Chapter 29
The days shortened and the skies were overcast, which dampened my already sullen mood. Autumn was slowly losing its yearly battle to winter, and I spent less time on the roof as the winds cut through me.
As promised, I left a note and Cathedra's rings in the chapel, which Madeline told me a maid discovered and considered a blessing on the Opera House. The rings were retrieved by Cathedra's husband and I considered that the end of it. I couldn't decide if I felt relief or mourned the lackluster conclusion of my path crossing with the Incomparable Cathedra di Carlo.
"She is doing well," Madeline offered as consolation. "Obviously not to an extent where she is able to perform, but I have heard she is comfortable."
Every time Madeline paid me a visit I managed to stuff a few banknotes either into her cloak or the bag she carried, and although she never said anything outright, I knew she was able to pay her room and board at the Opera House, purchase wool gloves and new socks, and maintain the lifestyle she was accustomed to living. She brought me sweets and made certain the younger dancers from less well-off families had at least one meal a day during the layoff.
I knew some of her activities because I had become much more bold after I had taken Buquet's stolen funds. Although I was not proud of myself, I managed to take something much more valuable than a thousand francs and some rings: a set of keys-from none other than that louse Buquet.
He was blind drunk, of course, and staggered through the back halls with a bottle in one fist and his free hand keeping him propped up as he whistled to himself. He had no idea I stayed a dozen paces behind him, calculating each step of mine with his loud, shuffling movements.
"Wh-what's this?" he loudly asked himself once he fit his key into the lock and swung open a door at the start of the hall where the kitchen and pantry was located.
I rolled my eyes at his question and considered answering him as he was far too inebriated to do more than cry out if he turned and found me standing behind him, but I held my tongue.
The door was already unlocked, however, in my observation I had realized that Buquet was not smart enough to try pushing the door open first; when he was drunk, he pulled out his keys and often left them in the door, then doubled back for them later.
There was a store of liquor kept locked, which is where he was most likely headed. The keys he left in the door, which he didn't notice due to a shiny bronze coin glinting in the meager light-one that I had left for him an hour earlier in hopes he would leave his keys behind.
He fell to his knees, undoubtedly due to his lack of balance, and crawled toward the centime.
"Ah, hello there, Napoleon," he said with a dark laugh. The bottle rolled away from him, he cursed, and I gently removed the keys from the lock, held them tight in my fist, and padded lightly down the hall and around a corner. I looked back once I was safely out of sight and saw him flat on his stomach, evidently passed out cold with the neck of the bottle dangling from his fat lips.
There were six keys in total; one that unlocked the stable door, one to the theater, which was never locked and seemed somewhat useless, and one that opened nearly every door from the dormitories to the dressing rooms. The other three didn't seem to unlock anything at all within the theater, but I kept them nonetheless to try when I roamed the halls another night. I hoped at least one would fit the locks on the opposite side of the lake and fully intended to bring the heavy iron key ring with me one night to test them.
With the keys to the theater, I steeled my nerves and ventured outside to the streets of Paris. Months had passed since the unfortunate incident where I had been locked out in the rain, and I felt more secure with a set of keys to gain entrance through the stables.
Madeline had told me she planned to walk to the park with some of the other dancers, so I knew she would be out for the evening instead of visiting me. I dressed sensibly warm-or so I thought. Within a few streets the two pairs of woolen socks I wore not only made my boots uncomfortably tight for my growing feet but were far too warm as well, however, my thin cloak did nothing to shield me from the wind.
Still I trudged on, my scarf wrapped nearly around my head, and I dared to pull back my hood for a better look at my surroundings.
The mask I had taken for the night covered my whole face. It was dark in color, a sort of charcoal gray that hid my features and made it appear as though the hood was well over my eyes in low light.
I had no particular destination in mind given that I had not been on the streets to explore. At first I scurried along, but my actions drew attention from far too many people, so I slowed my pace and attempted to fall into step with larger groups of people walking in the same direction.
There were several musicians playing beneath street lamps. One was a duo of a man singing while another gentleman played a violin. People passing by dropped change into the violin case despite neither the singer or the musician being particularly good.
Eventually I found myself drawn toward a tavern nestled within a group of storefronts closed for the day. Music blared every few moments as the doors opened briefly, then closed and muffled the sound. The crowd around me thinned, and soon I found myself alone on the curb no more than twenty paces from the entrance.
Across the street two young men were in a heated argument egged on by a half dozen other boys keeping the confrontation at a steady simmer of words and the occasional shove. I watched them from the corner of my eye while my main focus remained on the tavern door and the music inside.
