At length, the night for the gala arrived.

And Christine trembled in her dressing room, having been told a number of things all at once: that Carlotta was no where to be found, that the gala was starting without the Spanish diva, that Monsieur Gounod had arrived, that the house was packed, and also that she would be singing Marguerite.

A clear and decided shift had occurred: a shift in her favor.

The triumph approached. It was so near. And it terrified her.

She wished that the dressing room attendants would leave so that she might call out to the voice in desperation. How she needed his reassurance! But he had spoken so little as of late.

Erik had been uncommonly busy up until that night; there was so much to do to prepare the way for his darling protege.

Two weeks prior to the gala, he had increased the pressure upon the manager; indeed, Erik determined that the manager's exodus from the opera business would not be a tranquil one. Menacing but polite notes appeared, demanding that management reconsider their audition decision, requesting that Christine take Carlotta's place as chief soloist soprano.

In retrospect, Christine's audition had not gone as well as he had hoped. In his mind, it was her chance for them all to finally see what she was capable of. He had tuned his precious little songbird; now it was their turn to acknowledge it. However, she had been so pale when she went to the auditions.

"What is the matter, child?" he had asked her.

"I am afraid. I..."

He nearly lost his patience.

"My dear, nothing shall stop you. They simply need to see it. They need to hear it."

And when she had sung for them, they did seem genuinely impressed. Yet, her nerves had held her back from true glory, that dazzling sound that so far only he had heard and loved.

"Mademoiselle, have you been taking lessons? We haven't heard you sing like this before." They asked her, eyebrows raised.

"Yes, I have, from a great teacher." The secret remained secure.

They had promised her a chance to sing one of two small arias from Romeo and Juliet: short, easy. Nothing too severe. Nothing too fantastic.

And Erik had never been more furious.

Then to only increase his fury, the boy appeared.

One afternoon, Christine had come merrily into her dressing room, eager to speak with her angel. And Erik, at first, had dared to imagine that her face bore such a happy expression because she so delighted in his company.

But to his horror and surprise: "O dear voice, you will never guess who I have just seen!"

"Who child?" His curiosity was instantly baited by her expressions: a small sliver of jealousy, a toxin already seeping through his frame.

"Do you remember me telling you of when my father took me to the seaside one summer?"

"Yes, of course. I remember everything you say, Christine."

"Well, I told you of how I once lost my scarf on the waves and a little boy saved it for me."

"Yes?"

"Well, I have just seen that boy again, only he isn't a boy now of course. He is all grown. Raoul-the Vicomte de Chagny. We became such good friends that summer when we were little. I had no idea that he was so rich. He never spoke of it that summer. We simply played and laughed and sang and listened to father play the violin. I never dreamed that I would see him again, though."

"Where did you see him?"

"In the gallery. He became a patron for the arts yesterday and visited just this afternoon with his brother."

"And did he see you?"

"No. I doubt that he would recognize me. It was so long ago, and besides he is an aristocrat and needn't pay attention to me."

"I see."

"...Angel, do you think I ought to speak to him?"

Erik did not answer. His heart now pulsed full of raging green jealousy. It was curious how suddenly the feelings of the heart could turn so putrid and base in no time at all. He could not bear to look on her face and think that she was smiling not for him but for that boy. It was unbearable. He fled and left her to silence and desperate confusion.

When he came back the next morning to her sullen, tear-stained face, his voice came out in sad chords:

"Christine...Christine... I am your angel of music, and I hope that I am your dearest friend, but, child, you have given your heart to another. You have at the last hour been seduced by an earthly object. If your heart remains so unfaithful, I cannot stay with you." So desperate was he to maintain her fidelity to him that he stooped to base and clear manipulation.

Immediately, Christine burst into tears, swearing that she did not care for the boy, that he was nothing to her, merely a memory.

"I have been faithful! I have not strayed! What have I done?"

"I see your heart, Christine."

"Then hear it too! I swear to you-I do not love him. He was an old friend. I have not turned away from you! Please! Please do not leave me!"

She wept so bitterly that his jealousy abated briefly.

"Very well. I believe you. I shall stay with you. Hush now, dear one. I shall not leave. You shall not be left alone."

He comforted her as tenderly as he could, keeping the snake of jealousy hidden. He saw now what brutal power he held over her, and the thought became a dangerous one. It led him to places that he had never dared to go in his mind before.

