Page 50 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
“Made you?”
“Well, we weren’t just born from human mothers. We were made to be Muses.”
The sky could fall, the earth could split open, this garden could tear in two, and I wouldn’t notice. I am inside a painting with a Muse, and I know this moment must be a mirage, or maybe it is hazier than that—a reflection of a mirage, a dream within a hallucination. If I was amazed at paintings coming to life, if I was astonished to learn why I can see them, that’s nothing compared to learning this. That the woman I’ve grown so fond of is a Muse.
She flicks her fingers, and a spray of silver dust lands on me. “There you go,” she says, showing off with delight.
I catch her hand and touch her bracelets. They should be wispy, since they’re hairbreadth thin, but they are as solid as a bank vault. “Is this where you keep the silver dust?”
She laughs and shakes her head. “No. Our bracelets are our marks. They mark us as Muses. And I’m the Muse of painting.”
“I thought Clio was traditionally the Muse of history?”
“I was, but when painting became big during the Renaissance, I switched.”
“‘Switched,’” I say, then laugh. “Like a midlife career change.”
“Exactly.”
“What do you do with that silver dust?”
“It’s used for inspiration.”
“Oh, sure. No biggie.” I pretend to flick my fingers. “Hey, want to be inspired? Here’s my silver dust.”
She pushes my shoulder and laughs. “You’re the one who drew shoes with it.”
I sit up and drag a hand through my hair, questions bubbling inside me. “How on earth has one of the nine Muses been inside a painting since 1885?”
Her expression shifts to one of resignation, but there’s a touch of anger there too. “Renoir trapped me,” she says, her voice containing a hard edge. “That’s why I didn’t tell you right away who I am. The last person—the last human I saw—essentially put me in a cage. I have a tiny bit of a trust issue,” she says, and holds her thumb and forefinger together to make light of the statement, but it’s a heavy one nevertheless. Of course she’d have trust issues. “But I felt that you were different from the first time I met you. I wanted to make sure. I wanted to tell you when I knew I could trust you.”
I reach for her hands, thread our fingers together, and squeeze. “You can trust me, Clio. I would never do anything to hurt you. I only want to help you. But why did he trap you?”
“We used to talk, Renoir and Monet and Valadon and I. I was the Muse for all of them, and we had many discussions about the nature of art. Renoir had firm beliefs that only great artists like himself should make art, be revered and admired. That we Muses should save our inspiration for the worthy—which, of course, included him. And I didn’t agree.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him—I stood there in the garden, and I said, ‘I believe it’s my destiny to guide art and artists to a more open age where anyone can make art and anyone can show it.’ Things were different then, Julien. During his time, art was very closed off.”
I nod. “I know. It’s different now, with so many ways to experiment and exhibit it. There’s public art and graffiti art and videos and cartoons and experimental music . . .”
“And that’s what I always believed would happen. That anyone could create art, that anyone could consume it. And I told Renoir about human muses. That they would exist, and that they would do more of the work of inspiration. He did not like that idea whatsoever. And so, he trapped me.”
She says it clinically, but perhaps that’s so she can make it through the horror of the tale.
“How?” I ask, cringing. “Did he stuff you into his canvas?”
“He took my powers of inspiration and twisted them. Muse dust is very limited but very powerful, and binding. He had been painting the gardens, and said he wanted to show me what he’d done so far, but when I looked at his canvas, he took me by the wrists and flicked my fingertips onto the painting. And I went into it. It’s like a reversal, the way he used the dust on me. The last words I heard were ‘Let’s see if a human muse can free you someday.’”
Every part of me aches for her. For the bitterness, for the pain. For having everything she loved, everything she believed, turned against her.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Clio,” I say, but how do you even begin to comfort someone who’s been caged for so long, even if the bars are beautiful?
She holds out her hands as if to say c’est la vie. “I’ve gotten used to it, I suppose.”
