A Kind of Blindness: Chapter Seven
A Kind of Blindness
Fewthistle
Warehouse 13
Myka/H.G.
Disclaimer: Property of Syfy and other foolish souls who squandered the wonder that is Helena and Myka. I would never have been so unwise.
Rating: R to NC-17, dependent on chapter
Chapter 7/?
Words: 5,812
Author’s Note: This is a sequel to By the Pricking of My Thumbs. While it is not absolutely necessary for you to have read it, I would suggest you take a gander, if only to know what in the world is going on, since I veered completely away from canon into my own much happier world. Besides, my greedy little Muse insists on pointing out that it’s not too bad and who doesn’t enjoy a good read? *bg*. My eternal gratitude to darandkerry for finding all those missing words, removing all those extra spaces, and keeping me ever vigilant. You are the best, Tex-Ass!! Love ya!
The use of Millville, California and surrounding area is entirely accidental and wishes no harm to that lovely part of the country. I just liked the name.
A/N 2: The title of this piece comes from here: have a listen. Wait
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Camp Kanuga
The snow was far deeper at the camp. Stepping from the SUV, Helena’s boots sank half-way up to her knees. She could feel the damp cold seeping through the expensive leather as she made her way around the front of the truck. The gate was still locked, the jump to the other side much more difficult. She climbed carefully this time. Still, her foot slipped on the metal bar, sending a jolt along her spine as she grasped for purchase. She felt Myka’s hands on her waist, balancing her, felt the solid warmth of Myka’s body against her back as she steadied her, allowing Helena to swing her leg over the bar and slip less than gracefully to the other side. Myka and Pete followed, their own movements equally clumsy, and the trio made their way down the narrow lane toward the camp.
The snow had iced over, leaving a thin crust along the top that crunched beneath their feet like glass with every step. Pete muttered, “We’re making so much noise just walking that we may as well blow one of those damn vuvuzelas. No way does he not hear us coming.”
“I agree that we have definitely lost the element of surprise, but given the current conditions, there’s little we can do about it, unless you’ve suddenly developed the power of flight,” Helena murmured back, her tone as frustrated as Pete’s had been.
As they neared the outer cabins they spread out, Pete heading towards the charred remains of the main cabin, Myka and Helena on either side, all moving as silently as the brittle layer of ice and snow would allow. There was no movement within the confines of the camp, but also no sound, no birdsong, no whistle of wind across the frozen landscape. Helena paused, the silence crushing down on her as she stood nearly knee deep in the snow, her eyes scanning the surrounding area, the shadows of the cabins, the far tree line and seeing nothing.
She glanced across the camp where she could just make out Myka’s figure as she moved silently through the buildings and trees. She had seen the looks of concern that Myka had been casting her way, noted the tension in the other woman’s body, as if she were holding herself on alert in case Helena suddenly broke down again. She despised making Myka worry, but as hard as she tried to rein in the rushing cavalcade that was her current emotional state, it broke free from her when she least expected it.
Helena grimaced at the memory of this morning’s shower scene, of how weak and vulnerable she had been. She had no issue with Myka seeing her that way; that wasn’t the problem. It was the sensation of standing over a trap door, never knowing when the solid boards beneath her feet would disappear and she would fall, tumbling through space with no control, no way to slow her inevitable descent that filled her with frustration and a sense of helplessness. Yet part of her feared the cessation of the feelings nearly as much as the experience of them, feared that these paralyzing emotions were all she had. Feared that when they finally left her, she would be dead inside.
“It’s not the falling that kills you,” she murmured softly, “it’s the sudden stop.”
She had just turned to move back towards the others when she heard the first note off to her left, a minor chord followed by another and another, the melody rising into the stillness of the winter air.
“Myka! Pete! Run!” Helena yelled, her words lost in the crackle and whoosh of flame as the cabin nearest her was consumed by conflagration.
Far off it seemed, in the distance, she could hear voices calling to her, but the fire rose up like a wall in front of her, the roar as the flames reduced the structure to charred wood and ash drowning out everything but the faint sound of music coming ever closer. Helena tried not to panic, pulled the collar of her coat over her mouth and nose, peering unsuccessfully through the smoke. The heat of the fire melted the snow all around her, the ground now soft and muddy, the heels of her boots pulling with a sucking sound as she tried to move back toward the center of camp, back towards the road. As she stumbled forward, the plucking of the lyre’s strings grew louder, the sound now so close she whirled around, eyes frantically searching for the source of the music.
“HELENA! HELENA! WHERE ARE YOU?! HELENA, ANSWER ME!” Myka’s voice carried over the snap and pop of the flames and Helena tried to follow it.
She opened her mouth to yell back but the first lungful of air left her doubled over and coughing as she tried desperately to breathe through the now billowing smoke. The music was so near that the notes seemed to wrap around her like rope, tightening more the awful constriction of smoke-filled lungs. She ripped her coat off, her hands shaking, limbs uncooperative as she yanked her arms free and buried her face in the fabric, the thick leather blocking out some of the heavier smoke. The fire surrounded her now, a ring that danced and leaped in syncopated time to each pluck of the strings.
“HELENA!!” Myka was screaming now, the terror and agony in her voice ringing like a discordant bell through the smoke.
Helena forced herself upright, face still buried in her coat, eyes blurred and stinging from the smoke, whirling around like a lopsided top trying to see a way out, but there was none, only fire everywhere. She doubled over again as another fit of coughing overcame her, sending her to her knees. The music was right beside her now, and she forced her head up, forced bleary eyes to see the face of the man standing over her, the lyre held delicately in his hands.
“Helena, is it?” he spoke calmly, as if they had just been introduced at a party. “How appropriate. He played ‘Sack of Ilium’ it was said, as Rome burned around him. Nero? Did you know that? How perfect that I should have my own Helen here to witness the destruction of my father’s kingdom.”
She attempted to answer, only to be overcome by the smoke once again. Finally, she managed to choke out, “The lyre. Please. Give it to me. Stop this now.”
“Oh, I’m afraid I can’t do that. It called to me and I answered it and we still have a great deal to do together. We’ve come here for the end of days, you see,” he replied, a trace of sadness in his voice.
“End of days?” Helena wheezed, the flames seeming to move nearer, the circle closing.
He reached down a hand and grasped her arm, pulling her roughly to her feet. “The end of days. I have been chosen. It called to me. The time is at hand.”
In the haze of her mind, Helena tried to remain calm, to be rational, praying that Myka and Pete would find a way to get to her. She was close enough to him to be able to make out his face through the smoke, watery, hazy eyes taking in the fall of thick black hair over his forehead and the madness in the bright blue eyes beneath it.
“John Michael? How do you know about Nero and Ilium?” Helena coughed, her words all but unintelligible, as she desperately attempted to engage him.
A flash of anger lit those disturbing eyes for a moment, then he laughed, his fingers around her upper arm tightening painfully. “So very smart, aren’t we, to have found out my name? Ah, yes, dear old Dad must have told you I never managed to graduate from high school. So, I must be an idiot, right?”
