The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4

by V. J. Chambers

  Roth made a face. “I’m not into guys. Or whatever Sawyer is. Guy-girls.”

  “He likes to call himself an androgyne.”

  “Okay,” said Roth. “That. I’m attracted to females.”

  “Good for you,” said Nora. “I was only saying that if you were Sawyer’s friend, I would expect you to be, you know, a nice person. Sawyer generally has good taste in people.”

  “The last time I saw Sawyer, he was an outcast. He didn’t have any friends.” Roth gave her a nasty smile. “Trust me, he wasn’t picky.”

  “Fine,” said Nora. “Maybe I liked you better as Loki.”

  “No one asked me if I wanted to come back here, you know? It might have been fun when I was a kid, but it’s not fun to be stuck in this tent with my cranky dad. I’m sick of waiting on him hand and foot.”

  Nora chewed on her lip. “Well, maybe Sawyer and I could come give you a hand sometime, so that you could have a break. We like Mack.”

  Roth surveyed her. “You’re really way too nice for your own good, aren’t you?”

  Nora felt uncomfortable. “I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t trust people who are that nice,” said Roth. “You’re probably making all these people sick. Yeah, ‘cause being nice would be a good cover for that.”

  Nora clenched her jaw. “You know what? Forget it.” She started to walk away. “And no wonder Mack’s in a bad mood. You’re probably really bad company.”

  Roth sneered at her.

  She stalked away. She’d be glad if she never saw that guy again. Hopefully, she wouldn’t run into him very often for the rest of this year.

  * * *

  Sawyer popped a grape into his mouth. “So Theia’s not feeling any better?”

  They were at breakfast. Sawyer was eating fruit and a bagel. Nora had a biscuit egg sandwich she’d put together for herself. She was half finished with it, but Sawyer still seemed to have all of his food left.

  “No,” said Nora. “She seems worse, in fact. Sawyer, do you think that someone’s, like, causing this?”

  Sawyer ate a strawberry. “You mean Owen.”

  Nora set down her breakfast sandwich. “Well, who else would it be?”

  “But he’s still exiled, right?”

  “That didn’t stop him from using Daryl to do his dirty work last year, did it?”

  He picked up another grape and considered it. “What do you think we should do?”

  “I don’t know. There’s no point in trying to tell Phoebe about it or anything. The council is completely worthless.”

  Someone set down a mug of coffee on the table. Nora and Sawyer both looked up.

  “Maddie,” said Sawyer, smiling. “You joining us?”

  Maddie sat down. She took a sip of her coffee.

  “Whoa,” said Nora. “Slow down, Maddie. You’re such a chatterbox.”

  Maddie rolled her eyes.

  Great. She should know better anyway. She hadn’t been able to joke Maddie out of her bad mood yet. Why did she think today would be any different?

  Sawyer peered at her. “Coffee good?”

  Maddie nodded.

  Nora wasn’t even sure why Maddie bothered to sit with them if she wasn’t going to speak to them. Nora guessed it was progress. Before, Maddie wanted nothing to do with them. Maybe Nora should be happy about that and stop complaining. But it seemed as if they’d hit a brick wall. Maddie wasn’t opening up any further than she had at Valentine’s Day. “You know,” said Nora, “it wouldn’t kill you to talk to us.”

  Maddie shrugged. “Nothing to say.”

  Nora peered at Sawyer, appealing to him for help.

  But he was concentrating on smearing cream cheese on his bagel.

  “Aren’t you having anything for breakfast?” Nora asked Maddie.

  “Yeah, I ate already,” said Maddie.

  “Well, why didn’t you eat with us?”

  Maddie shrugged.

  Nora sighed. She picked up her breakfast sandwich again and took a big bite. Now it was cold.

  “Say it is Owen,” said Sawyer. “How would he be doing it?”

  “Owen?” said Maddie.

  “Have you noticed how a bunch of muses have been getting sick lately?” said Sawyer.

  “Not really,” said Maddie.

  “Well, they are,” said Nora. “Theia and Mellinoe Spring, Mack, a bunch of people in the visual arts enclave. They can’t get out of bed.”