The wind picked up and pushed my hood further back, the sting from the cold sharp enough to make my eyes water. I inhaled through my nose and turned away, shivering violently as tears streamed down my face and became trapped between my mask and flesh. The sensation was not only uncomfortable, but I had no way of clearing my vision with the mask in place.
Another strong gust of wind pushed at my back and I stumbled forward before I realized it wasn't the wind but someone brushing past me. I blinked several times until I could see once again and found myself facing the growing group of men and several women across the street.
"Both of you walk away at once!" a woman yelled. "Bernard, Pierre, go!"
"He started it!" one of the men yelled.
"Ciampa will finish it if he finds out. Do you really want to go from a two week layoff to a suspension? God forbid either of you lose another day of employment over a foolish argument."
The crowd seemed to take a collective step back. I froze where I stood and blinked several more times at the mention of the theater manager's name and the woman who had rushed in to break up a fight before it started. Out of thousands of people on the streets of Paris, I stood yards away from Madeline.
"Go, all of you," she ordered.
Her words were met with grumbles but no outright protests, and the group of people shuffled off in two different directions.
Madeline remained across the street with her back to me. She had one hand on her hip and the other holding her cloak tight around her body. I watched her for a moment, unsure of whether or not she had spotted me in the foray.
I took a step away from where she stood and considered tearing off down the alley, but she turned and looked directly at me. My fingers were so stiff from the cold that I lost my grip on my cloak and the wind brushed the fabric over my shoulders and pulled my hood nearly off my head. I turned away and struggled to cover myself, but I knew she had see me.
She jogged across the street and stood nearly up against my chest. "So it is you," she said.
I couldn't tell if she was particularly angry with me by her tone, but I bowed my head out of shame nonetheless.
"What are you doing?" she asked when I made no attempt at conversation.
"Nothing," I answered.
She peered beneath my hood and met my eye. "You are wearing a different mask," she observed. "From a distance it is difficult to see you have a face under the hood."
"I was trying to be inconspicuous." I turned from her and pulled the mask up briefly, but the bite from the unseasonably cold wind made me drop it back into place.
"Ah, I see."
"How...how did you know it was me?"
Madeline looked me over. "Your height and your posture. You are tall and stand very straight." She met my eye. "Did you get locked out of the theater?"
"No."
Her right hand shot out and grabbed my cloak, and her unexpected movement made me inhale sharply in surprise and take a step back. Despite months of her friendship, I still expected her to strike me for my insolence.
Madeline looked up at me in silence, her fingers still grasped tight to my cloak as she pulled it around me and gently adjusted my scarf and hood. All the while she kept her gaze trained on mine, soft and reassuring.
"Here." She offered a close-lipped smile. "Follow me before you freeze to death."
I trudged behind her with my head down like a scolded child being led back home. Part of me wanted to apologize for flinching while the other half of my turbulent mind did not want to address my skittish nature. I felt the downward tug of my insignificance, the weight of shame in my inadequacies. It was better that I remained silent.
After we walked half a street down and turned the corner, however, I realized we were not walking toward the theater.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
Madeline slowed her pace and waited until I walked beside her. "Drinking chocolate," she said brightly. "Something to warm you up a bit. This cloak is not made for winter."
"I don't have anything else," I said.
Before I could silently berate myself, Madeline stepped closer and put her hand on my shoulder. "I know and I imagine you must be freezing."
"My feet are warm," I said.
Madeline gave me a sideways look. "Your feet?"
"I have two pairs of wool socks on."
Her lips spread into a wide, appreciative grin. "Ah, well, at least your feet are warm and you had the sense to bring a scarf."
"Are you upset with me?" I blurted out.
We passed several people, two waiting carriages, and three gendarmes smoking beneath a streetlamp. My muscles tightened as the gendarmes eyed us in passing, but they did nothing more than nod at Madeline before they resumed their conversation.
"Why would I be upset with you?" she asked at last.
"Because…"
Anything I said would prove my guilt. I should not have been on the streets of Paris. I should not have been mingling in a crowd. I should not have been doing anything at all. I should have stayed in complete solitude, away from the rest of the world.
"Because you are young and easily bored spending days on end in the same place? No, I am not upset with you for venturing outside. I suppose I wish you would have told me, but I am not upset with you."
I looked away from Madeline, unsure of what to say. I was far too accustomed to taking the blame for everything that I did not know how to respond.
"The wind is worse on the roof," I whispered. "So cold at night I can barely breathe. I would have gone back tonight, but..." I shrugged. I wasn't sure what I wanted.
