* * *
They were a little late getting to the council meeting, but Nora felt refreshed and clean and positively ravenous. She loaded up a plate. Apparently, the food enclave must have realized that half of Helicon would be sleeping late after the festivities with Dionysus, and they’d opted for brunch instead of regular lunch food. Nora dug into fried potatoes, bacon, and pancakes smothered in a rich, creamy gravy. She was so immersed in eating that she missed the beginning of the council meeting, and it was only as she finished that she began to tune in.
“I can’t help but think that it’s suspicious that Dionysus showed up right after the portal was created,” one of the muses was saying. There was a murmur of agreement from the gathered muses. “He’s not one of us. He can’t be trusted.”
Phoebe looked annoyed, as always. Being head of the council must be a particularly crappy job. “Last night, I was very plain when I said we were holding this meeting to look for solutions, not point fingers.”
“A solution would be to force Dionysus to stop ripping holes in Helicon,” said the muse, who seemed equally annoyed.
Owen spoke up. “It can’t have been Dionysus. These portals were created by someone inside Helicon, and Dionysus didn’t show up until afterward.”
“Of course you’d defend him,” said another muse. “You’re his son.”
“I’m not defending him,” said Owen. “I just know that the rips are coming from inside, that’s all. And that means it’s not him.”
Techne spoke up. “Alexander, last time Owen said this, you said it was impossible to know whether the perpetrator was inside or outside. Is that still your opinion?”
Alexander spread his hands. “Look, as Owen’s pointed out to me, we muse police are essentially the equivalent of regular humans. We can’t see the same kinds of things people with more power can. So, if Owen says they were made from the inside, I think we have to take his word for it.”
“Well, that’s convenient,” said Techne. “Owen’s the only person who can see how they were made in the muse police. And, of course, the rips are repaired now, so it’s not as if any of the rest of us could actually examine one.”
“Of course the rips are repaired,” said Alexander. “They’re dangerous. It’s the mission of the security enclave to keep this place safe. But the next time one opens up, feel free to wander up and examine it. But if the Influence zaps you, then don’t blame me.”
Phoebe held up a hand. “I’m sure no one meant to imply the security enclave wasn’t doing a good job. We’re all very grateful for the work you do for us.”
“Wait a second,” said another muse. “Maybe we did mean to imply that. Why are these portals still happening anyway? It seems to me that all the security enclave does is react. No one’s being proactive.”
“And,” said Phoebe, “as I was going to say, this squabbling is getting us nowhere. We need to try to brainstorm ways to make ourselves less vulnerable.”
“It seems to me,” said Techne, “that if we could discover who was creating the portals, we could stop him. And I, for one, am not satisfied that Dionysus has been completely cleared of suspicion. For instance, he seems to have opened up a portal to get into Helicon. We all saw him appear in the fire pit last night. Wasn’t that a portal?”
“No,” said Phoebe. “Dionysus does not use portals to get into Helicon.”
“So how does he get in?” asked another muse.
“That’s not important,” said Phoebe. “What’s important is that he probably didn’t create the portal. Perhaps we could start thinking of ways we could strengthen the fabric of Helicon, making it more difficult to penetrate.”
Coeus was sitting next to Phoebe with a troubled expression on his face. “Phoebe, maybe we should discuss the Dionysus angle a little more.”
She turned on him, clearly angry. “I know it’s not him, okay? Please, let’s drop it.”
“Well,” said Coeus, “he’s never been one to have the good of Helicon in mind, exactly. He mostly shows up and gets everyone drunk and riled up. Maybe those portals are his idea of a joke.”
Phoebe shook her head. “Dionysus is neither courteous nor overly concerned about anything except himself, but he’s not malicious. And frankly, I don’t think he’s smart enough to figure out how to do it. He likes to drink and be merry. He’s hardly a criminal mastermind.”
“See,” said Coeus, “you always rush to his defense whenever he comes up in conversation, and I’m not sure that’s warranted. Maybe you aren’t seeing his true nature clearly.”
Now it seemed that Phoebe and Coeus were having a conversation all by themselves. It made Nora feel oddly uncomfortable, as if she were eavesdropping on a private spat.
“Coeus, I know him better than you do,” said Phoebe.
Coeus snorted. “Yes, you do. As if I could ever forget that.”
An awkward silence descended over the council. Finally, Owen spoke again. “The portals really are being created from the inside. I can promise you that.” He turned to Phoebe. “And if the person doing it is in Helicon, there’s a very real chance he’s sitting right in this council meeting. So if we publicly discuss how we’re going to combat the tears, then we’ll be giving him inside information.”
