We Own the Sky (The Muse Chronicles Book 1)

by Sara Crawford

  “No, look at these!” Clio shouted, and Clio filled Melpomene’s mind with reality television shows, pop songs, and music videos. Only ten minutes had gone by before Melpomene held out a hand to Clio to signal for her to stop.

  “Let’s say I tell you where the Dagger is,” Melpomene said. She glanced over at Calliope. “Soon, Calliope will wake, she’ll select the new Ruling Muse, and that will be that. We’ll all go back to sleep.”

  “Exactly,” Clio said. “We don’t have much time. I must get as much done as possible.”

  Melpomene paused, reflecting. She was quiet for a few minutes. When she finally spoke, it was in a hushed tone. “I do seem to recall that I helped Urania build a safe place to store the dagger a century ago before she took my place.”

  “Where is it?” Clio asked eagerly.

  Melpomene paused again. Surely, Urania would not approve of this. She thought about the images she had just seen, however. What kind of world did she wake up to? She looked up at Clio and offered her a hand. Clio took it, and Melpomene led her sister to the tiny door on the floor that led down to the secret room. It was there that Clio saw it sitting on a shelf, shiny and silver and just the way she remembered. She took it in her hands and ran her fingers up and down the blade.

  There was so much that Clio needed to do.

  “Thank you, Melpomene,” she said, reaching out a hand to touch her sister on the shoulder. “You’ve been a tremendous help.”

  Melpomene shrugged.

  “No one ever wants my help,” she sighed. “We all know the only reason Calliope made me Ruling Muse two centuries ago is because everyone else was too exhausted to do it. I’m sure they will still be complaining about me when they wake—”

  “I’ve got to go, sister,” Clio interrupted. “Thank you again.”

  Melpomene frowned.

  “No one ever want to listen to me,” she whined.

  Clio closed her eyes and thought of Los Angeles.

  And then she was there, walking down a busy street. She noticed the Staples Center on her right. When she got a closer look, she realized that Jenny Treb was playing a show there tonight.

  Well, she thought, I suppose one detour won’t hurt. I will make a statement. Urania and all the other Muses will know to take me seriously.

  Clio smiled, closed her eyes, and imagined backstage at the Staples Center.

  TWENTY

  Lydia

  Lydia sat on a billboard in New York, waiting for Mercedes. She asked Urania to fill her head with a Pearl Jam record.

  She took a swig of her beer. Ever since she had been hanging around Mercedes, Lydia had started drinking again. She told herself it wasn’t so bad this time. The alcohol made her think a lot less.

  Mercedes appeared, her hair all disheveled, the thin strap on her red dress falling down off her shoulder, holding a cigarette in her hand.

  “Hey Lydia, what’s up, man?” she shouted, clearly intoxicated.

  “You’ve been with your drummer guy?” Lydia asked, trying not to laugh at Mercedes’s appearance.

  “Yeah…” Mercedes said, looking down.

  “What?” Lydia asked.

  “Well, I kind of got carried away when I saw Brandon,” Mercedes started, “I did what you said and made him see me. He was playing drums, and obviously, he thought I was a ghost or that he was seeing things. So, he ignored me at first. But eventually, he listened. I told him the whole story. About Muses and how Amber had really seen Vincent and Izabella—and how I became a Muse and how he didn’t need to worry about me anymore because I was happy. Happier than I had ever been when I was a human, even.

  “He sat there listening without saying a word. And when I was done, he told me he didn’t believe any of it, that he had smoked too much pot. So, I started getting mad. And then I ran up to him, and I started kissing him. I figured, he’d have to believe me then, right?”

  Mercedes was quiet now. Lydia took another sip of her beer as Mercedes took a drag on her cigarette.

  “So?” Lydia pressed for more information even though she knew where the story was going.

  “Well, one thing led to another…”

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  “Maybe just a little bit,” Mercedes said with a giggle.

  “Mercedes, you have to be careful. You could get pregnant! It’s not like birth control pills work on us.”

