Muse

Excerpt:
The scent of burning wood and the creak of distressed timbers filtered down into the basement. The temperature was rising as well. Miguel swiped at his sweaty forehead once more.
She was there, haunting his every thought. Her heavy perfume filled the corners and the dark strands of her hair obscured his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut and bore down on the heavy crushing pain in his chest.
La Mariposa drifted out of the corners of his mind and held her hand out. “Come on, big boy.” Her voice was silk and steel.
“Leah,” he whispered to remind himself. “Mi amor.”
“She doesn’t love you like I do. I’m everything you’ll ever need.” La Mariposa’s beautiful petite image flowed from his paintbrush onto the ivory wallpaper in crimson, stark against the pale color. He couldn’t control the movements of his right hand as it etched her eyes, her face, the swirls of her hair onto the wall in indelible red. All he wanted to do was paint Leah’s face. Leah’s eyes.
The agony in his chest made his step falter. The paintbrush fell from his hand. He fumbled for the supply cart, knocking everything off of it save for a single marker. He grabbed it and held on tightly. His left arm shook and trembled, so he clamped it against his side. Something wasn’t right. Something was so wrong.
“Leah. Leah. Leah.”
They were pounding on the door at the top of the stairs. He could hear her screaming, screaming, inside his head.
“I’m saving you!” he bellowed. How, he didn’t know. All he knew was he had to keep La Mariposa here. Her promises welled up around him, an almost physical force.
La Mariposa knelt down next to him. “No, save me, Miguel. I’m the one you need. I’m your fantasy and your reality. With me, this will be your world forever.” She touched his arm, and he was surrounded by canvases, brilliant splashes of color in a black world.
He reached out for the nearest one, knocking it over in his haste. The subject was grim and horrible, the most horrible thing he’d ever seen. His sweet Leah, the love of his life, the light of his world, her face ravaged by age and hard times stared up at him.
Why didn’t you save me? Her whisper rose from the canvas, echoed by every other canvas in the black space. They fell over like dominoes and wisps of Leah converged on him with cold, clawing hands.
“No!” He fought the wraiths off, barely able to breath through the crushing, tearing pain that arced through his body. Something as clear as a bell, a sound as pure as new white paint, chimed through the basement. The heat was nearly more than he could bear. La Mariposa made an enraged sound that made his chest clench like a fist.
The sound was all that was Leah. A memory of her hair between his fingers, soft and warm, rose in him, threatening to overwhelm the things La Mariposa was screaming in his ears.
The sound rang through his head once more, silencing his Muse and bringing with it a breath of fresh air and a glimpse of multi-colored wheat fields, a glimpse of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. A flare of blue light shot through the blackness toward him.
“Miguel!” She was in his head. It was real. She wasn’t memory, wasn’t a fantasy. She was really there, in his heart and soul.
“Leah?”
She was reaching for him, groping. “Take my hand, Miguel, my love, please.”