Echoes

by Chambers, V. J.

  Inwardly, Nora felt terror spike through her. This wasn’t good. Owen couldn’t be allowed to have his own enclave. But she tried to sound as if she was too sleepy to even care. She yawned. “Phoebe will never go for it.”

  Owen ran his fingers over her bare arm. His breath tickled her ear. “Phoebe likes you. Maybe you could talk to her about it.”

  “I don’t know, Owen.”

  “Just promise you’ll try.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Well, he can’t have his own enclave.” Nora was sitting at the edge of one of the rooms in the tree house. Her friends were sitting in front of her, all crowded together on a couch.

  “Definitely not,” said Agler.

  Nora sighed. “You should hear him talk about it. He’s talked himself into thinking it’s noble, that he’s helping people. I don’t know if he’s actually convinced himself or if he’s just trying to convince me. Sometimes… I can’t tell with him. Since the spell’s been lifted, he’s different.”

  Sawyer gave her a look. “You can’t be saying that you think Owen deserves a second chance after all?”

  Nora chewed on her lip. “Well, I’m not saying that he’s better or anything like that. I certainly don’t want to be in a relationship with him. But I do sometimes wonder if he couldn’t be saved.”

  “Saved?” Maddie said.

  “Maybe if he really did get a second chance, he could turn things around,” Nora said. “Obviously, we can’t let him take over Helicon, but he’s not wrong that the council is sometimes inefficient.”

  “Nora,” Agler said. “Owen’s a horrible person.”

  Nora’s expression was pensive. “That’s the thing. I’m not sure if he is. There’s something wrong with him. I guess he’s antisocial or whatever they might put it in the mundane world. He doesn’t seem to have a great deal of empathy. Maybe he’s narcissistic. But I think he’s aware of that, and that he wants to work around it. I think he wants to stay in Helicon pretty bad, and I think if he could have something productive to do… I think he was very lonely when we kicked him out.”

  “Whoop-de-do,” Agler said. “So somebody hurt his widdle feelings. That doesn’t mean anything. I’m not giving him another chance.”

  “But we kind of are giving him another chance, aren’t we?” Sawyer said. He looked up at Agler. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a fan of Owen.” He waggled his bisected finger. “But he’s here in Helicon, and he thinks that he has our trust. So, for all intents and purposes, he does have a second chance. And he hasn’t been… well, completely horrible.”

  “How long does it go on?” Maddie said. “How long do you keep up the charade?”

  Nora shook her head. “I don’t know. But right now, let’s just worry about this enclave thing. He can’t get his own enclave. It’s a very bad idea.”

  “So, we stop him,” Maddie said.

  “Well it’s not that simple, is it?” Sawyer said. “He’s really powerful.”

  Agler shook his head. “I don’t care what information you needed from him. I don’t think it was a good idea to let him back into our home. Now he’s here, and we don’t have any way to fight him.”

  Lute leaned forward. “Well, couldn’t we exile him again?”

  “Phoebe would have to do that,” Nora said.

  “Besides, that doesn’t really solve the problem,” Sawyer said. “Even when Owen was exiled before, he still managed to make trouble in Helicon.”

  “It’s true,” Nora said. “I’m not really comfortable with him being out there able to do whatever he wants. I think is better if he’s close.” She had to admit that she was sick of pretending to be his girlfriend, though. She wanted that over. She wished there was a way.

  “Well, what’s the worst that could happen at this point?” Maddie said. “If he gets this enclave? Is that the worst?”

  “I don’t know if it’s the worst, but it’s bad,” Nora said. “He could basically turn the enclave into his own personal army. If he got enough people on his side, he could use it as a launching pad to overthrow the council. I don’t know how quickly he could do it, but probably much more quickly than we might like.”

  “So, Phoebe will want to exile him, right?” Sawyer said.

  Nora shrugged. “I have no idea what Phoebe will do.”

  “What about what we were saying before?” Lute said. “About how some of us might reach out to Owen?”

  Nora let out a deep breath. “Yeah, that might be something we can do. But I don’t know if it’s really a strategy. It would be nice to be able to hang out with you guys again.”