  Maddie sipped her coffee. “Weird.”

  “You think he’s got someone else working for him on the inside?” said Sawyer. “Like, um…” He looked at Maddie and trailed off.

  “It’s okay,” said Maddie. “You can say his name. Daryl. We can talk about him.”

  “We can?” said Nora.

  Maddie shrugged and drank more of her coffee.

  Sawyer patted her on the shoulder. “Hey, that’s good Mads. You’re really making progress. I’m proud of you.”

  Maddie suddenly ducked behind her coffee cup.

  “What?” said Nora.

  “My mother,” said Maddie.

  Nora and Sawyer both turned to see Doreen Salt making a beeline for their table. Nora was torn. She liked Doreen, who was chubby and boisterous and said whatever came to her head. However, Doreen was insistent that Maddie join the rest of the family in the food enclave when Maddie wanted to be a dancer. Doreen generally wasn’t nice to Maddie about her appearance either.

  “Damn it, she saw me,” said Maddie, setting down the mug.

  Doreen burst over to the table. “Hello, hello. How are you, Nora?”

  Nora smiled. “I’m fine, Mrs. Salt.”

  “Haven’t I told you to call me Doreen?”

  “Sorry,” said Nora.

  Maddie glared at her mother. “What do you want?”

  “Well, I just came over to remind you that it’s planting season. You’ve helped out every year with planting new flowers and crops, and I know you’ll want to do it again this year.”

  Maddie sighed. “Yeah, sure, Mom. I’ll do it. But you can’t rope Nora and Sawyer into it again. Let them have the year off.”

  “It’s okay,” said Sawyer, looking at Nora. “We want to do it, right?”

  Nora nodded. “Of course. We do it every year.”

  “Well, thank you so much.” Doreen patted Maddie on the back. “And without an argument? I think you’re growing up, my darling.”

  Maddie shrugged.

  “Enjoy the rest of your breakfast, dears,” said Doreen. She walked away from the three of them.

  “I think you’re growing up,” mimicked Maddie to her mother’s departing back. “Maybe I just don’t care about anything. Nice of you to notice, Mom.” She rounded on Nora and Sawyer. “Why did you volunteer?”

  “You didn’t want us to?” said Nora. She couldn’t keep track of what Maddie wanted and didn’t want these days.

  “We did it because we like helping,” said Sawyer. “You can’t stop us from doing it.”

  Maddie heaved a huge sigh. “Okay, you’re right. I guess we should try it out. I’m started to not mind being around you two, so maybe it won’t be so bad.”

  Not mind? That hurt Nora’s feelings. Maddie was her best friend. At least she used to be. Now, the best she could hope for was that her presence didn’t bother Maddie? That sucked. She looked down at what remained of her breakfast sandwich. She wasn’t really hungry anymore.

  “You know, Maddie,” said Sawyer, “you don’t have to be like that.”

  Maddie got up from the table. “Whatever. Why don’t you guys go back to making out or whatever it is that you do. I can’t stand listening to the sounds of your voices.” She stalked off.

  Nora pushed her plate away. “What’s her problem?”

  Sawyer shook his head. “Hell if I know.”

  “You think we’re ever going to get her back? The way she used to be?”

  He ate another grape. “She’s changed, Nora. We all have.”

  That wa
sn’t what Nora wanted to hear. Some things shouldn’t change. Some things shouldn’t have to.

  * * *

  “It’s come to my attention that something is going on in Helicon,” said Phoebe from across the fire pit.

  Nora was eating peach cobbler and sitting next to Sawyer. They’d gotten trapped in the council meeting during dessert again. Thus far, everything had been boring, but this seemed a little more exciting. She perked up in her seat and raised her eyebrows at Sawyer.

  “People are falling ill from some kind of exhaustion,” Phoebe continued. “It’s a widespread epidemic, affecting muses in many different enclaves. The healers have no idea what’s causing it, nor can they do anything to make it better, so it seems likely that this is an attack from an outside source.”

