The Helicon Muses Omnibus: Books 1-4

by V. J. Chambers

  Nora was sitting in the tree house with her three friends, and they were discussing how much progress they’d made on trying to determine what or who was responsible for the sickness if not Owen.

  “Well, four people went to see Mack before they got sick,” said Agler. “They had that in common.”

  “Which reminds me,” said Maddie. “We forgot to tell you our theory that Roth’s the one making everyone sick.”

  “Roth?” said Nora. “I really don’t like that guy.”

  “He’s just annoyed because he’s stuck taking care of his sick dad,” said Sawyer. “He wants to go home, and he’s stuck here.”

  Nora held up a finger. “That sounds like motive to me.”

  “Motive?” said Sawyer.

  Nora groaned. “I keep forgetting you guys have never watched detective shows on television.”

  “Obviously, it means the reason that Roth’s doing this,” said Agler.

  “Whoa,” said Sawyer, “we don’t know that Roth’s doing it.”

  “It does make sense,” said Nora. “He hates being in Helicon. He’s annoyed with everyone.”

  “And those people who went to see Mack before they got sick would have seen him too,” said Agler. “Because Roth is always with his dad.”

  “Why do you think he doesn’t just move to the tweens and rebels enclave?” said Maddie. “Why live with your parent?”

  “Well, he only sees him every three years,” said Sawyer.

  “You know, some of us don’t have parents,” Nora said in a quiet voice.

  “Whatever,” said Maddie. “You and Sawyer are lucky. I don’t care what you say.”

  “You’ll check Roth out, though, right?” said Agler.

  “Sure,” said Sawyer. “We’ll question him tomorrow. But I’m telling you, it’s not him.”

  * * *

  “What?” said Roth, crossing his arms over his chest and giving Nora and Sawyer a typical surly look.

  Sawyer handed him the flask. “You look like you need a drink.”

  Roth took it, eying it suspiciously. “What is this?”

  “Just have some.” Sawyer pushed past Roth and into Mack’s tent. A group of tiny half-puppies, half-kangaroos hopped out of the way of his feet.

  Nora knelt down, cooing at them. “You guys are so cute. Yes, you are.”

  They hopped over to Nora and began assaulting her fingers with their tongues as she tried to pet them.

  “You think they turned out okay?” said Roth. “It’s my first batch on my own without my dad.”

  “They’re adorable,” said Nora.

  Roth took a drink from the flask. He made a face. “What the heck is that?”

  “Liquor.” Sawyer snatched the flask back and stowed it away.

  “Like hell it is,” said Roth.

  Nora straightened, narrowing her eyes. “Look, you can stop pretending, Roth. We know that you’re behind the sickness in Helicon.”

  “What?” said Roth.

  Nora poked him in the chest. “You hate it here.”

  Roth backed away from her. “So?”

  Nora took a step forward. “You didn’t want to come here, but your mother insisted. Once you got here, you hated it.”

  Roth took another step backwards and tripped over a chair. He sat down hard in it. “Yeah, that’s true. And again, I say, ‘So?’”

  “So, you decided to do something about it. You figured that if everyone in Helicon was sick, your mother would have no choice but to let you go back home.”

  Roth considered this. “Hey, you think so? Maybe if I told her that, she’d agree.”

  “Don’t play games with me,” said Nora, putting her hands on her hips.

  “He can’t,” said Sawyer. “Everything that’s coming out of his mouth is true.”

  Nora’s shoulders sagged. “Does that mean he’s innocent?”

  Sawyer turned to Roth. “Are you making everyone sick?”

  “No,” said Roth. “Of course not. Why would I make my dad sick? That’s what makes it suck here. You know, I only come here to be with him. I see him every third year and that’s it. I happen to like my dad.”

  “You do?” said Nora. “But you’re always complaining about him.”

  “Because he’s sick,” said Roth. “He’s not himself. He’s always in a bad mood, and he can’t do anything. That’s why I hate it here.”

