Normally, performers do not free-fall through the stage. In most operas, being sucked down to Hades means that you stand on a platform that sinks down beneath the stage at a steady but rather slow speed. The stage does not open itself up to swallow people. Trap doors do not simply pop open all willy-nilly, dumping performers here and there and everywhere. Firstly, it would be dangerous and secondly, it would look ridiculous. As we dropped through the stage, I felt my skirts trying to fly right up over my head, but there wasn't a thing I could do about it. I hoped that the audience hadn't seen it. We landed on a very large pile of hay about eight feet below the stage in a very compromising position.
Several minutes later, I remembered that I was extremely angry with the Shade and extricated myself from the tangle of limbs and clothes. "Now what are we supposed to do?" I asked, picking straw out of my hair. Obviously, someone had taken a considerable amount of time to bring in all that straw from the stables. I guessed that it was the Shade's doing. He had certainly kept himself busy.
"There's a ladder back up to the stage, but it's useless to us because of the chandelier. We'll have to go down through the cellars, instead," The Shade replied cautiously.
"Did you know all this would happen?" I asked. In one way, I didn't want to know. I didn't want to find out that I had been a gullible fool, and the Shade was, in his way, as bad as Erik or possibly worse. I couldn't say that he had lied, but he certainly hadn't been forthcoming with the truth.
"I only guessed," said the Shade, "Erik did teach me most of his tricks, although I never stole any of them, regardless of what he says."
"What he did up there went beyond tricks, that chandelier couldn't go flying at the stage like that, not even with an accomplice to help arrange it."
"No, that was real magic," said the Shade, "I could make you think that the chandelier was flying at the stage, but I couldn't make it truly happen. However, even with real magic, Erik keeps playing the same old game."
"Which you'd know all about because you and Erik have been best friends forever," I filled in, "and now you're going to explain all of that so I won't have to angry with you anymore."
"That's very generous of you," replied the Shade in his usual tone, which is to say, surly.
"Don't push your luck," I replied tartly, "You can tell me on the way down to the fifth cellar. I just hope that Raoul and the others get there in time."
"I realize that you're not in the mood to listen to me right now, but I really don't think that it's a good idea for you to go down there. It's still Erik's domain and he's far more powerful now than he was before."
"Erik has already proven that he can get to us no matter where we go. As long as we're in the opera house, he has the upper hand. We might as well go down there and have it out with him for once and for all. I am so very tired of Erik's nonsense," I sighed.
"Erik, unfortunately, never tires of it," said the Shade. He dug around in his pockets and produced a match. The light was just enough to show where he had stashed several lanterns near the wall. "I don't suppose your dress has any pockets?"
"No, it doesn't and it isn't really my dress," I replied, while the Shade lit a lantern.
"Are you sure about that? Aren't you the least bit suspicious that the costume fits you and probably wouldn't have fit ChristineSue?"
"I had my suspicions that Erik might be looking for an excuse to drop a chandelier on my head, which he ultimately did, which means that my suspicions were entirely correct," I answered. Men can be so odd at times.
"I don't think he was planning to drop the chandelier," said the Shade.
"Except for the part where he must have arranged some way to make the chandelier fall on his command and coached his little minion in advance so she'd scuttle off to shut down the gas before it dropped," I pointed out. "It seems like quite a lot of effort to go through if he wasn't planning on dropping the chandelier at some point."
"I wish I knew whether you were being brilliantly logical or thoroughly dense."
"I'd go with brilliant, if I were you," I answered, after all, I was mad at him, "So, how exactly do you know Erik? Is there something in Leroux that I missed?"
"A story cannot exist without an implied back story. Whether the author thinks it through clearly or not, every character has an implied past of some kind. If Erik allows some people free access to his opera house but murders others for trespassing, you have to conclude that there's a reason for it."
"Erik is completely insane. I don't really expect any sort of logic from anything he does."
"And that's going to get you into trouble. Erik is a madman, but he's still quite intelligent and he does nothing without some kind of a reason, even if they aren't reasons that you choose to understand," said the Shade, "ChristineSue has been more difficult to figure out. I'm not entirely sure that she's capable of thinking, much less thinking clearly."
"None of them think clearly around Erik. I don't think it's his handsome face either. He does terrible things, and we all still want to see some kind of wounded puppy in him, rather than a clever sociopath," I didn't want to admit that I felt Erik's draw as keenly as anyone else.
"He's an old hand at it," said the Shade, "Whenever anyone sees through him, he harps on his deformed face and past suffering. His face isn't his fault, but all of the rest is entirely self-inflicted. Erik is alone because of Erik's behavior, not his looks."
There are times when it is best not to say anything at all, because leaving a silence encourages other people to fill it up by talking. I had a feeling that if I let the Shade go on about Erik, I'd learn everything I could ever want to know. I just hoped that I wouldn't end up having to escape from the both of them.