“Well,” said Phoebe, “you do make a good point. But we’ve always run Helicon transparently. We decide things as a group, and we discuss everything together. It’s important that we do something about this issue, though. Even though we’ve been lucky, and no one has been badly injured, every time the Influence penetrates Helicon, it weakens us. We have to use extra energy to repair the damage the Influence inflicts on the sky and trees and anything else it comes in contact with. If this continues, we could be in a position in which we cannot send as many inspiration threads as we usually do, and that could prove disastrous.”
“I move,” said Alexander, “that in this case, we form a committee of trusted muses to work independently on both strengthening Helicon and stopping the portals from happening.”
“I second,” said Owen.
“He can’t second,” said someone else. “He’s not of age. He doesn’t have a vote in council meetings yet.”
Coeus sighed. “I second.”
“The motion has been moved and seconded,” said Phoebe. “Is there any discussion?”
A muse stood up, looking angry. “Who’s going to be on this committee, huh? Is it going to be the security enclave, because for all we know, they’re behind this thing.”
“Us?” demanded Alexander. “Why would we do something like that?”
“You’re the one who’s always complaining about how the muses don’t do enough to help out the mundane world,” said the muse. “Maybe you decided to teach us a lesson.”
It was exactly what Nora and her friends had theorized. She watched Alexander’s face closely for his reaction. She expected him to explode with anger.
But Alexander only looked sad. “This place is my home. I would never put it in danger.”
And Nora believed him.
“If the motion passes,” said Phoebe, “we’ll decide who should be on the committee. Although I do think this is the province of the security enclave, and we certainly would want their assistance. Is there any other discussion?”
There wasn’t. Phoebe called for a vote, and the motion carried. Next, the council discussed who should be on the committee. It was decided that Phoebe, Coeus, Alexander, and Techne should head it up, and that they would have the ability to bring in whoever they trusted and also felt was useful. The meeting disbanded shortly afterward.
An air of disgruntled confusion seemed to hang over the muses as they made their way back to their tents and enclaves. No one seemed particularly joyous or carefree. Both Maddie and Sawyer said that they weren’t in much of a creative mood, and so the three went to the tree house, slowly climbing the spiral staircase to one of the lower platforms. They collapsed inside.
“I guess our investigation sort of crashed a
nd burned, didn’t it?” said Maddie. “I got distracted.”
“Me too,” said Nora.
“Well, the council’s made a committee now,” said Sawyer, “so I guess they’ll figure out who it is.”
Nora raised her eyebrows. “Do you really think they will?”
“We don’t have any ideas, do we?” said Maddie.
“Did you think that stuff between Phoebe and Coeus was weird?” Sawyer asked. “I’ve never seen them fight like that before.”
“Well, all couples fight,” said Nora, thinking of the defense she’d created in her mind for the recent incident with Owen.
“They weren’t really fighting,” said Maddie. “They didn’t yell or anything.”
“Yeah, but there was some kind of tension,” said Sawyer. “You could feel it.”
“It was awkward,” Nora said. “And it had something to do with Dionysus.”
“You were talking to him last night,” said Sawyer. “What did you think about him?”
“He’s kind of a jerk,” said Nora. “But...I don’t know. I don’t hate him or anything. I think Owen does. There is something about him...”
“Yeah, he’s got this...feeling in him,” said Maddie.
Sawyer shrugged. “Maybe it only affects girls. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t feel it when you’re around him?” Nora asked. “Like all happy and excited?”
“Sort of,” said Sawyer. “I mean, I did get really drunk last night. And it wasn’t that I didn’t notice that I was drunk, exactly. It was more like I really wanted to get drunker and drunker. I felt a little out of control.”
“I think that’s what alcohol does to you,” said Maddie.
“Dionysus is alcohol,” said Nora. “He starts off all exciting and happy, and then by the time it’s over, he makes you want to throw up.”
The other two laughed.
“Well, maybe he does affect women more strongly,” said Maddie. “Didn’t he used to have this following of crazy women who would run around naked back in ancient Greece?”
“He said something about that last night,” said Nora. “He called them maenads. He said they killed animals with their bare hands and ate them raw or something disgusting.”
Maddie wrinkled up her nose. “Eew.”
“So what if he does?” asked Sawyer.
“Well, maybe that’s why there’s tension between Phoebe and Coeus. She’s more sympathetic to him, because she feels whatever he does stronger,” said Maddie.
“Maybe,” said Sawyer, but he didn’t sound convinced.