“No. Not what…not what I meant,” Helena gasped, seized again by a fit of coughing.
“When I ran away from here, I drifted all around the country for a while. Then the voice began to speak to me. It told me to go to Chicago, to hide away in a disused storeroom in the public library, in the basement. I lived there for several years. At night, I would sneak upstairs and read. I read everything. That’s how I know, how I know this is the end of days. For a while, I thought the voice had abandoned me, but one night a few months ago, it spoke to me again. It told me where to find it, how to free it. And I knew then it was my time to return here, to show my father that his kingdom is nothing but ash in the wind,” he explained, his impassioned voice and the manic glint in his eyes filling her with terror.
“Please. Don’t do this. Just give me…the lyre,” Helena whispered hoarsely, barely able to speak.
“Tell them the end of days is at hand,” he told her firmly. “Tell them Helena, that Troy will burn again. A second Troy. Have you read Yeats? No Second Troy?”
The change in tone and topic caught her off guard, not that she could answer. She stared at him in confusion, unclear what an Irish poet had to do with any of this. She sagged against him, the lack of air to her lungs and brain leaving her light-headed.
“Read it. Or better yet, have your lovely girlfriend read it to you. Oh, yes, I saw the two of you the other day. How touchingly sweet. Yeats. Read it. She should appreciate it, perhaps even more than you will. Don’t forget. And tell my father I’ll be in touch,” he said, the hand on her arm suddenly gone as he stepped away from her. With the hand supporting her gone, Helena once more dropped to her knees, her coat trapped beneath her.
The next moment the music began again, a different tune this time. The flames seemed for an instant to soar up higher against the smoke darkened sky and then, as the sound of the music faded into the distance, died away, and Helena found herself in the middle of a blackened circle, the smoke floating away on the once again brisk winter wind.
“HELENA!” Myka was there, arms wrapping around her, pulling her to her feet, guiding her away from the smoke, into the open air.
Helena collapsed against Myka, the weight of her forcing the taller woman to lower them both to the cold, wet ground, Helena’s body wracked with coughing as her lungs reacted to the frigid, moist air. She could feel Myka’s hands smoothing back her hair, hear the murmur of Myka’s voice in her ear as she took Helena’s coat and draped it across her shoulders. Pete stood over them, Tesla in hand, face grim and soot covered as his eyes darted across the blackened landscape, the remains of the cabins smoldering piles of timber and metal. Three circles of charred ground, one for each of them, three rings of fire that had destroyed the camp.
Helena finally managed to stop coughing, her face buried in the crook of Myka’s neck. “Are you all right? What happened?” Helena said hoarsely, tilting her head back to meet Myka’s eyes.
“Pete and I heard you yell for us to run. I was headed towards you when the flames just appeared out of nowhere. We were both trapped inside another circle, but ours seemed to die down faster than yours did. I’m fine. Pete’s fine. You, on the other hand, are not fine,” Myka replied, a slight note of hysteria coloring her tone. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“I don’t need a hospital,” Helena rasped, forcing herself into a sitting position. “We need to get to Reverend Shaw. Quickly. Warn him. His son is here for him. For the end of days.”
“Helena, what are talking about? How do you know that?” Myka gasped, brows lowered, eyes flitting over Helena’s face.
“He was there. In the circle with me,” Helena responded, rubbing her eyes with her fingers, trying to ease some of the sting from the smoke. “He told me that a voice spoke to him. Told him where to go. Where to find the lyre. That it was the end of days and he had come to show his father that his kingdom, which I am assuming is his faith, is nothing but ashes.”
“A voice spoke to him?” Pete asked with a frown. He met Myka’s eyes, nodding. “Sounds like schizophrenia to me. Or do artifacts call to people?”
“Schizophrenia?” Helena asked, leaning against Myka as a wave of exhaustion rolled through her.
“A psychiatric disorder where the patient has dissociative episodes and may hear voices, or have paranoid delusions,” Myka answered. “If John Michael is hearing voices, he may be schizophrenic. Unless artifacts do talk to people.”
“I don’t know if this one does or not. No one knows much about what it can do aside from its combustible attributes. He kept referring to ‘the’ voice and the artifact in the same manner, as if one emanated from the other, but I can’t be sure what he meant. It was hard to concentrate,” Helena admitted, closing her eyes as she continued to rest her cheek against Myka’s shoulder, the ground incredibly cold and damp beneath them. A shiver went through her, part cold, part shock, and then another, her body beginning to shake in Myka’s arms.
“Pete, help me get her up,” Myka ordered, tightening her grip on Helena as she slowly rose to her feet, dragging Helena with her. Pete reached down and slipped his hands under Myka’s elbows, helping her balance as she stood. “We’ve got to get her warmed up. Can you get the truck up here?”
“Yeah, I’ll just do what we should have done in the first place and drive through that damn fence. Be right back,” Pete answered, waiting for a nod of confirmation from Myka before he headed off at a run back towards the road and the SUV.
Myka held Helena away from her for a minute, pulling Helena’s hands behind her back to slip into the sleeves of her coat before opening the front of her own coat and pulling the other woman flush against her, wrapping the edges around Helena’s back, trying to stem the tide of the uncontrollable shivers now shaking Helena like a rag doll.
“Need to get to the minister,” Helena said, teeth chattering as she burrowed as close to Myka’s body as possible.
“We will, honey. We need to get you warmed up first,” Myka promised, relief washing over her as she heard the sound of metal against metal and saw the SUV making its way towards them. “I don’t think he’s planning on contacting his father right now. He wants us to tell him, to give him his warning first. This is some kind of game for him and acting again too soon would take away some of the enjoyment. Don’t you think?”
Helena was finding it difficult to think of anything clearly, but some part of her mind registered the logic of Myka’s words. The SUV rolled to a stop beside them and Myka opened the back door, helping Helena into the truck and climbing in next to her. Pete turned the truck around and headed back towards the main road, the heater blasting a current of hot air down from the ceiling vents. Helena felt Myka slide her hands under her and pull her across her lap, the warmth of her body and the heat from the vents easing the shivering a bit.
Helena buried her face in Myka’s neck, breathing in the scent of her perfume, dragging in deep breaths, filling her lungs with the smell, trying to erase the acrid stench of smoke and fear. As the warmth finally began to return to her body, Helena began to drift off to sleep, the sheer terror and anxiety leaving her exhausted. As she slipped into unconsciousness, it occurred to her that for the second time since McPherson had released her, she had faced death: this time she realized that more than anything, she wanted to live.
Redding, California
Myka insisted that Pete drop her and Helena off at the hotel before he went to talk to Reverend Shaw about his son. She bundled Helena out of the SUV and into the room, immediately stripping off Helena’s wet clothes, the dank smell of smoke from her clothing permeating the room. Helena sat silent and still on the edge of the bed as Myka pulled off her boots, absently noting the stained leather as Myka tugged at her pant leg, the fabric soaked through up to her knees, clinging like a frozen second skin to her calf. The shivering that had eased in the warm cocoon of the truck began again in earnest as Myka slipped Helena’s shirt off her shoulders.
