Muse by Rebecca Lim

Even now, I can’t understand what Luc could have done to justify punishment, even death, at my hands. I feel a dull ache begin behind my eyes. There’s something I’m missing here. What are they all keeping from me?

  But now I know why a power of archangels is headed this way. They’re going to use me as bait. And if they don’t manage to catch Luc — or kill him? — they’ll shift me anyway, to preserve the status quo, to keep Hell and the daemonium at bay.

  The old man’s voice breaks into my troubled thoughts. ‘Gudrun was right,’ he says. ‘You are looking well, all things considered. Sometimes the stories about you are so terrible, I don’t know what to believe. But when I saw you at the rehearsal yesterday, you looked even better than I dared to imagine. You will make my final show so much more memorable. I was right to insist. There’s something different about you today, I think? You seem calmer, more beautiful even than I remember. There’s a glow about you, eh? Am I right? Is it love?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about any of that, Mastro Re,’ I reply carefully.

  And it’s true. I don’t know how to catch hold of love, or to keep it. Luc used to love me more than life itself. But something’s changed. I close my eyes briefly in anguish.

  ‘Call me Giovanni, please,’ the old man says softly. ‘We’ve known each other too long to stand on such formality.’

  His gaze and voice become suddenly distant. ‘Seeing you now reminds me of a dream I had, though I cannot think why.’ He leans heavily on his cane. ‘The most beautiful youth came to me, Irina. He took my hand and said he would lead me to Marco, that Marco was waiting and we would be together again, very soon. It’s been twenty-one years, did you know? Since Marco … Well, longer than you have been alive, my dear. The youth was tall, very tall. Dressed all in black, with eyes that were so blue they were like the sea. But though his face was the face of a young man, his hair — it was pure silver. Like moonlight.’

  I go cold at his words. Giovanni has just described Azraeil, whom I last saw at the bedside of Karen Neill. Azraeil. The archangel of death.

  ‘You’re certain he took your hand?’ I mutter.

  Giovanni nods, his gaze still clouded by thoughts of his dream.

  There’s only one way to know for sure, and I steel myself resignedly before reaching out and taking Giovanni lightly by the wrist, searching for some specific information.

  It is getting easier; I’m not imagining that either. Though Giovanni and I are both standing here, in this busy space full of busy people, he’s not really here and neither am I. As we flame into contact, I feel myself loosen, feel myself dissolve into him somehow. There’s pain, of course. But there’s always pain.

  I surf through it, through the pressure in my head, and reach down into his mind, into his flesh, to interpret what has been left there for my kind to read.

  A moment later, I release my grip on his wrist.

  ‘You’re dying, Giovanni,’ I murmur in Irina’s husky voice. ‘The show, the retrospective, all of it — you don’t need to do them. There’s nothing you need to prove to anyone any more.’

  Giovanni struggles to hide his shock. ‘Is it so obvious? Very few realise that I am … “retiring” for reasons beyond my control. You must tell me who let the cat from the bag?’

  ‘I’ve always had a … sense about these things,’ I reply quietly, which isn’t strictly a lie.

  ‘This illness — it is not something I could hide forever.’ Giovanni’s eyes are both amused and sad. ‘But what a way to go, eh?’ He chuckles. ‘And they all warned me about you! You are like the lamb today, the dove. There were the strongest objections. Anna Maria — you remember Anna Maria?’

  In my head, I see that stern older woman with the colourless face and hair who’d told Giovanni to send Irina away.

  I nod. ‘Of course. She never liked me.’

  Giovanni chuckles again, placing his free hand beneath my left elbow as we begin to walk slowly out of the atrium.

  ‘Anna Maria said that if I used you to open and close my final haute couture show, no one would insure me, I would be the laughing stock. But when she sees you in the dresses I have made with only you in mind, I think she will understand that I was right to insist. All my favourite girls will be here, all my muses across the years. I saw your potential when no one else could see it. And that makes you the most singular, the most beautiful, of them all.’

  He stumbles a little and digs his cane into the ground to keep from falling, and I pretend not to notice any of it.