  Nora’s jaw dropped open. Seriously? Last year, Phoebe had stuck her head in the sand, ignoring Owen’s attacks on Helicon. Had she really learned her lesson?

  A ripple of conversation ran through the gathered muses.

  Sawyer nudged Nora. “Hey, she seems to be on top of things.”

  “I know,” said Nora. “But will she realize it’s got to be Owen?”

  Phoebe held up her hand for silence. “We don’t have a lot of enemies here in Helicon, but we can be sure that Owen Asher, who was exiled two years ago, is desperate to hurt us. It seems that we can only assume that he’s behind this in some way, shape, or form.”

  A louder ripple of conversation went through the muses.

  “Please,” said Phoebe. “I’m not saying this to alarm you. However, I do think we have a serious problem here, and we need to do something about it.”

  “We need to get Owen back here,” called someone. “We bring him back here and keep him prisoner. Then we can keep our eye on him.”

  “No way,” said someone else. “We need to kill him.”

  Phoebe held up her hand again. “Hold on, please.”

  “Where is Owen, anyway?” said one of the muses.

  “We don’t know where he is,” said Phoebe. “He stole the dimension device we created, which means he could be in any number of the dimensions. When Thistleberry arrived earlier this year, she claimed to have seen him. But the fairies have lost his trail, and they don’t know where he’s gone. Whatever the case, we won’t be able to follow him through the dimensions.”

  “Why don’t we make another device?” a muse called out.

  Coeus stood up. “Maybe I can handle that question, Phoebe?”

  Phoebe gestured to him. “The council recognizes Coeus Dust.”

  Coeus put his hands into his pockets. “We were working day and night on getting another dimension device made, but we haven’t been able to finish it, because we kept getting interrupted by requests from other enclaves. First, the philosophy enclave has some problem with their toilets, and then we’ve got issues in the food enclave with the stoves. Then the story enclave wanted us to work on building things so that they could tell stories through funnels or something—”

  “It was a story transmitter,” said Angelia Frost from the story enclave. “And I thought you guys enjoyed making those.”

  “We did,” said Coeus. “Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But we’re trying to work on making a new dimension device, and we literally have no time.”

  One of the members of the engineering enclave raised his hand. “I like to move that the rest of Helicon stop making requests of the engineering enclave until we get the device finished.”

  Coeus nodded at the guy. “I second that.”

  Phoebe turned back to the rest of the gathering. “Well, the motion has been made and seconded. Any discussion?”

  Several muses began to talk at once.

  “Hold on,” yelled Phoebe. “One at a time. Themis, you go first.”

  The head of the philosophy enclave stood up. “How long is it going to take for them to make the device? What will Helicon do without the engineering enclave? We rely on them for everything.”

  “You know,” said Coeus, “before I took over engineering, the enclave didn’t cater to the whims of the rest of Helicon.”

  Phoebe smiled tightly at him. “Yes, Coeus, but at that time, Helicon used up a lot more of the energy we get from the mundane world. We used magic to fix nearly everything, and it greatly reduced the amount of inspiration threads we could send out. We can’t do that again. Our purpose is to inspire. We’re already going to be coming up short because so many of the muses are down due to this strange illness. That’s going to throw us off balance.”

  Coeus sighed. “Okay. But if we keep being used to help out every other enclave, then we’re not going to be able to make a new dimension device. There’s just not enough time.”

  Phoebe sighed. “Other discussion?”

  Another muse raised his hand. “What if they aren’t finished by May Day? The engineering enclave always erects the Maypole and sets up the tables for the festival. We’re all so busy at May Day, we wouldn’t be able to pick up the slack ourselves.”

  “Maybe we should cancel May Day,” snapped Coeus.

  A collective gasp went through the muses, as if they’d never heard of something so extreme.

  Afterwards, it was quiet.

  Techne Lift raised her hand. “Is there a motion on the floor?”

  “Yes,” said Phoebe.

  “Well, could we vote on it and move on?” said Techne. “I’ve got a proposal for the science enclave and I’ll need an allocation of energy from the council. It’s very important.”

