Duende and the Muse Read online

  “How’s he coming along?” He nods toward her student.

  She infuses her voice with pride, hoping to project confidence. “Excellent. He’s shown great improvement lately.”

  His eyes glitter like compressed coal. “But nothing published.”

  The Elders obviously have briefed him, so no point pretending everything’s swell. Still, she’s sure once she tries her new musing tactics, things will improve.

  She squares her shoulders. “He’s under consideration by several magazines. He’s a bit of a late bloomer, but he’s coming along nicely.”

  The pile of rejections outweighs his stack of poems now, but she considers it a badge of honor. Every writer has to experience rejection, and yes, sometimes at great length. Persistence is equal to inspiration in achieving success, much as she hates to admit it.

  Duendes are results-oriented, she’s heard. It’s important to impress him. A blush warms her neck when she sees her student is currently engaged in navel gazing.

  “Does he do much of that?” Devon’s tone is taunting.

  She bristles. He’s not going to cut me any slack. “That is a very important part of the process. He does, in fact, engage in a Zen-like posture often, but that’s when he hears my voice the clearest. He’s usually very productive after such meditations.” At what, she won’t say. To avoid actually writing, the boy sometimes eats, watches television, naps… he even cleans the bathroom. So productive at everything else, Melinda wants to smack him with her purse.

  Devon’s gaze shifts to her. She’s wary of his mischievous look.

  “But don’t you ever just want to give him a good jolt? A good zap?” His fingers jab toward her student, whose face fills with an Aha! look that concentrates in his eyes as a maniacal gleam. He writes furiously, pausing only for a moment to tap his pen against his chin, his eyes dense with concentration as he gazes into space.

  She forces a sweet tone, and resists the urge to smack Devon too. “Thanks for the idea. I’ll keep it in mind.” She has to give the appearance she’s open to suggestion; otherwise, he might report her as uncooperative.

  “No problem.” He leans back and jams his hands in the pockets of his low-cut jeans. Her eyes are riveted to the taut stomach revealed, and she feels her cheeks warm with a blush when he smiles.

  She flits through the room, a stream of sparkling words in her wake. As a poet, her student appreciates quality language, words that fit into phrases like puzzle pieces. His subconscious is ripe for such divine influence and she expects him to absorb her stimulations like a desert cactus soaking up rain. To her dismay, he waves it away, as if it were an irritation rather than an inspiration.

  Devon snaps his fingers, and the apartment door opens. “Maybe he needs a little change of scenery. I find that helps my proteges.”

  Melinda’s smile is tight. “Thanks, but we…”

  Her student stands, reaches for his jacket, tucks his notepad under his arm, and heads outside.

  “Oh!” she says. “Excuse me.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Devon’s long fingers entwine in the shimmering ribbons floating from her tiny waist.

  They follow him to a cappuccino bar, where he orders at the counter, then sits at a table. He stares out the window, sips his latte.

  Melinda leans toward him and directs his concentration toward the angle of the sunlight through the window, the sad wilting flower in the vase on the table.

  Devon’s elbow touches hers, shooting sparks of warmth through her. “How long have you been with him?”

  His eyes are so hypnotic, she answers, “Three years,” before she can think.

  He raises an eyebrow. “And nothing published?”

  Her shoulders stiffen. “He will soon. I can feel it.”

  The student pauses his pen mid-sentence and frowns. Absently, he watches a girl about his age saunter past in tight jeans, her long dark hair tinged with a maroon hue.

  Devon gives the girl a once-over. He leans forward and whispers “Nice ass, huh?” to the student, whose eyes widen, become riveted.

  “Don’t just sit there,” Devon hisses. “Make us want to bite it!”

  Melinda’s a little taken aback at the fire in the duende’s eyes, a fire that’s caught under her student’s pen now as he writes as if possessed.

  He’s trying to take over my territory. Her student shakes his pen, scribbles on the pad, and nothing comes out. It’s the first time she can remember his pen running out of ink. “He’s had enough for one day…”

  “How about a nice cold beer?” Devon says to the stalled poet. “Better yet - some tequila.”

