Echoes

by Chambers, V. J.

  Still, the important thing was that Daryl didn’t have any love for Owen.

  Daryl furrowed his brow. “Um… talk about what?”

  “Just come on,” Agler said. “I’ll explain myself. Once we get out of earshot of anyone who might listen in.”

  Daryl brought them into his tent. It was a fairly small tent, with only one little room inside. So they all had to squeeze in. Daryl had them sit down on the ground. He sat on his hammock. “What’s going on?”

  “You hate Owen, right?” Agler said.

  “That goes without saying,” Daryl said.

  “Well he’s obviously doing some sort of weird mind control on both Phoebe and Nora and maybe a lot of other people here in Helicon too,” Agler said. He pointed at Lute. “But Lute here has a plan. He has someone that he could take us to who might be able to give us a spell that would stop whatever it is that Owen is doing to Nora and Phoebe.”

  “Well, that’s great,” Daryl said. “But I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

  “You’re a security muse,” Agler said. “So you can get us to the mundane world.” Security muses weren’t actually muses at all. They were born to two muse parents, but they were born uncreative. They had no muse power, no creativity. Instead, they were just like regular humans. But they didn’t go to the mundane world. They stayed in Helicon. They were employed instead to keep Helicon safe. They also ended up doing a lot of odd jobs and handiwork around the place. One thing that the muse police could do, however, was move between realms. They could go to the mundane world, whereas the muses themselves couldn’t leave Helicon.

  “This person is in the mundane world?” Daryl said.

  “Yes,” Lute said.

  “When?” Daryl said.

  “That means you’ll do it? You’ll get us there?” Agler said.

  Daryl nodded. “When?”

  Agler surveyed the other three. The hadn’t talked about this.

  Sawyer spoke up. “The night of the Winter Ball. No one will notice that we’re not around. There will be too much else going on. Besides, I don’t really feel like making dresses this year.”

  Daryl tilted back his head. “I’m in.”

  * * *

  “I see our numbers have dwindled,” Owen said, looking out at the other three faces. They were out in the woods beyond the tweens and rebels enclave. Back when Owen had first come to Helicon, he had met with the same three out here. But at that time, there had been two more. One was Daryl, and he’d made it obvious that he wasn’t going to be helping Owen anymore.

  “Yeah, Frank didn’t want to come,” said Jed. “He said that after what you had done to Daryl, he didn’t see how any of us could trust you.”

  Owen licked his lips. “Daryl betrayed me.”

  “Oh, that’s what we said,” said Otto. “We told him that Daryl did a bad thing, and as long as we stay loyal, everything would be fine.”

  Owen nodded. “That’s exactly right.” He took a deep breath. “And maybe… maybe I was a little hasty in what I did to Daryl. At the time, I was in exile, I was still under the spell from my mother, and I was in a really bad mood. I like to think that I’ve grown as a person.”

  The other three laughed. There may have been a note of uneasiness in the laughter, but Owen didn’t mind if they were uneasy. Uneasy was okay. Better to be feared than loved and all that.

  Of course, Owen had heard that Machiavelli’s The Prince was satire, so he wasn’t sure how seriously to take its advice. He did want to be a leader, though. He could feel it deep down inside. This was just the beginning. He’d take what advice felt right to him.

  “So, you still think that we should all rule Helicon?” Kevin said.

  Was that why they were here? Were they power hungry? Owen didn’t know if that would work. He needed them to follow him. Certainly, when everything finally fell into place, they would be given high positions of respect. But that would be primarily because he would be sure that he could control them. He didn’t want anyone in his inner circle who would be competing with him.

  He narrowed his eyes at Kevin. “That what you’re after? Are you only here because you want to be dominant over others in Helicon?”

  Kevin was taken aback. “Dominant? No, I hadn’t even thought of it that way. It’s only that you said that Helicon is in danger…”

  “Yeah, and that the only way we could stop that is if we were the leaders,” said Otto.