  Sawyer tapped his chin. “Maybe it could be a strategy, though. Maybe if enough of us were close to him all the time, if he really thought that we were all kind of on his side, we could, I don’t know, stop him somehow.”

  “Stop him?” Agler shook his head. “You’re really underestimating him.”

  “I’m not underestimating him,” Sawyer said. “Nora knows him. She knows his weaknesses. She said she thinks he gets lonely. We need to use that.”

  Agler snorted. “So he gets all sad and lonely. I don’t see how we can use that.”

  Nora chewed on her bottom lip. “No, I think you’re right, Sawyer. I think, if Owen could be made to understand that the only way he can stay in Helicon is if he stops trying to take over the council, then maybe he would make the right choice.”

  “You really think he would do that out of the goodness of his heart?” Maddie said.

  Nora shook her head. “No, not out of the goodness of his heart. Definitely not. But out of self-preservation, maybe. Owen cares about himself. His own emotions are very real to him. And he’s frightened of them. I know this. He wants to be in complete control and the one thing he feels as if he can’t control are his own feelings.”

  “That’s a tall order, though, isn’t it?” Sawyer leaned his head back against the couch, thinking. “To make him think he’ll be forced out of Helicon unless he gives up his plans?”

  “Yeah, I can’t think how we’re going to make him believe that he can’t take over the council,” Lute said.

  “Well, maybe if he thought that Phoebe was angry about the political enclave. Maybe if she threatened him…”

  “Maybe,” Nora said. “But it’s got to be more than that. Because he’s got to really feel as if he couldn’t make it without this place.”

  “So, it’s a twofold thing, then,” Lute said. “On the one hand, we make him feel as if Phoebe is threatening to exile him and on the other hand, we surrounding with friendship. Everyone gets close to him. Including you, Sawyer.” Lute looked at him.

  Sawyer raised his eyebrows. “Me? I can’t think of one person who would be less believable. Look what he did to my hand.”

  “That’s why it would be so powerful,” Lute said.

  Sawyer made a face.

  “It would never work,” Agler said. “Owen would become suspicious. Sawyer just comes up out of the blue and says that he’s sorry or that he wants to give him another chance or something? No way.”

  Sawyer massaged the bridge of his nose. “Maybe… maybe I could sell it. And if I can, then you have to try to make nice with him too, Agler.”

  “Me?” Agler shook his head. “No way. I don’t even like this whole plan. You can consider me not on board.”

  “That’s fair,” Nora said. “Believe me, it’s not easy to play nice with him. But if I could just ask you a favor, Agler?”

  “What?” he said.

  “Don’t mess it up for the rest of us,” she said. “You don’t have to become fast friends with him, but don’t be a jackass to him either.”

  Agler sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Okay.”

  “Well, I guess I should go to Phoebe, then,” Nora said. “I’ll try to get her to tell Owen that the political enclave is a no-go.”

  * * *

  “What? No, this is ridiculous.” Phoebe paced in the foyer of her tent, a drink in one hand. “We’ve got to shut this down.”<
br />
  “Shut it down? Are you crazy? Every time I’ve come to you and told you that I was exhausted, you’ve told me that we had to keep going.” Nora glared at Phoebe, feeling like strangling the woman, who seemed to be drinking every time Nora saw her these days. As if the stress was getting to her or something, when Phoebe didn’t actually have to do anything. “I’ve been doing this all year. I’ve been trying to find out as much information as I could. And it’s taken me this long, and now you’re just like, ‘Shut it down’? What will we do with him?”

  “We’ll exile him again, of course.”

  “But that’s not going to solve the problem,” Nora said. “You remember what he was able to do the last time he was in exile. And now he’s even more powerful.”

  “But I don’t like your idea,” Phoebe said. “I don’t want to involve any more people in this. If you and your friends are all working together, that’s more people in danger.”

  “I’ve been putting myself in danger all year long,” Nora said.

  Phoebe looked at her feet. “Yes. I know. I should never have let it go on this long.”

  “Well, you did,” Nora said. “You told me to go as far as it took.”

