Author's Note:
Dear Readers,
I have no idea where this book will go. No idea at all. So, bear with me as we both find out what it will turn into!
sarahandmarquis
This girl is based on my own temperament. She talks to herself, doesn't understand fear, and can be overwhelmingly optimistic (Whenever someone says, "There is a 90% chance of rain" I'm the one who says, "But, there's a 10% chance it won't!"). I'm sure most of you are going to be screaming "Mary Sue! Mary Sue!" and you're welcome to do that all you like but I'm going to have some fun with this book.
E-OC
"I am very sorry, Mademoiselle, but now that my brother is gone, I'm afraid I have no other choice but to let you go." The Vicomte, now Comte, looked up from his ledgers at the maid, a young girl of eighteen, beautiful despite her poor station; dark eyed and black haired with a darker shade of skin, all of which spoke of her Spanish heritage almost more than her name.
She had been a sort of pet of his brother's. Attracting the attention and pity of the older de Chagny, who's patronage had been the only thing keeping her off the streets. He couldn't say she didn't work hard, for she truly did; often until her hands were bloodied. But, there was simply no space for her. She wasn't needed and the other servants didn't care for her odd ways. Tossing her a small bag of coins, he continued,
"My late brother would have wanted you to have something. Goodness knows what he saw in you." He glanced over her scant form, the black and white maid's garb not hiding any of her protruding bones. Phillipe, despite having pitied her situation on the streets, hadn't offered much more than a roof over her head and two meals a day so the girl hadn't ever truly blossomed.
Candela merely nodded, aware any arguing might take away the coins she had received.
"Yes, Comte de Chagny." She rose, curtsied and walked towards the door, not casting a glance back and fixing her gaze instead on the floor. That action nearly caused her to collide with the Comte's fiancé, a young singer by the name of Christine.
Hasty apologies were exchanged between the two women before Candela left, closing the study door behind her though not before she heard Señorita Daae, sobbing in the arms of the Comte over some dream she had had again. No doubt another nightmare about the Phantom of the Opera.
Candela surpassed the urge to roll her eyes. The Comte was a fine man who she couldn't despise despite having thrown her out of his house before his brother was quite cold in the grave and he deserved a finer wife than the sniveling girl who couldn't get angels and phantoms out of her head. Having been assigned her temporary maid before her dismissal, it had been Candela who was sent to fetch the Comte at ungodly hours of the night to calm her fears and chase away a nightmare.
"She may be sixteen but she doesn't have to act like a child." Candela muttered under her breath as she went to her small room and changed out of her black and white dress and laid them down on the bed before slipping on a plain, dove gray frock which hid much of her natural beauty, the stark color muting her dark skin and clashing horribly with her dark eyes.
"Talkin' about the future Comtesse, are we?" Asked a rather vulgar voice from the doorway. Candela didn't even deign to look at the drunkard behind her.
"Who else would I be talking about? Do we know any other blond children who are marrying my former master?" The man behind her staggered up and laid his hand on her waist, trying to pull her towards him. Shrugging him off, she grabbed her bag and tucked away the small purse of coins.
"Keep your paws off." She muttered before walking out of her room and down the hall to servant's exit. At times, she wondered why he wasn't dismissed from the mansion. That thought was quickly followed up with a mental image of his wife, the meanest fiend and the best cook the French side of the Channel. She earned the money and he drank it.
"Aw, not just a little feel?" He slurred as he followed her, too drunk to really do any serious damage. For five years she had withstood his drinking and groping habits and was quite accustomed with how to deal with them by now. Stopping at the door leading away, she turned to him.
"Not even a little. Need a woman? Go find your wife." She said, struggling not to laugh at the thought of snuggling up with that holly bush he was wed too. Perhaps that was the reason he sought warmth from other women.
Flicking her long hair over her shoulder, she strode from the mansion, leaving him, the Comte, and his childish bride long behind her.
Back to the streets for Candela de la Vaga.
E-OC
"What will one franc buy me?" The odd Spanish girl asked herself as she flipped the coin around on her fingers and examined its every crevice for the umpteenth time in the past hour. The gold the Comte had been kind enough to give her had only lasted a few days and this final gold piece she had saved for the three days. Now, her rebellious stomach was refusing to forget its gnawing hunger while her mind couldn't recall her old tricks of pickpocketing.