“Come on, let’s get you in the shower and warmed up,” Myka ordered gently. “Then I’m going to call Artie and Claudia and fill them in on our fiddle player.”
“It’s a lyre,” Helena rejoined weakly, the hint of a smile on her face all that she could manage. Still it elicited an answering grin from Myka, not a little relief mingled with amusement.
“Do you want me to join you or would you rather have some time alone?” Myka asked solicitously, her hand making smooth circles across Helena’s back.
“I’ll be all right. I’m fine, really. Not that I don’t always enjoy your company, my sweet. Although, I don’t believe that I’m quite up to trying out that shower rod again.” Helena replied, her attempt at normal almost successful. Almost. “Seriously, darling, now that I’ve gotten most of the smoke out of my lungs, I’m feeling a hundred percent better. Honestly.”
“Yeah, sure you are,” Myka said skeptically, one eyebrow raised in disbelief as she rose and moved toward the bathroom. “Okay, you shower and I’ll call Artie. Pete’s gone to tell Reverend Shaw what John Michael said and see if he had any ideas about where he son will go from here, now that he’s burned down the camp.”
“We need to watch him, the good reverend. Keep him under surveillance, I believe the term is. I have no doubt that he will lead us to his son,” Helena stated firmly, her voice sounding stronger and less raspy as she followed Myka, leaning against the counter as Myka turned on the water.
“I agree. But now that John Michael knows who we are, or at least what we look like, he’ll be harder to follow if he does contact his father,” Myka concurred, her back to Helena as she adjusted the taps, dipping her fingers under the stream of water to check the temperature.
“He already knew,” Helena said softly.
“What do you mean, he already knew?” Myka turned from the tub to face her, her expression troubled.
Helena hesitated, choosing her words carefully, unwilling to upset Myka any more than she was already. “He told me that he saw us the other day, when we went to the camp.”
As Myka scrolled quickly through her near-perfect memory, her expression became even more concerned. “Helena, what exactly did he say?”
“Just that he saw us. It wasn’t an essential part of the conversation, darling,” Helena rushed to assure her. “In fact, he mentioned it in passing, in reference to something else, a poem by Yeats that I don’t recall having read, about the burning of Troy. Given the legend that Nero was playing ‘The Sack of Ilium’ on that lyre while Rome burned, the good reverend’s son seems a bit obsessed with Troy’s untimely demise. Being named Helena didn’t help matters.”
“So he knew who we were when we arrived there today,” Myka mused. “Makes sense now that he started the fire immediately.”
Neither of them voiced the thought that hung suspended in the air between them, the knowledge that an intimate moment, one that had meant so much to both of them, had provided ammunition for a ruthless enemy. They stared at each for long minutes before Myka sighed deeply and ran a hand across her brow, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Helena reached behind her and unhooked her bra, then stepped gracefully out of her panties. She shivered again, although this time it had less to do with the cold and more to do with the look of desire that had flared in Myka’s green eyes.
“You should get in the shower. God knows, we’re wasting tons of water,” Myka said softly, the urge to touch Helena written clearly on her face. “I’ll go and give Artie a call and let him know what happened.”
Helena nodded and stepped under the water, turning to again meet Myka’s gaze as she slid the shower door closed. She almost changed her mind, almost asked Myka to shower with her, the need to touch and be touched washing over her with the same heat as the blistering spray, but she didn’t. With anyone else, sex would have been enough, would have served to disconnect her from the events of the day, from her ever shifting emotions, but not now, not with Myka. With Myka, each time they made love cemented further the bond between them and called up in Helena a depth of feeling that she had never experienced before. Given the already turbulent state of her emotions, it seemed foolish to add another drop of water to a flood ravaged levee.
Helena could hear the murmur of Myka’s voice over the thrum of the shower. She rinsed the shampoo from her hair, wondering idly if she would ever get the odor of smoke out of her nostrils completely. Stepping from the shower, she wrapped a towel turban-like around her head and one around her torso. She paused in front of the bathroom mirror, her image vague and distorted by the steam coated glass, the lines of her face melted and indistinct, only the dark ovals of her eyes standing out, eyes that she had once worried would show the chaos inside of her, show the shadows that crept ever closer to the surface. She had worried that Myka would see the madness hiding just behind the curtain, like some villain in a second-rate melodrama, but today’s encounter with John Michael Shaw had dispelled that particular fear.
She had seen true madness in his eyes and it bore no resemblance to the mustachioed figure lurking in the recesses of her own mind. Hers was composed of guilt and anger and regret, veritable mountains of regret, but there was no malice, no desire to harm anyone but herself and even that had lessened a bit since Myka. Her life had been composed of two stages, but somehow, of late, she had realized that the line of demarcation lay not with her unbronzing but with her first meeting with Myka Bering over the barrel of a gun. The murky figure in the mirror almost smiled at the irony.
Myka was sitting in the middle of the bed, long legs crossed beneath her, staring absently at the cell phone in her hand. The Farnsworth lay on the bed beside her. As Helena moved across the room towards her, Myka looked up, a smile playing on her lips.
“Feel better?” she asked tenderly, patting the bed next to her.
Helena sank down onto the mattress, unwrapping the towel from her head and rubbing her wet hair, squeezing some of the moisture from the long strands. “Much. How did the discussion with Artie go?”
“It was…it was Artie. He asked a lot of questions, of course,” Myka began, her next words interrupted as Helena spoke.
“Most of which, I am certain, concerned me and my ‘supposed’ encounter with our arsonist, correct? It occurred to me in the shower that the whole conversation with the elusive Mr. Shaw was no doubt suspect in Artie’s eyes, as was any intelligence I gathered,” Helena said wearily, unable to keep her frustration with Artie’s continued distrust of her hidden completely.
“Helena,” Myka said, her own annoyance at Artie’s ongoing vendetta beginning to wear on her, “it doesn’t matter whether Artie believes it or not. He’s not here, he doesn’t have to figure out some way to catch Shaw and get the lyre back. It’s easy to sit in judgment when you’re not the one putting your ass on the line. Pete and I trust you unconditionally. That’s all that matters.”
“I know, darling. And I cannot tell you how much that means to me. I just wish I knew how to prove myself to him,” Helena said quietly.
“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone,” Myka told her, wrapping her arms around Helena and pulling her close. “Pete called. He talked to Reverend Shaw and told him what happened, what John Michael said. He asked if there was any history of mental illness in the family, suggested maybe that John Michael was just starting to develop the symptoms of schizophrenia when he left home, but Pete said the minister was adamant that there was no one on either side of the family that suffered from anything worse than gout.”
“Poor man,” Helena murmured, resting her head on Myka’s shoulder. “In a way, I would think it would be easier to believe that some mental defect caused your child to become a monster rather than the alternative. It would be for me, at least.”
“Pete’s going to stay out there tonight, just in case. I think that the Campbells suggested it. We can relieve him in the morning. He can come back here and get some sleep and we’ll take the truck back out there,” Myka told her, her fingers tracing an abstract pattern on the skin of Helena’s arm.