  “Since you’ve been gone, you can’t even imagine the kind of stuff we had to deal with,” said Jed.

  “I’ve heard about a lot of it,” Owen said. “I know about Loki. I know about Nimue. But you’re right. Those incidents illustrate exactly why we need to take steps to make Helicon secure.”

  “Exactly,” said Kevin. “That’s why I’m here. Not because of power. Because I care about Helicon.”

  Owen nodded. “Me too. I’m happy to have been let back in.”

  “And the things that they say about you, well, we don’t believe those things,” said Kevin.

  “There’s a lot of misunderstanding about me,” Owen said. “Part of it is my own fault. My obsession with Nora, it led me astray.”

  “But that wasn’t your fault, was it?” Otto said.

  “Not entirely,” Owen said. “But that doesn’t matter to a lot of the muses here. They won’t care. They think the worst of me. And that’s why I don’t think we need to be doing anything about trying to take over Helicon yet. We don’t want to talk about ruling it yet. We only want to focus on protecting its vulnerabilities. Anything else will spook people.”

  Everyone nodded. They seem to think this was sage advice.

  Owen smiled. It was nice to be talking to people who agreed with him again.

  “Anyway,” said Owen, “let’s focus on things that we could do to make Helicon safer. Last year, there was an explosion at the Winter Ball. This year, we’ll be on the lookout.” He raised his eyebrows at the others, waiting to see if any objected.

  But they all looked enthusiastic, nodding and smiling.

  “Everyone always gets blitzed at those things,” said Otto. “We’ll stay sober.”

  “Absolutely,” Owen said. “And this is only the beginning. We’ll meet again.”

  “When?” Kevin asked.

  “I’ll let you know,” Owen said. Depending on when he could give Nora the slip. She was hard to evade these days. She always wanted to be near him. “And if you know of anyone else who might be sympathetic to the cause, bring them along. You three, who have been with me from the beginning, will always be the key members of my plans, but we are too few, and growing our numbers would be helpful.”

  The three smiled even more.

  At some point, when he’d gotten things together, he’d tell Nora about all of this. But not yet. She would be spooked, just like the others, and so he needed to keep it from her for now.

  In fact, he’d left her sleeping. He’d had to call this meeting in the middle of the night. It was the only time that he was sure that he wouldn’t be around her.

  But after the meeting, when he returned to his tent, Nora was waiting for him. Her tent was pitched right next to his, and she stood outside it, arms folded over her chest. “Where were you?”

  “I went for a walk,” Owen said.

  “A walk? By yourself?”

  Owen furrowed his brow. Was she jealous? Didn’t she suspect that he was being unfaithful? Why would she suspect a thing like that? “Yes, alone. Why does it matter?”

  Her nostrils flared. “I was worried about you.”

  “I’m sorry. I went for a walk.”

  “You should tell me if you’re going to leave like that. I didn’t know what happened to you. People around here are angry with you, Owen. If they wanted to, they could hurt you.”

  He snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. No one in Helicon could hurt me.” He ducked into his tent. He was exhausted. Getting up in the middle of the night was tiring. He wanted his hammock. He wanted sleep.<
br />
  She came inside after him. “I’m serious, Owen. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  He surveyed her. She was genuinely worried about him. Of course she was. She’d always been worried about them.

  “You know, when we were in the mundane world, you would always do that. I would wake up, and you would be gone. There was never any warning.” Her voice sounded shaky, almost as if she might start crying.

  Owen didn’t want her to cry. He went to her, took both of her hands in his. “I’m sorry, Nora. Sorry I frightened you.” But if she wanted him to promise that he was never going to sneak off anywhere without telling her, then she was crazy. Nora wasn’t his keeper, and he wasn’t about to report his every move to her.

  Nora peered into his eyes. “Maybe we should move into the same tent.”

