Chapter two

The voice

"No!" The voice wailed and leaping to my feet I felt a shiver running down the column of my spine. "You must never come here again!" the voice ordered. I began to laugh aloud, thinking it was one of the stagehands playing a practical joke on me. Probably Christophè, he and I are close friends and of you ask me he is trying desperately to court me. I did not want his advances you see but still he persists in his hopeless flattery and mindless attempts to woo my heart to his as he called it irresistible charms.

Well Christophè was quite wrong indeed for I did not love him that way. I never will and never had on any way shape or form loved him. I cared for him yes, but love was way to strong to describe my friendly feelings for him I continued to giggle and laugh as though whoever this was had just told a very good joke. This in truth did not frighten me at all and in my opinion this person needed to find some new material I mean this whole, "Opera ghost" thing was so overdone it bored me.

"Go back Christine!" I heard the voice say and for a moment I was confused. I had absolutely no clue as to whom this Christine person is but something told me that she had something to do with this man, thing, or whomever he was or is. "Go back to your love Christine! Forgive me and torment me with your presence no longer." The man's voice wailed pitifully and I just stood frozen.

When at last I found that my voice was working I decided to try and talk to whoever this was. "Go back? To whom do you wish me to go back to?" I asked him and for a moment I just held my breath, waiting for a response. When none came I thought that I was loosing my mind. The voice had said for me to go back. He obviously thought me to be someone I was not and that was certainly not a good thing. It was evidently causing him great distress and his wailing was really starting to creep me out beyond all possible sense. He does not even seem to realize that I am not this person that he seeks so desperately and weakly.

My answer to the question that made me so confused came sooner than I had expected it to. The voice that spoke with sorrowful cries for this seemingly very dear one spoke. His voice was harsh and the pain was there, I could sense it. His agony was very strong, the anguish deep as he spoke in a very bitter tone. " You dare ask me this? You know where your heart belongs. Go back to the Viscount De Chagny!" he cried and now I was really confused out of my mind. I stood for several minutes in silence riveted.

I listened to his sobs and felt my firm heart crack open like an egg in a frying pan. A moment went on and on for what felt like an eternity, a breath was breathed and the world seemed to stop. My life was moving my heart was beating so loudly that I had to hold it with both hands to make it stop. He sobbed aloud again and I felt myself beginning to silently cry with him softly. My tears felt warm on my cheeks, but I knew his were cold and broken. I had not felt those cold tears since my parents died.

I had no idea why, but my mind's eye was wondering why this stranger was crying. Still I remained silent and let him cry without saying a word. I felt it best that he have his cry, for often when I had been a child and not so optimistic about my ability to see I always felt better after a good, long cry. I was not exactly sure however as to whether my silence was right or wrong. This man seemed so broken and so wretched that it seemed a sin that I did not go to him.

I did the only thing that I could think of I raised my violin and began to play for him. It seemed to work at first, for his sobs broke for a brief moment that lifted my head. I heard him cough and sputter violently as he broke down again. And I swear that at that moment if I had known where he was, if he were tangible I would have ran at the poor man and hugged him so tightly that his head would have popped off his shoulders. But since I did not I simply breathed deeply and continued to play.

He let out a sound, which seemed something between a moan and a sob. I began to sing to him softly.

The man's voice roared in a voice that seemed to be a voice filled with all the pain that the world possessed. So terrible, so broken and yet so beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes. My voice was silenced as if someone had stuffed a cork down my throat. I breathed deeply to steady myself once more as I heard him moaning and groaning. He sounded as though his voice would shatter at any moment now.

The air in the room was so still that the heavy breathing of the two figures, myself and the one as to whom the voice belonged seemed loud in our ears. Yet at the precise moment I felt my ears begin to pound, for as painful as his sobs were they were so beautiful that it awed me. I wanted to hear more despite my compassionate nature and myself, being far too skeptical to believe in strange voices as anything other than freakish hallucinations.

