The Muse

by Lauren Blakely

  I text Remy as I join the stream of visitors exiting the Louvre. It’s short and not so sweet.

  * * *

  Julien: I need to talk to the Muses. Now.

  23

  Sophie opens the iron gate to the courtyard at the Montmartre house as if she’s been waiting for me. “I heard about the Louvre,” she says.

  “That’s why I’m here. Remy says the Muses write notes. Maybe they’ll write me a to-do list for this disaster.”

  We head inside and down the hall lined with art, the Jasper Johns and Monet’s bridge, then into the media room and down the dark, spiraling stairs. Meeting me halfway are the bell-like voices I heard the night of Remy’s party. There’s something of Clio’s pure, sweet voice in the sound. It pierces me in a new way, imagining her on these stairs, coming and going with her sisters.

  Remy waits at the bottom, waving a piece of paper. “Thalia left a note for you, Julien!”

  Not the employee handbook, sadly. It’s only one sheet of thick embossed stationery with a line of handwritten script.

  Julien—I’m working at La Belle Vie today. Fastest way to get there is to take the third door on the right. —T

  I look at Remy. “Is this a summons?”

  He shrugs that Gallic shrug. “You said you wanted to talk to them.”

  “Have you met her before?”

  He smiles, which eases my nerves some. “She has crazy red hair, and she smells like pomegranates.”

  I look for a door, on the right or otherwise, and the closest thing to it is the rectangular outline on the floor, edged by the silver Muse dust. I nod to it. “Do we go through that?”

  Remy shakes his head. “You go through that. Sophie and I stay here.”

  “It’s for Muses only,” says Sophie. “Only they—and you—can open it.”

  I look from sister to brother to the door. So, if anything happens on the other side, there’ll be no one to let me out.

  But there’s no time to worry about that. Art is dying, collapsing like a sandcastle at high tide.

  “I swear,” I say as I crouch to touch the floor, “if I get stuck underground in Paris like the Phantom of the Opera, my ghost will haunt you both forever.”

  Remy laughs. “That won’t be the strangest thing to happen in this house.”

  “Good point.”

  I kneel outside the shimmering outline. I could ask Remy or Sophie what the Muses do, but I can feel my way through this on my own. I spread my hands over the slab like I did over Clio’s canvas last night and then place my palms on the stone, expecting resistance. But the stone slides over like a door at a department store. Instead of tumbling into a magical underground world of endlessly blue sky and sunlit green hills, I catch myself before I fall into the catacombs.

  I don’t understand the fascination with the Paris underground. It’s creepy and airless, and I orient myself as my eyes adjust to the dark. Third door on the right, and I can’t see my hand in front of my face. Taking out my phone, I thumb on the flashlight and find the door quickly, pulling it open by the old rusty handle. A staircase leads up to another door, which puts me in the back room of La Belle Vie, a famous perfume shop on the Rue de Rivoli. It’s full of old-fashioned bottles with puffy atomizers, all hand-painted with delicate flowers and vines. They’re works of art, beauty for its own sake, and it’s somehow not surprising to find a Muse working here while the place is closed.

  She’s bent over what looks like a handwritten musical score spread out on the counter—a woman with loose flaming-red hair . . . and laboratory goggles. I watch for a moment as she pores over the pages then, with surgical precision, picks up something with a pair of tweezers and examines it. She flicks some silvery dust onto it, shakes off any extra, and replaces it on the score.

  When she’s done, I clear my throat. She jumps, whirls around, and then laughs at herself as she pushes the magnifying goggles on top of her head.

  “Oh! Sorry about that.” She offers me her hand—like Clio, she has a thin silver bracelet on each wrist. With her high cheekbones, she’s delicately lovely, but her eyes look tired. “I’m Thalia, as you may have guessed. The owners of this shop are music lovers, and it makes for a quiet place to concentrate on coaxing out stubborn semiquavers. They can be so fiddly, you know.”

  “Right?” I say, as if I hear that all the time. “I was just saying that the other day.”

