler would be more careful with me.” Nora sighed.
“You’re making it too complicated,” said Sawyer. “Guys don’t think things through that much before they act. It’s something simple like bad breath, I’m telling you.”
“He told me he wanted to protect Maddie,” said Nora.
“Protect her from his tongue?” said Sawyer. “Sorry, I don’t buy it.”
“What should I do?” said Maddie.
“You should talk to him,” said Nora. “In a non-threatening way.”
“Are you kidding?” said Sawyer. “That will just make things awkward. You should stick your tongue in his mouth the next time you kiss. He’ll probably go for it, but if not, then you can talk.”
Maddie bit her lip. “I feel like I
don’t want to do anything. It freaks me out.”
“Well, you have to do something or you’ll never fix the problem,” said Nora.
Maddie studied her fingernails. “I don’t know. Maybe it will go away on its own.”
* * *
Nora arrived bright and early at the fields to help with planting. She was greeted by Silas Sower, who was in his usual jocular mood. “Glad to have you back Nora,” he said. “What’s your pleasure? Flowers or crops?”
“Well,” she said. “I did crops last year, so maybe flowers.”
“Excellent. You can work over there with Daryl then.” Silas pointed.
Daryl was here? Nora looked in the direction Silas was pointing. Daryl was standing amongst a pile of bulbs in the corner of the field.
She made her way over to him. “Daryl, what are you doing here?”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Well, it gets boring around here sometimes when you can’t actually create anything. So, sometimes I like to do something different for a change.”
“Cool,” said Nora. She was wondering if she should say anything to Daryl about what Maddie had told her. About kissing.
“You know anything about planting bulbs?” he asked.
Nora shook her head.
“Well, what we want to do right now is basically go through them and get rid of any that seem spongy or moldy. Or withered up like this one.” He fished one off the ground to show Nora.
Nora eyed it. “Okay, I think I got it. I take it you’ve done this before?”
Daryl grinned. “Every spring since I was twelve or so.”
Nora didn’t remember seeing him last year, but she hadn’t really known him last year either.
“Well, except last year,” said Daryl. “Last year, I had to do stuff for Owen instead. He was a really tough guy to say no to.”
“Tell me about it,” said Nora. She settled on the ground next to the bulbs and began to sort them into piles for good bulbs and piles for bad bulbs.
Daryl sat down with her.
Nora inspected a bulb. It looked good to her. For a few minutes, they worked in silence. Nora thought again about asking about Maddie, but she didn’t know how to bring it up or what to say. “So, things going well between you and Maddie?” she settled on finally.
Daryl tossed a bulb into the bad pile. “Yeah, great.”
Well, that hadn’t produced anything helpful, now had it? “Good.” She felt stupid.
“You probably talk to her more than I do,” said Daryl. “She hasn’t said anything, has she?”
Crap. Should she lie? Nora picked up another bulb and thought. It was a little bit shriveled. She showed it to Daryl. “What do you think about this one?”
He cocked his head. “Um, it’s probably one to toss.”
Nora put it in the bad pile. “What happens to these anyway? Do they just get thrown away?”
“Sometimes the muses will magic them back to goodness if the council decides it’s an okay use of energy.” He turned to her. “She did say something, didn’t she?”
“No,” said Nora, but she was so taken aback by his direct question that it sounded like a lie.
“I knew it was a bad idea for me to miss that dinner with her parents. She said she wasn’t pissed, but I could tell she was disappointed.”
“It wasn’t about that.” Nora realized that she’d just confirmed that Maddie had said something. Damn it. How was she going to talk about this? It was so... personal.
“So what was it about?”
Nora chewed on her lip. “Maybe you should talk to her about it. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Maddie was going to kill her.
“You can’t just say that and not tell me.”
“I’m sorry.” Nora pretended to be very interested in the bulbs.
“Come on, Nora. How about a hint?”
Nora sighed. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Maddie can be very... insecure.”
Daryl shrugged. “Maybe a little bit.”
Huh. Maddie must not be showing her insecure side to Daryl. Interesting. “She worries about her weight and stuff.”
“Oh,” said Daryl. “Well, all girls do that.”
“Well, she thinks maybe you’re not attracted to her.”
Daryl looked confused. “Why would she think that?”
“You said a hint. That’s your hint. I’m not saying anything else.”
Daryl had stopped looking at the bulbs at all. He was staring at the ground with his face wrinkled up like he was thinking really hard. “Why hasn’t she said anything to me about it then?”
“I guess she feels uncomfortable about it or something.”
“You have to tell me, Nora. You can’t leave me hanging like this.”
Nora sorted bulbs and didn’t say anything. She’d really made a mess of this, hadn’t she?
