Wind whistled clear and cold across New York City, and I clutched the railing of the same bridge I'd stood on three years ago, when I thought my life would end, and I would show the man I'd loved from a distance for so many years how much pain my heart harbored. But instead, my hand slipped – clumsy Meg – and somewhere in the universe two objects managed to collide: my bullet and Christine Daae. Shock paralyzed my mind, numbed my soul, but spurred my body into action, and I remember running down the street, blind, filled with a growing iciness in my heart, blazing hot tears burning trails down my cheeks.

I'd killed Christine, my best friend, my confidante, the person who always made me laugh even when I wept. She was a nightingale, warbling out sweet notes that made everyone feel ten feet tall. But with my Derringer, old and rusty and loaded with only one bullet, I, Meg Bridgette Giry, managed to extinguish a ray of sunshine that illuminated everyone I knew. All people wilted like unloved roses when she was gone.

Did I wilt?

No.

I crumbled, a dead rose turning into grey ash. I knew the wind could blow me away any moment it pleased.

The time after the murder I walked the streets, ethereal-like, my feet covered in blisters from all that damned walking. I spent what little money had left in my purse on food and boarding, but when I was finally broke, I did what I did best. I whored.

It is what comes naturally, eh? Let your body do what it does, and you get the money.

Booze and drugs blurred those hazy months that I whored…I remember hotel to hotel, ceiling to ceiling, bed to bed. Not the men, though. I never remembered the men; their embraces and touches would flit across my mind from time to time, and it made me want to vomit. But as long as I couldn't remember their faces, I was fine with giving them my fake love.

One day, two years after the crime, an old newspaper scrap snagged me from my cloud of forgetting. The headline read "Christine Daae" in big faded black letter. I remember taking the paper in my hands and reading it intently.

Christine Daae had been found dead in her dressing room, the reporter stated, by her son, Gustave. It was a tragedy as the Viconte's wife had failed from all the stress from her new life in Coney Island. Raoul de Changy grieved for her, and moved back to Paris alone so he could bury his wife. The Viconte's debts had somehow magically disappeared, and Gustave was taken under the care of a New York man, said to be a music instructor. Lastly, the funeral of Christine was a lavish, opulent one in French soil – all fully paid for by a man known only as Mr. Y.

I remember clutching the newspaper to my chest as I ran off to my mother's establishment, something like hope bursting through me. Madame Giry always had something to do with aiding Mr. Y, the Phantom! She never gave up on the boy she saved, on the man who vowed I would grow up rich and loved and happy…

Fear only stopped me when I stood squarely before the sign at Phantasma, a small wooden sign hammered to the door. My eyes peered forward and read it:

PHANTASMA WILL BE CLOSED FOR A MONTH IN RESPECT FOR MS. DAAE.

DO NOT FRET – WE WILL RETURN WITH EVEN MORE WONDERS!

Not only this caught my eye. There was a flutter of familiar yellow parchment paper from the corner of the sign, behind it, tucked away, hidden to be found. With trembling hands, I removed it, and read the words written in my mother's careful, spidery cursive:

"Dearest Meg,

"If you have returned to Phantasma, I thank you. It does pain a mother to not know where her child is, especially on the dark streets of New York City.

"You have no doubt heard the news of Christine's death as reported by the media. Notice you were mentioned nowhere in the article. This was not my doing – I left the telling of the crime entirely up to Mr. Y and Gustave, as I have had enough of them."

Had enough? My stomach began to churn.

"What I mean to tell you, my little Meg, is I am done with the opera ghost and his whole story. I waited for you to return to me from your disappearance on the streets, but when you never returned, I gave Mr. Y my leave and bought a ticket for Paris. I'm sorry, Meg, but I must go, with or without you."

Tears, my own tears, dripped onto the page and blurred the ink of the words I just read. I swallowed a hard lump in my throat, but forced myself to continue.

"If you are reading this, I am in France. Forgive me, Meg, it was the only thing I could do.

"Do not fear for lodgings – the three circus performers have sworn to me they will secure you a dance position when Phantasma reopens, so you might have pay and a place to sleep at night.

"You wanted to lead your own life, Meg – so now I let you lead it. I have given you all I can, and now it is your time to take control. Make your own life, little Meggie, and I wish you the best of luck."

"Love,

Mama"

My heart constricted like an anaconda wrapped around it, and my fingers trembled as they gripped the edges of the paper. My own mother had left me alone to fend for myself in New York City – in a month I would have money and shelter, but as for now, what could I do? I was so angry that I tore her letter into shreds, my face growing hot in the icy air. Who did she think she was? Did she think I did not love her? God, she was my only aid in this damned town!