  It takes a moment for my humor to reach her, and then she laughs again. “I knew I’d be working on this symphony for a while, so thank you for meeting me here.”

  “Thanks for seeing me.” I realize she’s squeezing me in as she multitasks. Clio did say life as a Muse was all work. “So, is that from one of your composers?” I nod at the score.

  “Sort of. It’s a lost symphony, and Mahler isn’t available to tweak it himself, so here I am.” She waves away the extraordinary fact of a newly discovered symphony like it’s yesterday’s laundry. “I do some inspiration work myself, but lately my tasks are centered more on troubleshooting.”

  It’s the perfect opportunity to cut to the chase. I don’t just need help, I need information. And if a human muse is such a big deal, then it seems like I should rate some answers.

  “Since you mention troubleshooting,” I begin, and a tiny flinch from Thalia tells me something I should have realized. “You know what’s going on at the Louvre, don’t you?” But it’s not a question. “How can you fiddle around with semiquavers or whatever when the art is coming apart at the seams? How can you not do something to stop it?”

  “Do you think I didn’t try?” Thalia asks sharply in what sounds like frustration, maybe directed at herself. “I was at the Louvre the second it opened. I laid my hands on all the damaged paintings.” She pinches the bridge of her nose and ducks her head, and her hair falls in a curtain around her face. This moment and another—the mane of red hair I saw on the museum steps hours ago—snap together.

  “I saw you there.” I feel foolish for not realizing it straightaway, but I don’t feel guilty for questioning her. “At the Louvre this morning.”

  “I tried to fix it, Julien. I was the first one through the door when the museum opened.”

  It’s surreal that a Muse has to go through the front doors like everyone else. I look at her, leaning against the counter, looking bone-weary and sad and . . . human, even though I know she’s not.

  Thalia’s shoulders slump. “I sent Calliope over to the National Gallery in London too. They’re having the same problem with their Turners.”

  “The flooding?” All those beautiful J. M. W. Turners seascapes full of dappled sunlight on the water.

  “All over the floors, Calliope said.”

  “Then what can we do?” I ask. “Because a mop and bucket aren’t going to cut it.”

  “Julien,” Thalia says, intense but calm. “You need to put your human brain to work on it. That’s why we so desperately need people like you—you can think in ways that we Muses can’t. Your mortality—your humanity—gives you insight and ideas that escape us.”

  “All I’ve been doing is improvising, Thalia.” Suddenly I’m voicing a frustration that has been simmering for days, waiting for me to put it into words. “What good is being a human muse or whatever if I don’t know how to fix this painting meltdown or the fading Renoirs? I’m banging around in the dark. How can I save any of the art like that? How can I keep Clio safe if you don’t give me answers?”

  “That’s what I’m saying, Julien! I don’t have the answers to this one.”

  This one.

  The emphasis is tiny but meaningful.

  “What about the Renoirs?” I ask on a hunch. “Everything started with the fading Renoirs. If he could trap Clio in the painting, could someone use the Muse dust to curse his other work . . .?”

  There it is again—the tic in her jaw, the flinch between her brows, the drift of her gaze away from mine.

  Oh . . .

  I see now.

  Not how or why.
>
  Who and what.

  My body goes cold.

  My skin prickles.

  My blood chills.

  No. Just no. This can’t be.

  I swallow roughly, trying to understand, wishing I didn’t just unlock the mystery.

  But I fear I did.

  “You? You cursed Renoir’s paintings?” I don’t want to be right, because this feels so wrong. So twisted against its purpose. “You cursed his art, Thalia. And you’re a Muse.”

  Her eyes are wet but hard when they meet mine. “You have to understand, Julien. I love Clio. I love all my sisters. We are all we have—everything else goes into nurturing art and expression. And when he took Clio away . . .” She inhales a deep breath of righteousness that expands her chest and straightens her shoulders. When she speaks again, her words are focused and sharp-edged. “He robbed me of my sister. He robbed the world of all the art she could have inspired.”

