The dancers' dressing room was packed with ballet rats, all preparing for the show despite the fact that there was a good seven hours before the curtain would go up. Some of them had dressed themselves up in an outfit that would have aroused comment in a Paris brothel much less the opera house. Even ballet rats don't display that much bare skin. The others were trying on gossamer tutus with garlands of flowers and yards of pink satin ribbons. None of them took any notice of me or MegSue. You would think that opera singers and deformed ballet girls in pirate boots turned up every single day, and in this world you'd probably be right.

ChristineSue's dressing room, or my dressing room, or whoever's dressing room it really was had been left open and unlocked. The gaslights had all been turned up and the room blazed with light, and sparkled. The light glinted off crystal bottles of scent and cosmetics on ChristineSue's dressing table, and off the jeweled necklaces, earrings and clips that had been laid out for her. A white dressing gown had been draped over her chair, like a waterfall of silk and lace that pooled onto the floor. At the opposite side of the room, a glorious white ballgown waited on a dressmaker's dummy, and was reflected in the great mirror that served as the portal to Erik's magical basement paradise. Flowers had already begun to arrive for the prima donna- almost all pink roses that spilled out of baskets and vases. I wondered if the theater was ever this romantic outside of the imaginations of mad geniuses and teenaged girls.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to ogle the décor because the mirror was resolutely shut to us. We had the pleasure of watching our frustrated expressions reflected in the glass as we pressed, pushed, pulled and pounded but all to no avail. I imagined Erik standing on the other side, watching the spectacle and laughing himself sick.

"This is hopeless," I sighed, "So much for that plan."

"We can still go to the third cellar and try the entrance that Joseph Buquet found," MegSue insisted.

I nodded, secretly hoping that the third cellar would be crowded with a small army of sceneshifters and that would be the end of MegSue's daring scheme. I started to walk towards the door, but the sound of voices in the corridor stopped me. I looked back at MegSue, who pointed at the door. Someone was turning the handle.

"Behind the screen!" MegSue hissed, as I flew across the room. There was a screen behind the ballgown, set up so that Christine could have some privacy while she changed from one half-naked ensemble to another. I quickly slipped behind it, assuming that MegSue was right behind me.

She wasn't.

"Marguerite! What are you doing in here?" asked a woman's voice.

"Oh, I just had to see Christine's dressing room, now that she's the new star of the opera," I heard MegSue reply.

"Well, then why didn't you ask me? I'd have been happy to show you anytime you wanted to see it. Would you like me to show it to you now?"

"Oh yes! That would be so wonderful!!" MegSue squealed her old squeal. I tried to peek out from behind the dressing screen, but MegSue was making frantic gestures behind her back that I took to mean that I had better stay hidden.

"Isn't it a lovely dressing room?" The woman was talking again, "It's the loveliest dressing room in the opera house. Erik has selected it especially for Christine."

I heard the sound of footsteps; the woman must have been leading MegSue around the room. I discovered that if I laid my head on the ground, I could just barely glimpse them without being detected. The woman was dressed in stylish black silk and wore her hair elaborately plaited. I thought I had seen her somewhere before. She led MegSue to the dressing table.

"Have you seen Christine's robe? Look at the lace? This is what she'll wear when Erik brings her back to his home after tonight's performance. He'll sing to her and she will answer his call. Look at how delicate and fragile the fabric is!" She held out the robe to MegSue, who touched it gingerly.

"This is the perfume that Erik chose for Christine," the woman continued, taking up one of the crystal bottles from the table. When she lifted the stopper, the room filled with the scent of roses in bloom. The woman set the crystal bottle down, "And here are the brushes Erik sent for Christine's beautiful, chocolate brown hair. Erik insisted that she should have nothing but the very best."

The woman picked up the diamond necklace from the table and held it up so that it gleamed in the light, "Erik is a very powerful man. He can see to it that the woman he loves has nothing but the very best. He can give her everything- jewels, fame, anything her heart desires and all she must do in return is love him!"

MegSue nodded mutely.

"Christine will be a princess tonight," the woman cooed, as she led MegSue to the glimmering white ballgown, "Isn't her gown beautiful? Don't you wish you could wear a gown like this?" The woman's voice was nauseatingly sweet. Something was very very wrong.

MegSue sighed deeply, "If only Erik loved me instead of Christine. I'd never leave him for Raoul!"

I prayed that MegSue was acting. If she was, she was very very good at it.

"Have you seen the mirror?" The woman's voice purred.

I started to cry out "No!" but the sound of my voice was covered by MegSue near shrieking, "Oooooooh is this Erik's mirror?"

"Just look into the mirror, my dear," the woman said, her voice suddenly hard and mechanical.

I froze in place, unable to look away or make a sound. The mirror had begun to fade away. It didn't rotate or slide or move. MegSue's reflection became fainter and fainter until there was no reflection, only mist. The mirror had simply ceased to be, revealing the passage behind it, awash in golden light.

MegSue stood before it, as if hypnotized. I prayed that she was still pretending, but I couldn't be sure. She began to walk forward, slowly and stiffly, like an automated doll. The strange woman stood behind her, watching her with a triumphant expression. I could see shadows moving in the corridor. I could just make out a paid of figures in black, hooded robes, approaching MegSue, but I saw no more than that because the mirror had begun to take solid shape again. The blonde woman's reflection seemed to fade in just as MegSue's reflection had faded out. MegSue was trapped in Erik's domain and I hoped against hope that she really did know what she was doing, because I was feeling more and more out of my depth. I was prepared to deal with Erik the Conjuror, but Erik the Sorcerer was more than I could fathom.

The blonde woman began to turn in my direction, and I drew back and put a hand to my mouth to stifle the sound of my breathing. For a moment, I thought that I was lost, but the woman had only stopped to adjust Christine's dress. I listened to her footsteps as she crossed the room and the sound of the door closing as she left. I counted to twenty before I crawled out of my hiding place. I listened at the door for a moment, but the hall was silent and empty. I stepped outside, paused to regain my composure, and then ran away from there as fast as I could.