“Is it something that I’m doing?”
She cringed. “More like something you’re not doing.”
Daryl looked even more confused.
“Look, it’s sort of personal. It’s none of my business, really. I shouldn’t even know about it, much less be talking to you about it.”
Daryl’s eyes widened. “She doesn’t want us to like—”
“No!” Nora said. “I mean, I don’t know. Maybe someday, but for now, no, I don’t think so.”
Daryl’s expression got even more confused for a second, and then he laughed. “Oh,” he said. “It’s about kissing, isn’t it?”
“Um...” Nora didn’t know what to say. She felt completely awkward talking about this with Daryl now. It seemed so... intimate.
Daryl was snickering. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell her you told me. And there won’t be any more issues with that. I want to keep Maddie happy.”
Nora was blushing. She sorted through the rest of the bulbs as quickly as she could.
“Wanna talk about something else?” Daryl winked at her.
“Please,” said Nora.
“You and Agler are still splitsville?”
Why would he pick that? “Yeah.”
“You think it’s really over or you think you guys will work it out?”
“It’s over,” said Nora. Agler wouldn’t even look at her these days.
“Too bad,” said Daryl.
* * *
True to his word, Daryl didn’t say a word about what he and Nora had talked about to Maddie. Within several days, a blushing Maddie confirmed that all was well in the make-out department and that she was glad she hadn’t said anything, because everything had worked out on its own.
They were walking back to the tweens and rebels enclave after dinner, and Maddie was about to head out to meet Daryl for supposedly more kissing with tongue. Nora found she didn’t want to think about it in too much detail. She said goodbye to Maddie, glad that things had worked out, at least.
There were a few of the older tweens around the fire, drinking wine. Jack was there, but Nora didn’t see Agler anywhere. So when Jack waved Sawyer over, she went too, and accepted a glass of wine. Jack wasn’t exactly her biggest fan either these days, but they were in a group, so Nora figured it would be okay.
Sawyer kissed Jack briefly, thanked him for the wine, and turned immediately to Nora. “You’re working with Daryl planting, aren’t you? You don’t have anything to do with this miraculous turnaround, do you?”
Nora hid her face in her glass. “I might have said something to him.”
“Nora! That was none of your business. You must have embarrassed the hell out of the guy.”
One would think that she would have. “Actually, he didn’t seem that embarrassed. He laughed it off. Said he wouldn’t tell Maddie I told him.”
Sawyer shrugged. “Maybe he was trying to save face. Did he tell you why he hasn’t been French kissing her?”
“No,” said Nora. “He just said it wouldn’t be an issue anymore and that he wanted to keep her happy.”
“That’s a little weird, isn’t it? Wouldn’t i
t make him happy to kiss her?”
“I don’t know,” said Nora. “He wanted to change the subject right away.”
“Saving face,” Sawyer said.
Jack leaned over, throwing his arm around Sawyer. “What are you guys talking about?”
“Maddie’s love life,” said Sawyer, grinning at him. “We’re being horrible gossips.”
Jack groaned. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Nora was happy to oblige. “Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Sawyer was asking me all these questions about Helicon’s history the other day. Apparently, he spent his entire childhood tuning out adults. We can’t have gotten through all of them.”
“I simply had no parents to tell me stories about Helicon before I went to sleep,” said Sawyer.
“Oh sure, play the orphan card again,” said Jack, but he was grinning. He planted a kiss on Sawyer’s forehead. “Come on, tell me what it is you don’t understand about this place.”
Sawyer looked a little embarrassed by the intimacy. He turned to Nora. “You didn’t even grow up here. You must have questions.”
“Oh, no,” said Nora. “The last time I tried to ask a straightforward question about God, we had to go to the philosophy enclave, and it made my head hurt.”
There was a loud laugh right next to her. “I remember that.”
Nora turned. It was Agler. Was he talking to her now? “Um, hi,” she said.
He sat down next to her. “Hey,” he said as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “Jack, if you keep this kind of thing up, you’re going to have to join the story enclave.”
Jack also acted as if Agler’s presence was no big deal. “I’m a musician. Want some wine?”
“Totally,” said Agler.
Sawyer drained his glass. “I need a refill.”
Jack got up and retrieved the bottle.
As Sawyer watched him fill up his glass, he said, “Well, okay, here’s something that bothers me. Why aren’t there more muses? I mean, there are at least thirty of us here in the tweens and rebels enclave. And more than that in the babies and toddlers enclave. And that’s not counting the kids who live with their parents. Since the muses don’t really die out very often, since we can halt our aging and live for thousands of years, shouldn’t there be more of us?”
The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4 Page 37