  Owen released her hands. He had a sudden heavy feeling in his stomach. “But… we haven’t even…” They weren’t having sex, and Owen wanted it to stay that way. He wasn’t particularly experienced in that area, having only ever had a very brief, drunken fuck with a fairy several years ago in Helicon. He raised his eyebrows at her. “Is this your way of saying that you want to…?”

  Nora looked at her feet, embarrassed. “Do you want to?”

  Owen didn’t. He was frightened of sex. It seemed to him as if it was a perfect situation for him to lose control. He would like to be in control. In control all of the time. He couldn’t predict what would happen to him if he would give in to pleasure in that way. He squared his shoulders. “I don’t think we need to rush into anything. I think we should both be completely ready before we take a big step like that.”

  Nora nodded. She looked relieved. “Well, we could share a tent and not… sleep together.”

  Owen shook his head. “That’s silly. Stop worrying so much, Nora. Go back to bed.” He ushered her out of the tent.

  “Owen,” she said. “I think—”

  “It’s late, Nora. Go to bed. We’ll talk about this in the morning.” He could only hope that by the morning she would have forgotten about the entire idea. Why couldn’t she leave him alone? Why did she want them together all the time?

  He wondered if there was something to the theories that Nora’s friends had, that something had been done to her. Was she unnaturally obsessed with him? Was it magic?

  * * *

  Maddie was contemplating her dinner. It was the end of the week, the night of the Winter Ball. She felt as if a wet blanket had been thrown over the entire week of snow, and it saddened her. This was her favorite time of year, but she couldn’t be happy when she was worried about Nora like this. Nora was her best friend. She thought about Nora kissing Owen, and that didn’t make any sense to her. There was nothing about Owen that was kissable. He was cruel. Once, when Owen had been controlling Maddie’s mind, he’d made Maddie pick up a carving knife and try to kill herself. Maddie had been powerless to stop him, a puppet dancing on a string. Thinking about how helpless she’d been made her feel dizzy and breathless.

  Right now, though, the thing that she really needed to do was get through dinner. Once in a while, a meal became a sort of insurmountable hurdle. She sometimes didn’t know how it was that she managed to eat at all. Sometimes, the very act of putting food in her mouth and chewing it was terrifying. It made her palms sweaty and her heart pound.

  Sometimes, of course, she hardly thought about it. Sometimes, she was distracted. During those times, she ate and she didn’t think anything of it. Then, she thought that she was cured and that there was nothing that she would ever have to worry about ever again.

  But the terror always came back. One day, after days with no incident, she would look down at her plate, and she would be filled with dread.

  It was one of those nights.

  Truthfully, she thought maybe she was projecting. Maybe she had transferred her fear of going off into the mundane world to meet this strange Hecate woman onto her food. But whatever the case, she needed to get something down. Agler always watched her. If she didn’t eat what he thought was enough, he would say something. Maddie didn’t want that talk to ever come up again.

  So she was shoveling food into her mouth, barely chewing it, and swallowing it as quickly as she could.

  Agler grinned at her. “Pretty hungry, huh? Better chew that. You could choke.”

  She wanted to strangle him.

  They were eating in their tent. Generally speaking, they had dinner with all of the muses around the main fire pit for the council meeting each night. But due to the fact that the Winter Ball was that night, the council meeting had been canceled. That meant that everybody was doing dinner on their own. There was going to be a lot food at the party itself, so a lot of the tweens were simply skipping dinner. Maddie had been watching them run to and fro, getting ready for the celebrations. Many of them were already dressed up in their fancy frocks.

  She stuck out her lower lip.

  “What?” Agler asked.

  She shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “Come on, spit it out.”

  Maddie let out a long, slow sigh. “It’s only… it’s a little sad, isn’t it? Not being able to go to the ball.”

  Agler shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  “For years now, all three of us have gone together—me, Sawyer, and Nora. Sawyer makes us dresses and we all dance and everybody looks so pretty…”

  Agler rolled his eyes. “You’re being such a girl.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re sad that you don’t get to wear a pretty dress.”

