Chapter 1: Shifting Shadows
Meg Giry is either incredibly brave or incredibly foolish. Or maybe both. Let's go with both.
She could feel invisible eyes on her, but the emptiness around her insisted that she was alone. The night around her breathed in the silence and breathed out the darkness. Nothing and no-one would be able to hear her approach. She was so light on her feet that she couldn't hear her own footfalls. All good dancers were light on their feet, but Meg Giry turned walking into an art form. She started slightly at the half-seen shadows of her own figure. If someone else were there, she would barely be able to see them in the all-encompassing blackness.
She jumped a little. Was that a footfall, or was it just a creak from the massive building above settling for the night?
There is no-one here, she chanted in her mind. He is not here.
" Tell me, girl, are you afraid?" His voice was like shadows turned into sounds. She shuddered just a little and she felt her eyes widen. "Good."
All she could see was a small amount of dim light, reflecting off two cold eyes, staring from a chalk-white face.
He said nothing for a few moments, and those eyes were almost worse than the Voice. She shook with fear. She silently swore at herself. Her brave little heart had turned into the heart of a coward now that she was faced with real danger.
The Voice seemed to slither like some cold, dark shadow-creature that her restless imagination had already made half-real to her. The sort of creature she used to wake up in cold sweats from dreaming about.
"I am quite certain," said the Voice, coiling around her ankles, crawling up her legs, clawing up her spine,"that you have received instructions from your mother on this matter. Instructions regarding my domain and all things that surround it." She did not move a muscle. "I am equally certain that in those instructions, it was made clear that you were never to come here. Never." That last word was a whisper, only just loud enough for her to hear. But somehow, in that whisper, she could hear velvet and stars, and nightmares, and the night sky, and all of the things she had ever wanted to run away from, all at once. It was a beautiful, terrible voice.
Meg stared into the pale face shining from the shadows, or what little she could see of it. It was true that her mother had instructed her to stay away from the cellars. But Christine had been gone for two weeks, without a word. She had spoken of an Angel, and Meg had wondered if, perhaps, an Angel was really a Ghost. The Ghost in the cellars that her mother had warned her about.
She had told herself that this ghost was no worse than any other. She had told herself that she wasn't afraid. Nothing to fear at all, she'd whispered in her head. Then, when the fear stayed, she had told herself that the Ghost wasn't home. What a fool. As if the Ghost could ever leave. As far as she was aware, the only times the ghost was away were during rehearsals and performances. Well, rehearsal was long over, and there would be no performance until the following week.
She knew him instantly. That Voice...the Ghost's Voice had always been the same. She had always heard him cackling from the shadows. He had never spoken to her, only laughed. He would laugh, and she would run. She would run away, afraid that he would snatch her up and make her a ghost like him.
She had only seen him once, but she remembered it as clearly as she remembered the rehearsal a few hours earlier. It had been long ago, but she remembered. His face had been black. It had been black, and not white. The Ghost's face had changed!
Meg stared and stared blankly at the Ghost's face, hoping it would reveal some hidden mystery, some clue. It took Meg a little while to realize that the face was not a face, but a mask. A white mask. The eyes, though, they were very much real, and very much alive, and staring into her like knives.
"Well? What have you got to say for yourself?" Meg could barely remember what words were, let alone how to form them. All she could seem to do was tremble some more. "Speak, girl! The Voice was now a crashing, thundering thing. She stumbled backward violently, lost her footing on the uneven stone floor, and fell to the ground, landing flat on her rear. To the Ghost's credit, he did not laugh. His black eyes were solemn as they surveyed her.
"It won't happen again." Her voice was shrill and she hated how weak she sounded. "I made a mistake in coming here," she admitted. She did not apologize. She would not apologize for wanting to help a friend.
"You had better make certain it won't happen again!" He spoke in that horrible, booming metallic voice again. "Why did you come here, girl? Once again, his voice seemed to snake around her, this time softly, quietly coiling itself. The eyes in the white face became terrible, dark slits. She suddenly had a horrible feeling that he meant to kill her. She held her breath, but then realized that he was waiting for her to speak.
"Christine," she rasped, her throat feeling too dry. "I was looking for Christine. I mean, Mademoiselle Daae."
"And is she here?" His voice continued to slither ever over and around her...slow and somehow almost as soothing as it was terrifying.
