Dancing Days

by Val St. Crowe

  * * *

  Maddie’s nose was red inside her furry hood. She was practically jumping up and down outside Nora’s tent the next morning. Actually, she probably would have been, but it was hard to jump in two feet of sparkling white snow.

  Nora had a solar-powered heater from the engineering enclave, which she left on for Catling as she joined her friend. “Geez, Maddie, it’s early.”

  “It’s snow!” said Maddie. “You have to be up early, or you miss the pristine perfect layer of it, before everyone tramps through everything and screws it up.”

  Nora had to laugh. “Did you wake up Sawyer yet?”

  “I tried,” said Maddie. “He started cursing at me. I figured I’d let you give it a shot.”

  Nora looked across the fire pit in the tweens and rebels enclave at Sawyer’s tent. “I don’t know. He was up late talking to Jack last night, wasn’t he?”

  Maddie shrugged. “I went to bed early when I heard about the snow.”

  “Maybe we should let him sleep?”

  “He’ll miss everything,” said Maddie.

  Nora started over to Sawyer’s tent. “What’s going on with those two, anyway? They’ve been ‘talking’ for months now.”

  “I know,” said Maddie. “And it’s obvious that Sawyer likes him.”

  Nora poked her head inside the opening of Sawyer’s tent. “Hey, Sawyer, you awake?”

  “Go away,” said a voice from inside the huddle of blankets in Sawyer’s hammock.

  “Maddie won’t let me,” said Nora. “She says that you’re going to miss everything.”

  Sawyer’s blonde head popped out of his covers. His hair was messy, and his blue-green eyes were bloodshot. “Cold,” he said.

  “That’s why I brought you snow clothes,” Nora replied.

  Sawyer rubbed his face. “You guys aren’t going to leave me alone until I get up, are you?”

  “Nope,” said Maddie from behind Nora.

  “Fine,” Sawyer grumbled. “Let me get dressed.”

  Nora retreated to outside the tent. When she turned around, a snowball hit her square in the face. She screamed at the burst of icy coldness against her skin, and brushed it away with her gloves.

  Maddie was giggling.

  “In the face?” said Nora. “No fair.”

  Maddie held up another snowball and launched it at Nora.

  Nora ducked, scooping up snow herself. “You were out here building ammo while I was talking to Sawyer, weren’t you?”

  A snowball slammed into Nora’s leg. More giggling from Maddie.

  Nora hurled the snowball she’d just made at Maddie, but it missed her completely.

  Maddie laughed harder, throwing another snowy missile at Nora. This one exploded against Nora’s shoulder.

  Nora glared at Maddie. “I’m going to get you. When you’re least expecting it, I’m going to have a snowball ready, and—”

  Maddie threw another snowball, hitting Nora’s stomach.

  “Ceasefire,” said Sawyer as he came out of his tent, dressed in his snow clothes. His eyes still looked bloodshot.

  Maddie raised her arm to throw another snowball.

  “I mean it,” said Sawyer, pointing at her.

  Pouting, Maddie dropped it.

  “It’s early,” said Sawyer.

  “That’s what I said,” said Nora.

  “You guys are no fun,” said Maddie. “It’s snowing!” She twirled amongst the flakes that were falling from the sky, her brown eyes glowing.

  “I need coffee if there’s going to be this much excitement,” said Sawyer.

  “Yeah,” said Nora. “Let’s go to breakfast.”

  “Breakfast?” said Maddie. “We’ve got to get started on an epic snow sculpture.”

  “Breakfast,” said Sawyer.

  Later, their coats dripping as they hung on a rack next to the door in the main kitchen, the three watched as Sawyer made coffee.

  He dumped a heap of dark grounds into a French press. “We’re up so early that no one’s bothered to make breakfast yet.”

  “I said I’d make French toast,” said Nora.

  “And yet you’re sitting here staring at me,” said Sawyer.

  Nora got up and wandered through the kitchen to one of the large stainless steel refrigerators. She opened it and pulled out a carton of eggs.

  “I still say we don’t need breakfast,” said Maddie.

  Nora returned, setting the eggs on the counter. “We need fuel,” she said. “Hand me the bread by you, Maddie?”

  Maddie got up to grab a loaf of raison bread. It had probably been baked yesterday. Nora loved it. It was always moist in the middle and brown and crusty at the edges. The food in Helicon was to die for.

  “Besides,” Nora continued, “I think Sawyer’s hung over.”

  “I am not,” said Sawyer. He gazed longingly at the kettle of water which he was warming over the stove as if he could force it to boil faster with his stare.

