The Little Muse

I know a girl who buys notebooks with a watercolor kitten in the corner of each page. She calls the kitten her little muse.
Sometimes, the kitten will take an interest in what she’s writing, romping among the words, chewing on commas, batting the letters around like wadded-up newspaper.
Other times, the kitten curls up on a warm, light sentence for a peaceful nap.
Once, she tore out a page and taped it to another to see if the kittens would play.
They didn’t.
And that’s how I found her body seven hours later, the blood-soaked notebook in her lap.