The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4

by V. J. Chambers

  No, she guessed they wouldn’t. “It wouldn’t hurt to try, I guess.”

  “So, before, you said that we should try to figure out who might have had a motive,” said Sawyer. “Should we do the same thing now?”

  “No one would want to hurt Maddie,” said Daryl. “She’s the sweetest, nicest person ever.”

  “If we aren’t considering Owen, I’d be at a loss for motive as well,” said Nora. She wracked her brain. She must have seen a television show about missing people before. What did you do to find them? Thus far, all she could remember was that you couldn’t report them until they’d been gone for a certain amount of time, and that, on television at any rate, the missing person usually wound up dead. Murdered. She shivered.

  “Nora?” prompted Daryl.

  “I’m thinking,” she said. Then it came to her. “We need to find out who saw her last. Ask around. See if there was anything suspicious going on.”

  “I saw her last,” said Daryl.

  “Are you sure?” said Nora. “Maybe someone else did. We’ll talk to everyone in the security enclave tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” said Sawyer.

  “Well, half of them are in the mundane world now with Owen,” said Nora. “And it’s late. We’ll all be able to think clearer after we sleep.”

  Daryl looked up at the night sky. “Maddie’s all alone tonight. And we don’t know where.”

  Nora swallowed. She hoped her friend was okay. She really hoped so.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  By lunchtime the next day, they had spoken to everyone in the security enclave and hadn’t found out anything. No one they spoke to remembered seeing Maddie, but they all seemed to wish they had something to contribute. Discouraged, the investigators took a break to eat.

  As they ate, they went through everyone in the security enclave that they could think of, trying to make sure they hadn’t left anybody out. Daryl remembered that there was a team of three or four in the mundane world trailing Owen. He said they would get back later that afternoon when a fresh team went to spell them. They could talk to that team when they came back.

  They were eating sandwiches next to their tents, but none of them were particularly hungry, so mostly they were nibbling. Once they had finished thinking through who to talk to in the security enclave, the conversation faded to a lull. Nora wasn’t surprised that they hadn’t found anything out. Truthfully, she was still convinced that Owen had Maddie, despite what Daryl had said. She hoped that Owen would lead the muses tailing him to Maddie. She wanted her friend back.

  “It doesn’t seem right without her here,” said Daryl. “She made everything seem brighter.” He contemplated his half-eaten sandwich. “Of course, maybe I only think that because I’m her boyfriend.”

  “No,” said Sawyer. “Maddie is like the glue that holds us all together.” He looked very close to crying, and Nora was afraid that she would too.

  “She just grew on me,” said Daryl. “I didn’t realize how much I would miss her if she wasn’t here.”

  Grew on him? That was a kind of funny things to say. “You mean she grew on you before you asked her out?” Nora asked.

  Daryl gave her a startled look. He laughed a little, nervously. “Crap.” He swallowed. “Look, if I tell you this, you can never tell her. If she gets back, I mean. And she has to get back. We have to find her.”

  Nora could see that Daryl was very upset. Her heart went out to him.

  “Tell us what?” Sawyer said.

  Daryl set his sandwich on the plate he had balanced on his lap. He didn’t look at them. “I asked her out on a dare. The guys dared me to ask the fat chick out on a date.” He mumbled the last bit, and Nora could hear the shame in his voice. “But then I actually hung out with her. And she was, you know, Maddie. I mean, how could I not fall for her?” He swung his gaze up to meet theirs. “And she’s not fat.”

  “I never thought she was,” said Nora. “And she’s lost a lot of weight this year anyway.” She realized this was a bit of a dodge, but she didn’t know what to say to Daryl’s confession.

  “Your friends are jerks,” said Sawyer. “But you aren’t a jerk, Daryl. And the less you’re around them, the less jerky things you do.”

  Daryl laughed a little. “Thanks. I think.”

  Nora tried to think of something to say. She wanted to tell Daryl that it was all right, that she could tell that he cared about her friend, but she didn’t know how to put it. She was saved from having to say anything by Coeus, who had approached them.