  Phoebe toyed with her drink. “Yes, well, I didn’t mean for you to… you took me too literally there, Nora.”

  “And I wasn’t supposed to? I was supposed to take you figuratively?”

  Phoebe hung her head. “It was never my intention…” She took a deep breath, gathering herself. “The point is that he’s been here for too long. We need to get rid of him.”

  “We get rid of him, and he finds some way back. But then he’s angry. This plan that we have, this plan might be able to work.”

  “No, I don’t think so, Nora,” Phoebe said. “I think that you’ve been spending too much time with him, and you’re growing soft towards him again.”

  Nora shook her head. “I’m not. I promise you, I’m not.”

  “You’re sharing his bed, aren’t you? That sort of thing can turn any girl’s head.”

  Nora gritted her teeth. “Trust me, it’s not turning my head. More like my stomach.”

  “I don’t see why you’re pushing for the charade to continue, then. It seems to me that you’d rather it be over.”

  “I don’t enjoy pretending to be in love with him. But if there was some way that we could get him to stop… I think there could be hope for him.”

  “You’re blind,” Phoebe said. “If you’re not blinded by love, that I don’t know what you’re blinded by. But the true nature of Owen Asher is to destroy, and only to destroy.”

  “We don’t know that,” Nora said. “He’s always been… a little off, true. But he did take care of me. For years and years in the mundane world, he protected me.”

  “Yes, and he did that under the manipulation of the spell.”

  “Partly, yes. But if he was truly a monster through and through, he wouldn’t have any capacity to nurture at all.”

  “I think you want this.” Phoebe gave Nora a sad look. “No, this is my fault. You’re a child. I put too much on you. You shouldn’t have had to deal with any of this.”

  “I asked for it,” Nora said. “The fact remains that many of the adults here in Helicon still act like children. I have been through more suffering than most of the muses will ever know. And if suffering makes one mature, then I’m damned ancient.”

  Phoebe wouldn’t meet her gaze. She looked guilty. “Perhaps you’re right. And if that is the case, then I’m ashamed that I have added to your suffering.”

  “You can’t exile him. Not yet. Give us a chance.”

  Phoebe sighed heavily. “All right. All right, we’ll try it your way. But the Harvest Ball marks a year that Owen has been with us. If we can’t see some sort of improvement by then, then I don’t think keeping him here any longer will help us. It seems to me that the longer he stays, the more of a danger he becomes to us.”

  “So you’re saying we have until the Harvest Ball?”

  “It’s against my better judgment, but yes. I’ll give you until then.”

  * * *

  “You wanted to talk to me?” Owen couldn’t believe it. Sawyer Snow had come over to him at the main fire pit and now they were having an actual conversation. He was fairly certain that Sawyer hated him.

  Sawyer looked nervous. “Yeah, I did. You know, I don’t really know how to say this. It’s not… it’s not easy for me to say.”

  Owen waited. As he did, he tried to examine his own feelings about Sawyer. Generally speaking, he didn’t have any feelings towards him one way or the other. But that was normal. Owen tended to look at people and think of them as either useful or not useful. He didn’t see a particular use for Sawyer.

  He supposed that there was some residual sort of… he wouldn’t go as far as to call it jealousy. He guessed he didn’t like the fact that Sawyer had been the first person to have sex with Nora. Owen felt very possessive of Nora. But it wasn’t exactly jealousy. He knew that Nora and Sawyer had broken up. He always saw Sawyer prancing around with that boy of his, so he knew Sawyer wasn’t going to be a threat. In fact, from what he gleaned from Nora, Sawyer had broken Nora’s heart. So, there was nothing to fear from Sawyer.

  Still, he wouldn’t go so far as to say he liked the guy. He definitely wouldn’t go that far.

  Sawyer was shifting on his feet. “Okay, you know that Nora is my best friend.”

  Owen raised his eyebrows. “Nora is your ex-girlfriend.”

  “True,” Sawyer said. “We were together for a while. But the truth is, that really ended up being an extension of our friendship. The two of us didn’t have the kind of romantic relationship that I now know is possible. I didn’t feel for her anything other than really intense friendship.”

