Hey! Thanks all for the favorites/story alerts! They make me so happy! I love knowing someone is reading and enjoying my stories. Thanks to those who reviewed, chi and phantomsloveangel. I'm inspired and helped! Anyways, for this chapter, it took forever to figure out actual dates and even then they might be wrong so overlook them.

DISCLAIMERS: I don't own Phantom. Never have. But that's why there's OC.


Part Four:

Max stared at me and then finally came towards me, pushing me fully out of the way.

"Stop kidding around, Emma. This is bad enough as it is." She said grumpily.

I shrugged and moved out of her way. This was bad, but that didn't make me want to deny it. Yet. Watch, as soon as someone tried to talk to me, seeing my baggy jeans and normal t-shirt, I doubt I'd be able to keep my cool. Max looked around at first calm, cool, and collected. Then started noticing the strange garb, the strange sights, and the assortment of things that belonged in a museum, her jaw dropped and she withdrew her head back inside her eyes wide. I could only shrug.

"What did you do, Emma?" she moaned. "What in the world did you do?"

I was shocked. Well, not really. I'm quite used to being blamed and usually it is my fault.

"What did I do?" I echoed, "I found out they were hiding something! Wait until we get the government on them. 'There's no such thing as the Opera Ghost' my butt!"

She didn't listen to me and started to look around for her bag. Fetching it, she grabbed some tea that lay nestled between our copies of Phantom of the Opera and an ancient CD player that skipped if you tapped the top of the case.

"We need to get out of here." She said slowly after taking a calming sip. "We have a band concert tonight! Tonight! How can we go if we're in the 19th century?"

I shuddered to think of what would happen to us if Mr. Perini found that we weren't there for the concert. Or Mr. Party for that matter. I and my clarinet's hide would be his and my head and its mouthpiece mounted on his office walls on a shiny silver plaque. Gruesome, but once you threaten the sound he creates, he gets scarier than the casual vampire look. In pure effort, we spent ten minutes or so pushing that stupid wall, hoping it would let us back in wherever we once stood.

We had no luck, of course. I sighed and we slid down to the edge of the wall.

"I hope no one finds us," Max muttered. "Not until we figure this out."

Almost on a cue, we heard footsteps outside the tent and a few voices barking to each other importantly. We took one look at each other and then scrambled out of the other side of the tent as fast as our scrawny legs could take us just before some official looking people threw open the tent flap. Puffing and nearly crazy without enough oxygen we ran a little ways down and stopped to look around us.

"An alley!" I gasped, not used to running suddenly. "We're not even next to the Opera House??"

Max suddenly grabbed my arm and hid us both behind a wall as she peered over to our tent. A familiarly annoying little man bobbed around, still gibbering in French. Out in the sunlight (that currently was burning my skin off) he looked even more ridiculous than he did when we saw him in his own territory. A tall, squared cap sat on his dark hair and his bright red-yellow-blue costume sparkled with glitter as he hopped about, probably explaining how two young girls in men's clothing came and fell on him. An officer-appearing man seemed to be listening, half serious half amused though the latter emotion was prominent on his face by his slight grin. I liked him on the spot and hoped that the strange tale our magician-like friend spun was merely that. A strange tale. For the first time that day besides breakfast, I started to snigger, holding a pale hand to my mouth to muffle the noise.

"It seems our little man was trying to turn us in," Max remarked dryly, pulling back her hair in a hair band. "Lucky for us he isn't the type to be believed, is he?"

I shook my head, my shoulders still quaking with smothered laughter. Max grinned slightly then the seriousness of our position came back to her and her shoulders wilted. I patted her back sympathetically, worried slightly myself. I didn't want to show that to her, though so instead I put my little albino head to work.

"Well, first of all, we should know the date." I said, tapping my chin thoughtfully.

Max nodded agreeably. "We should get back to the Opera House, too. Maybe we can reverse the process."

"Now we're getting somewhere!" I congratulated, slapping her a noisy high five.

Being as ninja like as we could, we shouldered our bags which had thankfully traveled with us and snuck around the allies, avoiding any suspicion by coming into the sunlight and exposing ourselves as weirdoes. Not that I wanted any sunlight at all. With no pigment to protect me, we albinos had it rough when it came to long term exposure to sunlight. Now I wished fervently that I listened to Max this morning and put on the sloppy goop called suntan lotion.

Slowly, things started to look slightly familiar. The streets still winded this way and that, helping us along even if street signs and stoplights and people did not. Megan stated that she could still understand the French people, but it seemed to be a little more formal than what she was used to. We breathed a sigh of relief as we came up to the familiar Apollo-guarded dome of the Opera House. If it had been a person, I would've hugged that thing. Now our trouble was getting in without attracting attention. No one looked like us, and with our turn of the century styles (ha, like we had style) we would stick out like pumpkins in a string bean patch to get my country on.

But with Max's genius and my mad skills, we snuck in and immediately headed for the shadowy part of that music-inspired palace. It seemed the same almost except a heck of a lot less dust around and there were no snooty, bird men who gave tours.

"We need to know the year," I muttered, flipping open our Phantom book.