"Not much. But, I shan't starve without something to my name." She answered her own question before tossing it up in the air and watching the sunlight strike it before catching out of the air. "Not a warm bed, not a meal, not a thing." Again, she tossed it into the air but this time, instead of her hand catching it, it knocked the coin aside and caused it be flung some distance away, into the small grove between the paving stones and rolling down it into a drainage grate. Fortunately for her, it stopped within reaching distance and if she was very careful, there would be little trouble getting to it. Despite knowing the money wouldn't buy her much of anything, Candela couldn't stand to see her last bit of golden hope disappear so, she went after the coin.
As it turned out, the piece of metal had a mind of its own and its owner was swearing in her native tongue before finally grasping the franc once more in her grubby hand. As she rose, far too quickly for having been prone against the sidewalk, she saw black spots, not unusual but as she did, she fell against the wall and fell inward as the wall gave way behind her, tumbling the hapless Spaniard into the darkness within.
Stunned for a moment from the fall, Candela couldn't rise quickly enough to stop the stone wall as it swung back in place, leaving her in complete darkness with no way of seeing where she was going. On top of that, she had lost her franc!
"Maldito that franc." She muttered as she stood up, albeit shakily and began searching the wall for another hidden leaver or button to extricate herself from the predicament she found herself in. Failing miserably in her attempt and finally, out of a fit of pure frustration, she kicked the wall; only to come back limping and muttering something unrepeatable under her breath to herself and the wall.
"I can't find my way out, I've lost the only money I had in the world, and on top of it all, there's a damp draft!" The Spaniard threw her hands up. "Well, at least I won't become too hot." She reasoned as she shivered. The draft was coming from below her, the dank-smelling air proof of that. Well aware of the labyrinth beneath the Parisian streets, she cautioned herself that she would do well to remain where she was and wait for a passerby to help her.
"Not that anyone would. I have nothing to repay them that I would think of parting with." Sighing softly, her hand landed on a pocket hidden in her dress and it was them she remembered the small box of matches she always kept on her to light the candles in the Comte's mansion. She hadn't bothered to give them back, instead choosing to kept them with her.
Withdrawing the matchbox from her pocket, she struck one and looked around the small aura of light it provided to her. nothing but cold stone walls, damp and growing moss. Wrinkling her nose, she poked around the entrance, thinking that, if anyone used this for entering, then there had to be a lantern or something for them to see with.
"At least, I hope." She said as her eyes cast upon a dusty thing sitting in the corner. Lifting it up, she found it was still full of oil, if not old oil. It would burn and provide more light than nothing, she supposed as she lit it and held it up high so as to see more.
Once again, after examining the place where the door had been, she kicked the contrary stone and instead of cursing, promptly apologized to her foot for the injuries it must be going through.
"Madre always said I was a bit batty." Candela murmured as she assessed her situation. "Well, Madre," she said, now speaking to someone who wasn't even present at all and couldn't have possibly heard her words, "I am going to do something even more batty." Holding her lantern high like some banner, she abandoned the wall of stone and walked into the deep, dark maze beneath the Paris streets.
E-OC
"Perhaps Madre was right." Candela spoke out into the darkness as she winded her way down whatever passage caught her fancy. Many feet below the surface now and hopelessly lost, the Spanish maid had no other choice but to keep going.
"If I don't kill myself anytime soon, I'll be in the catacombs." Even her brazen spirit couldn't handle the thought of piles of bones strewn here and there. Perhaps she should have even been scared of the tunnels but she wasn't. Keeping all negative thoughts from her head and lightly humming or singing some Spanish opera song or traditional ballad was keeping her quite happy.
"No one is around to hear my descent into madness and they are missing quite a show," She said once more to herself, finding herself was likely all the company she was going to find down here aside from the rats and she wasn't feeling quite that mad or lonely yet.
Suddenly, she stumbled a little as one of her shoe slipped on a damp stone. She had arrived at the bottom of the many stories of passages.
"A lake." She said, her voice echoing across the brackish water and reverberating against things far off in the darkness. Her lamp was growing quite low on oil but in its dying flame she saw a small wharf with little boated moored to an iron ring in the rotting wood. Quietly, she approached it and found the little boat to be quite sound, not a drop water within it.
"A underground lake. A boat." She looked again over the water and in her mind's eye formed the last piece of the puzzle. "A house on the shores of an underground lake." After spending a full week listening to Christine's nightly terrors and then usually hearing them recounted again when she wept into the Comte's fancy suits, Candela knew the whole story backwards and forwards. In addition to that intimate knowledge, the rumors were flying about Paris and she knew most of them.
"Death's head." She muttered as she began to untie the little boat and clamber into it, her hands quivering from nervous excitement.
