Chapter Sixteen
“You didn’t dress up, I see,” said Dirk, who was standing at the edge of the woods on the other side of the tweens and rebels enclave.
Nora looked down at her clothes. She’d walked aimlessly after Owen left, ending up here, the place where they’d found the portal in the winter. She hadn’t meant to end up here, and she’d completely forgotten about Dirk’s wanting to “do something” together on Halloween. But she didn’t have any other plans, so why not?
“I’ve been thinking about your problem,” said Dirk. “How you can’t create and all. I have a theory.”
“A theory?”
“Well, the portals drain energy from Helicon, right?” said Dirk. “And you and Owen came through a portal to get here.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Well, it didn’t affect Owen, because he’s not a muse,” said Dirk. “But maybe it affected you. Maybe coming through the portal started a chain effect that started draining away your muse energy. Maybe if we cross into the mundane world and come back, when you return to Helicon the right way, you’ll be full of muse energy again.”
“Why would leaving and coming back do that?”
Dirk shrugged. “It’s just a theory I have. Whenever I leave Helicon, every time I come back, I feel sort of energized. Like I’ve come home or something. It’s actually pretty annoying.”
Nora chewed on her lip. She liked the idea that this was happening because of something out of her control, not because of her breakup with Owen. “The veil between the worlds is thin on Halloween, right? So it’s easy for us to get to the mundane world?”
“Yeah,” said Dirk. “I was going to go through anyway. Maybe knock over some mail boxes and smash some pumpkins. You wanna come?”
Why not? she thought.
Dirk held out his hand. Nora took it.
“How do we do this?” she asked.
“You need a focal point in Helicon to come back to,” said Dirk. “We’ll use the outside of the woods here.” He gestured. “You sort of meditate to a state of nothingness, attempt to become pure energy, and you flit through the cracks and reassemble in the mundane world.”
Nora took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s try this.”
Dancing Days Page 47
