Mireille Dubienne was a spinster.
A pushy, sour-faced, and unfortunately educated spinster of twenty-seven. There was really nothing her father could do with her except to keep her busy, working for him as a kind of private secretary. It was a job she was well-suited to, being pragmatic, detail-oriented and persistent. It was the only job she could do, as keeping house and making babies seemed well out of the running for her.
Mireille adjusted the thin spectacles up the bridge of her nose as she stirred a precise amount of sugar – one and a half spoons – into her demitasse of café. Her father glanced at her across the breakfast table and held in a small sigh of disappointment.
It wasn't that she was unmarried that bothered him. It was that she seemed unhappy, and that the smiling, laughing girl that had been his total joy and light had drowned in a darkness that had crept upon her as quietly but surely as night overtook day.
It also wasn't that she was unattractive – for a spinster. She had soft coils of honey-colored hair and hazel eyes that tended more toward green than brown. Her features were small, and though not remarkable, perfectly nice-looking. She was slender and moved with a coiled grace.
Pierre Dubienne released his sigh as he sipped his café. His happy little Mireille had seemed to dissolve into the impenetrable mists of some dark, quiet woman who had forsworn love and all the coquetteries and courting that accompanied it. At times, he caught himself thinking of her in the way he would have thought of a son – a man of affairs with a keen mind and an unshakable sense of honor.
Well, there would be no son to inherit the Dubienne fortune, but Mireille would be an admirable guardian of it. But Pierre Dubienne would have traded every last sou if he could only have seen his daughter smile with the light of love in her eyes.
"Eh bien, ma cherie, you really think that this is a good idea?" Pierre asked, tackling a piece of toast with a knife loaded with butter.
"It's a sound investment," Mireille replied, taking small, careful bites of her croissant. "It will all depend on the way we promote the reopening, but that is not hard to do well. And I have an idea that will not fail to fill every seat on opening night, or for many nights after that."
"Oh dear, Mireille," Pierre laughed. "You know how I worry when you begin to talk like that. You are so frightfully…"
"Competent?"
"Exactly!" the older man chuckled. "So, shall I go ahead and sign the papers tomorrow?"
"Please do," Mireille replied evenly. "And by the end of the week, I hope to present you with my plan, complete with budget, for the restoration and reopening of the Opera Populaire."
"So frightfully…"
"Competent?"
"Frightfully competent, my dear," Pierre said with a smile that was tinged with sadness. "Have you ever thought of being a little less…"
"No."
Pierre sighed. "I didn't think so."
The quest for redemption and a normal life had lasted all of three months. It wasn't that Christine's kiss had dimmed in his memory or that its effect had diminished. The holy fervor he felt when he recalled her touch still made him weak in the knees and clutch at his throat in an agony of ecstatic adoration and pain.
It was simply that there were certain practicalities of life that had not changed, even if he had. And one of those practicalities, unfortunately, was the fact that half of Paris' gendarmerie was out for his blood.
He had plenty of money in his bank account, but a fat lot of good it did him when he couldn't walk into a bank to withdraw it, or couldn't rent a flat without meeting the well-meaning and suspicious concierge, or…or…
Without Madame Giry, he was a prince disguised as a pauper, reduced to shadows and thievery, despite the millions of francs in the name of Erik de Persie in the vaults of Credit Lyonnais.
In the end, he had slunk back to the burned out hulk of the opera house, taking refuge in the ruined crypt he had once called home. It had taken him the better part of three years to make the place habitable again and to rig up certain basic functions within the opera house so that he could have some comfort.
He foraged for food and clothing, burgling shops far enough a field from the opera house that no one would suspect the return of the opera ghost.
The one advantage he had – meager and measly compared to all that he had to once again endure as a walking dead man – was that now that the opera house was empty, he could climb to the roof and bask in the warmth of the sunlight without fearing to be seen. But that was small consolation for living in a cave under an opera house.