  “Mind if I sit down with you?” Coeus asked. No one minded. Coeus sat down. “I didn’t expect you guys to come back and help with the dimension device today. I figured that you’d be very upset. And worried. But then I hear you’re running around asking everyone questions.”

  “That a problem?” Daryl said.

  “It’s not your job,” said Coeus. “There is a committee—”

  “Screw the committee,” Sawyer interrupted.

  Coeus sighed. “I’m on the committee.”

  None of them said anything.

  Coeus plowed on. “I can assure you that finding Maddie is very important to all of us. We are working hard on it. The best thing that you can do is to try not to think about it as much as you can. Because you’ll drive yourselves crazy. The science and math gala is coming up and—”

  “Did Phoebe put you up to this?” Nora glared. “Because it sounds like something she would say. ‘It doesn’t matter that your friend is missing and probably dead. The most important thing is inspiration threads.’”

  Coeus didn’t respond. He took a deep breath. Softly, “I don’t think she’s dead.”

  “We aren’t going to stop,” said Daryl. “We’ll keep going until we find her.”

  Coeus shrugged. “Well, I said I’d talk to you, and I did.” He stood up. “Phoebe means well. She really does. But if you guys are trying to ask questions of everyone in the security enclave, I might let you know that three or four people went over to the architecture enclave this morning to help out with preparations for the gala.” He walked away from them.

  Since they were very hungry anyway, they ditched the rest of their lunch and headed over to the architecture enclave right away. They found the members of the muse police outside the walls of the architecture enclave, nailing together several pieces of plywood. They were happy to stop and answer questions.

  At first, all they got were blank looks.

  Then one of the guys spoke up. “Yeah, I saw her yesterday. She was off dancing all alone. Then she stopped and started walking back in the direction of the engineering enclave. I didn’t pay much attention to her at the time. I’m sorry.”

  But it was more than they had gotten all day. Someone had seen Maddie, and she’d been okay. Admittedly, she had been alone, and they didn’t have any clues about who might have taken her, but it was a start. They were in much higher spirits.

  Their general good mood lasted until the team got back from tailing Owen. They asked the team questions, but they had seen anything.

  By then it was late afternoon. They mulled over the information they’d gotten from the guy at the architecture enclave. They tried to figure out if it meant anything. Near as they could tell, it didn’t. It was doubly discouraging that the team following Owen around hadn’t seen anything either. Nora was beginning to wonder if Coeus hadn’t been right. Maybe there was nothing they could do. Maybe all they were going to be able to do was distract themselves. She didn’t want to say it aloud, however. Despite their lack of progress, Daryl still seemed so determined.

  She was about to launch into it, when two of the security enclave guys came up to them with someone from the engineering enclave.

  “You guys were asking around about the girl earlier, weren’t you?” asked one.

  Sawyer nodded. “Yeah, but it seems like a dead end. No one really saw her.”

  “Galen did,” said the other security enclave guy, gesturing to the guy from the enginee
ring enclave.

  Galen nodded. “Don’t know if it’ll help you, but I was in the main engineering tent looking for some stuff for Coeus. She came in. I remember, because I kind of got an attitude with her. I told her there was stuff in here that wasn’t supposed to be messed around with by just anybody. Because the dimension-jumping device is in there, you know. But she said that she was helping with that. She knew all about it. She told me something about the stones that were being used for energy to power it, so I knew she was legit. She went back into the area where the device was being kept. I picked up the stuff I was supposed to pick up. I left.”

  The three thanked Galen.

  “Sure thing,” he said. “Like I said, I don’t know if it will help you at all. But I thought I’d let you know.”

  Once Galen was gone, Daryl turned to the other two. “Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Nora wasn’t thinking anything in particular. She shrugged. “We’re no better off than we were. Maddie was still alone. We have no idea who took her.”

  “What if no one took her?” said Daryl.

  Sawyer narrowed his eyes. “So then where is she?”