I began to stomp down the streets, pulling my threadbare shawl tighter around my shoulders, a futile way to defect the winter air. Make my own life? A great idea, Mother. How should I create my new life? Would I wait and then become a burlesque dancer once again? Or should I keep whoring? Either way I would stay a street urchin, a thief, a poor girl. I wanted money, for through all I learned, I knew money brought power. Money was the reason men came to buy my fake love, money was the way you could get your way out of doing anything bad. I wanted wealth and power – but how could I gain it? Ladies were far from the world of lowlifes like me.

I removed myself from the bridge of bad memories and walked the streets, turning thoughts over and over in my head. When I passed through a street market, I heard something that turned me around.

"Give it back, you bastard!" an old woman's voice yelled through the air, hoarse and angry. "That's mine!" My head spun around and saw a fruit stand on the sidewalk, owned by an elderly female who shook her cane angrily. A young beggar, looking to be in his twenties, dashed from the stand, gripping a red apple tight in his palm. Suddenly my interest peaked, and I followed him into the crowd, my slender dancer legs not minding the physical exertion at all. He wove through the crowd like a practiced criminal, but I was a predator, a stalking tigress. Finally the beggar ducked into a dark alley, and I followed him in.

Shadows fell every which way across the empty backstreet, and I watched rats slither across the slimy ground. The place was a dead end, I saw, and the side of the brick wall proved there was no escape. A new emotion raced through me, a delightful, thrilling sensation. My pupils dilated, and my heart sped like a steam-hammer.

The young man did not notice me as I followed him until I cleared my throat loudly. He turned. Sweat stuck in beads on his forehead, freezing in the cold, and his lips trembled. But when he realized it was me, a poor-looking lady, his scared expression turned into a sneer.

"Get lost, lady," he snarled in a thick city-rat accent, throwing his apple from hand to hand. "I don' need no company."

"It's not nice to steal from anyone," I replied, voice crisp and clear in the frosty air; my eyes wandered to an old discarded glass bottle at my feet. "Let alone an old woman just trying to earn her keep."

"You stupid or somethin'? Get away!" the beggar barked. "I don't intend on sharin' my bounty with a whore."

That last word struck me like an icepick to the heart. "I do not intend on sharing, monsieur," I said softly. "I intend to take all that I deserve."

Before he could respond, I grabbed the glass bottle by its neck and swung it down at the beggar – it hit his shoulder and shattered, leaving him with a torn coat shoulder and me with a jagged bottleneck edged with razor-sharp glass. He backed off and clutched his now-bloody arm. "Shit!" he exclaimed, in a mixture of anger, surprise, and terror. But the ecstatic feeling in me ate at my mind, and I wanted more. I slashed the man's face twice, leaving him two gashes, one across his forehead, and one deep in his left cheek. Blood, vivid and red splattered onto my light-blue linen dress, and I gasped when I felt how hot it was, fresh from the veins. I gave the man an opportunity to stagger back, grabbing his bloody mess of a face, and weeping.

"Jesus, lady, leave me alone," he sobbed. "Please."

My mind absorbed what I just did, and I was shocked, not in how I'd attacked the beggar, but in how good it felt to do it. "Just a moment," I said, looking at my bloody bottle. "I want to find out something, and perhaps…you can help me find this out."

"Yes," moaned the man, through tears, crying, crying like a baby. "Anything you want!"

Swiftly I darted forward and took him by his lapels, jerking him up so that our faces were inches apart. "I want to find out what a man's eyes look like when he dies," I hissed into the beggar's ear. Before he could scream, I plunged the jagged broken bottle deep into his stomach, feeling the blood gush over my hand. The sound the man emitted was low and pleading, animalistic, and he let out a whimper as I twisted the weapon inside of him, ripping his insides. I watched the light fade from his eyes and counted his slowing, raspy breaths. Finally, I leaned forward and inhaled his last breath, feeling its hot essence fill my lungs. Then, fulfilled with a new, satisfying bliss, I let go of his body and let it slump on the ground. But I did lean down and pry the stolen apple from his frozen hand. It was flecked with his crimson blood, almost the same color as the fruit's skin.

Standing up tall and throwing the broken bottle next to his body, I bit into the apple and chewed thoughtfully, the sweet fruit's juice running down to my chin. "Perhaps," I murmured to myself, "perhaps I do not need to be either a lady or an urchin. I could be both. A thief as rich as a queen."

His blood dyed my lips a scarlet-red.