When I had stepped onto the roof the previous night, I felt as though the air had been punched from my lungs the cold stung so badly. It was a familiar sensation, one that reminded me of both my father and Garouche. Even with my hands over my face, I could barely breathe, and after a disappointing few minutes on the rooftop, I returned down the stairs and back into the cellar.
"It's far too cold on the roof," Madeline agreed. She nudged me in the side and nodded toward a very brightly lit cafe with yellow walls trimmed in white. It reminded me of an egg cooked in a pan.
"There," she said. "The best drinking chocolate in Paris."
I followed her to the corner and stopped short of the bright lights and milling crowd. "I will wait here," I offered.
Madeline frowned but didn't question me, and I stood with arms wrapped around my shivering frame as she joined the line inside the cafe and returned a few minutes later with two small cups steaming with drinking chocolate.
"Here." Madeline passed me one of the cups. "Careful, it's very hot."
I watched the swirl of steam whisked away by the breeze and caught a whiff of the chocolate, cream and hint of peppermint. Madeline blew on the surface of her cup to cool it faster and I did the same.
The first sip was wonderfully warm and sweet. I swore I felt my blood warm while my painfully stiff fingers relaxed around the cup.
"How many times have you been out looking around?" Madeline casually asked.
"Once," I answered. "This is the first time."
"How did you decide where to go?"
"I followed the crowds."
Madeline nodded. "Make certain you stay to this part of the city," she told me. "It's nicer."
"What is on the other side of the city?" I asked.
Madeline inhaled. "In the opposite direction is gambling, street fights, thieves, and brothels...trouble."
Truthfully it sounded exciting.
"What were those two men fighting over?" I asked.
Madeline rolled her eyes. "Carlotta, more than likely. She has started a bit of trouble between several foolish men. She has them falling over one another and tomorrow she will not give either of them the time of day."
"Oh," I said merely to say something.
A soft rain had started, the mist visible in the gas lamps along the streets. I could feel the spray of droplets against my wrist where my cloak had slid down my arm and quickly adjusted the sleeve.
Madeline shook her head. "Why do men feel the need to fight over women?" she asked me.
I stared back at her with the rim of the cup against my lips and shrugged, unsure of whether the question was rhetorical.
"It never ends well," she said.
In the ten months I traveled with the gypsies I saw a handful of such incidences. Most were small scuffles that resulted in little more than bruised egos, but one disagreement between one of the gypsies and a local turned violent.
"I saw a knife fight once," I blurted out. "When I was with the gypsies."
Madeline's eyes widened beneath the hood of her cloak. "My goodness."
"It happened quickly," I added. "And I was on the opposite side of the camp."
Chained, I almost told her, both feet secured to the wagon I had been forced to walk behind for half a day between towns. My knees had been raw from stumbling along the road and falling several times, and since the wagon did not stop on my account, I had scraped both my knees and the palms of my hands. I could not recall why I had been punished, not that it truly mattered.
"Was anyone hurt?"
"Both of them, I think. Garouche's nephew needed stitches. The other man was carried away. I am not sure what happened to him."
That was not true, but Madeline seemed quite alarmed by my words and I did not want to tell her the other man had a slice across his ribs and a jab to his side. He had bled profusely and we were run out of town. From the frantic nature of our departure I was certain the other man had died.
"You were wise to stay away," Madeline said. She drank the rest of her chocolate and squeezed my arm. "Thankfully these boys are a little more civilized."
I took the last sip of my now lukewarm chocolate and Madeline took the cup from me and walked them back to the cafe while I remained out of sight.
The warmth I felt faded, and when Madeline returned once more, I had started to shiver quite violently again. She took one look at me and linked her arm with mine. The sudden closeness caught the breath in my throat.
"I'll find you something more suitable to wear in the cold," she said. "Tomorrow afternoon when I'm out I'll look for a heavier cloak and some gloves to keep your hands warm before you lose a finger to frostbite."
I stared straight ahead at the street and imagined myself walking my sister home after an evening of music, browsing shop windows, and drinking chocolate. The cold stung a little less, my steps more confident as the Opera House came into view.
"If you wish to join us one night,"Madeline offered.
I merely nodded. She was being polite, I knew, and I doubted she expected me to take her offer seriously, but I smiled inwardly as I thought of accompanying a group of performers.
"Oh!" Madeline said suddenly. "Do you think you can tolerate another ten minutes outside? I want to show you something."
Despite my teeth nearly chattering, I nodded and allowed her to grab me by the wrist and tug me up the street. The misting rain caught on my eyelashes and I blinked rapidly to clear my vision as we made our way up a steep incline. Madeline came to an abrupt stop in front of a tailor's storefront that had long since closed for the day. She turned her head from side to side, then stretched her arms toward the sky. After several moments, she twisted her spine, then bent forward and touched her toes.