  “She went into the room with the dimension-jumping gadget,” said Daryl. “You know how excited she was about the prospect of going to other dimensions and learning new dances.”

  Suddenly, Nora realized what he meant. “Oh.”

  Sawyer seemed to have gotten it at the same moment. “You think she’s in another dimension.”

  They all stared at each other for a few seconds, and then, without saying anything to each other, they started for the main engineering tent together. They found the dimension device right where they all left it the day before after agitating rocks. It seemed that no one had been back to check on it in all the hullabaloo of Maddie’s disappearance.

  There was only one thing that was strange about it. The few glowing rocks that they’d managed to free were sitting inside the open circle of the gadget. The three crowded around it to look closer.

  “Do you think Maddie put those there?” Nora said.

  “Coeus said those would power it, right?” Daryl said.

  “Yeah, but there are only three of them,” said Sawyer. “If it only takes three for it to work, then why do we all have buckets full of those rocks?”

  “We have to go to Coeus,” said Nora. “Whatever happened, it seems obvious that it’s a possibility that Maddie got this thing working and somehow transferred herself to someplace else.”

  Sawyer nodded. “Absolutely.”

  Daryl reached out and touched one of the glowing rocks. “Tell Coeus? So he can bring it to his committee? I don’t think so.”

  “Well, what else can we do?” Nora put her hands on her hips.

  Sawyer’s eyes got wide, understanding dawning. He shook his head slowly. “Uh uh. No way.”

  “What?” Nora said.

  “It’s the best way.” Daryl leaned forward on the table. His fingers were touching the gadget. “We can do it right away. We don’t have to wait for this committee nonsense.”

  “We don’t know how to use it,” said Sawyer. “We’re not one hundred percent sure that is even what happened to her. We could wind up stuck somewhere with no way back to Helicon, and we wouldn’t even find her.”

  “You’re not talking about using the gadget, are you?” Nora said.

  “Look,” said Daryl, “obviously, no one has touched it. So if we keep the same settings, when we activate it, we’ll end up where ever she is.”

  “And how will we know the settings to get back to Helicon?” Sawyer asked.

  Daryl pointed. “The ‘H’ with the flames over it is obviously Helicon.”

  Nora and Sawyer leaned closer. “What’s it pointed at now?”

  “What you suppose an ‘A’ with an apple on it means?”

  They were all touching it now.

  “We can’t do this,” said Sawyer.

  “We have to,” said Daryl.

  And that was when the glowing rocks suddenly flared to life. The center of the dimension-jumping device lit up bright orange, illuminating all of their faces in a ghastly light.

  Nora screamed and tried to pull her fingers away, but it seemed as if they were stuck to the device with strong magnets. All their surroundings seemed to fade into darkness compared to the brightness of the light.

  Nora felt as if a hand had reached inside her body, closed itself around her spinal cord and was now yanking her forward. It seemed like she was moving at intense speed. She was moving too fast to scream. Her breath stuck in her throat.

  Suddenly, the movement stopped. Because Nora had been moving so quickly and now wasn’t anymore, she tumbled to the ground. She squeezed her eyed shut and let out the shriek she’d been holding in.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw that Daryl and Sawyer had been flung to the ground as well. They were grimacing, slowly getting to their feet. Nora did the same thing. Looking around at their surroundings, one thing was clear. They were no longer in the engineering enclave tent. “We aren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto,” she muttered.

  “Huh?” said Sawyer.

  She shook her head. They were standing inside a wooded grove, but the trees weren’t tall and stately oaks and maples. Instead, they were knarled, squat apple trees. Everything seemed to have a golden tinge to it, from the trunks of the trees, to the leaves, to the very air. The sky was blue above them, but it seemed gold as well, like everything here glowed a little bit.

  As far as the eye could see were rows of apple trees. In every direction. There was also a small, footworn path, winding between the tree trunks.

  “Where the hell are we?” said Sawyer.