  “Oh,” said Nora.

  “You know,” said Roth, “when you guys showed up, I thought maybe you were going to make good on that offer you keep making? You know, to help out with my dad? But instead, you’re just interrogating me like I’m a criminal or something.”

  “Sorry.” Nora looked down at her shoes.

  Roth got up out of the chair. “What was in the flask?”

  “It, um, makes you tell the truth,” said Sawyer. “Kind of blurt out whatever it is you’re thinking.”

  “Great,” said Roth. “When is it going to wear off?”

  Nora and Sawyer exchanged a glance and shrugged. Neither of them were quite sure.

  Roth ran a hand through his hair. “Well, you guys should leave and save me some embarrassment, don’t you think?”

  “Okay,” said Nora.

  “Sorry,” said Sawyer.

  “You’re not, though,” said Roth. “See, that’s the thing. You and your hot little redhead don’t give a damn about me. You talk a good game, but most of the time, you don’t even remember I exist.”

  The cordial was working, Nora realized. Now they were going to hear exactly what Roth thought about everything.

  Roth kept going. “That’s what my whole freaking life is like. I thought maybe it would be cooler to be here, in Helicon, instead of at home, because possibly the human girls here would be closer to my development than the fairy girls. You know, I’m a half-breed, and I don’t belong there, and all the fairies age really slow, so the ones that are my age are still like little kids. And I don’t know what the hell I am.”

  Nora chewed on her lip. Despite herself, she was starting to feel a little bad for Roth. She guessed that she hadn’t given much thought to what his life was like.

  “I’m like half-muse and half-fairy,” said Roth, “and I’m seventeen, and I’m just, you know, horny.”

  Nora coughed in surprise. She hadn’t been expecting that.

  Roth flinched. His face flushed. But he couldn’t stop talking. “I get here, and my dad gets sick, and I spend all of my time taking care of him, and that puts me in a bad mood, and when I hang out with girls, I’m just an asshole. And all of this really frustrates me.”

  Nora and Sawyer exchanged a glance. She could see that Sawyer felt sorry for Roth too.

  Roth squeezed his eyes shut. His face was beet red. “Get out. Both of you get out, before I tell you more things I never wanted to share with anyone on earth.”

  “We will help with your dad,” said Sawyer.

  “Yeah,” said Nora. “We’ll come back tomorrow, and we’ll take over and let you have a break for a few hours.”

  “Oh, well that’ll be perfect then,” said Roth sarcastically. “I’m sure a few hours will be enough time for me to meet someone of the opposite sex and form the beginning of some kind of relationship. Thanks.”

  “We’ll go,” said Sawyer.

  “I hate you,” said Roth.

  Sawyer and Nora hurried out of the tent.

  They could hear him inside, still talking. The cordial apparently still compelled someone to talk even when no one was around to hear.

  They hesitated for a minute, and then they walked quickly in the direction of tweens and rebels.

  “Roth thinks I’m hot?” said Nora. “I thought he hated me.”

  “I don’t like him thinking you’re hot,” said Sawyer, making a face. “I mean, you are hot, but still.”

  She sighed. “I guess that was another dead end.”

  “Yeah,” said Sawyer. “I wonder when we’re going to catch a break.”

  * * *


  Maddie patted the hand of Jim Steam, who was weak and pale. “It’s okay. Don’t try to say anything more. That’s all the questions we have for you.”

  “Thanks,” said Agler.

  Jim tried to speak, but ended up only giving them a feeble smile before closing his eyes.

  She let go of his hand and laid it gently on his hammock. Then she and Agler left the tent.

  “We’re still getting nowhere,” said Agler. “Everyone we interview had a normal day before getting sick.”

  She nodded. “I know. It’s frustrating.”

  He took a deep breath. “Well, who’s next on the list?”

  “You don’t want to take a break for lunch?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to slow you down,” said Agler. “And considering you’re not much interested in food, I figure why bother?”