They sat in silence for a few moments listening to the soft whirr of the heater, each lost in her own thoughts. Suddenly, Helena pulled back slightly in Myka’s embrace, the abruptness of her movement softened by her smile. “I’m cold. I’m going to get dressed. Perhaps we can walk to the restaurant and get some dinner?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Myka answered, smiling back, gathering the Farnsworth and the cell phone and placing them on the bedside table.
“Darling, did you bring your computer with you?” Helena asked, dropping her towel unselfconsciously and rummaging around in her bag for clean underwear and bra.
Her words were met with silence and she glanced up to find Myka’s eyes trailing slowly up and down her body. “Myka, darling?”
“What? I’m sorry,” Myka stammered, a bright crimson flush staining her cheeks. “What did you say?”
Helena laughed, that low, rich chuckle that sent goose bumps along Myka’s skin, and pulled a pair of black jeans and a dark purple blouse out of her bag. “I asked if you had your computer with you. I wanted to look up the poem to which Mr. Shaw referred. I don’t know if it has any significance, but he seemed quite adamant that I read it.”
“Yes. Yes, I do,” Myka pronounced, crossing the room to where her backpack lay on the table. She extracted the laptop and powered it up, returning to the bed to sit against the pillow strewn headboard. “Okay, what was the name of it?”
“I remember reading some of Yeats poems, but this one didn’t strike a bell. I believe he said it was called, No Second Troy,” Helena replied, pulling on and buttoning her shirt. She joined Myka on the bed, lying flat, her head against the pillows. “Did you find it?”
“Hmm,” Myka hummed, eyes fixed on the screen. “Um, yeah. I found it.”
“Read it to me?” Helena asked, the fear that had been steadily gathering in her now sitting like a goblin on her chest.
Myka cleared her throat and began to read,
“WHY should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?”
As the last syllable faded away, Helena turned her head and met Myka’s eyes. Myriad explanations flooded Helena’s mind: Shaw’s obsession with all things related to Troy, his accidental overhearing of her conversation with Myka at the camp; the coincidence of her name, the illness that plagued his mind, the alignment of the planets, the consummation of some massive karmic incident. None of which accounted for the compelling symmetry of it all, for the terrible beauty of the poem, for the tone of Myka’s voice as she read it or the expression in her green eyes.
“I know that I am mad, but Mother, dearest, now, for this one time, I do not rave,” Helena quoted softly, dark eyes unreadable. “Mad prophets, indeed.”
“Helena, what are you talking about?” Myka asked, putting the laptop on the floor and sliding down on the bed until her face was even with Helena’s.
“Perhaps Mr. Shaw is a prophet after all. He did speak of the end of days and mad prophets have been with us since long before the days of Troy. Perhaps he knows something we don’t,” Helena answered quietly, her eyes fixed on the wall beyond Myka’s head.
“What was that about being mad?” Myka demanded, reaching out a hand to gently grasp Helena’s jaw, forcing her gaze down.
“Euripides. The Trojan Women. Cassandra’s talking to her mother, Hecuba. Helen has brought about the destruction of Troy and because she scorned a god, Cassandra has been cursed with the gift of prophecy, prophecy that no one believes. It may be that our Mr. Shaw is something of a mad prophet himself,” Helena explained, a look of profound sadness taking hold in her dark eyes.
Myka didn’t respond for a moment, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. When she opened them, they were bright and determined. “Bullshit.”
“Pardon me?” Helena blinked, Myka’s no nonsense tone jarring her out of the funk into which she was rapidly sinking.
“I said, bullshit. Helena, he’s a crazy guy who’s been burning down entire towns with a stolen artifact. He’s obsessed with Nero and Troy and the fire and destruction. He overheard our conversation the other day, a conversation about fears and insecurities and your name is Helena and he thought it would be fun to toy with you, to make you question everything. And why did he do this? Because he’s crazy!” Myka ranted, her voice growing considerably louder and more emphatic by the end. “And just for the record, I know the whole story of Troy and Helen and Cassandra. You didn’t launch a thousand ships, sweetheart. You didn’t cause any of this. You haven’t done anything wrong except let a crazy man inside your head and it has to stop!”
“You’re right,” Helena sighed, shaking her head at the thoughts that had been rampaging like angry Huns through her brain. “You’re right. He was toying with me and I allowed it. I looked into those eyes. I saw the madness, the malice in them, heard the rage in his voice. I’m sorry, darling. I don’t know what came over me.”
Myka drew her closer, one arm sliding under the pillow beneath her head, the other around her waist. Their faces were inches apart, warm breath mingling. “We both know that you’ve been feeling really vulnerable and off-balance, Helena, with very good reason. Your entire life has changed beyond recognition. It’s easy to allow your doubts and your fears to control you. Trust me, I know. He heard us talking about this the other day and he used it to get to you. He seems to thrive on other people’s pain, on causing other people’s pain. You can’t let him. We will find him and we will get the artifact. And in the meantime, you have to remember that I love you and there is nothing that is ever going to change that. Nothing.”
Helena was amazed when the tears didn’t come. Instead of feeling more, she felt less. Less guilt. Less regret. Less fear. She wasn’t certain if it was the sensation of the goblin being removed from her chest, or simply a numbing distillation. Whichever it was, for the moment she could only be grateful, grateful for the profoundly lovely, loving creature now holding her in her arms. She took a deep breath and then another.
“I love you, too.”
Myka grinned at her, and Helena could see the relief etched in every line of Myka’s face. “Although, that line about ‘beauty like a tightened bow’ does fit you pretty well.”
“Stern? It said stern and unnatural,” Helena huffed, chuckling a little as she rubbed her nose along the curve of Myka’s cheekbone. “Well, at least you didn’t pick the one about having a simple mind.”
“It said ‘that nobleness made simple as a fire’, not simpleminded,” Myka corrected, before she caught the teasing glint in Helena’s eyes. “Although I may need to rethink that one.”
“You said you’d feed me,” Helena wheedled, sitting up and pulling Myka upright as well. “We should go eat and come back and get some sleep. Tomorrow promises to be a rather unpleasant day.”
“I have a better idea,” Myka proposed, pulling Helena back into a supine position. “We stay here, order pizza, get in bed and watch I Love Lucy reruns.”
“What exactly is a rerun and/or an I Love Lucy?” Helena asked, happily settling back in Myka’s arms. All of her doubts and emotional unbalance still remained in large part, but something had shifted, at least enough for her to breathe.
“A rerun is a re-showing of a television episode. I Love Lucy is the greatest comedy ever seen on T.V. I promise, you’ll like it,” Myka explained. “Now unhand me woman, so I can order our food.”
“Unhand you? I’m afraid you’ll have to use much smaller words. I am, after all, but a simpleminded beauty,” Helena laughed, slipping her hands behind Myka’s head and pulling her closer.
Lowering her mouth to Helena’s, Myka murmured softly, “You can be my trophy girlfriend. And you know what? I can live with being shallow.”
