Page 45 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
I turn to a pair of travelers standing next to me—two older women, American by their accents, possibly sisters by their matching brown hair and straight noses. “Excuse me. This may seem like a strange question, but do you see a lemon right there?”
I point to the spot where the lemon used to be, and one of the ladies laughs. “Is that a trick question? There’s no lemon in that painting at all.”
That’s different since the last time I was here. Something has changed, making the alterations now visible to anyone. But still only I can see Clio—and it’s the same when the other paintings come alive at the Musée d’Orsay.
But what has changed? Why can the visitors see the mutations of the art in the Louvre, and Adaline and the other curators see the fading of the Renoirs?
I hurry to the other galleries and reach the Ingres first. The drooping feathers in the odalisque’s peacock fan aren’t hanging out of the canvas anymore. Most are missing, like a rat tore them out, leaving behind a fan half the size. I locate the Titian next, with the woman looking at her reflection. What was a tiny fissure in her mirror is now an ugly crack down the middle.
The woman next to me is studying the painting thoughtfully, and I use the opportunity to say, as if it’s a casual observation, “Funny, how she’s looking at herself in a broken mirror, isn’t it?”
Cocking her head, she considers it a moment more while I hold my breath. “It is. Like ‘The Lady of Shalott,’ but cracked up and down instead of side to side.”
Bathsheba is next, and the change there is dramatic. Where her stomach had bulged out of the canvas before, now that belly is just gone, her stomach flatter, as if a plastic surgeon stopped by and gave the fleshy figure a nip tuck.
“That’s one sexy biblical figure.” The remark comes from a young German guy ogling the Rembrandt. “I don’t remember her being such a babe, but she’s got a rocking bod.”
I run both my hands through my hair, pushing my palms hard against my scalp. Bathsheba has a rocking bod?
Regardless, I’ve discovered that other people can now see what I see, but they have no idea that they’re gazing at art that’s turning ill.
And I have no idea either how sick the art can get. Or whether I can do anything about it.
17
Simon is clearly James Bond. He’s found where Max Broussard lives.
“You’re 007,” I say with an appreciative smile as we walk down a narrow stretch of sidewalk in Pigalle, an up-and-coming neighborhood, that’s still quite ramshackle.
He blows on his fingernails. “My talent is boundless. And so is my affection for Lucy. Speaking of, she keeps asking me about Emilie.”
Seeing where this is going, I try to deflect. “She’s trying to set you up with her friend now?”
He rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean. Lucy wants us all to do something. The four of us. As two couples.”
“Maybe she just doesn’t want to hang out with you alone.”
Simon reverses direction on the sidewalk. “On second thought, I don’t have time to show you where Broussard lives.”
“Kidding.” I grab his arm and turn him back around, and we keep walking. Other than giving him a hard time, there’s no reason to be cagey with Simon, so I test out the truth. “Thing is . . . there’s kind of someone else I’m into.”
“Really?” Simon raises an eyebrow as we cross an unevenly cobbled patch of street and turn onto an even narrower one. The dilapidated buildings around us tilt inward the slightest bit.
“Well?” Simon presses. “What’s the story?”
My phone buzzes with a text—a quick look tells me it’s from Sophie, who has been dogging Cass Middleton since we saw her a few days ago.
* * *
Sophie: Cass is up to something, going in and out of a church near her shop in the afternoons. Will stake her out tomorrow at this time and alert you, okay?
* * *
I tap back with a thumbs-up and tuck my phone into my pocket while I tell Simon, “It’s complicated.”
“Oh, well, don’t tell me because my little pea brain can’t handle it.”
“It’s just that it’s still early.”
“So how do you know her?” he asks.
“She hangs out at the museum.”
“Have you talked to her? Asked her out?”
“Not exactly out.”
“Do you need me to come by and do it for you?”
I can’t decide whether to laugh or panic. “Ha. Hardly.”
Finally, we reach our destination -- Max Broussard’s home. The quiet side street squeezes between a graffiti-covered brick building on one side and what looks like a shabby sort of studio space on the other. Through the dirty windows of the building, I see the place is a mess, stacked with smocks and pottery wheels, kilns and sculptor’s tools, sketch pads and pencils. “This is where he lives?”