  Phoebe glared at her. “Oh, I’m sure it is, Techne.” She sighed. “The motion on the floor is that we allow the engineering enclave to work solely on the dimension device and do not ask anything else from them until the job is complete. All in favor, signify by saying, ‘aye.’”

  There was a chorus of “ayes” from the engineering enclave.

  “Those opposed?”

  A resounding deluge of “nays.”

  “Motion does not carry,” said Phoebe. “But we still have a problem here.”

  Themis raised his hand. “I move that we form a committee.”

  A committee? Great. Nora should have realized that the muses weren’t actually going to do anything. That was just like them. A committee.

  * * *

  Maddie stared at the back of the hippo-giraffe as it pulled the plow through the fields. They were using Mack’s chimeras to plow, and these guys were especially funny looking. They had long giraffe necks, but their lower quarters were squat, fat, and powerful, like hippopotamuses. They were covered all over in big giraffe spots, though, which made them look even funnier. The one ahead of them had stopped pulling the plow and was reaching up to get some leaves from a tall tree.

  “I can’t believe they made a committee,” said Nora. “That committee is not going to do anything. How many committees has the council made? Have the committees ever fixed any problem ever?”

  Maddie and Sawyer were standing next to her. Somehow, they’d all ended up in the same group for planting today. Maddie wasn’t sure how she felt about it. She remembered how things used to be between the three of them. It had been easy and fun and they’d all been close. She used to feel like they were the only people on earth who understood her.

  But now, she felt completely separate from them. They were Nora and Sawyer. They belonged together. She didn’t see where she fit anymore.

  Nora tossed seeds into the furrows on the ground. “The only reason they even make those committees is because people want to go back to their tents. They’re bored of the council, and so they start a committee, which makes them feel like they got something done. But really, nothing has gotten done at all. Really, everything’s just as messed up as it was before.”

  Sawyer touched Nora’s shoulder. “Calm down.”

  Nora looked up into Sawyer’s eyes.

  See. There. That was unsettling. The way they looked at each other. They never used to look at each other that way. They didn’t
used to be so darned… in sync with each other.

  Maddie felt even more alone. She tossed some seeds into a furrow.

  “I’m trying to calm down,” said Nora. “But somebody’s got to do something.”

  “Maybe the committee will do something,” said Sawyer. “Maybe they’ll find a solution.”

  “No way,” said Nora. “When do these committees even meet, huh?”

  Sawyer turned to Maddie. “They meet in the afternoons or something, right?”

  Maddie shrugged. Sawyer was trying to include her, but he was going about it in a stupid way. She saw right through it. And besides, it felt forced. Before, it had always been natural for her to be included. Now, Sawyer had to make an effort. She didn’t like that.

  “I bet they don’t meet at all,” said Nora.

  “They meet,” said Sawyer. “Back me up, here, Maddie.”

  “What does it matter?” said Maddie.

  Sawyer shot her an annoyed glance, as if he expected better from her. “It matters because Nora doesn’t think that anyone in Helicon is doing anything about the sickness, and that’s not true.”

  “Whatever,” said Maddie.

  “Don’t you care about the sickness?” said Sawyer.

  “I don’t know,” Maddie muttered.

  “We need to get the gang together again,” said Nora. “The three of us will figure it all out. We have to start our own investigation, just like we always do.”

  Maddie snorted.

  “What?” said Nora.

  “It’s just that we’re really bad at that,” said Maddie.

  “No, we aren’t,” said Nora. “We followed Owen around for all those weeks. Remember?”

  “Right,” said Maddie. “And we didn’t find anything out. Dirk was the one opening the portals, not Owen. So, it was a complete waste of time. And then we were freaking clueless about Daryl last time. So, clearly, we suck at detective work.”

  Nora was quiet. “Well… we don’t suck exactly.”

  “Yeah,” said Sawyer. “I mean, we found you when you were in Avalon.”

  “Well, sort of,” said Nora.

  Maddie tossed down a few seeds. “Maybe we should start investigating everyone with a ‘D’ name. Because, you know, Dirk and Daryl both had names that started with that letter.”