Hi. This novel was written a long time ago, and some of you may recall it from my old webpage. I am currently rewriting many parts of it and I shall be posting the new chapters here as well.
It is a retelling of Leroux, following the original timeline as accurately as possible, but considering the following premise:
"Is it possible to change something that is meant to be? If one little element was suddenly added to the circumstances, how would everything respond to it?
The story of the Phantom of the Opera could have been different, considerably different..."
Please note it was planned as a long novel. If you are here just for some quick reading, you can just skip to chapter 3 (Erik's first appearance) ;)
I hope you like it. If you have any comments, suggestions or criticism, please share them with me. I have been working pretty hard on this story (which is over 200 pages long so far) and it is very important for me to know where I am standing.
Thanks a lot!
1. Christine
I could have recognized that shy knocking on the door anywhere. It was immediately after the ballet rehearsal, and I still had my dancing clothes on. On the door, it was the pulsation that Christine always had; that light knock, unsure of what she was knocking for.
"Am I disturbing you?"
She knew I wouldn't turn her away, even if I wanted to.
"No. No, come in please," I said more enthusiastically.
She embraced me lightly and headed to the armchair in the middle of my room. She blinked her eyes apprehensively while I sat on my bed, right in front of her. Recognizing her unusual way of behaving when she had news to tell me, I laughed and said a little nervously, "What happened?"
She covered her mouth with her delicate hand and smiled. I held her other hand and insisted. She suddenly turned very serious and looked at me steadily. I tried to read this look, but it was hard to tell her intentions. I would say she was deciding if she should trust me with this little secret of hers or not.
"Meg, remember when we saw the Viscount around the Opera?"
Although I could say that I grew up in the Opera, the truth was, I was not always an artist. Even my actual position as secondary dancer was far more consequence of the good influence of my mother around the theater than anything else. I still hadn't found anything in the Opera I could relate to.
Christine, on the other hand, had a remarkably disciplined career, coming from distant lands. Her father taught her music since an early age, and after his death, she entered the conservatory. When she came to the Opera house, she was completely lost in Paris, and her voice seemed to be almost too lifeless, even to join the chorus. We soon became friends, and when she first spotted this old childhood friend in the audience, she confided in me.
Two more times she told me that she had seen him around, during daylight. I wondered if she was starting to see ghosts around the theater. Actually, I guess it was around those days that the presence of the major ghost, the Phantom of the Opera, was getting more noticeable. But the Phantom was only the theme of fantastic stories told among stageshifts and the ballet girls, while the aristocrat seen by Christine was our reality.
His brother, the Count of Chagny, had just acquired the Opera house, and directly, all the artists contracted. Our managers were substituted by a pair of smiling bourgeois.
I think that even for the old managers, the sale of the theater was advantageous. They were suffering from some kind of blackmailing, which quickly became the best gossip around the theater. The letters were said to be sinister but effective, once they forced the managers to pay a monthly wage of 20,000.00 francs to some unknown maniac.
But with the Count de Chagny owning the House, everything changed for Christine Daae. His younger brother, the Viscount de Chagny, got too close to the Opera. More than he wanted to.
"Meg, I was not mistaken! The Viscount is Raoul."
I knew he had shared with Christine the magical time when she lived with her now deceased father. I could see the importance of it to her.That afternoon, she told many stories about her rich little friend and the childish dreams she held about him when they were younger. Her eyes became a little sorrowful as she tried to point out how impossible this relationship was, since she was only a young singer with no background.
But she changed the subject quickly, directing her thoughts to her love for singing. Singing for Christine came close to a religious practice, exposed to me through the couple of years we lived together.
The theory was simple. Her father dead, he was to send her, from heaven, the Angel of Music to guide and teach her. As the years passed, she ended up believing that the Angel of Music was only a metaphor her father invented to encourage her, to give her strength to continue her career without him. But to the surprise of her senses, an Angel of Music truly came to her a while ago, as she told me. And he knew everything her heart longed for. Her voice had changed a great deal, and it did not go unnoticed by other people. It was almost supernatural the way her singing techniques had improved, and Christine insisted it was the result of her Angel's lessons.
When she told me about this Viscount, I confess I was afraid it would be one more of her fairy tales. But it didn't take too long for Christine to convince me that she was saying the truth. She had in fact been observing the boy, asking everyone about him, making sure he was Raoul, her dear friend. The Viscount was an extremely handsome fellow, with a boyish face that contrasted all the power he had from his noble position in society. That would be enough for Christine to show such an interest in him, but she assured me he was a very comprehensive soul, and that, together, they used to hear her father's legends about the North.
Not long after this day, Christine received the first strange proposal of her career. One of the new managers, Monsieur Firmin Richard, knocked at her room. I was there, chatting with her as we so often used to do. Seeing me, he bent and asked if I would allow them to talk in privacy.
Somehow he had noticed Christine's talent and was offering her the biggest role in a production! It was only for one night, naturally, to replace the great diva Carlotta, who was suffering from some sudden illness. But only someone who lives in a place such as the Opera knows the odds of such a thing.
Even I had to wonder, after all, if the touch of her Angel was somehow in this.