  Daryl picked up the dimension gadget, which seemed to have traveled with them. “No idea.”

  Sawyer grabbed the device from him. “How come this traveled here with us, but not with Maddie?”

  “We were touching it maybe?” said Nora.

  “Does it even work if you aren’t touching it?” said Sawyer. “Maybe the reason it was still there was because Maddie didn’t actually use it.”

  “We didn’t really use it,” said Nora. “It sort of came on by itself.”

  “What dimension starts with the letter ‘A’?” said Daryl, mostly to himself.

  “Well, I don’t see Maddie anywhere,” said Sawyer. “Do you see her? I don’t think she’s here. Let’s go back.”

  “Hold on,” said Daryl. “If she is here, she came here yesterday afternoon. She’s been here for over twenty-four hours. She probably didn’t stay close to where she came in.”

  Nora had a horrible thought. “What if this dimension is huge? What if she did come here, but that device thing dumps you in completely different places every time you use it? What if we search for days and can’t find her?”

  “Or,” said Daryl, “what if she’s close by, and we find her in five minutes? Come on. We’re here. We have to try.”

  The three set off along the small path, calling Maddie’s name. There was no answer. But after about fifteen minutes of this, they came to a break in the trees. The land cut off, as did the path. It was swallowed by a narrow band of a rocky beach, and beyond that, a green-gold sea stretched out to the horizon.

  “She’s not here,” said Daryl. “Let’s go back the way we came.”

  But after about a half an hour of walking and calling, they came to another beach.

  “Do you think we’re on an island?” asked Nora.

  “I don’t know,” said Daryl. “Possibly. Or this could be a little peninsula.”

  “She isn’t here,” said Sawyer. “She would have heard us calling by now. Let’s go back.”

  “Not yet,” said Daryl.

  “Why haven’t we seen anyone?” asked Sawyer. “Do you think all the inhabitants of this dimension were eaten by a sea monster or something?”

  “Maybe there are no inhabitants,” said Nora.

  “Let’s try and think like Maddie might have, okay?
” said Daryl. He sat down on a large rock that jutted out of the sand. “All right, she must have been very scared, don’t you think? She probably would have walked up and down the path just like we did, looking for someone to help her. When she didn’t find anyone, what would she have done?”

  “Maybe she did find someone,” said Nora. “Maybe it was Sawyer’s sea monster.”

  “No,” said Daryl. “There’s no one here.” He mused over it for a bit. “Would she have gone back and walked through the trees?”

  No one answered him, so Daryl answered himself.

  “No, I don’t think so. She would have been worried about getting lost with no path, and all those trees look the same. I think she might have started walking along the beach. But which direction?”

  “If we’re on an island, it won’t matter,” said Nora.

  “True,” said Daryl, “but are we on an island?”

  It turned out that they were. They were able to circle the entire island in about an hour and a half. No sign of Maddie. No sign of anyone or anything, for that matter, besides apple trees.

  But Daryl wasn’t about to give up. He suggested that they begin working their way through the trees. Sawyer wasn’t keen on the idea but had begun to see that the sooner they searched the entire island, the sooner they could get back to Helicon, so he suggested they split up. That was when they realized they could hear each other yelling for Maddie when they were on opposite ends of the island. It was very quiet there, no sound but the waves of the ocean. There weren’t even any animals—at least, none that they could see. Nora reflected that Ned Willow would like it there.

  They regrouped and decided that if Maddie had been there, she would have heard them by now. They must have gotten it wrong. Daryl was pretty disappointed about it. Nora could tell that he’d hoped to find Maddie and bring her back in time for the drum circle. But he grudgingly admitted that it was time to go back to Helicon and tell Coeus what they’d found out. Maybe Maddie had been sucked in by the gadget. Maybe not. At any rate, they couldn’t do any more here.

  That was when they realized that, while the dimension device had come with them, the little glowing stones had not. They had no way to power the device. And they were completely stuck there. Nor could they hope for anyone to rescue them since they had taken the device with them.