“You’re talking like I’m going to drive him crazy or something,” Helen said, frustrated. Noel gave her a piercing look that warned Helen not to belittle the situation.
“The cestus isn’t some silly love potion you can buy at the county fair. This is a relic from the goddess of love herself, and if you don’t think it’s possible for someone to be driven mad by love, it’s only because you haven’t truly felt it yet.”
“Then I’ll take it off....”
“You will not,” Noel ordered. “The cestus has probably saved you more times than you can know. Do I need to remind youagainhow important your life is?”
They sat staring at each other for a few moments while Helen struggled with her thoughts. She’d read theIliad, and she’d hated Paris and Helen as much as Lucas had. She saw them as selfish. So selfish that they were willing to watch a city burn to the ground rather than part. But was Helen Hamilton any better than Helen of Troy if she wouldn’t give up the man she wanted when it was required?
“Why didn’t anyone tell me this before?” Helen burst out.
“Lucas forbade it. He said he wanted a little time and a little privacy, and no one blamed him for that. Relationships are private things.”
“But we’re not allowed to have a relationship, are we?” Tears tried to make hot puddles out of her eyes. “This isn’t fair.”
“I know it isn’t,” Noel said, brushing a lock of Helen’s hair behind her shoulder so she could see her face.
“Are none of us are allowed to choose?” Helen said, thinking of Cassandra and what she had to suffer. Her whole body was clammy with nervous sweat and starting to shake. How could she stay away from Lucas? She didn’t think she could make herself do that any sooner than she could make one of her hands shrivel up and fall off.
“Castor and I tried to choose differently,” Noel said sadly. “We tried to run away just before Lucas was born. We wanted a fresh start so badly that we didn’t even give him a traditional name.”
“So what happened?” Helen asked, desperate to keep Noel talking and maybe learn something that might give her a reason to hope.
“What always happens,” Noel said with a knowing smile. “Family.”
Helen sat still for a moment, unwilling to stand up for fear that it would end the interview and therefore end her welcome in this house. She knew from witnessing everyone else’s obedient reaction that what Noel said in her kitchen was law for the entire family. Helen had always thought that Noel was the weak one, the one who needed protecting, but she was beginning to realize that Noel had a power all her own. When it came down to the matter of who was to be accepted into the family and who was denied hospitality, Noel had the final say for everyone who lived under her roof. Not even Lucas would be able to break away from that without being forced to leave his entire family behind. Helen had been denied Noel’s blessing, and that was the end of it.
Helen managed to stand up and make her way 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. “Whatwouldyou 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
The 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. “Youhaveto 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 wereaboutwith 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.
