A/N: Great big thank you to Azhi D, The Slate Reaper, Evangeline Pond and meatpuppet1 for hitting the follow/favourite button! And thank you to Wheel of Fish, LeticiaMaree, PhantomFan01 and Grandma Paula for reviewing.
I really enjoyed coming up with Raoul's backstory so I couldn't resist a little teaser at the end of the chapter.
Chapter 2: Paris
1882
The rain lingered for many days, beating an angry rhythm against the windows of the Palais Garnier that made Christine grateful to be tucked away in one of the bunk beds of the dormitory. The woollen blanket and her flimsy nightgown did not do much to keep her warm, but she knew that she was fortunate to have a roof over her head at all. Every day before going to bed, she went to the Opera's chapel and thanked God for this gift and every day she feared to prove herself too inadequate to keep her place at the conservatoire. Her first encounter with the mysterious Madame Giry had frightened her and she did not wish to find out if her warning words had been exaggerated or not.
It also hadn't taken long for Christine to learn that she was quite different from the other girls that were training alongside her. Just as she had witnessed on the streets of Paris, they too, possessed at least one limb, one part of their body manufactured from metal and viewed her as the anomaly. While rehearsals forced them to work with her, they sought out their own company in the breaks in between and whispered noisily when she passed. The only exception being little Meg who seemed to have been brought up with kindness and possessed a natural curiosity that made her join Christine when nobody else did.
But the evenings were hard, nonetheless, when everybody flocked together in the dormitories to exchange scandalous stories, leaving her behind. Truthfully, she was glad she could only pick up snippets of conversation, since most of the tales were told in such colourful language her father would have turned in his grave. But she desperately yearned to belong somewhere, even if it meant this strange city and its strange inhabitants. Surely she could stop viewing them as an oddity if they extended the same courtesy to her.
Around her, the night grew darker still and the light of the candle that illuminated the room, flickered and danced as the wind rattled at the windows. A soft rumble joined this strange chorus and sent some of the girls scattering off into their beds. Christine, too, turned her back to the spectacle, closed her eyes and tried to settle down enough to sleep. As always, her dreams were filled with black, distorted faces and the haunting tune of a violin.
In the morning, she was one of the first to be awake and tiptoed out of the dormitory to wash and dress herself. Once changed, she nipped back inside to silently deposit her nightgown and then set off to explore the Opera further. It had not only become her favourite activity outside the lessons in singing and dancing, but it had also turned out to be a helpful tool when coping with the loneliness she experienced daily. She had thoroughly inspected the foyer with its magnificent statues casting a stern eye over those longing to be entertained and had spent a good hour on the grand staircase, staring up at the angels and Apollo's golden chariot depicted on the ceiling. Her neck had been aching after that particular endeavour, making rehearsals especially tiring.
So today she settled for a simple stroll down the large corridors instead. The hall of mirrors that flanked the auditorium to the east and ended in the Salon du Soleil had had an almost magical appeal to her since she had first caught a glimpse of it. It felt like the brightest room in the building, filled with gilded ornaments and shining floors that just beckoned the sun to cast its light through the large windows. Unfortunately, the sun was still determined to remain hidden and Christine forced to explore the hall with all its shadows. Automatically, she shifted closer to the walls, felt every rough edge, traced every last detail until her hands were quite satisfied.
Just as she was about to shift away from the mirrors, the soft tune of a violin began to fill the air around her. The music was hauntingly sad yet differed greatly from the folk song she encountered in her dreams, the one her father had so often played for her. It seemed to move by its own rhythm, defying all typical structures of contemporary music yet still maintained its appeal. It seemed to be beckoning her closer and she followed wilfully if only to discover the person capable of creating such sound. She followed its call to a large column near the windows, then to the other end of the hall. But whenever she drew near, it seemed to slip away again, distancing itself from her.
Christine's heart began to beat faster then and something like foreboding overcame her. Surely sound was not capable of travelling like that! She wheeled around on the spot, frantically scanning the corridor, but the mirrors only mockingly kept showing her own reflection. She was quite alone and yet she knew that someone else was there.
