Chapter 2

Teacher planning days were supposed to be giving both teachers and students a break. But the mere thought of trekking down the locker filled hallways tomorrow made me just rub my face deeper into the pillow and try to fall back into sleep. The alarm clock had been put on radio mode, buzzing with terrible reception to the song Thriller. In cases like today’s, the alarm was ignored and grudgingly, I’d get out of bed, beat the alarm till it turned off and I was sure it wouldn’t sound again in 5 minutes and slipped back under the covers with what I felt were blood-shot eyes and spend an hour and a half falling back to sleep.

I tossed and turned around 9 in the morning, somewhat more frequently than what I usually do and sat up, frustrated and sweaty.

My bangs were in no doubt, disarray and my hair in knots with unbreakable tangles. I tumbled out into the hallway and sat on the toilet doing my morning business. I was not hostile, but I wasn’t warm to the idea of waking up at such an insane hour on a day with no school. I rubbed my eyes and curled my toes, trying to crack them. The big toe on the right hurt too much and before fracturing it again, I stopped and adjusted my socks.

I hadn’t slept well, all in all. Whether from restless thoughts, or pounding images, and/or imagination, the bags under my eyes felt very real.

The natural tanned complexion I inherited came in handy.

Strolling to my room, I leaned against the doorway and yawned, stretching my skin till my incisors protruded threateningly. How utterly amazing and yet tactless on my part if I had found the creature I had imagined yesterday, in my room this morning.

I pressed the ‘ON’ button on the computer and searched my closet for a random white t-shirt and a pair of baggy casual jeans.

With my slippers, I traveled down the stairs, passing by my snoring mother on the family room couch, and opened the fridge, pouring myself a glass of milk.

Going back up the stairs, my throat swelled with the contrast of the cold beverage and my lungs thanked me with worshiping shrines and all. Who knew what my kidneys were doing, but then, I had dozed off from thinking at all as I was listening to music in my head.

Well, in my head is too loose a term. There was nothing turned on to be actually playing a melody, but then again, I could think of what it would sound like, but not actually hear it in my head.

And somehow, when my hand touched the brass knob of my door, the music halted. I pushed it open, and found, sitting on my trunk covered by a Pocahontas tapestry, the creature from yesterday night.

I froze, my hand still on the knob and the other pressing the cold glass of milk to my stomach.

With the light of early day, his skin was bluer. The gashes had been cleaned of mud, but were swollen and purplish, graying when they stretched to where hair grew.

His eyes were less startling in the day, though they were still veiled in deep onyx; their expression softened them to a more common feature. His bandages around fingers and hands were new and white with freshness.

His head lolled to a side as he held a flute inches away from his lips. His black dreads held back by who-knows-what and his wings were carefully folded, making a merely thicker outline of his frame. Instead of the green armor of yesterday, he wore a gray tunic with silver fastenings and black leather boots tied to his legs and hose. The pin of the silver bird clasped at his collar, above the initial clasp.

“Good morning.” A voice so different from yesterday’s emitted from him, making me blink before soaking it in.

“Morning.” I replied to his lighter tone. I looked to my feet, feeling like an intruder and wondering if I should leave the room to him.

“You told me to come, I am here. I hope, perhaps, the hour isn’t inconvenient?” His voice was like honey, dripping with sweetness and control. I shivered lightly and took a swift gulp of milk and shook my head.

“Close the door.” He said in the voice and fixed an intense gaze on me. Unprepared and startled, I rushed in and slammed the door while leaning on it. I winced once I realized the amount of noise I had just caused.

He chuckled softly and drew the flute to his lips, making a melody I had, it seems, interrupted.

I watched his long, thin claws of fingers play skillfully over the right holes, his breathing flawless in rhythm and the keeping of notes.

After what appeared like forever, he smiled at me and paused his playing. “Now, ask me to leave.”

I was unblinking and with lips parted for so long, I had to lick them to vitality. “Excuse me?”

A shadow fell across his face and disbelief seemed to turn into a befuddled expression. “Squeal like a pig.” He commanded in a harsher tone.

Taken back, I lifted my chin defiantly. “A pig?”

The flute lowered to his lap and he stared at it. The look accusing the instrument with hurt as if it had betrayed him.

My eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to try enchanting me to get yourself out of here.”

He ignored me, looking through his mind for a miscalculation or a new flaw in his flute.

“Maybe you brought the wrong instrument.”

His head came up quickly with a blackened expression. I offered a weak smile and he growled just like last night.

I faltered and sank to the floor. “Your not in the mood of hurting me today, are you?”

The question seemed to have thrown off his composure and his cheeks paled.

I took that as a no, and my heart beats became a little more regular than the terrifyingly erratic pounding from a moment ago.

Upset now, he turned back to his flute.

“Was I supposed to fall in a trance?”

He merely nodded and I sighed bravely. “What are you?”

He cast me a glance of insignificance.

I pouted and spoke before the thoughts finished their mental process. “We’ll I’m not letting you leave till you answer my questions.”

His eyes widened like a pair of 8 balls and I flinched with stupidity.

He looked to my window where the sun was and his brow crumpled with sadness.

I was internally kicking myself.

“I am a Muse.”

My kicking stopped. “A what?”

His voice went soft, but unlike the honey filled voice, this one was sincere and desperate. “A Muse, I am the inspiration to the creativity of artists.”

My jaw hung slightly and he smirked wickedly at me. “Surprised? I’m so sure. I am more specific in donating my inspiration, I work with bards.”

I roved my mind and came to a question. Would he answer it? ‘He had to now, didn’t he?’ I chided myself. “Bards, no longer exist…don’t they?”

He smiled at me, amused now, his mind no longer clouded by angst. “A bard is someone who writes verses. A poet or a musician can be a bard.”

“Oh…” My cheeks flamed in shame. “So you don’t inspire artists with paint?”

His smile faded and his stare became solid and fixed. “No. I leave that to other Muse.”

“Then…how…how did you find my room?”

I could see his teeth gnashing from under the skin and he looked away at the sun once more. “That, I’m afraid, I will not answer.”

My cheeks were now flushed and mortified, I stared at my ignored glass of milk.

The silence bothered him and I heard it in his voice which changed pitches as easily as his flute. “What is it you wish of me?”

“Your name?” I offered and I may as well have asked for his first born, his look, dark and his lips seething quietly.

“You will never have that.”

I said nothing more and we sat like stones in a river.

When my butt cheeks hurt from the cold tile of the floor, I stood. “Then, a name to call you by, It’s all I ask. Then you can go.”

He dwelled on it for several minutes before answering, his tone changing mid word to honey. “Grey.”

Before I could take a second breath, his wings unraveled like jerky dried skin clinging unto bones and wove around him.

He disappeared when I finally inhaled.

Grey.

Why wouldn’t he let me know his true name? How much harm could it do if he was able to tell me he was a …..Muse…?

Dear god, I spoke to an ethereal creature. A Greek myth!

I covered my face with my hands. A muse! Was I losing my mind? Was I perhaps just as tired as last night and had imagined it again?

My eyes like saucers and my mind wracked, I sat on the computer chair and surfed Google, pulling out every little thing it could find on Muse’s.

Surprisingly enough, none of the descriptions captured Grey. Maybe not so surprising as I was beginning to believe he didn’t really exist.

He couldn’t.

And…that…was that.

Wasn’t it?