  Owen nodded slowly. So that was what Sawyer was telling himself, was it? From talking to Nora, he knew that Nora had felt really intense romantic feelings toward Sawyer. Whatever. Own decided he would let that go. He shrugged. “Okay. Nora is your best friend.”

  Sawyer nodded, licking his lips. “Right. And I miss her.”

  Owen waited again. He didn’t really see that there was anything for him to say.

  Sawyer shoved his hands into the pockets of his skirt. “Well, Nora has made it clear on numerous occasions that if I want to be part of her life, I have to accept you. And… well, I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. There are things that you’ve done to me…” Sawyer suddenly seemed at a complete loss for words. He looked down at his hand.

  Owen followed his gaze, and saw that Sawyer’s finger was cut off.

  Oh, yeah. He’d forgotten all about doing that. Making a guy cut off his own finger would probably make the guy hold a grudge. Owen swallowed. “You know, the finger thing was really overkill.”

  Sawyer’s eyebrows shot up. “Overkill? That’s what you’re going to say?”

  Owen winced. He hadn’t responded to that properly, had he? He was always doing this stuff wrong. There was a way you were supposed to interact with people when you were talking about their feelings, and he couldn’t get it quite right. He likely would’ve gotten better at it if he hadn’t been able to just control everyone’s minds in the mundane world. That had robbed him of much-needed practice. He shut his eyes for a second, trying to think of what Nora would say if she’d done something really, really terrible. Then he opened his eyes again. “It’s unforgivable, really. I can’t see why you would ever speak to me.”

  Sawyer pressed his lips together.

  Had he done it wrong again?

  “Well,” Sawyer said, with a strained laugh. “At least it was my right hand, not my left hand. Since I’m left-handed, it would’ve been pretty horrible if I couldn’t… At least I don’t play an instrument, you know? It’s pretty easy to still run the sewing machine, even without a finger.”

  Owen cocked his head, sizing Sawyer up. That was a weird thing to say, wasn’t it? “No, there’s nothing good about the fact that I made you cut off
your finger. I really shouldn’t have done that. At the time…” Owen shook his head. “Well, you know about the spell. You know how obsessed I was with Nora. You know about my mother. But none of that is an excuse. Because the fact that I even thought of it as an idea to make her—make Nora—behave, well, it’s despicable.”

  Owen suddenly felt a small twinge in the pit of his stomach. It was amazing that Nora had forgiven him, wasn’t it? All the things he’d done to her…

  Suddenly, Owen reached out and grabbed Sawyer’s hand. He probably shouldn’t do this. It was probably a bad idea, because it would show everyone just how powerful he actually was. That could only raise suspicion. But even though it didn’t make any sense, he found himself compelled to do it anyway. He ran his fingertips over the stump of the finger, concentrating. Then he gripped both of his hands around Sawyer’s fingers. He shut his eyes.

  Sawyer made one attempt to take his hand back, seemingly uncomfortable.

  But Owen held him in place. He gave a slight internal push, drawing on the power that he had taken. And then he opened his eyes and let go.

  Sawyer lifted his hand to his face. He was shaking. All of his fingers were now whole again. “You… you…”

  Owen tried a smile. “I know it doesn’t make up for what I put you through. For having you cut it off in the first place. I know that must’ve been really, like, traumatic. But, um, there you go.”

  Owen felt strange. That feeling in the pit of his stomach felt a little warm, almost like it was slowly growing up through his torso, making him tingle. He wasn’t sure he liked it. It made him feel out of control, and he didn’t like being out of control. Furthermore, he wasn’t even certain why he’d done what he done. There was no reason to use that kind of power on Sawyer. It didn’t accomplish anything, and it might even make things worse for Owen. Feeling upset, he turned and started walking away.

  “Owen!” Sawyer called after him.

  Owen didn’t want to stop, but Sawyer had yelled pretty loudly.

  So, slowly, he turned back around.

  Sawyer hurried over. “Thank you.”

  Owen shook his head. “No, you shouldn’t thank me. If it wasn’t for me it never would’ve been gone in the first place.”