"Please, I'm frightened!" she called, though her thin voice barely carried the words. "Might you not show yourself so I can thank you for your beautiful music?"
As if in response, the song began to swell around her, expanding, contorting until it, at last, ended in a loud cacophony of sound that had her covering her ears and squeezing her eyes shut. Her heart kept thudding loudly in her chest. Carefully and hesitantly, she removed her hands again and listened, but everything had fallen deafeningly silent. But she still couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched.
Wiping away the tears that must have fallen without her noticing it, she pushed herself upright and clung on to the windowsill for support. Her legs still felt weak and unreliable, quite reluctant to carry her back to the dormitory although she knew she'd be safe there. Outside, a large automobile rolled past, its engine proudly laid bare, no part of it covered by paint. Whatever lightness, whatever hopefulness she had felt before had been replaced with heavy desolation. Would she ever feel like she belonged, she wondered.
"Christine Daaé!" Madame Giry's stern voice had her spinning around while her face flushed with shame. "All the girls have assembled for breakfast and you are here, dawdling and staring dreamily into space?"
The wheels on her face whizzed, twisted the silver wires until her eyes narrowed angrily.
"Forgive me, Madame. I'd lost track of time."
She kept her eyes downcast but wondered daringly at the same time, why her disappearance would matter so much to her. After all, she was neither in charge of the conservatoire nor concerned that Christine maintained her place. Perhaps she merely enjoyed sticking her nose in other people's business, she decided angrily.
"You should not be here in the first place. Now move, before I tell the managers about you, girl."
Curtseying dutifully, Christine picked up her skirts and rushed past her towards the back of the opera house. Of course, her late arrival did not go unnoticed by the girls who gossiped even more passionately than they had done before. She would have been lying if she claimed that their words did not upset her, yet her mind was still so occupied with the peculiar events and the invisible violinist that she soon forgot all about them.
Late in the evening, when the faded sunlight had disappeared altogether she decided to sneak out of the dormitory again to go to the chapel. Perhaps it wasn't wise to be caught twice by Madame Giry in one day, but she could not bear the thought of being unable to light a candle for her dear father. Even the intimidating box keeper had to understand that. Perhaps she had even left already. Christine could hardly imagine her living in the Opera.
All the corridors were as quiet as they had been in the morning though Christine supposed that it would drastically change once the new season began. But the calm she had felt at the beginning of the day was gone and so she tiptoed hurriedly down the grand staircase and lower even until the little chapel came into sight. Breathlessly, she pushed open the wooden door and entered the small space that was basking in the glow of more than a dozen candles. Here she could finally unwind, here she felt the tension leaving her body.
Gingerly, she picked up an unlit candle and touched its wick to one of the flames. She nestled it between the others carefully and then sank down on her knees, whispering a quiet prayer. She had no intention of returning yet to the dormitory. No, this was quite safe, quite familiar. It was almost too easy to lose track of time, to withdraw deeper into the memories she cherished deeply.
The soft footsteps went almost unnoticed then, almost, had the marble floor not carried the sound so well. Startled, Christine glanced over her shoulder only to see a shadow drawing closer. She held her breath and braced herself, but blonde hair and kind brown eyes made her sigh in relief.
"There you are!" Meg announced, stepping deeper into the room. Her movements were somewhat lopsided as the metallic leg that was hidden underneath her long nightgown tried to strike a balance with her normal leg. "I wondered where you'd wandered off to again. Quite adventurous, aren't you? Most of the other girls would be too frightened to challenge mother again."
"Mother?" Christine echoed in puzzlement. "Madame Giry is your mother?"
She tried comparing both of them before her mind's eye but still struggled to find similarities. Where Meg was open and talkative, Madame Giry was quiet and strict and even when they shared the same room, the box keeper did not treat her any differently. Perhaps it wasn't surprising then that Christine hadn't made the connection between her and the girl everyone only referred to as little Meg.
"Yes," she shrugged simply as if the thought did not concern her much and then sank to her knees by her side. "She told me you'd been caught wandering through the corridors this morning."