TBC……
Fewthistle
Warehouse 13
Myka/H.G.
Disclaimer: Property of Syfy and other foolish souls who squandered the wonder that is Helena and Myka. I would never have been so unwise.
Rating: R to NC-17, dependent on chapter
Chapter 7/?
Words: 5,812
Author’s Note: This is a sequel to By the Pricking of My Thumbs. While it is not absolutely necessary for you to have read it, I would suggest you take a gander, if only to know what in the world is going on, since I veered completely away from canon into my own much happier world. Besides, my greedy little Muse insists on pointing out that it’s not too bad and who doesn’t enjoy a good read? *bg*. My eternal gratitude to darandkerry for finding all those missing words, removing all those extra spaces, and keeping me ever vigilant. You are the best, Tex-Ass!! Love ya!
The use of Millville, California and surrounding area is entirely accidental and wishes no harm to that lovely part of the country. I just liked the name.
A/N 2: The title of this piece comes from here: have a listen. Wait
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Camp Kanuga
The snow was far deeper at the camp. Stepping from the SUV, Helena’s boots sank half-way up to her knees. She could feel the damp cold seeping through the expensive leather as she made her way around the front of the truck. The gate was still locked, the jump to the other side much more difficult. She climbed carefully this time. Still, her foot slipped on the metal bar, sending a jolt along her spine as she grasped for purchase. She felt Myka’s hands on her waist, balancing her, felt the solid warmth of Myka’s body against her back as she steadied her, allowing Helena to swing her leg over the bar and slip less than gracefully to the other side. Myka and Pete followed, their own movements equally clumsy, and the trio made their way down the narrow lane toward the camp.
The snow had iced over, leaving a thin crust along the top that crunched beneath their feet like glass with every step. Pete muttered, “We’re making so much noise just walking that we may as well blow one of those damn vuvuzelas. No way does he not hear us coming.”
“I agree that we have definitely lost the element of surprise, but given the current conditions, there’s little we can do about it, unless you’ve suddenly developed the power of flight,” Helena murmured back, her tone as frustrated as Pete’s had been.
As they neared the outer cabins they spread out, Pete heading towards the charred remains of the main cabin, Myka and Helena on either side, all moving as silently as the brittle layer of ice and snow would allow. There was no movement within the confines of the camp, but also no sound, no birdsong, no whistle of wind across the frozen landscape. Helena paused, the silence crushing down on her as she stood nearly knee deep in the snow, her eyes scanning the surrounding area, the shadows of the cabins, the far tree line and seeing nothing.
She glanced across the camp where she could just make out Myka’s figure as she moved silently through the buildings and trees. She had seen the looks of concern that Myka had been casting her way, noted the tension in the other woman’s body, as if she were holding herself on alert in case Helena suddenly broke down again. She despised making Myka worry, but as hard as she tried to rein in the rushing cavalcade that was her current emotional state, it broke free from her when she least expected it.
Helena grimaced at the memory of this morning’s shower scene, of how weak and vulnerable she had been. She had no issue with Myka seeing her that way; that wasn’t the problem. It was the sensation of standing over a trap door, never knowing when the solid boards beneath her feet would disappear and she would fall, tumbling through space with no control, no way to slow her inevitable descent that filled her with frustration and a sense of helplessness. Yet part of her feared the cessation of the feelings nearly as much as the experience of them, feared that these paralyzing emotions were all she had. Feared that when they finally left her, she would be dead inside.
“It’s not the falling that kills you,” she murmured softly, “it’s the sudden stop.”
She had just turned to move back towards the others when she heard the first note off to her left, a minor chord followed by another and another, the melody rising into the stillness of the winter air.
“Myka! Pete! Run!” Helena yelled, her words lost in the crackle and whoosh of flame as the cabin nearest her was consumed by conflagration.
Far off it seemed, in the distance, she could hear voices calling to her, but the fire rose up like a wall in front of her, the roar as the flames reduced the structure to charred wood and ash drowning out everything but the faint sound of music coming ever closer. Helena tried not to panic, pulled the collar of her coat over her mouth and nose, peering unsuccessfully through the smoke. The heat of the fire melted the snow all around her, the ground now soft and muddy, the heels of her boots pulling with a sucking sound as she tried to move back toward the center of camp, back towards the road. As she stumbled forward, the plucking of the lyre’s strings grew louder, the sound now so close she whirled around, eyes frantically searching for the source of the music.
“HELENA! HELENA! WHERE ARE YOU?! HELENA, ANSWER ME!” Myka’s voice carried over the snap and pop of the flames and Helena tried to follow it.
She opened her mouth to yell back but the first lungful of air left her doubled over and coughing as she tried desperately to breathe through the now billowing smoke. The music was so near that the notes seemed to wrap around her like rope, tightening more the awful constriction of smoke-filled lungs. She ripped her coat off, her hands shaking, limbs uncooperative as she yanked her arms free and buried her face in the fabric, the thick leather blocking out some of the heavier smoke. The fire surrounded her now, a ring that danced and leaped in syncopated time to each pluck of the strings.
“HELENA!!” Myka was screaming now, the terror and agony in her voice ringing like a discordant bell through the smoke.
Helena forced herself upright, face still buried in her coat, eyes blurred and stinging from the smoke, whirling around like a lopsided top trying to see a way out, but there was none, only fire everywhere. She doubled over again as another fit of coughing overcame her, sending her to her knees. The music was right beside her now, and she forced her head up, forced bleary eyes to see the face of the man standing over her, the lyre held delicately in his hands.
“Helena, is it?” he spoke calmly, as if they had just been introduced at a party. “How appropriate. He played ‘Sack of Ilium’ it was said, as Rome burned around him. Nero? Did you know that? How perfect that I should have my own Helen here to witness the destruction of my father’s kingdom.”
She attempted to answer, only to be overcome by the smoke once again. Finally, she managed to choke out, “The lyre. Please. Give it to me. Stop this now.”
“Oh, I’m afraid I can’t do that. It called to me and I answered it and we still have a great deal to do together. We’ve come here for the end of days, you see,” he replied, a trace of sadness in his voice.
“End of days?” Helena wheezed, the flames seeming to move nearer, the circle closing.
He reached down a hand and grasped her arm, pulling her roughly to her feet. “The end of days. I have been chosen. It called to me. The time is at hand.”
In the haze of her mind, Helena tried to remain calm, to be rational, praying that Myka and Pete would find a way to get to her. She was close enough to him to be able to make out his face through the smoke, watery, hazy eyes taking in the fall of thick black hair over his forehead and the madness in the bright blue eyes beneath it.
“John Michael? How do you know about Nero and Ilium?” Helena coughed, her words all but unintelligible, as she desperately attempted to engage him.
A flash of anger lit those disturbing eyes for a moment, then he laughed, his fingers around her upper arm tightening painfully. “So very smart, aren’t we, to have found out my name? Ah, yes, dear old Dad must have told you I never managed to graduate from high school. So, I must be an idiot, right?”
