Part 4

When Muse awoke that morning in the other world, she found a young traveler snoring on her doorstep.  He was very shabbily dressed and covered in the dust of the road, and when she shook him awake he scrambled as if fearing bandits.  It only took a moment for him to realize where he was, though, and he fumbled with his pack to take out the offering he’d brought.

“Great and Wonderful Lady of Music,” he said, pulling forth a wheel of cheese, “please, bless my harp.”

“Funny looking harp,” Muse observed, with a yawn, but took the cheese anyway.

“I . . . er, this is my harp,” he said, shifting the load on his back to reveal an old, oft repaired little harp.  Muse reached down and touched it gently.

This was enough.  He began to thank her profusely, but she simply yawned again and asked, “Would you fetch my mail?”

“Yes, of course, anything, thank you,” he said, bowing as he backed up toward the mailbox.  He brought back a stack of letters, and Muse waved absently to him as she closed the door and went back inside.  She was used to finding weary travelers passed out on her doorstep; who knows how far this one had come just for the touch of her hand.

Most of her mail consisted of prayers that she turn her thoughts on the sender and aid them in their creative endeavors.  Blocked songwriters, struggling musicians, all thought that just the benevolent ponderings of Muse could get them what they wanted.  Maybe it did.  No one seemed to complain that she wasn’t coming through for them.

She glanced out her window, and could see, on a hill a few miles away, the walls of a castle.  Love lived there, she knew.  She wondered if he could see her cottage from a palace window, and if he knew that it was hers.