  We enter a wide central corridor that runs the length of the building. The brilliant mosaic tiling peters out, like the foam that a receding wave might leave upon the shore, and I find myself walking upon burnished concrete. There are many brightly lit workrooms leading off it, filled with seamstresses and mannequins, house models and stylists, clients and buyers, and racks and racks of beautiful, iridescent evening gowns and sharply tailored work wear, all colour-coded. Interspersed with these spaces are offices full of handsomely attired administrative staff. Many of the rooms have sliding glass doors or large feature windows, to allow what’s happening inside them to be observed, to give the impression that there are no secrets in this place.

  We make a left turn into a quiet corridor at the far end of the central thoroughfare. It, too, has several doors facing onto it, but these doors are made of timber, burnished to a high sheen, and all are closed. Each door is numbered, three on each side of the corridor, with a pair of double doors at its far end. Seven rooms in all.

  Giovanni’s sharp blue eyes are intent. ‘There are twenty-nine couture dresses to be shown. Thousands of hours by many, many pairs of hands dedicated solely to me, to this atelier, have gone into every creation. The audience of four hundred — by invitation only, of course — will contain many of your harshest critics. Disapproving fashion editors cheek-by-jowl with the women’s wear buyers, the young aristocracy, old friends, old clients, of-the-moment actresses and singers to bring me global coverage in every medium I could wish for. They ring and ring! Asking for better seats. Asking: “Where are the bloggers to be placed?”, “Where is Suzie to be? Anna? Isabella?” Put me here, put me there. I am almost glad it will be the last one. Rise above them all, my dear. I know you will make me very proud.’

  He’s about to say something else when I hear someone calling my name in an angry voice. Both of us turn to see Gia making her way up the corridor towards us, my heavy overcoat and large handbag jammed awkwardly under one arm. Her expression is tight-lipped, her hair’s mussed and her eye make-up’s smudged. She hoists her own bag higher on her shoulder and extends that small, flat, black device towards me.

  I feel Irina’s brow pleat. What do I want with it?

  ‘Those bastards always follow after you and leave me to deal with the psychos on my own,’ she snarls. ‘I didn’t think I was going to make it in here alive. Jürgen was assigned to me, not to you, but that’s the story of my life, isn’t it? You’re like a bloody man magnet.’

  A look of horror passes swiftly across her face as she takes in who’s standing beside me. ‘Mastro Re,’ she adds with an embarrassed nod, jamming the black device into a back pocket of her skinny jeans and extending a small hand to him. ‘Please excuse my language.’

  He gives her hand a brief squeeze and laughs, though his face is pale beneath his tan and his other hand is gripping his cane very tightly now. ‘The world has gone mad when such a slight creature as Irina can command so much time and so much interest.’

  He turns back to me. ‘Tommy will be with you shortly to take you through the three outfits again and the way he wants you to move in them. Valentina will supervise any last-minute alterations. And I should warn you …’ his blue eyes are suddenly evasive, ‘… one of my best couture clients is in town for the show and has seen the look book we put together for those wanting to order after the parade. She wants a private showing of several key pieces. She specifically requested that you model them, Irina. So it will be a long day, my child. Your
iron will should come in handy today, eh? Don’t let me down …’

  He waves the back of his hand at me and moves stiffly away, down the hall.

  Gia glances at the double doors and says with satisfaction, ‘I see he’s given you the legendary Studio 4. Anja and Carly will be eating their hearts out right now — if they have hearts. They’re crammed together in Studio 6 and word is they’re not happy.’

  She walks up to the double doors of Studio 4 and tries both handles. They’re locked.

  ‘It’s only sensible, I suppose,’ she mutters. ‘What’s in there is worth gazillions. Though I’d love to be able to put all your crap down somewhere. It weighs a tonne.’

  She looks at me pointedly, and I reluctantly take back Irina’s damp overcoat and the handbag that could house a medium-sized dog.

  ‘Oh! I forgot.’ Gia digs the black device out of her back pocket with a free hand. ‘Might as well take it,’ she says, waving it in my face. ‘Tommy’s got his hands full with Orla in Studio 1 — she’s having a meltdown because she’s just found out you’re the opening act and you’ve got one more outfit than she does. Wait till she finds out it’s the fantasy bridal gown at the end of the entire show!’

