Note: This is based off the 25th Anniversary, with Ramin Karimloo as the Phantom, Liz Robertson as Mme. Giry and Hadley Fraser as Raoul. In this, Mme. Giry is 40 years old and Erik is 33, making it a seven year difference between them. In her memory, she is 19 and Erik is 12.
"Madame, for all our sakes!"
Mme. Giry turns to look at the vicomte, with his dark blonde hair and his earnest dark eyes, still in the Hussar soldier costume from the masked ball. Heavens, he seems far too young to be so serious; just twenty-four and deviling into the complicated world of the Opéra Populaire. But he is still waiting, and she can see no other option.
And she has kept the secrets buried for far too long.
She sighs and descends the staircase to the main floor. "Very well. But you must swear to me never to tell."
"Of course." Somehow, she can sense the vicomte can be trusted, for some reason she cannot quite place.
"It was years ago, monsieur..."
So many years ago...
Eléanore was nineteen when the traveling circus came to Paris. The dancers in the higher levels of the corps de ballet had persuaded the management to let them visit the circus.
When they arrived, the girls laughed and gossiped at the strange oddities there. But Eléanore saw the circus for what it truly was: a freak sideshow. The deformed people displayed lived in horrible condition, all for the entertainment of the masses.
But the last exhibition was the worst.
The end of the group's tour was at a cage, where the circus owner explained the person inside. Eléanore could see a boy, perhaps twelve years old, huddled against the metal bars, his face cast in shadows.
"Behold the Demon's Child, the hideous freak!" the owner announced. "Its deformities are so horrible even its own mother didn't love it." At the word mother, the boy shrank back even further. But it was clearly not the reaction the owner was hoping for. In one movement, the owner unlocked the cage and dragged the boy into the light, forcing him to the ground, and several people screamed.
For a moment, Eléanore could not see why they are screaming. From her position in the crowd, the boy looked normal, with pale skin and the blackest eyes she had ever seen. Then he slowly raised his head to look at the circus owner, pure hatred burning in his eyes, and Eléanore saw his face, and the world seemed to freeze.
Deformity covered the right side of his face. The right side of his upper lip curled slightly upwards, and diminutive gashes pockmarked the skin near his nose and right eye, enhancing the grotesqueness of the distortion. A large scar, engraved deep into the flesh, began at the side of his mouth and ran almost horizontally across his face to above his ear. On the right side of his forehead, part of the skull was revealed where skin had never grown. His hair was sparse and thin, seeming lifeless. Eléanore could only stare, some strange emotion welling inside her. It was shock, definitely, but there was no horror, no; it was more like… pity.
Suddenly the circus owner had a scourge in his hand, and the world snapped back in an instant.
Then everyone was screaming as the circus owner brutally flogged the boy. The filthy floor of the cage was covered in blood. Through everything, Eléanore could see the boy slowly, torturously, move his hand to cover the right side of his face. It was his only protection.
The terrified girls were hurried out of the circus amidst the pain-filled screams of the boy as he was beaten so severely he only could lie motionless on the ground as the whip incised his flesh. Something shattered within Eléanore, and she began to shove her way through the horde of people, back to the cage, back to the maltreated, abused twelve-year-old child that did not deserve to be beaten, no matter how horrible his deformity. But someone grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the circus. They would not let go, however hard she tried to wrench her arm free and go back and do something…
"We never were allowed to go back," Mme. Giry says shakily. "I tried to, many times, but I never could."
"Mon Dieu…" the vicomte breathes. Mme. Giry can see the shock in his eyes, the same shock that mirrored her own all those years ago. "What happened to him, after you left?"
"He escaped, it seemed. They told everyone he had died."
"But he didn't die, did he?" the vicomte murmurs.
She draws an unsteady breath. "Everyone forgot him, after a time. I— I never could. Then, some time after, I noticed a figure hiding in the shadows."
"You mean he…"
She nods. "He escaped the circus and came here. Perhaps he heard someone speaking of the Opéra Populaire, possibly; I've never known. But I spoke with him and showed him a place where he would be safe, far from the eyes of the opera house…"
"The catacombs by the lake. Just like Christine said."
"He's stayed down there for years, and he told me he occasionally steals to the auditorium to watch performances. And it was there, I presume, he saw Mlle. Daaé."
Then she hears footsteps, suddenly. In all probability, it is a stagehand, but the sound reminds her of the possibility that Erik could be listening. And, in all likelihood, he is.
She backs away from the vicomte, saying, "I have said too much, monsieur. There have been too many accidents!" She turns and runs up the stairs.
"Accidents? Wait! Mme. Giry!"
But she has already disappeared.