No, he would not take out his anger on her; she must have comfort and love, all gentleness.

Instead, he had taken it out on the entire company. Suddenly dead rats appeared in everyone's dressing rooms in the most unlikely places; the lights would flicker at uneasy times; scenery and sets would move on their own; rafters would come loose; ballerinas would speak of hearing a whispering sinister voice calling out to them from no where; even the manager, on his way out, looked harassed and haggard. Erik's multifold wrath began to seep through the whole opera house. But the height of it, the thing that essentially secured Christine's place as Marguerite that night, was Joseph.

Erik despised him, as he despised most of them, but that one night had led Erik's ire to a boiling point. It had been quite hot that evening. Wandering in the rafters, supremely angry, he had been muttering to himself in fits and fumes. He was trying to be a gentleman with them all; he was trying to be decent and reasonable with the fools. But all they would do is run around like idiotic children, screaming about the opera ghost instead of listening to him. And though Christine seemed faithful, he was full of doubts. as much as he knew her heart, he could not know her thoughts. Her mind was shut to him. It was maddening! All his efforts might come to nothing. All his hopes for Christine!

He would not let her be disappointed. With an alarming eagerness, he had set about to do his best to make the way for her. He would do anything. And that night in the flash of a moment, he had devised the best way to catch them all and get their attention: a death.

Some one would die.

And it just so happened that Joseph Buquet had ambled by, half drunk, singing a refrain from Gounod.

Easy.

The news of Buquet's mysterious demise spread quickly through the theatre; everyone suddenly became much more acutely alert. Something was wrong. In the manager's office, Erik had left a final note:

Monsieur,

You should listen to me. I would not wish for more unforeseen consequences to befall you.

Your obedient servant,

OG

With such implication, it had been enough to send the manager to consult with his diva, to advise her that for her own safety she ought not to perform, or at least perform considerably less than planned. Of course, La Carlotta had not received well the suggestion that she relinquish her spotlight to a novice. In fact, it had spurred an attack of fury in which the hot-headed soprano had flung everything within her arm's reach to the ground-even her small Pekinese:

"I shall not be bam-boo-zeeled by some ghost, by some bit of misty air! I will sing! Nothing will stop me! I don't care who he is! And I don't care who she is, either! This disgusting little Daae! I don't care!"

Poor manager had been left with quite a predicament. But Erik had taken care of it for him; with a few ample drops of opium in La Carlotta's tea at her apartment, she soon found herself too tired and, frankly, unable to stand up. All she had wanted was to sleep. Damn the opera and her waiting carriage. She was La Carlotta and could sleep when she damn well wished. And she did, but really she slept when he wished.

And certainly when the manager heard that Carlotta was indisposed to come, he had known the immediate course of action that he must take, or else. Mademoiselle Daae to replace La Carlotta: to sing both Romeo and Juliet arias, and finally the selections from Faust. It had all come about at the last second exactly as Erik wished.

And as he watched Christine fret in her dressing room, he smiled.

"You must love, Christine. Let love take away your fear," he willed her to hear him, even though he merely whispered it.

After a few moments, she sat down, dressed in a massive mauve satin gown. Her breath came in short gasps; she was on the edge of greatness and pure discovery. Then she looked at herself in the mirror. With a start, she stood and gazed at her image. Her hair hung in careful ringlets, parts of it plaited around her head, strands of it hanging down her back; a small cluster of white roses had been pinned over her heart; the gown and its underlying corset held her snugly, and the dress itself seemed to flow around her form like a lavender river. She looked beautiful.

But Christine was not thinking of her own beauty; she was looking straight into her own eyes, staring, daring. The maids looked at her as if she were going off her head.

"Christine," she spoke to herself, "Let it conquer fear. Let it. Give yourself over to it. Be it."

And a calm of self-understanding spread over her face; she even smiled.

"I shall make you proud tonight, father."

With that, she turned on her silken heel and took to the stage, a bolder soul.

That night, Christine Daae sang, as some would later say, with all the power and beauty of an angel ascending.

As the final notes of Faust left her throat, she felt her very soul shift upwards and out of herself. It seemed as if heaven opened and the face of her father appeared, smiling with pure joy. But the song ended, and Christine fell in a faint, having believed that God himself had descended in glorious light.

Erik was irrevocably in love.

Everyone else believed they had witnessed a transfiguration: the young soprano, a musical genius, glorious.

And Raoul remembered her. Raoul remembered everything.