Page 74 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
I’m soaked to my knees the second I enter the painting, but it’s peaceful here at Monet’s pond, and so I slosh to the bank and sit, careful not to let my jeans pockets get wet. There are more than half a dozen damaged Turners here in the National Gallery, so fixing them will take time.
But it will also take more than that. Clio will pour her love into the Turners and they’ll be right again, and my world will be wrong—I can’t imagine she’ll feel much of anything for me after repairing that many paintings.
When I leave the painting ten minutes later, I leave the water behind too, coming out completely dry.
The room is still quiet, so I pace and wait. I should have stayed in the painting a little longer.
I drop onto the bench too hard and push it an inch or two. That’s all, but in the quiet, I might as well have blown a trumpet.
Cursing my impatience for making me careless, I pluck the drawing from under the bench and sprinkle it with a pinch of the Muses’ dust from my pocket.
Two sets of footsteps move with purpose toward the Monet room. One set is Clio’s, and she rounds the corner into the Impressionist room.
“Guard coming!” She mouths.
“Did you get it done?” I ask the same way, relieved when she nods.
Jerking my head toward our exit painting, I trace my drawing with silvery fingertips, cupping my hand around the bird that comes to life. I release it near the door and hear the flurry of wings and the startled guard saying, “Bloody hell!” Just as we go, I get a snatch of him calling wildlife rescue.
Clio and I walk toward the bridge inside the painting, and she tells me about the magnificent sight of the waters and the sunsets being remade, of how the light streaked across the paint in just the way Turner had always envisioned. As I listen to her, it occurs to me that in some ways she’s not that different. She isn’t cold or callous. She’s still warm and glowing, but she only has eyes for the art now. She is slipping away from the woman she was with me and reverting back to the Muse she was made to be. I want to share this moment with her, to rejoice in the saving of the art, but each reborn painting crushes me a little more.
She almost forgets to reach for my hand when we walk onto the bridge on the way to the Met. I feel as if the ground is starting to sway as she changes.
“Oops, sorry,” she says, like it’s no big deal, and it isn’t to her, because she no longer has the desire to hold my hand.
For no good reason, I opt to bide my time in a church. Tired of water lilies, I guess. The real Rouen Cathedral in Normandy was bombed during World War II, but here it’s still perfect. I thought it would be peaceful waiting for Clio there, and it is.
Much too peaceful, and my thoughts are too loud.
My feelings churn from angst to resignation to anger at the unfairness of having to participate in the excision of Clio’s love from my life.
I leave the painting before I really start to wallow in misery.
My feet are barely on the floor when there’s a cry from another room.
Clio.
I bolt down the hall and then turn into a room full of modern art, spinning around when I realize it’s not the direction where the noise came from.
There’s a shadow by the entry, a not-Clio shadow, and my heart stops.
I quickly survey the room and dive into the nearest painting. My jaw drops when I reach the other side of the drip marks, and I think I may laugh harder than I’ve ever laughed in my life. Jackson Pollock always said his abstract art was about the art and the paint itself, nothing more.
Pollock lied.
I’m inside a gigantic refrigerator. There’s a jar of pickles, a container of mustard, and some yogurt that is probably way past its expiration date.
This is what art historians and modernists have been ruminating on for years?
I’m here to say Jackson Pollock painted appliances.
I leave, and thankfully the shadow from before is gone, as I double back to our exit. Clio is waiting for me by the bench. I can tell she’s been crying, but she looks worried now, and when she sees me, she motions for me to run. I do, as quietly as I can, and she surprises me by grabbing my hand and pulling me under the bench, shifting so I’m on top of her. The front of the bench shields us from view, but this is the cruelest torture. I’m pressed against her, and I can feel her heart beating against mine. I want to smother her in kisses, but she’s simply my accomplice now, nothing more.