"This is true madness. Seeking out a killer in his own lair." Candela picked up the pole and began to pole herself across the black water, unsure if she would even be able to find the place in the dark. The lamp was doing little good now.
"When I get there, he will either kill me on sight or he will turn me loose once more into the passages, or he will show me how to get out." She couldn't believe that the Opera Ghost was all bad which was why she include the final option. He had released Christine from his grasp though the girl seemed to forget that and continually think he was about to get her like some freakish boogeyman. The whole thing was quite a riot and Candela found herself chuckling as she continued her trip across the lake.
Then, just as her lamp died, gravel scarped the bottom of the boat and the small craft came to an ungraceful stop on the opposite shore. Stepping out, a little perturbed by the sudden halt, Candela lit another match and used its meager light to see around her.
Dead ahead was a wall.
"Señor Opera Ghost, I'm beginning to dislike your choices of doors." She spoke to empty air and walked towards it, pressing all over the stone and utterly astounded when a slab of the offending rock swung inward silently on hinges and showed her the most perfectly organized, if a little dusty, parlor.
For a moment embarrassed at the status of her shoes, Candela slipped them off, setting them by the door and tread, barefoot on the expensive carpets. While the room was smaller than the several parlors of the de Chagny mansion, it was as elegantly furnished if not better so as this had true taste.
"I will give you this, Señor, you know how to decorate. Persian rugs and silver candlesticks. Not to mention your baby grand." She remarked, brushing some of the dust from the instrument. After wandering around for a moment, she noted there was another door and upon passing through it found an exceptionally fine dining table with only two chairs on opposite ends of the table.
"Well, I suppose when one has no company, one doesn't need so many chairs littering up the space." With that in mind, she walked through another doorway, only to find herself standing in a hallway.
"One would think the Phantom of the Opera would have at least showed himself by now. I'm invading his home and he hasn't made a single peep. Can't he just appear and get it over with?" Scowling at absolutely nothing, she decided to open the first door she came to. That being the massive oak structure directly in front of the doorway to the dining room.
After lightly knocking and gaining no response, she turned the nob and pushed, the door gliding open without a sound.
The room was red.
The floors, the ceiling, the walls, everything was red. A massive black pipe organ stood against once wall and sitting upon the stand was a manuscript in red ink.
"Don Juan Triumphant." She read and even with her little skill in reading music Candela could see she had stumbled upon the masterpiece of a genius, incorporating both the flamenco and the tango, dances from her native country that she was quite familiar with.
"Passion. Sensuality. I must say, Señor, you have excellent tastes in music as well as design." The hot-blooded Spaniard had always loved the tango, the rush of dancing it, made her heart pound. Putting aside those thoughts for another time, she turned to the rest of the room, and, viewing with little or no surprise, a coffin partially concealed by red gauze curtains.
Coffins had been an integral part of Señorita Daae's nightmares, mostly including the phantom rising from them like some angel of death bent on haunting her. Honestly, the singer was haunting herself which was a fact Candela found more laughable than sad.
No phantoms, deformed or not, had been seen on the grounds of the mansion. They seemed to all reside inside the poor girl's addled brain.
"What sort of man could have that power?" She asked herself as she walked towards the coffin, incomprehensibly drawn towards the black object. The lid was mostly in place but appeared as if the placer hadn't been physically capable of situating it firmly into its assigned groves. Grunting, Candela managed to remove the lid and lay it aside. Casting her gaze back towards the interior of the coffin, she gasped, a hand flying to her mouth as she realized that the object was occupied.
A man lay inside the black wood, still and peaceful in his eternal sleep. Thin arms were laid out at his sides, the bony hands, cloaked in black gloves, limp in their last living positions. The most fashionable of suit cuts, no doubt tailored to fit the gaunt form of the corpse. And, last but not least, upon his face lay a white mask, covering every inch of his face with the exceptions of his mouth and chin.
"I have found you, Señor." She said as she knelt down beside the coffin, reaching in and lightly touching the black silk of the suit. No finer had she seen the nobles wear to their most high-class soirees. Having neared the cadaver, the faint stench of death wafted up towards her nose and she turned away slightly. He hadn't been dead longer than a few days. While the cold air might have preserved the body, the damp would have counteracted that preservation.
"What a pity." She said as she rose and was about to turn away when a movement caught her eyes. reaching down, she laid her hand over the Phantom's mouth.
One can only imagine her surprise when a faltering breath caressed her hand.