"I don't know, Monsieur Ghost." She heard a dark chuckle. She pulled herself to her feet. She stood rigid from fear, with her arms outstretched, as if that would help anything. How does one fight a ghost? "I can't see a thing if I'm being entirely honest."
"Then I shall spare you the search. She is not here." Clipped and abrupt now; no more coiling, no more circling around her. "Go away."
"Just like that?"
"Just like what?"
"Without even looking, I'm supposed to go away? And I'm supposed to believe you?"
"Go away, child." The darkness of the Voice was as real as the darkness of the shadows, and they seemed to blend into one another. The threat in that Voice felt as real as if a dagger had been pointed at her throat. Threats made her angry.
Meg Giry had an unfortunate habit. That unfortunate habit had much to do with the way that her mouth moved and ridiculous things came out. Mostly when she was angry or nervous. Which was often. "I'm supposed to scamper off like an obedient little fool, when I don't know what you've done with my friend! And you've admitted that she was here. Joseph Buquet told me all about you."
Joseph Buquet often told the ballet rats many gruesome tales about the Opera Ghost and his alleged victims. She remembered one particularly disturbing tale. "You've probably killed her. You've killed her, haven't you! You made her like you!" Oh no, her mouth had gotten carried away, like always. She couldn't believe she had said that. She used to have nightmares about the Ghost and his dead brides...all because of Joseph Buquet and his stories. The outburst had been utterly childish, but she had also insulted him, in a sense. He would not like the suggestion that he was Christine's murderer.
It was Joseph Buquet's fault. He was always telling her and the other girls horrible tales about the Ghost's victims. He had always tried to frighten her and the other girls, and she would always dream about the contents of his horrific stories. It was his fault.
No, it was her fault, and only hers. She had to learn to control her tongue.
To her utter shock, the Voice began to laugh. Not the deep, menacing rumble she had sometimes heard above the stage or across the auditorium. No, the Voice sounded genuinely amused...genuninely amused and almost human.
She glared into the shadows, donning her foolish pride like a mantle. "I don't see that it's so funny."
"Mademoiselle, Christine Daae is safe." He was still chuckling surreptitiously and now he did not sound half so menacing. He sounded almost ordinary, in fact. It was actually a little annoying. "She left only a half-hour before you decided to go on your perilous little adventure. You can put that gruesome little mind of yours to rest."
"And how do you know when I decided to come here?"
"You're an impulsive little rat. You can hardly wait a moment after deciding something." He chuckled harder. "Oh, I've seen you, silly little thing that you are. You never have a thought without acting on it, do you?" She detested the utter ordinariness of the laugh that followed.
Ah, but what right did he have to suddenly sound so ordinary? Maybe his face would change next, into the face of an ordinary man. Who had ever heard of an ordinary ghost? In her easily-agitated, overactive imagination, she had long ago decided that a ghost ought to maintain a certain image. If a ghost could not truly be myterious or terrifying, a ghost ought to at least maintain the facade of being the way ghosts were supposed to be. She'd often read horrifying tales in books, and she'd longed to meet one in person and brag to the other girls about how terrifying it had been and how she had survived. Only, this one was already turning out to be a poorer spectre than she'd imagined. In fact, she was beginning to suspect it was possible that this ghost was a mere mortal, and an insufferable one at that. What sort of ghost wore a mask, anyway?
She was fuming. "Who are you, and why do you wear that wretched mask? Why don't you show yourself instead of hiding in shadows? Show yourself!"
"I will not." And the darkness was back inside his voice again. His voice was a deep, dark cave – expansive, cool, and empty of all emotion. How quickly she had forgotten her terror only moments before, and how quickly she now remembered. She was a fool for having forgotten so easily. She was a fool for letting her anger distract her into fogetting her terror. How could she think him a living man? Silly, reckless, impulsive Meg Giry. What had she gotten herself into. Was it foolish to fear the dead more than the living? She was certainly the most wretched sort of fool. She was a fool who did not know how to keep quiet, and in her anger and humiliation, she could not stop herself from saying more foolish things.
"So, you are a coward." She was ashamed of the way he intimidated her. She hated the way he laughed at her as if she were nothing at all but some ridiculous joke.
"I am no coward." The Voice had become a series of low, metallic thuds – utterly inhuman -and she became certain that it would be dangerous to pursue that line of commentary any further. His eyes were angry black voids. She said nothing and kept her face blank. And in the dark, the face began to move toward her.
And then she began to run.