It was the night before the grand masquerade at the Opera. The Parisians scattered among the city's most prestigious shops to acquire the most outlandish masques and gowns at the last minute. I had been invited to go, being but a chorus girl in the Opera House, so naturally I obliged to attend such an event.
I wandered down the street, watching the shuffling aristocrats as I went, holding my mere 100 francs in change from my purchased masque. I had sewn my own gown – black taffeta with ivory lace. I was told it looked very elegant by the girls of the house, the older women tended to look down on me however, for fashioning my own dress. Being but 17, I had not a date though I did have a small crush on a scene-shifter, Erik. Few people noticed him; in fact I hardly think the managers ever paid him. I was not even sure he was a scene shifter…I have seen him among the props in the basement, which I sometimes wander. Erik had a lovely voice, and was very eloquent in his letters, despite his childish handwriting.
I did not know what Erik thought of me. I rarely saw him in the flesh; he said he was a very busy man. Though he did send me small gifts…boxes of chocolates, small poems, flowers (his favorite was a single red rose), and once even a lovely silver hairpin, which I wore faithfully. He refused to tell me his surname; it felt too informal calling him by his first. But whenever I requested the information, he replied simply with "Erik is all you need to know me by, child."
I once heard him speak, the first time I met him. I do not know where it came from, it seemed all around me. His voice was soft, sweet, like a child's. But when angry it echoed the glorious halls of the Opera, as I soon found out. I had been down in the Opera basement alone, sketching in my small notebook. A shadow passed in front of me and I gasped, letting out a shaky, quiet cry. A cold hand clasped around my mouth and a chill climbed up my spine. The fingers were covered in black leather, no heat radiated from beneath it. I then heard a soft voice. "Quiet, I will not harm you." Stunned, I did as the mysterious voice instructed. The hand retracted and I took a deep sigh.
"I have been watching you. You are quite skilled in what you do." Being but an end-line ballerina taking small parts in the common chorus of young girls, I was confused. He must have realized this fact. "Your art." I looked down in my lap to see my portraitures of the managers of the Opera sketched quickly down in my notebook. "Though, those fools would hardly ever realize it." I looked around for the man, but I saw no one. He had fled. But I still heard his voice ringing in my ears. "Who are you?" I asked, quizzically. I could almost see the smile turn up onto his invisible face. "I am Erik, of the Opera House." I was still shaken. He seemed a kind soul, though an invisible voice still rings as danger in anyone's ears. I tried to brush off my frightened air. "Erik-who, sir?"
"Erik is all you need to know, child." Footsteps tromped above us, and a door opened into the stairwell. "Someone is coming. Goodbye, Mademoiselle Fournier." My head spun for a quick moment. "How…how did you know my name?" A small chuckle. "I told you, Mademoiselle. I have been watching you for awhile." I furrowed my brow and shunned away my fright once more. "How dare you, sir! How dare you intrude on my privacy! Who are you, show yourself!"
"Quiet, lest the stage manager think you mad, yelling into the darkness like this." I looked at my feet realizing how I must have appeared to any bystanders. A young woman standing among Opera props, holding a small book and a candle, angrily shouting into the dark corners of a basement. "Goodbye, Mademoiselle."
The door behind me opened. "What are you doing down here?" A scruffy man with a long beard walked in, holding a lantern. "Get out of here, girl!" I jumped up and apologized, returning to my small room in the back of the Opera.
I could not stop thinking of this lovely voice, it spoke calmly and with knowledge. I had few friends within the Opera, I was untalented within what they required of me. But I was an extra voice who needed shelter and food, so they took me in. I shared a room with Adrienne, a rather pompous girl who thought herself the world, as her father once was a director for the house. Adri, as we called her, was out with her father on a vacation. I lay on my bed, my book sitting beside me on my nightstand, staring at the ceiling. Who was this Erik? Why did he not show himself? I was intrigued by his specter-like presence. I eventually lulled myself to sleep with these thoughts, and dreamt of him.