  The student’s chair scrapes the floor as he moves out of his seat, then out the door, the duende following.

  She whooshes up next to them. “Thanks, but I don’t need your help.”

  He puts an arm around her shoulder. “I know, doll. You’re doing a fantastic job with the kid.” He emphasizes fantastic with a squeeze.

  Her tension melts at his touch. Finally. Someone who understands. “We’ve been working nonstop. We’re both a little burned out, but he’s close to a breakthrough.”

  “Absolutely. The kid just needs a little nudge, you know?”

  She smiles up at him, and relaxes against his firm grasp on her waist.

  On the street, they pass a guitarist; his guitar case is open, only some spare change to show for his efforts. From her silk drawstring purse, she pulls a handful of notes and tosses them his way. His fingers dance across the strings. People stop to listen, mouths open in delight, pockets and purses open in appreciation.

  There. I haven’t lost my touch. This poet may be challenging, but she’ll get through to him yet. “I guess you’re right. He does seem to be more motivated.”

  Her student is certainly eager to get to the bar, striding along with a single-mindedness she hasn’t seen in weeks.

  Devon’s eyes sparkle, his face close to hers. “Exactly! That’s what it’s all about – motivation. Keeping the fire stoked beneath him.” His voice has the quality of condensed energy.

  “I see what you mean.” She pulls a Chinese paper fan from her drawstring bag and fans her neck and chest.

  Melinda’s beginning to feel tendrils of flame herself.

  ****

  At the bar, the student tells the bartender he wants a tequila. Devon manages to get two more and hands one to Melinda. They sit atop the glass rack hanging from the ceiling, legs dangling.

  He touches his glass to hers. “Here’s to truth, grace, and beauty.” His gaze wanders the length of her. “Especially yours.”

  “Yours as well.” The tequila’s loosened her tongue. “And long live artists.”

  He clinks his glass to hers again. “Without whom, we would be unemployed.”

  “Yes, but there’s always something to do. Apply rays of sunshine to the river’s surface, waft the scent of fresh flowers through a room.” She angles her foot to tickle the bartender’s ear. He smiles, remembers the girl he fell in love with in tenth grade.

  “There’s more to it than sweetness and light. What about thunderstorms? Lightning splitting open the sky, or a tree? Pitch black sky with pinpoints of light… the infinity of a black hole…” He grunts in satisfaction and empties his glass.

  “Darkness provides a contrast, so we can appreciate light better.” His darkness, she notices, sets off her glimmer so nicely.

  “You’re the first muse to admit it.” His fingers slide down her chiffon skirt and circle her knee, making her swoon.

  “I have many original ideas.” More pop into her head by the second.

  He smiles. “You need a refill. So do I.”

  After the first few, she loses count, and the barroom takes on an elastic quality, edges rounding and spilling over themselves as if in a Dali painting. She giggles and says, “Ooh, look at that,” when the lights prism and spin like kaleidoscopes.

  Her student looks, too, and mutters, “Whoa, cool.”

  Devon appears coolly unpe
rturbed; maybe the tequila is slower to work on him, or maybe his intensity dilutes it.

  “Don’t just sit there with your mouth open,” he urges the student. “Write about it!”

  The student narrows his eyes as if adjusting his sight, blows through his lips as he pats his pocket.

  She frowns. “Leave him alone. His pen’s not working.”

  “Don’t make excuses for him.” He turns to the crestfallen poet. “Get one from the bartender.” His voice is like a brewing storm. “And pay attention to his tattoo -- see how the mermaid swishes her tail when his muscles flex? Take notes, man. Tomorrow, you’ll be a hungover slob, and this will all seem like a dream.”

  “Hey.” She smacks at his arm but her aim is off, and she catches only part of his jacket sleeve. The material is softer than she’d expected, its texture inviting to the touch – like everything else about him – and she nearly forgets to finish her thought. “Look, every artist needs a break now and then. Quit pushing him so hard.”