  Maddie didn’t look at him. She couldn’t believe that, of all people, Agler Thorn was the one who noticed that she wasn’t eating. No one had ever noticed, and she’d been doing it for a long time, since back when she and Daryl were together. It was the way she’s lost so much weight. “I could eat,” she said.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Well, maybe not very much,” she said. “But I might want a little something.” After all, it wasn’t as if she didn’t eat at all. She just ate very little. The only time she’d slipped up had been earlier in the year, when she was still grieving over Daryl. Then she’d eaten lots of food every day for weeks on end. Since then, though, she was back on track.

  Agler shrugged. “Okay.”

  They went to the food enclave and rummaged around in the kitchens. They found some leftover lasagna in a big pan. Agler scooped out a piece. Maddie cut a piece into fourths.

  Agler watched her. “So, seriously, why are you doing it?”

  “Doing what?” She couldn’t decide if it was a relief to have someone she could talk to about it, finally, or if it was annoying because Agler didn’t like what she was doing. She guessed it could be perceived of as a bad idea, like she was trying to starve herself or something. But that wasn’t what she was doing. She was only trying to control her weight. Some people had to eat less in order to do that.

  “Not eating.”

  Maddie put her tiny piece of lasagna in the oven next to Agler’s. She shut the door. “I’m eating.”

  “Not much,” he said. “There’s no way that’s going to fill you up.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t want to be full. I spent my whole life eating until I was full, and all it got me was being fat and disgusting. I had no friends, no one found me attractive, and I couldn’t get good dancing parts. This is the way I’m fixing myself.”

  “But you’re thin now. You don’t need to lose more weight.”

  “Maybe a little more,” said Maddie. She pinched her thigh. “My legs are kind of enormous.”

  “No,” said Agler, “they aren’t. You’re skin and bones.”

  “I’m not that skinny.”

  “So, theoretically,” said Agler, “once your legs are properly shrunken, you’ll start eating a normal amount?”

  Maddie opened a drawer and took out a few forks. “Yeah.” What she didn’t say out loud was that sometimes she tried to eat a normal amount, and she couldn’t. Eating that much made her feel guilty. As long as she didn’t eat, she felt better about herself. It meant that everything was going well. It reassured her.

  “What if I told you that I thought that you were almost too skinny?”

  “Then I’d say I’ll wait until that ‘almost’ isn’t in the picture to worry,” said Maddie.

  Agler looked her up and down.

  “Stop it,” she said. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  His gaze settled on her face.

  She looked away. “Tell the truth, Agler. If I hadn’t lost all this weight, you’d never have come onto me at May Day.”

  “I don’t know,” said Agler. “I was pretty drunk. I might have come onto pretty much anything.”

  “Wow, thanks.”

  “Oh, no, I didn’t mean—” His touched her face, tilting her chin up to look at him. “Maddie, I think you’re beautiful, but what happened between us was kind of a mistake.”

  She pulled away, her stomach turning over. “You think I’m beautiful?”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. And, okay, maybe I didn’t really… see you before that night, but it was only because I wasn’t looking. But now that I do see you? I can’t imagine that you’d ever not be nice to look at, even if you did have some extra pounds.”

  Maddie swallowed. She didn’t think a guy, any guy, had ever said anything like that to her before. And the fact that it was Agler, who was mature and cute and way out of her league… She tucked her hair behind her ears and gazed at him, feeling shy.

  “I know you don’t like to talk about that night,” he said.

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  “I feel horrible about it.”

  “I told you not to.”

  He shifted on his feet. “Believe me, if I could go back in time and erase the whole thing from ever happening, I would.”

  “You would?” She turned away from him again. He wanted to erase it? But he’d just told her that she was beautiful. Didn’t that mean…?

  She shook her head, trying to clear it. Maybe what he said didn’t mean anything. Maybe he only said it to be nice.

  “Of course I would.”

  “Well, you can’t.” She opened up the oven. “I think the lasagna’s heated through.”

  He sighed. “Are you ever going to let me apologize?”