  “And why don’t they?”

  “Drugs don’t work on us.”

  “What about these?” Mercedes asked, holding up her cigarette and pointed at Lydia’s beer in protest.

  “I told you, the only reason we feel drunk when we drink alcohol is because we think that’s what should happen. It’s all psychological. Drugs don’t really have any effect on us. If a Muse had never even done a drug when she was human, it would have no effect on her whatsoever because she wouldn’t know how it felt.”

  Mercedes was thoughtful.

  “Well, whatever. I’m sure I won’t get pregnant,” Mercedes said. “And anyway, I’m probably not going to see him again. He knows that I’m okay now, and that’s all that matters.”

  Somehow, Lydia didn’t quite believe her, but only because Mercedes reminded her so much of herself. Lydia tried not to dwell on this.

  “Anyway,” Mercedes said, stomping on her cigarette. “Let’s go do your thing, now. In Georgia.”

  “Are you ready?” Lydia asked.

  “Yeah, man! Are you ready?”

  Lydia nodded and set her beer down on top of the billboard. She held out her hand for Mercedes, who took it. The two of them closed their eyes and disappeared.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Jenny Treb

  Jenny walked into her dressing room. She only had an hour before she was supposed to be on stage, and she really needed some quiet alone time.

  “Hey,” she said to Erin and Courtney, the backup dancers hanging out on the couch. “Do you mind if I have some time by myself to get centered before the show?”

  “Totally not!” Courtney said.

  “Yeah, break a leg tonight!” Erin added, the two of them getting up to walk out.

  There was a knock on the door. Eddie, one of Jenny’s bulky bodyguards was standing there with a cup of tea when Jenny opened the door.

  “Here’s that tea you wanted,” Eddie said. Jenny flashed him a smile.

  “Thanks, baby!” She called everyone “baby.”

  She grabbed the cup of tea and put it down on a table, sitting down on the couch. She took a sip, enjoying the rare moment of silence.

  She noticed the Taylor acoustic guitar sitting in the corner. She picked it up and began to strum the G chord. It sounded a little out of tune, but she was proud of herself for remembering. Lenny in the backing band had been teaching her how to play a little. She thought if she kept practicing maybe she could write her own songs for the next album.

  Sure, this album had been a lot of fun, but she couldn’t help but feel hurt by all the criticism it had received. They called her talentless. They said she couldn’t sing. One music critic at Rolling Stone had even called her album “simply terrible.” Jenny was lying when she told people that she didn’t care, that it was all about the fans, that she felt more loved and appreciated than anyone could hope to. She thought about this as she set her guitar down and continued sipping on her herbal tea.

  The truth was that even though there were millions of people buying her music, even though she was selling out huge arenas, she knew the critics were right. She was an awful singer. She was okay at dancing, and she had a great body. But the only real reason she was anyone in pop music was because her mother was a record label executive.

  If she could write, though, and learn guitar and come up with some really great songs for the next album, she could prove them all wrong.

  She took another big sip of her tea. She started to feel a little woozy, like all the blood was rushing to her head, as if everything was spinning.

  Wow, I really should have slept mo
re last night, she thought.

  She suddenly realized she could no longer move her fingers, her hands, her arms. In fact, she couldn’t move at all. Panic filled her body.

  Jenny would have gasped if she could have as a woman literally appeared out of thin air. She had the straightest, longest black hair that Jenny had ever seen, she wore a long white dress that looked very plain, she had copper skin, and incredibly bright and vibrant green eyes.

  Was this a hallucination? Jenny tried desperately to move, but she couldn’t.

  “You won’t be performing tonight,” the woman said to her. “How dare you claim to be an artist?” She took Jenny gingerly in her arms and laid her down on the floor. She pulled out a syringe from her robe and looked down at her.