  Nora set an iron skillet on one of the ten burners on the stove and ignited it, musing over the contradictions in Helicon. Most muses lived in tents, gathered around fire pits. There was a primitive undercurrent to the atmosphere here. But in other ways, Helicon embraced more civilized things, like the state-of-the art kitchens in the food enclave and some of the elaborate buildings in the architecture enclave. The muses were not ones to make a great deal of effort unless a technological advance improved their ability to be creative and comfortable.

  “You were drinking with Jack last night, weren’t you?” Nora asked Sawyer.

  “I had a couple oatmeal stouts from the wine and spirits enclave,” Sawyer said. “I didn’t get drunk or anything.”

  “Nora and I are wondering what’s going on with you and Jack,” Maddie teased.

  Sawyer looked embarrassed. “Nothing, really.”

  Nora cracked eggs into a bowl and began beating them. “Nothing? And how much sleep did you get last night exactly?”

  “We were only talking,” said Sawyer. “He’s fun to talk to.”

  “But you like him, don’t you?” said Maddie.

  “Do you need me to slice the bread, Nora?” asked Sawyer.

  “Sure,” said Nora. “But don’t change the subject. You have a big crush on Jack and don’t deny it.”

  Sawyer picked up a serrated knife and went at the loaf of bread with gusto. “Sure, and you and Agler brought us our snow stuff last night, but you don’t have a crush on him.”

  “I don’t,” said Nora. “I’m not doing relationships right now. They complicate everything.”

  Maddie sighed. “You guys are both going to be paired up soon, and I’ll be the only one left.”

  “I’m not getting paired up,” Nora insisted. Using a fork, she speared a piece of bread that Sawyer had cut and drenched it in the eggs she’d been beating.

  “You will eventually,” said Maddie. “But not me. I’ll be fat and unloved forever.”

  Sawyer gestured with the knife, pointing it in Maddie’s face. “I thought we had forbidden you to use the ‘F’ word about yourself.”

  Maddie rolled her eyes. “Eff you,” she said.

  “You are beautiful and smart and fun,” said Nora. “The right guy is out there.”

  Maddie didn’t say anything.

  Nora transferred the first piece of French toast to the hot skillet, where it sizzled. “So, Sawyer, while you and Jack are talking, there’s no flirting happening?”

  Sawyer’s shoulders slumped. “I’m flirting,” he said. “But I think Jack is weirded out by the fact that I wear skirts all the time.”

  “Did he say something?” asked Nora.

  “Not exactly,” said Sawyer. “But he likes guys, you know, and I’m...”

  “I think that’s enough slices,” Nora said, putting a hand on his arm. Sawyer had hacked the bread to pieces.

  He put the knife down. “It’s not that I want to be a girl or anything. It’s really not. Well, I mean, there are things abou
t being a girl that I like. Like wearing skirts. But there are things about being a guy I like too. And I don’t think I can change that. Not even for Jack.”

  “Who says he wants you to change?” asked Nora.

  Sawyer shrugged. “Who would want me the way I am?”

  “We would,” said Maddie.

  “Absolutely,” said Nora. “We don’t ever want you to be different.”

  * * *

  After breakfast, the three headed across the bridge over the stream in Helicon, which was now frozen, to an open field where the muses made snow sculptures each year. The sculptures were works of art, intricate and beautiful, and the best were transported to the main fire pit at the end of the week for decorations at a winter ball. Last year, Nora, Sawyer, and Maddie had made a big sculpture of Catling, which had been selected for the dance. On the way over, Maddie chattered about how they needed to do something bigger and better this year, really blow the Catling sculpture out of the water.

  Nora hadn’t given any thought to what they might sculpt, and she didn’t think Maddie putting pressure on her was helping her creative juices get flowing. Hopefully, the strong coffee that Sawyer had made would, once the caffeine kicked in.

  “Maybe a horse or something,” Nora said as they walked.

  “That’s an animal,” said Maddie. “It’s too close to Catling.”

  “A shell,” said Nora. “An enormous conch shell.”

  “It’s winter,” said Maddie. “Shells are a summer thing. I don’t think so.”

  “Well, what do you think we should make?” Nora said.

  “You’re the visual art person,” said Maddie. “You’re even sculpting every day.”

  “Yeah,” said Nora. “From life. It’s really boring. I sculpt whatever I happen to see in the enclave right then and there.” She turned to Sawyer. “What do you think we should make?”

  Sawyer stopped short and pointed at the meadow. Because they were up so early, no one else had started work on one yet, and the snow should have been fresh and untouched.

  But it wasn’t.

  There, in the center of the meadow, written in enormous block letters carved into the snow, was a message. It said, “You’re mine.” And underneath: “Soon.”

  Not ready to leave Helicon yet?

  Look for Book Two, available now!