to the door but when she got there she paused. “May I ask you one more question?” Helen said, following an impulse. She waited politely for Noel to nod before continuing. “What would you have named Lucas?”
“Tradition would have led us to name him after Castor’s father, who died just before Lucas was born.” Noel’s face was closed.
“And what was that?” Helen asked, already half knowing what Lucas’s name would have been, what it should have been if his mother and father had followed the rules.
“Paris,” Noel replied, unable to look Helen in the eye.
Chapter Fifteen
T he meadow went on and on and on—endlessly. There was only one type of flower that grew here—a small blossom so pale it was nearly transparent. No bees buzzed around these flowers and none of them altered from their precise alignment unless Helen brushed against them. They were infertile things that had no scent, sustained no life with their nectar. They were never going to bear fruit.
The terrain she plodded through was no longer hilly nor toilsome, the temperature was neither hot nor cold, and no sharp stones or thorny bushes cut her feet, but still, the place was intolerable. Helen may as well have stood in one spot for weeks, staring at the same uninspiring flower and breathing the same stale air, as walk. The land she had entered was unchanging, repetitive, pointless, and the longer she stayed there the more numb she became.
It was a meadow of misery.
Helen woke up and couldn’t remember what day it was. Did it matter? she wondered, but then she remembered that if it was Saturday she wouldn’t have to go to school. That meant she wouldn’t have to put up with any more of the random awkward questions she kept getting from eager girls trying to determine whether she and Lucas were still dating. The vultures were circling, painting their lips or flexing their muscles, all of them hoping to be the first to land on one or the other of the carcasses.
If it was Saturday, Helen wouldn’t run the risk of seeing Lucas from afar as he went from class to class. She wouldn’t have to recognize the graceful curve of his shoulder or the curious tilt of his head rising over the throngs of nondescript shapes that made up the rest of the population. If it was Saturday, she could go to the Delos house knowing that he wouldn’t be there while she trained. But if it was Saturday, that only left her with a different pile of crap to shovel for the next sixteen or seventeen hours—all day she’d have to be where he wasn’t.
Helen rolled over on the air mattress, looked at the clock, and saw that it was indeed Saturday. Nine and a half days had passed since Noel had banned her from Lucas’s presence, and Helen was still waiting to feel something—but all she felt was numb. She heard Ariadne stir and then scoot over to the edge of the bed to look down at her where she lay on the air mattress.
“Morning,” Ariadne said with a wan smile. “How’d you sleep?”
Helen answered by throwing the covers off to reveal the untouched jingle bells still wrapped around her ankles. They were exactly as they’d been when the two girls went to bed, but under the bells, Helen’s feet were dirty, swollen, and red from what looked like weeks of walking.
“Again?” Ariadne asked, dismayed. “You have to be floating out of the window, because I swear I didn’t hear a thing, and I barely shut my eyes last night!”
“It’s not your fault,” Helen said, shaking her head and unstrapping the useless bells. For a moment, Helen considered telling Ariadne about her vivid nightmares. They all knew she had them, but Helen hadn’t shared what her dreams were about with anyone since she’d told them to Kate. Helen took a breath, intending to confide in Ariadne, and then stopped herself. Would Ari think she was going crazy like Cassandra? Helen decided she should keep her mouth shut. “You know, I really don’t see the point in you spending every night here if I’m wafting out the window as soon as you nod off.”
“Don’t even start with that, because it isn’t going to happen,” Ariadne said peevishly. She threw her covers off and stood. “Lucas is probably gonna kill me dead enough as it is,” she mumbled nonsensically as she headed to the bathroom.
“Oh, hey! Sorry!” Jerry said with surprise as he ran