  Jenny Treb stared at the “Party in All the Right Places” poster on the wall and then closed her eyes as the life left her body.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Vincent

  Vincent was lying beside a sleeping Sylvia in her bed, his fingers in her long, brown hair, feeling her lungs expand and release. He’d hardly left her side for the past two nights, since her birthday party. He had never been so happy. The two of them had already written eight songs together, five in the past two days alone. Sylvia hardly ever left the piano, and when her father wanted to use the studio, she played the electric keyboard in her room.

  It had been the best two days of Vincent’s life. It was as if his own sadness and her sadness canceled each other out and made room for happiness, for contentment. They were so joyful, the two of them.

  At times, he had even wondered if she even needed him at all to create the music. She seemed to be her own Muse. She seemed to be a Muse to him, even. He had even scribbled down a few poems since he met her, something he hadn’t done since he was a human.

  There was something about Sylvia that was different from any artist—or Muse for that matter—that Vincent had ever seen. And now that he had decided to stop trying to keep his distance, it seemed that there was nothing they couldn’t do.

  He lied next to her in her bed, over the blanket she slept under, cradling her in his arms and stroking her hair gently. Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty score played softly on her computer. Sylvia stirred suddenly, as if she were dreaming. She opened her eyes, breathing heavily.

  “Vincent?” she asked sleepily, grabbing onto his shirt as tightly as she could.

  “Yes, my dear,” he whispered softly.

  “You didn’t leave?” she asked, closing her eyes, sinking back into him. He could feel her heart racing underneath her tank top.

  “I told you,” he said softly, “As long as you wish for me to be here, I’ll never leave.”

  She smiled and exhaled, holding onto him as tightly as she could, and then she fell back asleep. He felt all her muscles relax. Vincent felt so peaceful and relaxed, he felt he might actually sleep himself. Strictly speaking, Muses didn’t need to sleep. The only ones who really slept with any constancy were the Originals and when they slept it was for centuries at a time. For a Muse, sleep was a choice. But even as relaxed as Vincent felt, how could he possibly go to sleep when Sylvia was lying next to him? He loved hearing the sound of her breathing, feeling her hands grab him in her sleep, hearing the soft murmurs that escaped from her lips periodically throughout the night.

  It must have been two or three hours before Vincent heard voices downstairs. Two women were speaking.

  “Are you sure this is his house?” one voice asked. It sounded raspy, but young.

  “Yes,” the other answered in a whisper. “He must not be here right now.”

  “What about your daughter? What was her name?”

  “Sylvia,” the woman answered. “Her room used to be upstairs when I was living here.”

  Vincent started to go rigid, moving Sylvia carefully so that she wouldn’t notice him getting up to move. Was this really Sylvia’s mother? Why was she here now, in the middle of the night, with another woman?

  Before he could think much about it, two women appeared in the room with him. It all became clear.

  They were Muses.

  One was short with bright red hair. She wore a red dress, huge heels, and a ton of makeup, and she carried a vodka bottle. She looked oddly familiar. The other was slightly taller with short brown hair, wearing a denim skirt with fishnet tights and a black shirt. He immediately saw Sylvia in her.

  Both women stared at him in shock.

  “Vincent?” the red-haired girl asked.

  “Shhhh!” Vincent pressed a finger to his lips to signal to them that they needed to be quiet.

  “Why do we need to be quiet? She’s a human!” the red-haired girl said, a little too loudly.

  Sylvia stirred.

  “Because she can see and hear all of us,” Vincent hissed. “Let’s go outside.”

  The brunette was simply staring at Sylvia, not noticing the interaction between the other Muse and Vincent.

  Vincent took the red-haired Muse’s hand, who grabbed the brunette’s hand. And then the three of them were outside of Sylvia’s house in an instant where she wouldn’t be able to hear them.

  “What’s going on? Why are you here?” the red-haired girl asked. Vincent couldn’t take his eyes off the brunette. “I’m Mercedes! I actually used to know Amber Morris before I became a Muse. That’s how I know—” She kept speaking but Vincent wasn’t listening.

  “You’re Sylvia’s mother,” he said to the brunette. She nodded once.

