Chapter One
Erika surveyed herself haughtily in the mirror. Her perfect face framed by her gorgeous flowing hair stared back into the attic room. She laughed and danced merrily around her treasured piano. She couldn't play, and had very little pleasure for music, but she very much liked how the glossy cherry wood reflected her image in a flattering way. A very vain girl was she, caring mostly for her appearance which she didn't bother to fix by painting her face or styling her hair, for in her own eyes, her appearance didn't need improving, because it had always been at the peak of perfection and beauty. Not a flaw adorned her face, and she knew this quite well, judging from the many, many mirrors hanging about the rather spacious attic corridor of the opera house. Acknowledging her own loveliness, she came to the very wise decision to never let anyone see her face, lest they became jealous of it and inured her or put her on display for all to steal a glance of it. Her beauty was her own, and she rarely let anyone enjoy it but herself.
The sound of applause floated from below where thousands were upon their feet, praising the performance of the famous Carl Guidicelli who charmed the people in the opera's productions. The Paris Opera House had starred Carl in all of their operas for as long as anyone could remember, but his voice left a sour taste in Erika's mouth, and she often plotted on how to stop him from preforming, or at least have a bit of fun with the preformance. Once she'd visited his rehearsal room, standing behind a two way mirror. Everyone knew of his extreme fear of mice and with a wicked grin she'd sent them scurrying under the marble baseboards to terrorize the poor man. After he'd thought he was perched atop his silk chair, sure he was safe from any harm that could be imposed on him by the beastly creatures, Erika cruelly began dropping them from the ceiling into his wig. He was far too preoccupied screaming for someone to help to notice the small brown creature whom found a comfortable nest in his costume. Well, he didn't notice until the last act of a sellout opera, where he was supposed to be dying an angelic, quiet death. His lover had just sung, queuing him for his final verse when on the last note an animalistic scream hurdled from his throat because of the poor rodent that found himself rudely uprooted from the wig and landing on the leading tenor's nose. Erika had been sure to attend this opera, precisely for that moment, and the loudest laughter could be heard coming from 'box negative five', the abandoned box that no one dared to enter but she.
The wild applause continued and a thought crossed her mind and she sat at her writing desk and penned a note on the list.
144- SHAVE HIS CAT
Everyone knew how Carl was with his cat. The horrid little yowling feline accompanied him wherever he went, always safely under his arm, his sleek, glistening fur covering of his squirming body. Erika despised that cat. Or any cat that Carl had ever had. Carl had had three others before, but, much to his dismay, they all disappeared with no trace. Carl had many of the chorus players search for his precious pets, but with no success, and only Christian Daae had ever come close to finding the Siamese. He'd ventured up through a discovered passageway of Erika's and had almost found her, but Erika quickly snuffed all the light in the passageway, leaving Christian in the dark, and Christian eventually found his way back into his dorm. At the time, Erika believed Christian just to be another dull mortal who was unworthy of her beauty, but since then her opinion had changed. After she'd had her way with the poodle, she made her way down to the two-way mirror of Christian's dorm, curious. She found him tying a mask on his face, and then sitting down to write a letter. This puzzled Erika because that night's opera had been over long before, yet this man had just dawned a different mask. Erika thought about it, and remembered that he was always in a mask, but she had always presumed it was a costume. For a while, she paid special attention to this man and came to the conclusion that he always did wear a mask, in the performances, and without. She never could catch a glimpse of his face without a mask, and the times she caught him adorning one, his back was turned from the mirror, and she couldn't see. She tried to look through a crack in the wall on the other side of the room, but a large piece of furniture blocked her view, and he'd stretched the draping fabric that had hung from the ceiling and hiding her when she chose that outlook tighter than the other rooms, obscuring her view from that angle. Many nights she pondered about the chorus boy, and came to the conclusion that he was just like her. He too was far too beautiful to allow anyone to see, and therefore hid his beauty with a mask. It was quite an ingenious idea and Erika wondered why she hadn't thought of doing so herself. But she knew it was far too late to reveal herself to the public, even with a mask, so she consoled herself by dreaming of Christian Daae. Besides this, she liked her many mirrors, and couldn't dream of trading them for the curious stares of others.
The applause finally faded and she made her way down to a perch above the backstage area where the chorus filed in after a performance. As usual, Christian, mask and all, sat among a group of players who mocked and stared enviously at Carl who was being praised by the two female managers who flocked about him quite unmercifully. They were both fat and boisterous, and Erika had no idea why the players cared whom the favored, and often found it pleasant to scare the wits out of them at times, keeping them under her thumb - this being the reason that box 'negative five' had been saved for her. She focused her attention back on Christian, and a thought flew to her mind. She wanted to hear him sing in the lead. She didn't know why, never having taken any interest in the arts, but she quickly decided that this would soon happen in her opera house, with or without Carl Guidicelli.