"Had I known it would get me in such trouble, I would not have done it," Christine replied earnestly.
To her surprise, Meg chuckled. "I had not expected you to be quite so curious. You always seem perfectly content in your own little world."
A sad smile appeared on Christine's lips and extended to her eyes. "I am anything but. As a matter of fact, I wish I could be more like you. You fit in so effortlessly and yet you don't seem to care if anyone were to gossip about you."
"Only because I have experienced it before and lived to tell the tale," Meg answered, giving her hand a comradely squeeze. "When father died and I lost my leg in the accident, the neighbourhood girls were on me like vultures. 'Poor, poor prima ballerina,' they would taunt me and I cried and cried until I realised that they had simply been envious of me all this time. From then on I held my head high, accompanied mother to work and held on to my wheelchair while I practised using only my good leg."
The story rendered Christine speechless and she felt great shame at having condemned what was foreign to her as strange and frightening. She could not imagine experiencing something so life-altering and still possessing the will to persevere. Too often she had witnessed others abandoning their dreams and losing all hope.
"Why did you come here?" Meg asked abruptly, interrupting her thoughts.
She did not know whether she was referring to the chapel or the conservatoire but truthfully the answer was the same.
"My father recently passed away. He was a rather popular violinist and had high hopes for me, but more than that I think he wanted me to be somewhere safe."
She looked at her candle that was slowly diminishing, lifted a finger to feel the hot wax on her skin.
"Parents seem to have that in common," Meg nodded pensively. "I'm certain mother would lock me away if she could and only allow me out to participate in rehearsals. She fears that I might grow too distracted by all the handsome patrons just like the rest of the girls, lest I forget for even a second to be grateful for everything the Opera Ghost has done for us."
"The Opera Ghost?" Christine repeated curiously.
She was certain that she'd heard the other girls whisper about it before and suddenly wondered with a start if the ghost and the invisible violinist could be one and the same.
"Yes, he's rather mysterious," Meg replied, dropping her voice to a whisper. "I trust you not to share this with the others but mother has been working for him for quite some time now."
Although it was perplexing to hear that anyone could be hired as an assistant to a spirit, it did not surprise Christine in the least to hear that it was Madame Giry filling the role. She was almost as mysterious as the spectre itself.
"But how can that be?" she frowned, hoping to learn more. Even as a child she had treasured her father's dark stories and legends the most.
"I can hardly explain it myself," Meg, who seemed just as excited as she was, giggled. "But mother tends to his box as well as to the others. He only allows her inside and trusts her to deter any impertinent visitors from buying it themselves. He mostly communicates by letter though on a handful of occasions he has spoken to her directly."
Christine shivered as her imagination ran wild, conjuring up all kinds of fantasies as to what a ghost would sound like.
"He was kind enough to pay mother an additional wage so that she could afford a prosthetic leg and my operation, and when her eyesight began to fail he paid for her operation also. He really is rather kind mother says," Meg paused and nodded enthusiastically, "provided you do all he asks of you. I secretly think he's a great admirer of the arts, almost like the rest of our patrons."
"Why?" Christine questioned.
Her thoughts were still lingering on the matter of the discourse. What messages could a ghost possibly wish to convey?
"He keeps an eye on each and every member of the ensemble, no matter how small their role in a performance. When he saw how much I practised, how stubbornly I worked on adjusting to the new prosthetic leg, he paid mother again and tasked her with buying me a second one, a better one. Without his help we couldn't have afforded a leg from the de Chagny brothers, you know? They have patented a number of unique prosthetics. Mine is made especially for dancing. It possesses a spring that would allow me to perform jumps and a very clever mechanism that makes it susceptible to even the slightest movement which allows me to maintain my balance more easily."
All at once Meg's words seemed to echo loudly in the little space and Christine's face grew devoid of colour. Oh, how that name still filled her with dread!
Hurriedly, she gathered her skirts and rose to her feet, hoping that Meg would not think her unkind.
"A rather friendly ghost he must be then," she forced herself to comment, "but perhaps it is time we returned to the dormitory. As you rightly said, I should try not to get into trouble once again."