  “You already have.” She still wasn’t looking at him. “I told you the next day that I forgave you or whatever. So, I don’t know why you can’t let it go.”

  “Because you’re still angry about it.”

  She picked up a pot holder and yanked the lasagna out of the oven. “I’m not angry. I’m over it.” She set the hot platters down. “You want it erased from ever happening? Fine. Let’s pretend like it didn’t.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “What are you doing here?” said Roth.

  Nora held out Catling, who was lying in her arms. “It’s my cat-duck.”

  “Oh.” Roth’s expression softened. “Sorry, I just thought that you were here to give me a hard time or something. After I said that I didn’t want your help with my dad, I only wanted Sawyer’s, I figured you were pissed at me.”

  Nora pursed her lips. “Oh, believe me, Roth. You’re not on my list of favorite people.”

  He smirked. “Let me see the cat-duck.”

  Nora handed her over, chewing on her lip. “When I woke up this morning, she was like that. She could barely hold her head up. I doubt she has the strength to even eat.”

  Roth headed into the tent he shared with his dad, and Nora followed. It was mid October, and she and the gang had gotten no farther at figuring out how the sickness was spreading. But it was spreading. In fact, it affected so many people now that none of them had much time for investigating anymore. With so many of the muses unable to do their work, the healthy muses had to pick up the slack.

  The two enclaves that were untouched were the security enclave and the tweens and rebels enclave. The security enclave couldn’t do much of anything creative, which meant that it was up to the tweens to contribute to help with the inspiration threads as much as they could. Nora spent most of her time in the visual arts enclave, helping with various paintings and sculptures. Helicon hadn’t sent out nearly as many inspiration threads this year. The mundane world would be feeling uninspired, and they wouldn’t be sending energy back to Helicon.

  Roth lay Catling down on the table. “This has actually been happening a lot. The chimeras are all getting sick.”

  “All of them?” said Nora.

  “Looks like it,” said Roth.

  “Why would it be affecting them? So far, it’s only affected muses.”

  “I really have no idea,” s
aid Roth.

  “Well, is there anything you can do for her?”

  “I can keep her here,” said Roth. “I’ve got sick animals all over the place. I’ve got a system down for feeding them and seeing to their other needs.”

  “I can feed her.”

  “She’s going to need a lot of care,” said Roth. “Can you be there every second?”

  Nora chewed on her lip. “Actually, I’ve been slammed lately. I’ve been working in the visual arts enclave all day.”

  “All I do is take care of the animals. It’s my priority,” said Roth. “Leave her here. I’ll make sure she’s well cared for.”

  Nora felt a lump growing in her throat. “Is she going to be okay?”

  He turned to her. His expression was sympathetic. “I wish I knew.”

  “Have any of the other chimeras…”

  “Died?”

  Oh, he’d said the word out loud. She covered her mouth with her hand.

  Roth shook his head. “They’re all hanging on so far. Some of them seem like they could be close, but they’re fighters.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Okay, well if I have to leave her here, then I will.”

  “I think it would be best for her.” Roth scratched Catling under her chin.

  Catling tried to purr, but she didn’t quite have the energy.

  Nora rushed over to her pet. “I have to leave you with Roth, sweetie, but I promise that he’s going to take good care of you.”

  “You guys having any luck figuring out who’s responsible for the sickness?”

  “No,” said Nora. “We interviewed people all summer, and we got nowhere. It was all dead ends. And people just kept getting sick. Every day, it seems like there’s more of them.”

  “Yeah, it’s bad,” said Roth.

  Nora stroked Catling’s head. “Be a good little kitten-duckling. I’ll come visit you every day.” She looked at Roth. “I mean, I will if Roth doesn’t mind seeing me.”

  “Of course you can come see your chimera.”

  “You wouldn’t accept my help with your dad.” Nora crossed her arms over her chest. “You said you didn’t want me around.”

  Roth rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m sorry that I’m a jackass, all right?”

  “That’s your idea of an apology?”