“No. Not what…not what I meant,” Helena gasped, seized again by a fit of coughing.
“When I ran away from here, I drifted all around the country for a while. Then the voice began to speak to me. It told me to go to Chicago, to hide away in a disused storeroom in the public library, in the basement. I lived there for several years. At night, I would sneak upstairs and read. I read everything. That’s how I know, how I know this is the end of days. For a while, I thought the voice had abandoned me, but one night a few months ago, it spoke to me again. It told me where to find it, how to free it. And I knew then it was my time to return here, to show my father that his kingdom is nothing but ash in the wind,” he explained, his impassioned voice and the manic glint in his eyes filling her with terror.
“Please. Don’t do this. Just give me…the lyre,” Helena whispered hoarsely, barely able to speak.
“Tell them the end of days is at hand,” he told her firmly. “Tell them Helena, that Troy will burn again. A second Troy. Have you read Yeats? No Second Troy?”
The change in tone and topic caught her off guard, not that she could answer. She stared at him in confusion, unclear what an Irish poet had to do with any of this. She sagged against him, the lack of air to her lungs and brain leaving her light-headed.
“Read it. Or better yet, have your lovely girlfriend read it to you. Oh, yes, I saw the two of you the other day. How touchingly sweet. Yeats. Read it. She should appreciate it, perhaps even more than you will. Don’t forget. And tell my father I’ll be in touch,” he said, the hand on her arm suddenly gone as he stepped away from her. With the hand supporting her gone, Helena once more dropped to her knees, her coat trapped beneath her.
The next moment the music began again, a different tune this time. The flames seemed for an instant to soar up higher against the smoke darkened sky and then, as the sound of the music faded into the distance, died away, and Helena found herself in the middle of a blackened circle, the smoke floating away on the once again brisk winter wind.
“HELENA!” Myka was there, arms wrapping around her, pulling her to her feet, guiding her away from the smoke, into the open air.
Helena collapsed against Myka, the weight of her forcing the taller woman to lower them both to the cold, wet ground, Helena’s body wracked with coughing as her lungs reacted to the frigid, moist air. She could feel Myka’s hands smoothing back her hair, hear the murmur of Myka’s voice in her ear as she took Helena’s coat and draped it across her shoulders. Pete stood over them, Tesla in hand, face grim and soot covered as his eyes darted across the blackened landscape, the remains of the cabins smoldering piles of timber and metal. Three circles of charred ground, one for each of them, three rings of fire that had destroyed the camp.
Helena finally managed to stop coughing, her face buried in the crook of Myka’s neck. “Are you all right? What happened?” Helena said hoarsely, tilting her head back to meet Myka’s eyes.
“Pete and I heard you yell for us to run. I was headed towards you when the flames just appeared out of nowhere. We were both trapped inside another circle, but ours seemed to die down faster than yours did. I’m fine. Pete’s fine. You, on the other hand, are not fine,” Myka replied, a slight note of hysteria coloring her tone. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“I don’t need a hospital,” Helena rasped, forcing herself into a sitting position. “We need to get to Reverend Shaw. Quickly. Warn him. His son is here for him. For the end of days.”
“Helena, what are talking about? How do you know that?” Myka gasped, brows lowered, eyes flitting over Helena’s face.
“He was there. In the circle with me,” Helena responded, rubbing her eyes with her fingers, trying to ease some of the sting from the smoke. “He told me that a voice spoke to him. Told him where to go. Where to find the lyre. That it was the end of days and he had come to show his father that his kingdom, which I am assuming is his faith, is nothing but ashes.”
“A voice spoke to him?” Pete asked with a frown. He met Myka’s eyes, nodding. “Sounds like schizophrenia to me. Or do artifacts call to people?”
“Schizophrenia?” Helena asked, leaning against Myka as a wave of exhaustion rolled through her.
“A psychiatric disorder where the patient has dissociative episodes and may hear voices, or have paranoid delusions,” Myka answered. “If John Michael is hearing voices, he may be schizophrenic. Unless artifacts do talk to people.”
“I don’t know if this one does or not. No one knows much about what it can do aside from its combustible attributes. He kept referring to ‘the’ voice and the artifact in the same manner, as if one emanated from the other, but I can’t be sure what he meant. It was hard to concentrate,” Helena admitted, closing her eyes as she continued to rest her cheek against Myka’s shoulder, the ground incredibly cold and damp beneath them. A shiver went through her, part cold, part shock, and then another, her body beginning to shake in Myka’s arms.
“Pete, help me get her up,” Myka ordered, tightening her grip on Helena as she slowly rose to her feet, dragging Helena with her. Pete reached down and slipped his hands under Myka’s elbows, helping her balance as she stood. “We’ve got to get her warmed up. Can you get the truck up here?”
“Yeah, I’ll just do what we should have done in the first place and drive through that damn fence. Be right back,” Pete answered, waiting for a nod of confirmation from Myka before he headed off at a run back towards the road and the SUV.
Myka held Helena away from her for a minute, pulling Helena’s hands behind her back to slip into the sleeves of her coat before opening the front of her own coat and pulling the other woman flush against her, wrapping the edges around Helena’s back, trying to stem the tide of the uncontrollable shivers now shaking Helena like a rag doll.
“Need to get to the minister,” Helena said, teeth chattering as she burrowed as close to Myka’s body as possible.
“We will, honey. We need to get you warmed up first,” Myka promised, relief washing over her as she heard the sound of metal against metal and saw the SUV making its way towards them. “I don’t think he’s planning on contacting his father right now. He wants us to tell him, to give him his warning first. This is some kind of game for him and acting again too soon would take away some of the enjoyment. Don’t you think?”
Helena was finding it difficult to think of anything clearly, but some part of her mind registered the logic of Myka’s words. The SUV rolled to a stop beside them and Myka opened the back door, helping Helena into the truck and climbing in next to her. Pete turned the truck around and headed back towards the main road, the heater blasting a current of hot air down from the ceiling vents. Helena felt Myka slide her hands under her and pull her across her lap, the warmth of her body and the heat from the vents easing the shivering a bit.
Helena buried her face in Myka’s neck, breathing in the scent of her perfume, dragging in deep breaths, filling her lungs with the smell, trying to erase the acrid stench of smoke and fear. As the warmth finally began to return to her body, Helena began to drift off to sleep, the sheer terror and anxiety leaving her exhausted. As she slipped into unconsciousness, it occurred to her that for the second time since McPherson had released her, she had faced death: this time she realized that more than anything, she wanted to live.
Redding, California
Myka insisted that Pete drop her and Helena off at the hotel before he went to talk to Reverend Shaw about his son. She bundled Helena out of the SUV and into the room, immediately stripping off Helena’s wet clothes, the dank smell of smoke from her clothing permeating the room. Helena sat silent and still on the edge of the bed as Myka pulled off her boots, absently noting the stained leather as Myka tugged at her pant leg, the fabric soaked through up to her knees, clinging like a frozen second skin to her calf. The shivering that had eased in the warm cocoon of the truck began again in earnest as Myka slipped Helena’s shirt off her shoulders.