  His eyes spit fire at her, though he’s smiling. “He’s done nothing for months. Meandering along – tra la la – while you float somewhere above him, oblivious as a cloud.”

  Anger makes her blood rush. “He’s none of your business. It’s time you leave.” She doesn’t care if the Elders sent him or not.

  He slides his arm around her waist, and his mouth teases the edge of her lips. “Do you want me to leave? Or do you want me to take you home?”

  Flames ignite within her.

  He tucks her gold-glinted hair behind her glistening shoulder and touches his lips to her skin. “Let’s go home,” he whispers, echoing her thoughts.

  The fire sizzles deeper inside her. They can debate about the student tomorrow.

  Melinda lets him lead the way, stumbling into a whirling darkness that slowly spins black into grey into a cotton-candy yellow-orangy and blue sky, and birds begin their morning twitter. Her head feels both compressed and expanded. Sounds reverberate like oversized church bells. The growing light stabs her eyes, and she falls into a haze of slumber. She awakens to moans echoing off the bathroom tiles.

  “You’re still here?” Her hair covers her face and she pushes it away.

  Devon’s already badgering her student to lift his head from the toilet bowl and get his fingers wrapped around a pen. She’s having trouble balancing – with each throb of her head, she weaves and sputters, her usual gracefulness lost.

  “He’s hopeless!” Devon paces, jacket flapping. Her student lays his forehead against his arm.

  Melinda tries not to speak loudly; besides, her tongue is too thick to move with any agility. “He’s sick, that’s all.” She’s a bit fuzzy around the edges herself.

  “Sick? He makes me sick. He has the momentum of a slug!” He yells this last at the student, who moans, overwhelmed with misery.

  “Stop it!” She doesn’t know whether she means the yelling or the badgering, then decides she hates both.

  “Stop? He’s never even begun! I’ve used some of my best stuff on him, but has he bothered to work his notetaking into the fine art it can be? It’s like mining a raw diamond, then throwing it away – if he’d work at it, he could produce something breathtaking, a real piece of craftsmanship. But he’s no craftsman. He barely qualifies as an apprentice. He has no fire in him, no passion.”

  The student moans again, tries to make himself sick, but nothing comes up.

  “Leave him alone. He’s just working it out in his head first. You’ll see.”

  Devon whirls to face her. “He hasn’t done anything in months.”

  “Everyone has a dry spell.” Her current dry spell has concentrated in her mouth. She needs coffee. Lots of coffee.

  His low voice shakes. “And you – you let him slide right into oblivion. You might as well push him there yourself.”

  Melinda is fueled by his intensity. If she’d been a fluttering butterfly before, now she is a majestic soaring eagle. If she were a rainbow, she’s now an explosion of multicolored fireworks. If she were a drop of water in a puddle whose splash produced concentric circles, now she’s a hundred-foot waterfall of unstoppable hydropower, roaring to the rocks below.

  Devon’s ranting full-tilt. “You muses think you’re so wonderful, you tell each other how perfect you all are.”

  “I’m a goddess.” Her tone is defiant, not defensive. She feels the sisterhood of spirits within her, the power of the nine original muses welling around her: Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia and Urania. Daughters of her great-grandfather Zeus, king of all gods, and great-grandmother Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. “Born to bestow the gifts of music, poetry and dance. Trifle with me, and you will feel my wrath.”

  Bemused, he leans against the table, assessing her. “What, will you blind me, as your great-aunts did to Thamyris when he challenged them? It’s a new millennium, babe. Don’t expect me to join a cult of admiration any time soon.”

  Tilting her hips, she rests her hands on them. “A shrine will do. The first museums, as you know, were built by muse worshipers. Leave it to humans to distort the meaning.”

  Devon’s smile is sneering. “If you’re so great, then why is he” – his head jerks toward the student crumpled over the toilet – “such a failure?” He over-enunciates the word failure in a whisper, as if it were a disease too ugly to say aloud.

