Dancing Days by Val St. Crowe
Chapter Fifteen
Abruptly, in the last week of October, the leaves changed. Nora woke up one morning and instead of being greeted by the usual lush green sunny landscape of Helicon, the trees were alight with fiery color. The air nipped at her nose as she made her way to the food enclave for breakfast. She’d been eating alone these days.
Maddie wouldn’t let go of her thoughts about Owen. Every chance that Maddie got, she seemed to chime in on how Nora’s problems were all rooted in her breaking up with Owen. It was a dramatic change, and Nora didn’t trust it. She suspected Owen had done something to Maddie to convince her to act this way, but when she brought that up to Sawyer, who at least agreed with her that dating Owen was a bad idea, Sawyer said she was being a little bit paranoid. “Owen’s not a nice guy. You and I both know that. But he’s not capable of controlling Maddie,” Sawyer said.
Nora wasn’t sure what Owen was capable of doing. But she did know that whenever she was with her friends, she didn’t feel comfortable anymore. They seemed happier than she did somehow. Even if she managed to get Maddie off the subject of Owen (Sawyer usually backed her up), she had nothing to share with them. They’d talk about the projects they were working on in their various enclaves. Nora didn’t have any projects. All she had was a host of failures. She didn’t even bother trying now. Instead, she dragged herself from one enclave to another, simply watching muses. She couldn’t lie around in her tent forever, after all. It was dreadfully boring.
She was up early. She liked to get up early so that she didn’t have to run into Sawyer or Maddie. There was no one in the food enclave except Dirk Night, who was assembling some kind of breakfast sandwich in the kitchen.
“The leaves are different,” she said by way of greeting.
“Halloween’s in two days,” said Dirk.
Halloween. “Muses celebrate Halloween, huh?”
“Big time,” said Dirk. “How have you not noticed? Everyone’s been working on their costumes for weeks now.”
Crap. A costume? She was going to have to come up with a costume? Nora had no idea what she wanted to dress up as. And furthermore, she didn’t think she’d do a very good job of putting a costume together. “What’s your costume?” she asked Dirk.
“I’m not dressing up.”
“You can do that?”
He snorted. “They won’t like it, but screw them. I don’t have to play their stupid games all the time.” Dirk leaned forward. “This place has the maturity of a small, stupid child, or hadn’t you noticed? Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, let’s play dress up and have a party!’ No one accomplishes anything except stupid parties around here.”
There were a lot of parties, Nora guessed. She remembered that she used to think that was neat. Now she didn’t know what she thought. She felt like she couldn’t have any fun. And Maddie was right that it had all started after the break up with Owen. But she didn’t know what was wrong with her. She felt like she’d lost whatever spark inside her that was her identity. She felt faded and tired. She picked up a banana and unpeeled it. “Dirk, have you ever heard of someone losing their muse powers?”
He raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Like a muse turning into a regular human. Like your parents.”
Dirk made a dismissive noise. “No.”
Nora took a bite of her banana. She thought it was happening to her. Soon, they’d ship her off back to the mundane world. She didn’t belong here. She didn’t belong anywhere.
“Why do you ask?” Dirk said.
Dirk wasn’t her friend. He was sullen all the time, and immature in that teen-boy-rebellious way. But for some reason, all of that made Nora feel a little closer to him right now. She was sullen too. “I can’t create things anymore.”
Dirk made a face. “You kidding?”
Nora shook her head. “It’s gone. It’s all gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I used to be able to draw, but I can’t do it anymore,” said Nora. “Every time I try, it turns out crap.”
Dirk set his sandwich aside and pulled a notepad out of his pocket, along with a pencil nub. “Show me.”
Nora gulped. She gripped the pencil and held it over the paper. “I don’t have any ideas to draw anything,” she said helplessly.
“Draw a star,” said Dirk.
Nora lowered the pencil to the paper. She tried to draw a line. Her line shook and shivered all over the paper. She threw down the notepad. “I can’t.”
Dirk peered down at the squiggly line on the paper. “You used to be good at drawing?”
Nora nodded. Expressing this out loud made her feel like she might cry. She didn’t trust her voice.
“Maybe you need to try something else besides drawing,” said Dirk.
“I have.” Now Nora felt angry. “I’ve tried everything. It’s gone. It’s all gone.”
“Huh,” said Dirk. He picked up his sandwich.
Nora wished she’d never confided in him. He was a total jerk.
Dirk bit into his sandwich and chewed.
Nora took her banana and walked away from him.
“Hey wait!” said Dirk.
She paused and turned.
“You know maybe you shouldn’t dress up for Halloween either. We could do something together.”
Nora raised her eyebrows. Was Dirk asking her on a date?
“You broke up with that Owen guy, didn’t you?”
He was. Nora felt sickly embarrassed. “Listen, Dirk, it’s nice of you to ask and all, but I doubt I’d be much fun.”
“Good for you for dumping him, by the way,” said Dirk. “That guy is a huge ass wipe.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly over him, so you should know that.”
Dirk walked over her, taking another bite of his sandwich. “You’re different than the other muses, you know. I think it’s because you didn’t grow up in Helicon. I like you.”
“That’s flattering,” said Nora, feeling her face grow red. She really wasn’t interested in Dirk in the slightest bit. “But I don’t think it would be right for me to say I’d go out with you on Halloween, because I don’t really feel the same way.”
Dirk laughed. He was chewing, and she could see the food in his mouth. Eew. “I didn’t ask you to go out with me, Nora.”
She blushed even more fiercely. “Yes, you did.”
“I said we could do something,” said Dirk. “You don’t want to, fine.” He shrugged. “But if you’re not dressed up, I’m going to assume you’re game.”