“Come on, let’s get you in the shower and warmed up,” Myka ordered gently. “Then I’m going to call Artie and Claudia and fill them in on our fiddle player.”
“It’s a lyre,” Helena rejoined weakly, the hint of a smile on her face all that she could manage. Still it elicited an answering grin from Myka, not a little relief mingled with amusement.
“Do you want me to join you or would you rather have some time alone?” Myka asked solicitously, her hand making smooth circles across Helena’s back.
“I’ll be all right. I’m fine, really. Not that I don’t always enjoy your company, my sweet. Although, I don’t believe that I’m quite up to trying out that shower rod again.” Helena replied, her attempt at normal almost successful. Almost. “Seriously, darling, now that I’ve gotten most of the smoke out of my lungs, I’m feeling a hundred percent better. Honestly.”
“Yeah, sure you are,” Myka said skeptically, one eyebrow raised in disbelief as she rose and moved toward the bathroom. “Okay, you shower and I’ll call Artie. Pete’s gone to tell Reverend Shaw what John Michael said and see if he had any ideas about where he son will go from here, now that he’s burned down the camp.”
“We need to watch him, the good reverend. Keep him under surveillance, I believe the term is. I have no doubt that he will lead us to his son,” Helena stated firmly, her voice sounding stronger and less raspy as she followed Myka, leaning against the counter as Myka turned on the water.
“I agree. But now that John Michael knows who we are, or at least what we look like, he’ll be harder to follow if he does contact his father,” Myka concurred, her back to Helena as she adjusted the taps, dipping her fingers under the stream of water to check the temperature.
“He already knew,” Helena said softly.
“What do you mean, he already knew?” Myka turned from the tub to face her, her expression troubled.
Helena hesitated, choosing her words carefully, unwilling to upset Myka any more than she was already. “He told me that he saw us the other day, when we went to the camp.”
As Myka scrolled quickly through her near-perfect memory, her expression became even more concerned. “Helena, what exactly did he say?”
“Just that he saw us. It wasn’t an essential part of the conversation, darling,” Helena rushed to assure her. “In fact, he mentioned it in passing, in reference to something else, a poem by Yeats that I don’t recall having read, about the burning of Troy. Given the legend that Nero was playing ‘The Sack of Ilium’ on that lyre while Rome burned, the good reverend’s son seems a bit obsessed with Troy’s untimely demise. Being named Helena didn’t help matters.”
“So he knew who we were when we arrived there today,” Myka mused. “Makes sense now that he started the fire immediately.”
Neither of them voiced the thought that hung suspended in the air between them, the knowledge that an intimate moment, one that had meant so much to both of them, had provided ammunition for a ruthless enemy. They stared at each for long minutes before Myka sighed deeply and ran a hand across her brow, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Helena reached behind her and unhooked her bra, then stepped gracefully out of her panties. She shivered again, although this time it had less to do with the cold and more to do with the look of desire that had flared in Myka’s green eyes.
“You should get in the shower. God knows, we’re wasting tons of water,” Myka said softly, the urge to touch Helena written clearly on her face. “I’ll go and give Artie a call and let him know what happened.”
Helena nodded and stepped under the water, turning to again meet Myka’s gaze as she slid the shower door closed. She almost changed her mind, almost asked Myka to shower with her, the need to touch and be touched washing over her with the same heat as the blistering spray, but she didn’t. With anyone else, sex would have been enough, would have served to disconnect her from the events of the day, from her ever shifting emotions, but not now, not with Myka. With Myka, each time they made love cemented further the bond between them and called up in Helena a depth of feeling that she had never experienced before. Given the already turbulent state of her emotions, it seemed foolish to add another drop of water to a flood ravaged levee.
Helena could hear the murmur of Myka’s voice over the thrum of the shower. She rinsed the shampoo from her hair, wondering idly if she would ever get the odor of smoke out of her nostrils completely. Stepping from the shower, she wrapped a towel turban-like around her head and one around her torso. She paused in front of the bathroom mirror, her image vague and distorted by the steam coated glass, the lines of her face melted and indistinct, only the dark ovals of her eyes standing out, eyes that she had once worried would show the chaos inside of her, show the shadows that crept ever closer to the surface. She had worried that Myka would see the madness hiding just behind the curtain, like some villain in a second-rate melodrama, but today’s encounter with John Michael Shaw had dispelled that particular fear.
She had seen true madness in his eyes and it bore no resemblance to the mustachioed figure lurking in the recesses of her own mind. Hers was composed of guilt and anger and regret, veritable mountains of regret, but there was no malice, no desire to harm anyone but herself and even that had lessened a bit since Myka. Her life had been composed of two stages, but somehow, of late, she had realized that the line of demarcation lay not with her unbronzing but with her first meeting with Myka Bering over the barrel of a gun. The murky figure in the mirror almost smiled at the irony.
Myka was sitting in the middle of the bed, long legs crossed beneath her, staring absently at the cell phone in her hand. The Farnsworth lay on the bed beside her. As Helena moved across the room towards her, Myka looked up, a smile playing on her lips.
“Feel better?” she asked tenderly, patting the bed next to her.
Helena sank down onto the mattress, unwrapping the towel from her head and rubbing her wet hair, squeezing some of the moisture from the long strands. “Much. How did the discussion with Artie go?”
“It was…it was Artie. He asked a lot of questions, of course,” Myka began, her next words interrupted as Helena spoke.
“Most of which, I am certain, concerned me and my ‘supposed’ encounter with our arsonist, correct? It occurred to me in the shower that the whole conversation with the elusive Mr. Shaw was no doubt suspect in Artie’s eyes, as was any intelligence I gathered,” Helena said wearily, unable to keep her frustration with Artie’s continued distrust of her hidden completely.
“Helena,” Myka said, her own annoyance at Artie’s ongoing vendetta beginning to wear on her, “it doesn’t matter whether Artie believes it or not. He’s not here, he doesn’t have to figure out some way to catch Shaw and get the lyre back. It’s easy to sit in judgment when you’re not the one putting your ass on the line. Pete and I trust you unconditionally. That’s all that matters.”
“I know, darling. And I cannot tell you how much that means to me. I just wish I knew how to prove myself to him,” Helena said quietly.
“You don’t have to prove anything to anyone,” Myka told her, wrapping her arms around Helena and pulling her close. “Pete called. He talked to Reverend Shaw and told him what happened, what John Michael said. He asked if there was any history of mental illness in the family, suggested maybe that John Michael was just starting to develop the symptoms of schizophrenia when he left home, but Pete said the minister was adamant that there was no one on either side of the family that suffered from anything worse than gout.”
“Poor man,” Helena murmured, resting her head on Myka’s shoulder. “In a way, I would think it would be easier to believe that some mental defect caused your child to become a monster rather than the alternative. It would be for me, at least.”
“Pete’s going to stay out there tonight, just in case. I think that the Campbells suggested it. We can relieve him in the morning. He can come back here and get some sleep and we’ll take the truck back out there,” Myka told her, her fingers tracing an abstract pattern on the skin of Helena’s arm.