Still as an Egyptian girl born and raised on the desert plains I find myself too fond of fantastic things to simply ignore them. I found myself curious as to who this person was, is or might be and also who this Christine was. Still I did not speak and soon was sure that I was loosing my mind. The voice was no longer there, and I was soon becoming drowsy. My work had made me very tired and now I felt that my mind was just playing tricks on me. Either that or I seriously needed to lay off the wine. Probably both of the two options mentioned before hand.

I did not know what else to do besides stand there and listen to him cry and moan. I was reminded forcibly of the legends in my country. There was one in particular that made me sigh whenever I heard it. The legend of the death of the high priest and then due to customs he was mummified and placed in a casket and locked away. It was said in the old legends of my country that his lover had been promised that he would marry her when she returned.

So grieved was she when she to find out of the death of her love that she kills herself that very same night. It is said that once a month when the full moon rises they are reunited in love. They sing a song if their feelings for one another in a song that sounded to their ears both horrible and beautiful. A mixture of the likeness of the supernatural and the undead. A powerful mixture of love and despair for they could never be together in this life. So the legend ends that way with the lover's song. He sounded to me now like he was singing that song.

I began to play again as I hoped to calm and soothe him and for a few moments it seemed to be working. So I played a soft and gentler tune to a lullaby. I was hoping that I could lull the poor voice to slumber land with a peaceful method and not to anger it further. It only worked for a moment and then the voice out angrily again, "No, go back to your husband and torment me no longer!" I opened my mouth to speak when I realized it was pointless to argue with a voice that I could not see.

I ran from the room and for some reason ran into the ballet room and straight down to the stagehands courtiers and down to the attic. I took out my hairpin again and began to fiddle about with it in the lock. It clicked around a few times and then the lock gave way to release the latch. I suddenly was very grateful to my grandfather Joel for teaching me such useful tricks when I was growing up. Though grandfather was rather like a child in more ways than one and there was no doubt in my mind that he had just intended to enable me to cause mischief or at least to make it easier to do so.

It really did not matter at the moment whether my grandfather for mischief and secrecy or whether or not he had honorable intentions used this trick. I was just so glad that I knew it and knew when to use it. As I released the lock and turned the knob it clicked but did not budge. Oh joy! As my poor luck would have it the door was stuck tight! I exerted more pressure and gave it a little shove.

Still nothing happened! I groaned and shoved again and a third time and at last I began to move. I moved down and pushed it with a little more force than was necessary and the door budged a little further but then got stuck again. I muttered to myself irritated," Maledizione." I cursed in Italian and gave the door another shove. It moved again slightly but it never moved more than an inch. I dropped to my knees and reached my hand into the opening and felt around. I found the source of the 'thorn in my side' so to speak.

A cinder block had been placed in front of the door and was thus blocking my entrance. I crawled as close as I can get to the block and tentatively pushed at it so as to move it out of my way. It made a slight scrapping noise as to slid away and as I moved it I began to rise to my feet. This was a big mistake on my part, as I have said before I am blind and therefore have no way of seeing where I am or for that matter which direction I am going.

So as you can probably guess I took a step in the wrong direction and tripped over my feet falling down and scraping my mouth and bruised my lip, causing it to bleed. I rose to my feet and attempted to feel around in the dark room and upon touching the wall felt the tickling of little feet on my hand. I shuddered a bit, and then relaxed realizing that it was nothing but a little stray spider. I breathed deeply with my relief that it was just a spider and not something else. I put my hand to the windowsill and let it crawl off.

I then knelt down and felt around the room to see what I could find. I found two old tarps one on you of the other and lay down on one of them. I pulled the second one over me as if it were a blanket and laid my head on my shabby little coat as a pillow and closed my eyes. I moaned deeply and turned over as the voice wailed and wailed and screamed and cried with pleading and begging tones in his beautiful voice. Soon sleep took me but still he cried and cried.

The last thing I remember was hearing another voice, not the one in my head, nor my own. A man's voice, gruff and rugged saying, "'ello who's in here?"