The Fate of the Muse - By Derrolyn Anderson Page 0,29

at her own joke. Her brows knit together when I didn’t join in, “Where’s Cruz when we need him?”

“We should call him,” I said, digging into my purse to get my phone. When I retrieved it, a business card fluttered out to land on my lap.

“Oh!” I said, “I promised I’d call this person,” I excused myself and dialed the number of the art gallery. The owner answered right away and was as nice as Bill had said, asking if I could come by as soon as possible to discuss putting my paintings in her gallery. I agreed, and hung up the phone.

“Do you want to go see some art?” I asked Shayla.

“Sure,” she replied, “Why not?”

We pulled up to the gallery and looked at the display in the front window. There was an eclectic mix of sculpture, textiles and paintings. I liked the combination.

“I seen this place,” said Shayla, “But I never went in here before.”

The moment we entered we were greeted warmly by a colorfully dressed older woman. Her white hair was cut in a chic bob, and like Cruz, she wore all black. She sported an enormous turquoise squash blossom necklace that dwarfed her petite frame, and a pair of bright red cowboy boots.

“You must be Marina!” she said, “I’m Susan.”

I introduced her to Shayla, and she led us on a tour of her gallery, enthusiastically telling us about all the different artists and their work.

Large abstract paintings were interspersed with rustic looking tapestries and weavings. We looked at a collection of watercolors of sailboats, alongside colorful impressionistic landscapes. Susan broke up the space with sculptures as well; shining ceramic pieces mounted on pedestals, and beautifully carved burl-wood vessels with satiny burnished surfaces, just begging to be touched.

I paused to inspect a group of miniature still life paintings rendered in heartbreakingly precise detail. Fruit spilled out of baskets, and each tiny berry was spattered with dewdrops that looked so realistic I almost believed I could reach out and eat one.

“Whoa,” said Shayla in a hushed voice, “I didn’t know people could paint like that.”

“Look at these,” I was drawn to some amazing glass sculptures mounted on the wall. Colorful and free-flowing, their flowerlike shapes reminded me of anemones and urchins; I could almost see them undulating on the wall like the jellyfish at the aquarium.

“Aren’t they magnificent?” asked Susan, “I think your paintings would look fabulous right alongside this display… Are you interested in showing here?”

“Yes,” I smiled, charmed by the quirky mix of objects she’d assembled, “I like your gallery very much.”

She beamed at me in return, “Good. The moment I saw your pieces I knew they’d be a great addition to this show… Can you paint anything larger than the ones at Bill’s place?”

“I can now,” I smiled.

By the time we left I’d agreed to bring her a wall’s worth of paintings for the group show’s Friday night opening.

“Wow,” said Shayla as we drove back home, “I didn’t know there were places like that around here… all that stuff was really sick! When I’m a rich model I’m gonna put like, tons of stuff like that in my apartment.”

“Wait until you see the Louvre,” I said.

“The what?”

I began to have a hard time sleeping. My thoughts kept returning to Lorelei, Nerissa and now, Nixie. It appeared we were all hybrids, born to mermaid mothers and human fathers. But how was it that I was the only land-born hybrid that could communicate with them? Could it be because I had transformed many times– apparently before I was even born?

The water seemed to be the key, the source of the mermaid’s strength and magic. They were lured out of the ocean by their desire for human men, tragically unaware of the consequences. If they returned to the sea, a new mermaid was born, but if love made them weak, and they stayed on land…

I thought about Evie, and the other muses I’d soon be facing. We were all the result of someone else’s tremendous sacrifice. I couldn’t stop wondering about Nixie. If she’d been born on land would she have developed like a normal human child, thinking that the monsters raising her were her family? The whole thing was confusing, and I wondered what Ethan would say about it when I finally had a chance to break the news to him.

He knew about Nerissa’s pregnancy, so maybe a baby mermaid wouldn’t be such a big shock to him. I wondered what he’d make of the fact that