They sat in silence for a few moments listening to the soft whirr of the heater, each lost in her own thoughts. Suddenly, Helena pulled back slightly in Myka’s embrace, the abruptness of her movement softened by her smile. “I’m cold. I’m going to get dressed. Perhaps we can walk to the restaurant and get some dinner?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Myka answered, smiling back, gathering the Farnsworth and the cell phone and placing them on the bedside table.
“Darling, did you bring your computer with you?” Helena asked, dropping her towel unselfconsciously and rummaging around in her bag for clean underwear and bra.
Her words were met with silence and she glanced up to find Myka’s eyes trailing slowly up and down her body. “Myka, darling?”
“What? I’m sorry,” Myka stammered, a bright crimson flush staining her cheeks. “What did you say?”
Helena laughed, that low, rich chuckle that sent goose bumps along Myka’s skin, and pulled a pair of black jeans and a dark purple blouse out of her bag. “I asked if you had your computer with you. I wanted to look up the poem to which Mr. Shaw referred. I don’t know if it has any significance, but he seemed quite adamant that I read it.”
“Yes. Yes, I do,” Myka pronounced, crossing the room to where her backpack lay on the table. She extracted the laptop and powered it up, returning to the bed to sit against the pillow strewn headboard. “Okay, what was the name of it?”
“I remember reading some of Yeats poems, but this one didn’t strike a bell. I believe he said it was called, No Second Troy,” Helena replied, pulling on and buttoning her shirt. She joined Myka on the bed, lying flat, her head against the pillows. “Did you find it?”
“Hmm,” Myka hummed, eyes fixed on the screen. “Um, yeah. I found it.”
“Read it to me?” Helena asked, the fear that had been steadily gathering in her now sitting like a goblin on her chest.
Myka cleared her throat and began to read,
“WHY should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?”
As the last syllable faded away, Helena turned her head and met Myka’s eyes. Myriad explanations flooded Helena’s mind: Shaw’s obsession with all things related to Troy, his accidental overhearing of her conversation with Myka at the camp; the coincidence of her name, the illness that plagued his mind, the alignment of the planets, the consummation of some massive karmic incident. None of which accounted for the compelling symmetry of it all, for the terrible beauty of the poem, for the tone of Myka’s voice as she read it or the expression in her green eyes.
“I know that I am mad, but Mother, dearest, now, for this one time, I do not rave,” Helena quoted softly, dark eyes unreadable. “Mad prophets, indeed.”
“Helena, what are you talking about?” Myka asked, putting the laptop on the floor and sliding down on the bed until her face was even with Helena’s.
“Perhaps Mr. Shaw is a prophet after all. He did speak of the end of days and mad prophets have been with us since long before the days of Troy. Perhaps he knows something we don’t,” Helena answered quietly, her eyes fixed on the wall beyond Myka’s head.
“What was that about being mad?” Myka demanded, reaching out a hand to gently grasp Helena’s jaw, forcing her gaze down.
“Euripides. The Trojan Women. Cassandra’s talking to her mother, Hecuba. Helen has brought about the destruction of Troy and because she scorned a god, Cassandra has been cursed with the gift of prophecy, prophecy that no one believes. It may be that our Mr. Shaw is something of a mad prophet himself,” Helena explained, a look of profound sadness taking hold in her dark eyes.
Myka didn’t respond for a moment, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. When she opened them, they were bright and determined. “Bullshit.”
“Pardon me?” Helena blinked, Myka’s no nonsense tone jarring her out of the funk into which she was rapidly sinking.
“I said, bullshit. Helena, he’s a crazy guy who’s been burning down entire towns with a stolen artifact. He’s obsessed with Nero and Troy and the fire and destruction. He overheard our conversation the other day, a conversation about fears and insecurities and your name is Helena and he thought it would be fun to toy with you, to make you question everything. And why did he do this? Because he’s crazy!” Myka ranted, her voice growing considerably louder and more emphatic by the end. “And just for the record, I know the whole story of Troy and Helen and Cassandra. You didn’t launch a thousand ships, sweetheart. You didn’t cause any of this. You haven’t done anything wrong except let a crazy man inside your head and it has to stop!”
“You’re right,” Helena sighed, shaking her head at the thoughts that had been rampaging like angry Huns through her brain. “You’re right. He was toying with me and I allowed it. I looked into those eyes. I saw the madness, the malice in them, heard the rage in his voice. I’m sorry, darling. I don’t know what came over me.”
Myka drew her closer, one arm sliding under the pillow beneath her head, the other around her waist. Their faces were inches apart, warm breath mingling. “We both know that you’ve been feeling really vulnerable and off-balance, Helena, with very good reason. Your entire life has changed beyond recognition. It’s easy to allow your doubts and your fears to control you. Trust me, I know. He heard us talking about this the other day and he used it to get to you. He seems to thrive on other people’s pain, on causing other people’s pain. You can’t let him. We will find him and we will get the artifact. And in the meantime, you have to remember that I love you and there is nothing that is ever going to change that. Nothing.”
Helena was amazed when the tears didn’t come. Instead of feeling more, she felt less. Less guilt. Less regret. Less fear. She wasn’t certain if it was the sensation of the goblin being removed from her chest, or simply a numbing distillation. Whichever it was, for the moment she could only be grateful, grateful for the profoundly lovely, loving creature now holding her in her arms. She took a deep breath and then another.
“I love you, too.”
Myka grinned at her, and Helena could see the relief etched in every line of Myka’s face. “Although, that line about ‘beauty like a tightened bow’ does fit you pretty well.”
“Stern? It said stern and unnatural,” Helena huffed, chuckling a little as she rubbed her nose along the curve of Myka’s cheekbone. “Well, at least you didn’t pick the one about having a simple mind.”
“It said ‘that nobleness made simple as a fire’, not simpleminded,” Myka corrected, before she caught the teasing glint in Helena’s eyes. “Although I may need to rethink that one.”
“You said you’d feed me,” Helena wheedled, sitting up and pulling Myka upright as well. “We should go eat and come back and get some sleep. Tomorrow promises to be a rather unpleasant day.”
“I have a better idea,” Myka proposed, pulling Helena back into a supine position. “We stay here, order pizza, get in bed and watch I Love Lucy reruns.”
“What exactly is a rerun and/or an I Love Lucy?” Helena asked, happily settling back in Myka’s arms. All of her doubts and emotional unbalance still remained in large part, but something had shifted, at least enough for her to breathe.
“A rerun is a re-showing of a television episode. I Love Lucy is the greatest comedy ever seen on T.V. I promise, you’ll like it,” Myka explained. “Now unhand me woman, so I can order our food.”
“Unhand you? I’m afraid you’ll have to use much smaller words. I am, after all, but a simpleminded beauty,” Helena laughed, slipping her hands behind Myka’s head and pulling her closer.
Lowering her mouth to Helena’s, Myka murmured softly, “You can be my trophy girlfriend. And you know what? I can live with being shallow.”
TBC……