The heavens are a complex, sometimes confusing, and satisfying place all at the same time. The heavens are not heaven in the sense that everyone thinks the definition of heaven is. The heavens are situated between Earth and the heaven everyone thinks about going to after they leave their earthly confines. It's sort of like a limbo you could say. Olympus is a good description. She has been here her entire life. To be here among her sisters, muses in their own right is fine. But she longs to be with people other than her sisters and parents. She had a firsthand insight into how humans can act towards each other and had even witnessed their compassion on many occasions. And she has seen them at their worst as well. The way they acted when they were angry or enraged was not a pretty sight.
She has everything here that she could ever want but there are times when she and her sisters are placed in a kind of suspended animation. It's then that she feels the loneliest. Her gift to help people to get through their issues is only granted when her father thinks it's needed. And even then it is very rare. But she has been secretly working on how to break away from the hold her father has on her and her sisters.
Her father has restricted her from appearing on Earth for a very long time and still does to this day. The last time she remembers being on the planet was when some English writer had a problem making words rhyme. She thinks his name was William Snee or Shaker something or other, oh wait, it was William Shakespeare! That's it! He was the one that she had helped the last she can remember.
She remembers that the times they were living in were quite deplorable then. There was no modern plumbing, they had no light, and the food was atrocious. Thank the gods that she didn't need to eat as much as everyone else did.
Shakespeare was attempting to concentrate more on poems instead of sonnets which could lead to more structured passages. At first, she did what she was trying to do with the writer in New York City. She made her presence known by implanting ideas in his head without ever being near him. But that didn't work because either Shakespeare was too stubborn or he just didn't get the message she was trying to send him. No matter what she tried he just didn't or couldn't break out of his writer's block.
Knowing that he was stubborn as all get-out she got to work on appearing before him. She would simply materialize in a place less traveled and came up with the thought of presenting ideas to him that could benefit his writing in person. At first, he thought she was a witch and would have nothing to do with her whatsoever. She came to find out later that the way she was dressed, scantily clad to be exact, was most likely one of the issues why he wouldn't talk to her.
But muses didn't wear much because they live in a place that is a constant comfortable temperature. And the fact that they want to grab the attention of their subject to show them that they can inspire them. After finding appropriate clothing for the era she earned his trust and explained to him that she was here to help, she was able to get him to write his most popular and earliest plays. The Taming of the Shrew. At first, it wasn't accepted as broadly as she thought it would be but as plays go, it drew a crowd that the theater had never seen before. When she had accomplished her task she was returned back to the heavens and put it into limbo.
As times change she knows that the writer she is trying to help without her father's knowledge will be a lot like Mr. Shakespeare. She knows how it will go at first. He will think he is hearing voices in his head and when she does appear to him he will think she is a figment of his imagination. He just doesn't hope he loses his mind in the process. But before she can help him she needs to break out of her confines.
She has to work on getting free of where her father has her and her sisters. When she can do that and release her sisters as well, her parents will be too busy trying to find them before they look for her. And if she knows her sisters as she does, they will be impossible to find.
She knows it's a spell that he picked up from somewhere. She's heard it once or twice and thinks that she has the verses of the spell memorized. She's been working on what it could be by writing down little snippets of what he said every time she was put here from what she can remember. She has most of the spell down and recites it to break free. As she speaks the incantation her voice trembles with the hope that she said it correctly. She waits for something to happen and realizes when nothing does happen, what she said is wrong, or in the wrong order entirely.
She takes her time rehearsing the sequence again in her head before she speaks it. She does this for hours on end until she believes that what she has now is the spell to release her. The one thing she forgot to do when she read the spell before was to place the quill that was the symbol of her gift at the door that held her in her suspended animation. Once the quill was in place, she coated it with lavender oil and arranged rose petals all around the quill. Then she repeated the following words aloud:
Muse of art
Muse of sound
Muse of thought
Gather 'round
I ask for power
For shining light
Creativity
In this rite.
The spell is complete and she again, waits. Then after about ten seconds the transparent doorway now starts to fade away and she can see past her confines to her sister's holding rooms sealed up tight. She cautiously takes a step forward not knowing if there will be another restraint holding her back. Placing her right foot past her left, she stands outside her room. Nothing happens. She's free!
She moves away from her room and to Calliope's door and repeats the spell hoping that she doesn't need her symbol. She recites the spell and hope for the best.
Calliope awakens coming out of her haze to see her sister standing at her door.
"Calli, I need you to awaken our sisters and make tracks out of Olympus. You can't be caught for quite some time."
"Kate, what's going on? Why have you awakened me?"
"There's someone that needs my help. And to help him, I need you and our sisters to go to the four corners of the earth and not be caught for quite some time. I need to help him get through his blockage."
"I'll never understand you literary muses! Because whoever this is can't write, doesn't mean you can wake us up to help them."
"Come on Calli! I never ask you to do anything for me and you are the muse that all of our sisters look up to. Being the oldest and the wisest you can do this for me just this one time. You know it's true."
Calliope realizes that she is in name only the head Muse. She contemplates what Kate has just said and after thirty seconds of thinking about it she gives in to her demand.
"All right Kate I will release our sisters and we will become impossible to find. I just hope you know what you're doing. Father has never ever and I mean ever left you to your own devices on Earth. I just hope you know what you're doing."
"Calli, I promise I will do my best to get the writer to see how he could be someone very, very special. It will take time and I know that you and our sisters will accommodate my departure to Earth."
"You'll have it, sister. Just make us proud."
Callie disappears and she goes to awaken her sisters. Kate saw that she has an opportunity to leave Olympus does so.
Calliope wakes her Sisters in before their father can find out they all depart Olympus for different parts of the Earth. Finding them will be a gargantuan task and her father will be very upset, to say the least. She just hopes that Kate can complete her task before they are all corralled and put back into their suspended animation.
Kate picks the worst place imaginable to appear in human form. She ends up dropping into the Port Authority bus terminal on 43rd Street and 8th Avenue in a woman's bathroom stall no less. She realizes that once she exits the restroom the times have definitely changed since she's been here last. The days of William Shakespeare have gone to the wayside and have been replaced with people like William Paterson, Stephen King, and numerous other writers trying to be the best.
She moves down to 42nd Street and exits the bus terminal is surprised at what she sees in front of her eyes. Yellow wheel drive vehicles seem to have replaced horses. Many buildings tower above what used to be one-family homes. People are talking on devices attached to their ears and she has no clue as to what they are. She steps out onto 8th Avenue and starts walking South down towards where the writer lives. She can only hope that she's in time to do some good before things get a lot worse than they are.
TBC
A/N: Greetings from Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic. Sorry about the shortness of this chapter, but I promise the next chapter will be a lot longer. This chapter sets up the next chapter hence its shortness.
P2P