"What are you doing?" I asked. By all appearances, she looked ready to take the stage for a ballet solo performance.
"Stretching."
"Yes, I see, but why?"
Madeline grinned back. "You will see in a moment."
She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and took off running several paces before she squatted down, shot her arms out for balance, and slid nearly to the bottom of the street. All the while she made a high-pitched sound that was part laughter and part screech.
With a wave of her hand, she sprinted back to where I stood, her breaths ragged and visible in the night air. She smiled at me, then proceeded to slide down a second time with the same mixture of terrified scream and impish laughter.
"Your turn," she said once she jogged up beside me a second time.
I looked from her toward the bottom of the street and hesitated. "I will watch."
"No," Madeline firmly countered. "Try it once. Please."
I would fall, I wanted to tell her. I would undoubtedly lose my balance and tumble like a sack of rocks down to the bottom of the street and humiliate myself in the process.
Before I could reply, however, she laced her fingers with mine and pulled me forward, and the momentum sent us both sailing down the street.
"Bend your knees!" Madeline ordered.
My grip on her hand tightened, my knees bent and I held my left hand out for balance as we slid downward. I felt like a newborn foal unsteady on my feet, teetering back and forth as I grit my teeth and held my breath.
"That is...truly awful," I said once we reached the bottom. My stomach felt as though it had somersaulted, my heart lodged in my throat. "Exhilarating, hear-pounding, death-defying…"
"Let's do it one more time," Madeline suggested. She held tight to my hand, her breathing rapid and a wide grin on her face. "Once more and then we can return to the Opera House."
Not once in my life had I done something so utterly childish as sliding down the side of a street slick with rain. Not once had I been allowed to submit to reckless abandon without the fear of punishment to follow.
For a fleeting moment adrenaline pumped through my veins, a scream lodged in the back of my throat as I slid down at the mercy of my own balance.
I had never felt anything like it before and I knew I would never feel it again.
"Once more," I agreed at last.
Madeline released my hand and raced me to the top of the street. "I've seen quite a few people fall on this patch of cobblestone. They don't realize how slippery it gets once the rain starts," she said. "I've always wanted to try this to see how far I can go."
She pushed her hood back and rubbed her hands together as she looked at me with her cheeks rosy and breaths like puffs of smoke from her nostrils.
"Race me," she said.
"Race you?"
"Yes."
"What does the winner receive?" I asked.
Madeline thought a moment. "The loser gets to watch me raise my hands in triumph at the bottom of the hill!" she exclaimed before she took off running in an unfair head start.
Dumbfounded, I stood and watched her for a long moment before I took a breath and followed her lead. She was graceful, like a swan preparing to land on a lake. I tried to watch her, to appreciate how she glided with ease, but truthfully I was so concerned with rolling head over heels down the street that I forced my eyes away from her and focused on the patch of slick, smooth cobblestones.
True to her word, Madeline danced around in victory before she playfully pushed her hand against my arm. I smiled back at her and shook my head.
"You cheated."
Madeline shrugged. "So I did."
Without a word, I turned and bolted back up the street. I had already started to slide down a third time when she reached the top and planted her hands on her hips.
Once she slid down and met me at the bottom, we were both out of the breath and grinning like fools. I raised my hands in victory and threw my head back, looking at the overcast night sky above me. The swirl of rain and the gathering of dark clouds had never looked so beautiful than in that very moment.
"Let's get back inside," Madeline suggested as she tugged at my arm.
I pulled up my mask, wiped the perspiration from my face, and nodded. "A draw, then?"
Before I settled my mask into place, I saw her roll her eyes. "Very well, a draw I suppose." She purposely bumped into me and laughed to herself. "For now."
"I will race you back to the Opera House," I said.
I had barely finished speaking when Madeline sprinted ahead of me, her arms flailing as she glanced back. She flashed a smile and slowed her pace, motioning for me to follow her.
Once I caught up, we walked together side by side until the Opera House came into view.
"Erik, how did you intend to gain entrance into the theater once you left?" Madeline asked.
I bit my lower lip. "I stole Buquet's keys," I answered at last.
Madeline paused outside the stage door and stared at me. After a blissful moment of acting like children, I fully expected she would return to her matronly role and scold me for my actions.
"How did you mange to steal his keys?"
"He was drunk. I was patient."
For a long moment her expression was unreadable, but at last she smirked. "We will keep this between us," she said with a shake of her head. "I am sure he will blame it on the Opera Ghost."
Her words made me smile as we entered the Opera House and a warm burst of air greeted us.
The Opera Ghost was not done with Buquet yet. Not yet.