  I take the device she’s waving at me — a phone, I realise — and turn it over. My heart nearly stops when I see a bored-looking young man staring out at me from its screen. I almost drop the phone.

  I’d know him anywhere.

  It’s Ryan.

  ‘I was wondering when you’d get around to remembering me,’ Ryan says dryly, then his eyes widen as he focuses, really focuses, on my face.

  ‘Can you see me as clearly as I can see you?’ I say softly, angling my body away from Gia, waving at her to move back down the hall and give me some privacy.

  He doesn’t answer; he just stares at me. He’s got an expression on his face like he’s seen a ghost. Which, in a way, I suppose he has.

  Ryan’s the spitting image of Luc, save mortal, with dark hair and dark eyes. I’d forgotten, you see, about the resemblance. They could be brothers. It’s uncanny.

  Sometimes when I look at Ryan, I feel like I conjured him up out of my lonely subconscious, that he can’t be real. That somehow, because I couldn’t have Luc, I went and created a replacement.

  I see movement behind his shoulder and focus on his surroundings. He’s in a room with pale yellow walls and white wainscoting, and behind him is a door that leads out to a hallway. I realise with a jolt that I know that room. I’ve been inside it before. It’s Lela’s bedroom. He’s in Lela’s house.

  He’s still half a world away from me, and there are whole continents and oceans between us.

  ‘Ryan?’ My voice is uncertain. ‘It’s me, Mercy. Say something? Please?’

  There’s that flutter of movement behind his shoulder again and I see a white shape enter the bedroom through the doorway behind him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ It’s a woman’s voice, broad, laconic, the accent so different from Ryan’s. ‘Who are you talking to? Want me to handle it this time?’

  I see a face lean in behind his shoulder, loom into the screen, her cheek close beside his, only an inch separating them, and get another shock when I realise that it’s Justine Hennessy.

  I’ll always consider Justine a friend and remember her fondly. But I feel a shot of pure jealous rage. I can’t help it. They’re together, in Lela’s house. In Lela’s bedroom.

  ‘What is she doing there with you?’ I yell into the screen, and my anger seems to galvanise Ryan into a white-hot answering fury.

  He shouts, ‘Remember how I watched you die yesterday? Well, she’s helping me bury you, Mercy.’

  Justine looks at Ryan with confusion, then squints into the screen. Her eyes widen.

  She turns to Ryan and says, ‘Do you have any idea who you’re talking to? Wait here!’ she yells excitedly. ‘Wait here.’ She leaves the room in a flurry of white and bare limbs.

  Ryan glares at me. ‘You left her Lela’s house, remember?’ he snarls. ‘It hasn’t been finalised yet, but it was pretty cut and dried thanks to that piece of paper you had Dmitri witness. The police found it when they went through Lela’s bag. The house isn’t a crime scene, so Justine had every reason to return here. And I had nowhere else to go, because you lured me all the way to freakin’ Australia and then left me again. Happy?’

  Even though I already know all of this at some deep, subconscious level, it feels better hearing him justify things, hearing his blazing anger. I read subtext better than most people, and the fury in his voice tells me — clearer than words — that there’s zero chance anything’s going on between them, even though Justine’s beautiful in that earthy, hourglass way that guys love. Still, my jealousy is leaving me light-headed; I’m actually struggling to breathe. I lean over the screen, my eyes drinking in every line of Ryan’s face.

  ‘Don’t die on me again, damn you,’ he says, his voice low and strained. ‘Justine didn’t find me for hours afterwards — hours in which I thought you’d been destroyed, that you were gone for good. That is, if people like you can be destroyed. I still don’t know what you are. You’ve never given me a proper explanation for anything. You owe me.’ There’s devastation and fury in his words, in equal measure.

  ‘I know,’ I reply softly. ‘I had no way of telling you I’d make it. They shift me in and take me out, and I have no control over any of it. I was gone before Lela was gone. And I found myself here. Looking like this.’

  He smiles suddenly, though his face and eyes still look tired and haunted, and I quit breathing altogether, just for a moment.

  ‘You get more and more beautiful every time I see you, do you know that?’ he says.