Agler was walking into the enclave. He saw them in the tree house and came up to sit inside the platform with them. “That was some council meeting, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, we were talking about it,” said Nora.
“We’ve got to figure out who’s opening these portals,” said Agler. “It’s been going on for years, and no one’s made any headway.”
“We wanted to launch an investigation after the first one this year,” said Sawyer, “but we sort of forgot about it.”
“That’s what everyone does,” said Agler. “We get caught up in whatever we’re creating, and we forget we’re in danger.”
“We don’t have any suspects,” Nora said.
“What about Dionysus?” said Agler. “He’s not one of us, you know.”
“Owen says it can’t have been him,” said Nora.
“Yeah,” said Agler, “and I guess you believe him, because he’s your boyfriend and all, but I don’t know if I do.” He turned to Maddie and Sawyer. “What do you guys think? Could it be Dionysus?”
“Well,” said Maddie, giving Nora a cautious look, “maybe Owen’s right, and they are being made from inside, but maybe Dionysus is coming into Helicon first before he does it, and then leaving before anyone sees him. I mean, he just showed up yesterday, so apparently, he can come whenever he wants.”
“Yeah,” said Sawyer, “and why was Phoebe insisting that he didn’t open a portal to do it? It sure as heck looked like a portal to me, with all those green vines writhing around.”
Nora chewed on her lip. “If he was doing what Maddie’s saying, and he is opening portals, maybe they’re all just accidents, kind of like the one Owen and I made. Maybe he’s not trying to hurt us.”
Maddie nodded. “Maybe.”
“You’re both doing it too,” said Sawyer.
“What?” said Nora.
“You’re trying to defend Dionysus,” said Sawyer. “Just like Phoebe did. Maybe it is because you’re female. I’ve never been so happy to have a penis in my life.”
Agler wrinkled his forehead. “For real? You don’t like being a guy?”
Sawyer sighed. “Look, sometimes, I feel like I’m not really male exactly. But not always. Like sometimes I think about having boobs, and I think it would be really weird. But then other times...” He broke off. “Let’s get back to this. It could seriously be Dionysus. And he’s somehow convinced all the women in Helicon to think he’s awesome.”
“Wait,” said Agler. “You think about having boobs?”
“It’s complicated,” said Sawyer. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“I mean, maybe once or twice, I’ve sort of wondered what it would be like to be a girl,” said Agler, “but, I mean, I’m not, so—”
“Dionysus,” said Sawyer. “Let’s talk about Dionysus.”
Everyone was quiet for a minute.
“But why would Dionysus do it?” said Nora. “I mean, what would be his motive?”
“Like that guy at the council said, maybe he does it for fun,” said Agler.
“I don’t know,” said Maddie.
“Well, what other options do we have?” said Sawyer.
“Owen says it’s someone inside Helicon,” said Nora. “We originally thought it was Alexander.”
“Alexander?” said Agler. “No way.”
“Yeah, we don’t really think that anymore,” said Maddie.
“Look,” said Agler, “I know you don’t want me to say this, Nora, but what if it actually is Owen?”
Nora shook her head. “He loves Helicon. All he’s ever wanted is to get back here.” But she couldn’t help remembering the conversation she’d had with Owen the night before, when he’d said that he thought everything would be okay when they got here, but that now everything seemed worse. Could he be angry at Helicon itself? He did seem to be angry a lot ever since they’d gotten here. Well, Owen had said all kinds of crazy things last night. He’d been really down on himself. Something was wrong. Nora knew that. But she didn’t think she should put too much stock in the things Owen had said last night. He’d been really depressed.
“You’re not with him all the time,” said Agler.
“He wouldn’t,” said Nora. “Besides, the portals started before we got here.”
“And I guess you were with him constantly in the mundane world?” said Agler.
Owen had gone off on his own a lot, hadn’t he? She was always getting annoyed with him for abandoning her. “It’s not Owen.”
“Not Alexander, not Owen, not Dionysus,” said Agler. “So, then who is it?”
“Here’s a crazy thought,” said Sawyer. “What if it’s Phoebe?”
“What?” said Maddie. “That is crazy.”
“She was acting weird at the council meeting today,” said Sawyer. “She’s oddly obsessed with making sure we have excess muse energy, and people aren’t entirely sure why.”
“She does seem to get kind of irritated with the muses a lot,” said Agler. “She must hate running the council and listening to all of them. Maybe she’s purposefully draining muse energy so that we’ll have to conserve it.”
Everyone was quiet.
“It can’t be Phoebe,” said Nora.
“But something weird’s going on with her,” said Sawyer. “You have to admit that.”
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