And then…and then, that damn, blasted day when his sanctuary, his private cemetery, his final resting place was invaded! He watched from the flies as two older gentlemen and a young woman picked their way across the charred, dusty debris that still lay strewn about the stage.
"I say, Dubienne," quavered the first older man, removing his top hat to brush some dust off the top of it – immediately, Erik shifted so that more dust drifted down. "What about that ghost fellow? You think he's going to mind having some new managers?"
"Carcasonne, you are an unmitigated chump," the second older man chuckled. "Do you honestly think that the fellow would stay here? This place is like a tomb – cold enough to freeze a dog's balls off."
Carcasonne threw a shocked glance at the young woman, who seemed utterly unmoved by masculine language that was more suited to the smoking room than mixed company.
"Even so, I would be much happier if we sent some stout men down to the cellars to make sure that ghost is gone," he said with a frown.
"You'll do no such thing."
Erik started, almost having forgotten the presence of the young woman in the midst of his red rage at fate's cruel, cruel sense of humor. The young woman spoke quietly and forcefully, but without ever lifting her voice.
"In fact, if there isn't an opera ghost still in residence," she continued matter-of-factly, "I have a good mind to hire one."
"Hire one?" Carcasonne looked bewildered.
"Indeed." A faint twitch at the corner of her mouth suggested she was pleased with her own cleverness. "After all, there are other venues for opera now. But there is only one place where patrons can come to experience a haunted opera house."
"I don't understand, Mademoiselle Dubienne."
"We promote the re-opening of the Opera Populaire as free of ghosts and tragedies," she said simply. "Then, we have an opening night where one or two little things are odd. People will talk. And not wanting to receive second-hand news, their friends will come to experience the delicious little thrill of a little bit of danger when something quite simple but quite significant goes wrong."
"My dear, what if the ghost fellow is still here?" Dubienne said.
"Then I'll pay him 5 francs for every 50 franc seat he fills."
Carcasonne let out a great guffawing laugh, then stopped abruptly, seeing that the young woman wasn't laughing and instead looked deadly serious.
"Look here, Mademoiselle Dubienne. You are quite well-meaning, but perhaps you had better leave these business affairs to your father and myself. Your ideas are quite charming, but I am afraid they are taxing your composure too much."
"Nonsense, Monsieur Carcasonne," the young woman replied crisply, a delicate shading of ice in her voice. "Don't be ridiculous. If we re-open as just another opera house, we shall be bankrupt by the end of the season. Our gimmick is our ghost, at least until we have our feet underneath us financially and can move on to the next scandal and sensation by stealing away the best and most renowned performers."
Carcasonne looked at Dubienne, appealing to him silently for support. But Dubienne was lost in admiration of his daughter's cleverness and business acumen.
"Well, I suppose I can live with a ghost for one season," Carcasonne sighed.
"Excellent," she said in an even, contented voice that implied she never expected it would turn out any differently.
Erik decided that when he did get a chance to kill that twit, he would do it slowly. Never mind being reformed, never mind promises. Never mind love. All of that was lost to him anyway. He was shunned by the world, sent back to his tomb by daylight that revealed his infamy. They wanted a ghost? They would have a ghost. A murderous ghost that would make that straw-haired chit his first victim.
He gasped as he reclined back against the wooden railing of the catwalk, sinking to his knees. He clutched at his heart as searing pain shot down his arm. Damn! Damn! Damn!
This was not the time to suffer an attack – not when he would need all of his strength to…manage…the construction process.
He grimaced into a future that was blacker than his past. A ghost he was born. A man he could have become. A demon he would die.
Oh, Christine…
A/N: AAAAHHH! I can't help myself! But I think this has helped break through my writer's block. And I have such a deeply perfidious idea...several actually...I even astounded myself with my evilness! But you'll have to leave a review to let me know if you want me to continue and reveal my evilness...and it's soooo not what you think!
Oh, and I haven't abandoned "The Princess and the Phantom." I just needed to get this out of my head :)
Hee hee!
Yours in mischief,
Kate September