  Memories flashed through Vincent’s mind. The way Sylvia had looked in the garage—about to take her own life. The way she could see all Muses; she had called them “flickering people.”

  She had looked different when he first saw her. Not like an immortal, but not entirely human either.

  He could hear Urania in his head, telling him the stories of the half-mortal, half-immortal children, and he felt blind for not seeing it before.

  “They thought you were a human, but you were a Muse the whole time, weren’t you?” Vincent asked.

  “What? Lydia, what is he talking about?” the red-haired Muse asked.

  The brunette—Lydia, apparently—nodded at Vincent.

  “I was a Muse, and Dylan was a human, which means that Sylvia is…” Lydia couldn’t finish her sentence.

  Half-immortal-half-mortal, Vincent thought. Sylvia is a half-Muse.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Collaboration

  When I first wake up, I am afraid that it was all a dream. I am afraid that when I open my eyes, I won’t see him there, even though I can feel his arms around me. I can inhale his scent, and I don’t want to open my eyes. I can hear “She’s Leaving Home” by the Beatles playing, though I could have sworn this wasn’t on my sleep playlist. Is Vincent putting that in my head? The thought makes me smile.

  “I saw that,” he whispers. I try to fully absorb the sound of his voice, more beautiful than even my favorite Beatles song that currently plays. I don’t want to move. I want to stay in this moment, wrapped up in his arms.

  This weekend has been the best weekend of my entire life. I’ve done nothing but get lost with Vincent. Lost in music, lost in conversations, lost in Art, lost in an embrace, lost in kisses. We’ve written five more songs. I say “we” although I guess technically “I” wrote them. But it’s hard for me to think of myself as a songwriter. Everything is collaboration with him.

  The songs are pouring out of me, though, and I’m becoming more and more talented each second I spend with him. Last night, I was singing a song and playing Martha, and I didn’t even recognize my own voice. It felt like someone else’s hands playing piano.

  When I’m with Vincent, it’s like I transcend everything human about myself. Everything that makes me fragile. I am music, I am Art, I am love. I am more than what this limited body allows me to be.

  “I know you’re awake,” he whispers again, kissing me softly on the ear.

  “No, I’m not,” I whisper back. “Being awake means that it’s Monday and I ha
ve to get up and go to school.” I still refuse to open my eyes.

  “Come on, Sylvia,” he whispers, nudging me gently. “You’ll be late.”

  I finally open my eyes. The Beatles song stops. It’s just silence. Even this early in the morning, Vincent is as gorgeous as always.

  He sits up away from me. I rub my eyes, grabbing some jeans and a shirt on the way to my bathroom.

  “Just let me take a shower,” I say, “I’ll be out in a second.”

  “Actually, I have to go,” he says. There’s some expression in his dark brown eyes that I can’t read. Immediately, I begin to suspect the worst.

  “Are you leaving?” I ask. The disappointment and fear must be written plainly on my face. He smiles at me—that half-smirk I love so much—and places a hand on my face.

  “Only for a little while,” he says. “I’ll see you in chorus.”

  I want to know what he’s going to do in the meantime, but I don’t ask. I’m more disappointed that I’m going to have to go a few hours without seeing him. How pathetic. Have I turned into one of those lovesick teenage girls who used to irritate me so much?

  But this is different. Vincent isn’t just some boy. He’s an immortal Muse who gives me music. It’s not just love, it’s Art. I get goosebumps just thinking the words.

  He pulls me to him and kisses me softly on the lips. And then he gives me this look. He looks almost afraid. Not the same kind of fear I’ve seen in him before, though. No, this fear is different.

  I immediately wish I could hear everything he was thinking. I search the depths of his eyes with my own. He gives me his half-smile again, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Is he hiding something from me? Is he having second thoughts about us? I feel like there is so much I don’t know about how he feels or what he thinks. Maybe he’s regretting everything. He still doesn’t believe this is a good idea.

  He gives me one last look, and then he vanishes into thin air. It’s so disconcerting when he does that.