  I have no room to talk. If anyone had taken Clio from me, I would be just as furious, and I don’t know what drastic step I might have taken.

  “Tell me what happened,” I say. “After Clio was trapped, then what?”

  If Thalia can fill in the gap in the story, maybe I’ll find a clue how to repair, or at least stop, the damage.

  She nods, the movement controlled and crisp. “Suzanne Valadon switched a forgery for the real Woman Wandering in the Irises and brought the painting to me. I tried everything I could think of to reverse what he’d done, used every tool in my kit. I took the canvas to museums around the world and hid inside until night fell to see if the magic there would free her. But the Muse dust is powerful, and he’d trapped her until a human muse came around. It was binding, and there was nothing I could do.”

  As she recounts the story, her eyes fill with fury, with the kind of anger that must have engulfed her then. “So, I did the thing I never dreamed that I, or any Muse, would do. I cursed every last painting of his but hers.”

  I feel almost guilty for how relieved I am at that, with everything else imploding. “Why now though?” I ask. “Why not ruin the paintings back then?”

  Thalia leans against the counter, looking exhausted. “I wanted to take what he loved most, so I cursed his art. And I wanted it to hurt, so I cursed it to fade away . . . but not until a human muse appeared. Just as the wave of inspiration spreads, his legacy would fade away.”

  That’s . . . genius.

  I’m horrified about the art, and it’s impossible to get past that. But if someone hurt Clio, I’d be just as wrathful, and as far as vengeance goes, Thalia’s is inspired.

  But then, she is a Muse.

  If only this wasn’t a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences. “The Renoirs started fading right after I interacted with the art—after I tapped into the muse part of me.” She nods in confirmation. “Does he know about the curse? Why his paintings are fading?”

  Thalia shakes her head. “He’s never believed in a human muse, because he’s never believed art and beauty can be created by anyone not touched by an eternal Muse. He thinks that to create great works of art you have to be special.”

  I connect more dots. Renoir knows his art is fading—that’s why he’s having Cass Middleton recreate the ruined pieces—but he doesn’t know why. If he blames the damage to his paintings on Clio, or rather, the display of her painting, who knows what he might do to her still. Renoir wouldn’t destroy his own work, but he could have Max cut her out of her frame, roll her up, hide her in a closet somewhere, and think his problems are over.

  I suddenly feel as tired as Thalia looks. “Look, all I care about is saving the art and protecting Clio.”

  She cuts me off. “How is she? Why hasn’t she come back yet? Are you going to let her out of the museum?”

  Am I going to let her out?

  Has Thalia not met her sister Muse?

  “That’s up to Clio,” I say. The thought of her leaving is a twisting pain in my heart, but it’s not up to me.

  Someday, maybe soon, Clio will want to get back to her life as a Muse. The best I can hope for is that we can meet between her duties. A stolen kiss here, a brief moment there. I’ll take whatever she can spare me and be grateful to have that much.

  “You love her,” Thalia says, surprising me. I don’t know what gave me away, but she’s not asking. It’s a statement and an expression of wonder.

  “Yes,” I say with certainty.

  “And she is in love with you?”

  “Yes.” I don’t doubt that either. Not after last night.

  “What is it like? That kind of love?” Thalia asks, as if she’s never even considered it before.

  How am I supposed to answer that? Poets and songsmiths have been trying forever. It’s feeling as if the stars exist only to shine on the two of you. Feeling as if time stops and your whole heart is full.

  Feeling like the impossible has become possible.

  My eyes fall on the score spread out on the counter, and I say, “It’s like finding a lost symphony.”

  Thalia smiles. “That sounds wonderful.”

  “It is,” I say with absolute certainty.

  It’s amazing, and I would stop time to enjoy it forever, but I can’t, and there is work to do.

  “So, the curse. From what I can tell, it seems to have spread from the Renoirs to affect the other paintings around it, and we need to do something to reverse it. Last night, Clio tried to fix Renoir’s painting of Gabrielle with a Rose, but . . .” I spread my hands, empty of results. “You’ve tried, and I assume Calliope tried in London. Nothing seems to work.”