Hey, we were in Paris, France inside an Opera House stuck in the 19th century. A girl's got to dream. Max stared at it, then snatching it out of my hands stuffed it into her bag.

"This isn't the time, Emma." She said, looking like a strained mother with a less than corporative child. "I'm a little bit more worried about getting back."

I pouted but held the certain date in my mind. If it matched with whatever one we got, life would be so much more interesting here than in our missing future. Slowly and with great composure for one who isn't in her time, Max hailed someone and spoke politely in French. It was a simple sentence. The simpler the better as she put it. 'What is the year?' For once, I was glad that Max decided to clothe herself more simply today in her modest, printed dress for the guy didn't stare at her but responded quickly and left. She wouldn't be in the style of the day, but I think it was better than a chick dressed as a dude and an odd one at that. As she came back I congratulated her on sounding like a believable French woman.

"I'm just glad I listened in class," she said, sending a meaningful glare at me. I shrugged feeling that had I been a Wal-Mart smiley face, I would've had a sweat drop over my head. She sighed and picked up her bag again.

"It's 1880, if that makes you happy." She murmured, watching out for anyone who might notice us. "Only one hundred and twenty six years to go before we're home."

I must admit, I perked up quite a bit despite the fact that even if we tried to grow up and reach the future we would die, I rifled through my Phantom book once more. If I was correct, we were one year or so before the entrance of the story where Erik started to sing to Christine. Max, knowing what I searched for smiled slightly but then looked up as footsteps could be heard. I also did, snapping the book carefully shut in case anyone noticed. A small group of gentlemen passed, all of them talking quietly amongst themselves like they held a secret. We moved deeper into shadow before being noticed by one of the older ones. There conversation, however, was most informative according to Megan who was the only one out of the two of us who could understand and speak French. I cursed my laziness and listened as Megan translated for me.

"They're talking about stage placing right now," she murmured quietly. "And…ah, that one, the tall one with the long face, that's… I don't believe it, that's Monsieur Debienne!"

I peered closely at the group in awe, trying to get Max to see if she could hear about anyone else.

"What about Polywobbles?" I hissed, meaning Poligny.

"He's in his office, I think… I don't remember what that word means." She replied back, a look of concentration on her face.

After a few more moments, they moved on ahead and it was safe to steer ourselves deeper into the Opera House. I kept looking up and about, wondering if we would get to see a glimpse of the Opera Ghost. We were in the right time period, Gaston still had not written the book that lay inside our packs, and there seemed to be an aura of mystery all around us. A delighted shiver ran down our backs.

"Dancers!"

I pointed excitedly, the slender young ladies off more ahead, scampering in their flesh colored tights and gauzy tutus. I moved to follow them, trailing a nervous Max behind me. Before long, each dancer had disappeared into either of two rooms straight across from them. From the shrieks of laughter and chatter, I could only assume these were the dancers' dormitories. Max grabbed my hand suddenly and pointed more towards the dark halls.

"There are more rooms down there," she murmured. "Didn't Christine have one farther away and off towards the back…?"

"That's right!" I exclaimed as we moved slowly towards those darkened rooms. "What if she's actually here…?"

Max shushed me as another group of dancers giggled about twenty paces away. We couldn't be bothered by them and we tried different doors frantically before they could catch up to us. Finally a door opened to Max's touch and she shoved me inside. We listened attentively to the door, rather annoyed at how gossiping girls' barely changed in over a hundred years back.

"I'd hate to be one of them," I muttered, turning around to view our surroundings. It was more of a broom closet than anything else and disappointed we headed back out.

"This one opens," Max called, opening the one across the way. "It's a dressing room, too!"

We scurried in quickly, broad grins finally across both our faces. It indeed was a dressing room and it seemed unoccupied for sheets covered up the little furniture that sat inside. I ran about excitedly, trying to drink in all the old fashioned looks as I could. Max looked about, pulling off sheets to admire the furniture. Finally we stumbled upon the greatest find we could have ever hoped to find. The large, full length mirror.

"No way," I gushed, "we actually found the right room?"

"It could just be another room with a mirror, Emma," my friend reminded me realistically. "We can't just assume it was Christine's."

"Will be Christine's," I corrected, feeling around the edges in fascination. "Quick! Look up the part where Daroga goes through with Raoul, maybe we can actually open it!"

"Would we want to?" Max wondered darkly, but obeyed my wishes.

It was harder than we would've imagined seeing we spent almost half an hour pushing and pressing and tugging all around that mirror with no success. Max leaned on the glass with a heavy sigh while I paced in front of her.

"What in the world are we missing?" I complained loudly.

I tapped the mirror above her head and glared at my ghost-like reflection. I bared my teeth and made one last face at it while Max rolled her eyes at me. Leaning on the wall next to both I sighed impatiently.

"This is almost impossible. There has to be a-…"

I didn't have time to finish my sentence when the wall moved slightly beneath the small of my back and the mirror swung open, Max falling through with a startled shriek.

"Oops…"


It'd be amazing if it was all as easy as it sounds. Just imagine it much, much harder.