  I feel a pang of sadness, and my words come out more harshly than I intend. ‘Don’t go getting used to this face. She looks nothing like me. I’m no supermodel.’

  Ryan smiles again, and this time it reaches his eyes and he’s heart-stopping. ‘It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t matter. I know what you look like, remember? I carry that sketch of you with me wherever I go. You look like the Delphic Sybil — remember we talked about it? — except your eyes are brown.’ He grins. ‘I could definitely get used to your new voice, though. I’d have no objections waking up to that every morning.’

  He looks down suddenly, embarrassed, and I’m glad he doesn’t see my face flame in answer to his last remark, see my free hand fly up to my mouth.

  No crime against wishing; no crime against dreaming, right? How is it that love and desire can feel so much like physical pain?

  There’s movement behind him and I see him turn as Justine thrusts something into his hands off screen. I study his profile greedily, smiling as his fringe of dark hair falls into his eyes and he shoves it back.

  ‘There!’ Justine says, turning the pages of something noisily. Ryan holds it up to the screen. It’s a glossy magazine.

  ‘You’re talking to her!’ I hear Justine hiss. ‘Irina! She’s the one who dumped Félix de Haviland — one of the heirs to the multibillion-dollar d’Haviland construction dynasty. She actually stole him off his fiancée, then left him for Will Reyne, the singer from Machine. Dumped him, too.’

  Ryan looks at me, raising his eyebrows, and I have to stifle a giggle at his wicked expression. ‘You’ve been busy,’ he murmurs.

  I grin at him and he grins back. And for a minute, it’s like we’re back in his crummy, rusting four-wheel drive, scoring pot shots off each other for the pure hell of it.

  ‘Look!’ Justine exclaims, pulling the magazine out of his hands and turning it over before handing it back. ‘See this? It’s her, too! She’s everywhere.’

  He angles the magazine at me again, and I see that he’s looking at a full-page image of a woman’s face. She’s laughing and leaning on her hand. On her wrist is a large, diamond-encrusted watch.

  ‘Irina’s choice,’ Ryan reads aloud, in the kind of stuck-up voice a newsreader would use. I laugh out loud, in genuine delight.

 
; ‘She’s not seeing anyone at the moment,’ Justine goes on. ‘You might have a shot if you play your cards right. Though she’s hardcore, Ryan, she’s trouble …’

  ‘Don’t need to tell me that,’ he says, winking down the screen at me.

  I see Justine peer over his shoulder briefly, eyes round with disbelief. ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe you know each other. Wait till I tell the others,’ she says, so breathlessly that her words run together.

  Before I can say, ‘Hey, Juz,’ the way I used to when I was Lela, Justine pulls her magazine out of Ryan’s hand and slips out of the room.

  Ryan frowns. He’s always been able to read my mind. ‘Don’t,’ he says quietly. ‘Just leave it alone. Don’t mess with her head. She was hysterical after Lela died. From what Dmitri told me about her, she’s been through a really rough time lately. She doesn’t need to know about you. It wouldn’t change anything — it would just mess up the memories she has of Lela. We’ve already talked about this — the less people that know about you, the better. It’s hard enough on the people who do understand.’ His laughter sounds forced.

  ‘Who chooses the … bodies?’ he asks when I don’t say anything. ‘Who determines where you go, who you’re supposed to be?’

  I don’t reply and he adds uncertainly, ‘Irina’s a little … left field, isn’t she? A bit out there? She’s nothing like Carmen, or Lela. You know … quiet. Uh … ordinary.’ His voice is apologetic.

  ‘So you’ve noticed, too?’ I say, sidestepping his other questions. ‘I’ll take “ordinary” any day. It’s insane here. I can’t go anywhere without a battery of people following me around, or trying to slip me things. And that’s just Irina’s staff! You should’ve seen it when I showed up for work this morning — it was a bloodbath.’

  ‘So when can I come out?’ Ryan says suddenly, brushing that agonisingly familiar fall of dark hair out of his eyes with his long fingers. My breathing stills again. ‘When Gia called, I’d just hung up from the funeral home. The timing was freaky. Total rollercoaster.’