  Thalia looks at me. Her eyes sharpen. Her tone is crisp but curious. “Well, have you tried?”

  24

  I stand in front of the painting I touched this morning and consider asking one of the Musée’s visitors to pinch me. The Swing looks perfect.

  Absolutely perfect. The woman’s white dress is luminescent again, the blue bows radiant. I did that. While I was out all day, the magic went to work.

  Why my touch and not Clio’s or Thalia’s or one of the other eternal Muses?

  I answer my own question almost before I finish it. A human muse set the curse into action—ignited it in a way. Logic dictates that a human muse can reel it back in.

  Since I can’t very well run around the gallery touching all the Renoirs in front of the visitors, I’ll have to take care of the others tonight.

  But then I see that Gabrielle with a Rose has been taken down and a small card placed beside the empty space: Removed for conservation.

  That gives me a place to start.

  I head for the lowest level of the museum, far below ground. If Gabrielle with a Rose was taken down this morning, it shouldn’t be too hard to find the painting in the storage room. It’ll be near the front—especially since the restorers will be in to look at it. Right now, though, the long hall leading there is deserted. I detour to wash my hands—because it would be a shame to cure magical damage and cause the ordinary kind—and then unlock the door to the storage room via the keypad.

  Only a portion of the museum’s collection is on display at any given time. The ones that aren’t on loan spend their sabbatical here, shelved on specialized racks, the lights kept dim and the temperature cool. I find Gabrielle with a Rose easily, carefully slide the frame out, and rest it against a nearby wall.

  I’ll have to be quick—anyone with the code can come in, and I won’t be able to hear them approaching. I start where the damage is the worst, spreading my hands and pressing my palm gently against the canvas. I try to remember how long I touched The Swing. It wasn’t very long at all. So, I lift my hands away and wait.

  Nothing happens. I stand, walk through the racks to stretch my legs, and try not to check my watch every thirty seconds. The Swing didn’t return to its proper state immediately, and the damage to it was much less extensive than that done to Gabrielle with a Rose.

  Instead of pacing, I head back up to the staff offices and tap on A
daline’s door. She’s on the phone, but she motions for me to come in.

  “Yes,” she says to the caller. “We’re as baffled as you are.” Adaline rubs her temple as she wraps up the mostly one-sided conversation. When she finally hangs up, she sighs. “That was the Met. The sleeping maid in their Vermeer snores, apparently. Trying to move it made things worse, so they’ve left all the art in place and roped it off from visitors.”

  I nod. “That’s only sensible.”

  I don’t realize how ridiculous that sounds until Adaline says, “Julien,” like I’ve suggested tea on Mars this afternoon. “None of this is sensible.”

  We stare at each other for a long loaded moment.

  Adaline cracks first.

  A snort.

  A smothered snicker.

  We give in to mad, sleep-deprived hilarity so loud I have to shut the door so the staff doesn’t think we’re lunatics or monsters. Once we get ahold of ourselves, Adaline looks better for the release of endorphins, and I feel a bit better too.

  She rubs her hand over her face. “You look like crap.”

  “You’re one to talk,” I say, since we’re pulling no punches.

  “Yes, but this is my job.”

  “It’s mine too,” I say, not meaning the internship.

  “At least get out of here and get some fresh air and some lunch.”

  I look at my watch. I need to give Gabrielle with a Rose more time to heal, and now that Adaline’s mentioned food, I’m ravenous.

  “You want me to bring you anything?”

  She waves me away. “Go on. We’ll touch base later.” Then she turns to her email, and I turn toward the door.

  I stop, though, to ask, “How many museums does this make?”

  “The Louvre, the National Gallery in London, the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, and now the Met.”

  If my remedy works can I travel to museums all over the world and convince them to let me grope their paintings?

  I text Simon, and we meet at a café down the street, where I order French fries and a croque monsieur with chicken instead of ham, and another one to take back to Adaline. If she doesn’t want it, I’ll have no trouble eating it.