  The student slides upward as if lifted by invisible fingers and opens the medicine cabinet, his hands knocking over bottles until he draws out a razor. He stares at the blades with bloodshot eyes.

  Horror widens her eyes. “What’s he doing with that?”

  The duende stifles a yawn. “Thinking of the honorable solution.”

  “Honorable?” Terrible images skitter across her brain. She sweeps them away so none will project to her student.

  Devon leans on the table. “He’s occupying space – breathing air – that could be used by someone worthwhile.”

  With a whimper, the student’s fingers scramble to remove the blade.

  Melinda’s outstretched fingers retract to a fist. She exerts her full focus on her student. “Put that down. You are worthwhile.”

  The student bangs the razor against the counter, trying desperately to free the blade.

  Melinda forces herself to keep her eyes on the student, to not look back at Devon, whose heat she feels blazing behind her like a three-alarm fire. “Your writing will bring you a bright future with undreamed-of opportunities and rewards.” She imagines it for him but is distracted by the student’s bleeding fingers. The plastic cracked, he’s broken off a corner and is scratching at the blade like a rat scratching at the walls of a maze.

  She glances at Devon, who shrugs. His apathy ignites her passion full force.

  The student frees the blade and holds it up; it slices the light sparking off its edges. He lifts an arm, and studies the veins in his wrist.

  Like a warrior princess, she issues forth a stream of energy, and the razor blade flies from her student’s hands. Stunned, he swings his body left and right, searching for it.

  Devon examines his fingernails. “You’re just delaying the inevitable.”

  She breathes her sweet breath across her fingertips and sparks fly from her hands as she rubs them together. “Watch what a real muse can do. When I’m done, even you will bow to my power.”

  Pointing toward the student, she sends a series of shock waves at him, and he blinks then stumbles toward his writing desk.

  Devon rolls his eyes. He widens his stance, holds out his arms, and summons the four winds to roil behind him. He unleashes the winds, and they gust around the student, whose eyes widen as he smiles. His pen glides across a blank page like a sailboat on the open sea.

  “Amateur.” She pulls her silk drawstring bag from her waist and sorts through it, considering. “Ah.”

  From the bag’s mouth, sprinkles of stardust swirl to the student and hover above his head. He snatches his hands in the air but cannot g
rasp them. She snaps a finger, and the sprinkles settle on the student’s head. He nods, then scribbles on the sheet.

  Devon rakes a hand through his dark hair. He winks, and the spark from his eye sends a succession of zaps at the student, whose body snaps with each jolt. Immediately after, he collapses over the desk, and his handwriting’s jagged on the paper.

  Melinda pulls a squirming jellylike glob from her silk bag. Like a Mexican jumping bean, it boings to the poet’s desk, splits like an amoeba and enters him through every orifice. He squirms in delight and scripts a poem, one of his best in a long time.

  Devon narrows his eyes. He reaches into his jeans, and tosses a dark, roiling ball of glistening black steam at the student. It explodes like a neutron bomb, and the student stiffens and shudders as it coats his every cell.

  Melinda heaves a breath. She has one last weapon. She’s been saving it; it’s a prototype, not officially approved for use. The merchant at the MuseFest sold the last javelin to the customer ahead of her in line, but when she pressed him, he produced this one.

  The duende watches, open-mouthed, as she slides it from her purse, a shining javelin of inspiration. It will either get her student writing his best – or kill him.

  With the eye of a huntress, she steadies her hand and aims for his heart and thrusts it at him. It pierces his chest and slowly disappears. The student gasps for breath, his eyes burst wide. He sits in a smouldering heap, senseless and unmoving.

  Melinda and Devon move toward him in a swirl of shadow and light.

  “Is he....” She can’t finish the dreadful thought.

  “I don’t know.” Devon inspects the student without touching him. One more shock might send him into the nether regions, or lobotomize him, and then never would the right half of his brain send signals to the left. A fate worse than death, having no imagination.

  The student draws a slow breath, then expels it, his face filling with resignation, and then determination. He picks up his pen and writes steadily.