I Want to Be Here for You

Kiera was tired of waiting for inspiration to strike, she decided to force the issue. She’d recently gone off on a study binge and devoured the contents of dusty old tomes of summoning. Everything she found on calling forth entities from other realms was jumbled together in her head, and she was going to put it to use.

She set up a chair and desk in the center of her attic. Her laptop sat on the desk, next to a water bottle and a packet of pretzels. Around the entire setup she drew a circle in chalk.

Kiera placed a candle at each of the cardinal points. She followed each placement with a symbol drawn around the candle base, and chanting in what the books called “the language of angels.” It sounded more like mangled Latin to her, but she was ready to try anything.

It wasn’t one of the host of demons or angels or other entities she wanted to summon, though, so she replaced the name with “Mūsa.” After placing the fourth and final candle and completing the last symbol and chant, she sat at the desk and turned on her laptop.

She opened her writing app, and a cursor on a blank screen blinked at her. Kiera focused on her breath, and on the space around her. If she could’ve done it, she would’ve grown cat whiskers to feel everything within the circle.

The energy she spent trying to stay cognizant of every eddy and current of air in the circle kept her from feeling as silly about the whole thing as she probably would have, had she stopped to think about it. Still, she was at the desk, the evening sky was darkening outside the attic windows and her world shrank to the light of the laptop and the candles.

When she’d finished for the night, she had bashed out six thousand words and had figured out how to build the transition to the next chapter. Kiera did feel a little silly chanting the dispelling portion of the ritual, but if she was going to do a thing, she’d damn well do it complete.

Seeing how well it had worked, Kiera decided to repeat the ritual the following afternoon. She had ten hours free, and she was going to put them to good use.

The chalk circle and symbols had faded, as though they’d been half-heartedly swept up. Just as well, as the entire ritual itself seemed to have unlocked some part of her mind that let her write uninterrupted for hours.

Kiera redrew the circle, placed new candles, drew the symbols, chanted the incantations. She sat and opened her writing app. No sooner had the cursor appeared than she felt a stirring of the air behind her.

She was still wondering if she should turn around and show herself that she was imagining something when she heard it. “Why?” the soft voice behind her asked.

Kiera whipped around to confront the intruder, who shrank back against the invisible barrier created by the summoning circle. It was a small figure, about the size of a small child, but as Kiera’s vision cleared, she could see they had eyes that held eons in their depths.

“Are you…?” she let the question drift off.

The figure still huddled against the invisible wall. “Your muse. Please don’t do it.”

“Do what?” Kiera held out a hand. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I don’t want to hurt you. What’s your name?”

“You don’t know?”

She shook her head. “No, if I knew, I wouldn’t have asked.”

They seemed to relax some. “A muse doesn’t have a name, unless their assignment releases them by giving them a name.”

“Assignment?”

“You are my assignment.” Despite the more relaxed posture, the muse’s eyes carried a look of resignation rather than relief.

“What were you afraid I would do to you?”

“You have me trapped. You’ve summoned me to the physical plane, and I can’t leave until you release me.” The muse sat at the edge of the circle. “You almost got me yesterday, but I managed to stay out — barely.”

“I don’t even — well, until just now anyhow — didn’t believe in any of this. It was just a way to force my brain to focus on the work.”

“But you did believe it would summon your muse, and that’s why I’m here.” The muse continued to watch Kiera with a wary eye. “I’m just not part of your own mind, like you thought.”

Kiera crossed her arms. “What sort of thing would a person do to their muse that scares you so much?”

“This.” The muse closed their eyes and visions swam before Kiera. A circle, much like the one she sat in, but larger, surrounding a two-story house. In the circle, just outside the house, the muse clawed at the barrier, shrieking in pain as they wasted away, as though they were starving to death in time-lapse. In the house, an elderly man stood nude, painting directly on the plastered wall. Kiera recognized the piece; Saturn Devouring One of his Children.

The vision faded and Kiera understood. “You were Goya’s muse, and he summoned you.”

“He was my assignment,” they said, “and he summoned me. He wouldn’t let me go for over three years, and my rage and pain filled his Black Paintings. When I was little more than a husk, the circle was dispelled by someone else. I still don’t know who.”

“Wait, if I take inspiration from you, it uses you up?”

“A little.”

“What restores you?”

The muse shrugged. “Rest. Enjoyment. Leisure.”

Kiera pursed her lips. “You really are a fickle muse, you know. It’s like you’re here, filling my head with ideas for a few days, then you disappear for weeks. Does it take that long to recover?”

“It…shouldn’t. I’m just…broken.”

Without thought for the little muse’s worry, Kiera knelt before them and gave them a hug. “You’re not broken. You’re wonderful. You’ve given me so many good stories over the years.”

“I just haven’t been right since—”

“Yeah.” Kiera continued to hug the little muse as they relaxed into the hug and began to weep. “You have some trauma to deal with, and I’ll help you any way I can.”

“Thank you,” the muse said. “Can I leave now? I’m not used to being in the physical realm.”

“In one minute.” Kiera leaned back and looked into the muse’s eyes. “You said you only get a name when your assignment names you, right?”

The muse nodded.

“Well, I can’t keep referring to you as ‘hey you,’ so let’s pick a name. Are you male or female?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” Kiera thought for a few seconds. “How about a name that works for either or both. Do you prefer Pat, Alex or Jesse?”

“I quite like the sound of Pat. It’s small, like me.” There was a hint of something more than fear or resignation behind the muse’s eyes; something like hope.

“Well then, your name is now Pat. I look forward to seeing you again soon, Pat. And really, thank you for all the stories.” Kiera chanted the dispelling chant, and the chalk circle faded.

Pat still stood before her. “Now that you have named me, you have no power to summon me. You’ve freed me, but I’ll come back soon,” they said as they disappeared from the physical realm.

Kiera sat back down at her laptop. “You better, Pat. But only after you take care of your own well-being.”

She typed away for hours. The horror of Pat’s ordeal, fresh in her mind, provided the fuel for the harrowing closing scenes. It was as the sun was rising that she stopped, having finished the first draft; the final chapters flowing out of her like a gushing river.

She opened the page of the document that contained the forward material and added, “To my muse: You’re not broken, but we all need someone to lean on from time to time. For all the times you were there for me, I want to be here for you. Thank you, Pat.”