"When I met Erik, he was exhibiting himself in fairs and performing magic tricks. He had read about P.T. Barnum and how his performers were great stars who performed for crowned heads. Erik was convinced that he would become even more famous. He went on about it constantly, how his tricks were so much more clever and his performances were so much more exciting.
"He came to my father with designs for the props he'd use in his shows. Erik was never really interested in building anything himself. It was beneath his dignity, he always said, although I think that wasn't true. He simply didn't have the strength or the energy for it, but he never wanted to admit it. He already tried to pass himself as perfect in all ways, save for his appearance. In a fair fight, he tires very quickly not that he ever fights fair.
"I was only a child at the time, and Erik seemed completely fascinating. He made his tricks look like real magic and I just about worshipped him. He loved showing them off and explaining how they were done. He was obsessed with his own cleverness and keeping his secrets spoiled his fun. He didn't only want to fool the audience; he wanted to brag about how easily it had been done. With an assistant, he could perform more complex illusions and he convinced me to run away from home to work as his assistant.
"At first, it was exciting and Erik made a great fuss over having an apprentice, but there was always something a little odd about Erik. He had no friends, even among the carnival folk who were used to seeing oddities like Erik. One minute, he would praise me to the skies and the next he was screaming abuse. Nothing was ever good enough to meet Erik's standards. If anything went wrong, it was someone else's fault and if I did something right, Erik took the credit. Sometimes it seemed like he didn't even know that he was doing it. He'd tell himself that my ideas were his ideas and then he'd start to believe his own lies.
"The longer we went on, the more frustrated and furious Erik became because he didn't have the success that he thought he deserved. He blamed it all on his face. In truth, he performances were so dark and macabre that it's no wonder people weren't flocking to see him. He talked of nothing but death and his illusions always involved some kind of blood or torment. His audience was always more sickened than entertained and his reputation as a monster was spreading."
"All the way to Persia," I added, remember the Persian's story of Erik's background in traveling fairs before he was discovered by some eastern dignitary.
"Where he found someone of similar inclinations," the Shade said, "Erik was pleased with himself to no end. He was finally recognized for his brilliance and that was that. He was off to Persia leaving me behind to fend for myself. He was going to be a master architect, attended by servants and living in a palace and he had no more use for an apprentice. Bear in mind, I was about eleven years old at the time and was left with nowhere to go and no possible hope of taking care of myself but that didn't bother Erik in the least." The bitterness was beginning to slip through his tone.
"No, I don't suppose it would," I offered, "Erik doesn't take much interest in anything other than Erik." I wasn't exactly sure what to say, given the circumstances, but I decided that it would be best if the Shade let it all out before we were faced with any more emergencies, "So what did you do?"
"I stayed with the fair and did odd jobs. Erik had abandoned us in Novgorod, but I figured that eventually we'd come back to France and I could go home and plead forgiveness. They let me do some of my tricks for the audience and without Erik's horror and malice, everything went well. So, I ended up sticking around, performing at fairs. It wasn't such a bad life, and I was able to avoid going home shamed. I thought that eventually I'd earn enough money to go home with my head high. I could afford to build larger illusions and I had assistants of my own.
"I was asked to perform at theaters, which was quite a bit more respectable than the traveling fairs. Everything was going well until I made the mistake of coming to Paris. I hadn't heard anything of Erik in years, and I foolishly assumed that he was still in Persia or maybe had died there."
"And Erik couldn't let you succeed where he had failed," I sighed.
"I started getting anonymous notes, accusing me of being a thief and making all kinds of threats. The theater manager received them as well and so did my manager, but they thought that it must be some deranged person sending them and I started to think the same thing. It didn't seem possible for Erik to have materialized in Paris without anyone noticing his presence, but he had. The notes became uglier and more vicious, and when that didn't work, Erik decided to take more direct action."
"By killing your manager and pinning it on you," I said.
"I think it was Erik's idea of justice. I had stolen Erik's great career so why shouldn't I hang for Erik's crime? I had no alibi, Erik had left behind plenty of circumstantial evidence that pointed to me and the one person who could have spoken on my behalf was dead. I had no choice but to run."
"But how did you end up here?" It isn't as if the managers of the Paris Opera were advertising opening for shades, phantoms, ghosts and disenfranchised lunatics of all descriptions.
"Erik led me here. He simple couldn't resist the chance to gloat. He started skulking around the theaters, hoping to find me lying in a gutter somewhere so that he could laugh himself sick at my expense. Luckily for me, Erik's poor health betrayed him. He didn't have the energy for running all over the city and I caught him, wheezing away in an alley. I followed him back to the opera house and figured that he was controlling the opera managers using the same kinds of threats that he'd tried to use on mine. I presented myself to them and offered to keep an eye on things down here- to look for ghosts and to bring anyone I found lurking about straight to the managers. They were delighted and hired me on the spot with no questions asked. So, I carved out a place for myself in the recesses of the opera house and I've been miserable ever since, right up until the point where I found you wandering around down here…" the Shade paused, "…like a damned fool."
The Shade is charming as ever.