  “So?” She stuck out her lower lip again. “Every dress that Sawyer has ever made for me has been gorgeous. And I only get to dress this fancy for a couple occasions a year. Now, this year, the occasions are cut down by one. Just… it’s a little sad.”

  “Oh, come on, Maddie. You can’t tell me that you’re more worried about not getting to wear a pretty dress than you are about Nora.”

  “No, I’m not saying that at all.” She gave him a withering look. “You’re being such a guy right now. You completely don’t understand.”

  “You’re right, I don’t.”

  “You know who would understand? Nora.” Maddie folded her arms over her chest. She pouted a little bit more.

  “Well, that’s all the more reason that we have to go out there and find her,” Agler said.

  “Right.” Maddie drew her limbs close to her body.

  Agler fidgeted. “You done with your food?”

  Maddie sat up straight, sticking out her chin defiantly. “And when we fix Nora, I will tell her all about how I had to not wear a pretty dress, and she’ll thank me and understand how deeply I’ve sacrificed for her.”

  Agler raised both eyebrows.

  She gave him a mischievous smile, so that he could see she was joking.

  He rolled his eyes again, but he was laughing. “Come on, let’s get moving.”

  They didn’t want anyone to see them, so they were going to wait until the thick of the Winter Ball celebration. But they met when all of the other tweens were filtering out of the enclave. Maddie, Agler, Sawyer, Lute, and Daryl all met under the cover of darkness outside the arch. They were quiet as they watched the other tweens trickle out, leaving in groups and couples.

  Maddie couldn’t help but feel a twinge as they all went by in their finery. She hadn’t been lying that it was sad not getting dressed up. In many ways, she felt as if, as she got older, the world seem to close in on itself. Every year, it seemed things were more dire than the year before. She sighed. She missed her youth, when everything was playing and creating and having fun.

  Nora and Owen went past, but they didn’t see the group of them huddled in the shadows. Nora was wearing a sleek black dress, Owen a black tux. The two of them looked solemn and somber. And they looked so…mature. That was what Maddie thought. They looked grown up. Old.

  When had they gotten so old?

  She knew it was cliché, that it was the kind of thing
that people said when they got older, but she suddenly understood it in a way that she never had before. Time moved so quickly. Her youth was passing her by.

  And so, when the air was full of the distant sounds of music from the ball, it was with a melancholy spirit that Maddie followed the others as they crept away from the celebration. They passed by the main fire pit, which had been transformed into a winter wonderland. Snow sculptures were adorning the dance floor and couples weaved in and out between them, twirling in the ethereal light. Everything was beautiful.

  Their fir tree sculpture hadn’t been chosen to be on display at the dance. But then, it was hardly their best work.

  Nora’s snowman, however, was there. It stood in the corner, facing them as they walked by. The snowman had a smile on his face, big chubby cheeks, and a top hat made from snow on his head. The snowman was tipping the hat and waving with the other hand. Though it was cheery, Maddie felt its wave like an ominous farewell.

  When they were far, far away, Daryl turned to them. “Everyone needs to touch me,” he said.

  So, they all crowded together, everyone putting a hand on to either one of Daryl’s arms or one of his shoulders.

  “Stay close,” said Daryl.

  It was as if a strong breeze suddenly whipped up, and blew the scenery of snowy Helicon away, revealing behind it a street corner in a small town. The air here was warmer than it had been in Helicon. But it wasn’t as warm as it typically was there. This wasn’t summer, though the air was balmy and a bit humid.

  The smell of something spicy tickled their noses. And in the distance, a different kind of music than what they had been hearing in Helicon. This was a Creole-flavored, southern, jaunty sound. Brass instruments and maybe an accordion over a pulsing beat.

  Lute looked around. He nodded. “This is the place. Follow me.”

  Lute led them away from the street corner. As they walked down the road, the pavement gave way to gravel within a block or two. Within another block, there were no more houses on either side of the road, but only dense underbrush. The road switched from gravel to dirt.