NB: This chapter is likely to get aggressively edited soon so please do let me know of anything you think could be improved.

Chapter 15

Dead for fifteen years, the Opera Ghost had risen not as a demon, but a poltergeist. Being troubled by Madamoiselle Giry's babble and bloody nails, the ballerinas remained quiet for a little while and watched her every move with fascination. The ballet teacher did not normally end up in such states; she drank, certainly, and liked to drink, giggled and sang bawdy songs and kissed some of the musicians when she felt like it, but she was not so untethered as to wander off midday for a drunken snooze. And her skirts were wet. Had she perhaps been attacked – poisoned, perhaps – and carried off somewhere by a patron? No: the patrons did not come until later, during the first act, when they were posing and preening backstage like songbirds, ready to warm the gentlemen's laps and stroke their egos. Meg Giry would not have stood for it, and if it had somehow happened she would have said so. Being too lucid for the girls to fear madness, and seeming far too sharp to be tricked, the girls assumed it to be either a lie or an eccentricity. Being unsure of what to do with either scenario, the girls came to a tacit agreement to make it into a joke.

If breakfast was served cold, the Opera Ghost has touched it with his shrivelled hands. If a girl tripped out of step, the Opera Ghost had whispered something nefarious in her ear. If a stagehand broke a prop, it had certainly been stolen by the Opera Ghost for some reason. Heavens forbid that Justine was late to a class, or looked too sad or too happy, or had a braid fraying at the end; all of these were sure signs that the Opera Ghost had been to see her. Of course, this particular rumour could have been avoided if Justine had ignored it; but, being so used to explaining the obvious, she continually revived the joke by explaining against it, which so entertained the others that they kept the joke going much longer than it might otherwise have continued.

Another twig was soon added to the bonfire. That afternoon, Monsieur Simon looked up from his copy of The Yellow Room to find La Therese looking down at him. Supposedly, she had begun as a ballerina and she retained the ballerina's carriage if not the figure. Tiny blonde curls stuck to the sides of her face, giving her the slightest shade of youth back where her pale cheeks failed her. Her clothing was not so ostentatious as Carlotta's had been but it was well-suited to her form. Her linen blouse was rather plain, though well made; her green taffeta skirt was embroidered along the centre to minimise confusion after someone had dared suggest it was a cycling skirt (something she vehemently denied).

"Since you've been in my room this morning, I hope you will indulge me a moment in yours," she said, keeping her eyes upon him. "Is there a reason you want me to vacate the room?"

"Yes, Madamoiselle," he replied, explaining to her briefly. "It seemed imprudent to leave you there, particularly after what happened to Madamoiselle Giry this afternoon."

"With respect, Sir, Madamoiselle Giry had a vivid imagination when I lived here," she replied. "There was no ghost then and I don't believe there's one now."

Monsieur Simon took the cigar from his mouth and leant forward on his elbow.

"Were you here the night of Don Juan Triumphant?"

"No, Sir."

"You wouldn't speak so if you had been."

"With respect, Sir – might I take a seat?" She sat in a plush armchair, straight-spined and one hand adjusting her hat. "The ghost had been here for twenty-five years when I was fourteen with little issue. Christine Daae is far away. His box no longer exists. I assume he no longer has a salary if you have money to make renovations. What would bring him back here?"

Monsieur Simon handed her the red-inked note, which she glanced over.

"What was wrong with the girl?"

"I haven't a clue."

"Is she particularly talented?"

"I don't know."

"If she was at Christine Daae's level, Sir, I assure you, you would know," she replied cooly, tapping the note. "And from what I recall of the Opera Ghost, if we must call him that, he wasn't in the habit of asking politely."

"Were you here a long time?"

"I began here, and I stayed until I was about fourteen."

"And you left around the same time as Don Juan Triumphant?" he enquired.

"Yes."

"Were you at the performance?"

"I was elsewhere."

"I was in the orchestra," he replied. "The ghost looked very real to me, and for twenty thousand francs a month I don't doubt he would be equipped to go into hiding."

"That doesn't explain why he would return now, though."

"I would say it makes perfect sense." Monsieur Simon. "He sends a note about some ballet girl, then a drawing and then the woman I ask to supervise her is spirited away and returns out of her wits, stumbling – "

"Let's call a cat a cat, Monsieur," La Therese interrupted. "The woman was drunk. There's nothing odd about a woman liking her champagne."

"But there is something odd about her vanishing in the middle of the day and showing up hours later insisting she was taken by the Opera Ghost," he replied. "She's been in our employ for decades, you have to admit that's out of character."

"Are you sure about that? I thought her mother was involved with that conman."

"Her mother is dead."

"All the more reason to keep it up. No one likes to speak ill of their mother."

"Madamoiselle, I hope you will forgive me and it's not that I don't think you raise a fair point, but you aren't seriously suggesting that her mother brought the chandelier down, are you?" he asked gently.

…

La Therese touched a silk flower on her hat, smoothing its petals; her hand conveniently obscured her face for a second or two. Madame Giry was not, in her opinion, a murderer. She remembered the old woman as being proud, but not unpleasant. She liked the mother more than the daughter; even disliking Meg Giry had, if La Therese was truthful with herself, much more to do with envy than with any specific interaction. She chose her words carefully.

"I think she was unlucky – I think a wicked person made sport of her, the same way as Christine or Poligny, and that he was keen to keep all of his playthings. But the type of person who treats others like that couldn't stay quiet and alone for fifteen years. I think Meg Giry saw what she wanted to see."

"She certainly saw something and something certainly saw her. I've never seen a woman in such a passion. Even if I could put that down to a flight of fancy, it doesn't explain the marks on her wrists of the blood under her fingernails."

A strange expression overtook the singer's face; her skirt sloped a little at each side as her knees pressed each other.

"You don't… Please tell me she wasn't – "

"No," Monsieur Simon reassured her. The doctor would have said something. "That was never a problem for Christine Daae and it would be strange for it to start now after forty years."

"That's something, I suppose. What happens now?"

Monsieur Simon swallowed his cigar smoke.

"Well, there's a nearby hotel that you can stay at while I double-check the room. Obviously, if there is a fire then you'll need to take another exit now," he mentioned, to which she nodded. "I don't expect there'll be any peepholes or problems but it's probably prudent to check there's nothing troubling in there. Last time this happened, it was the soprano who was targeted," he pointed out.

"And if that happens again?"

He pushed the cigar into the ashtray; its red glow vanished. The question had been whirring through his mind, too. He knew of course what he couldn't do, which was nothing. Inasmuch as he felt the last two idiots had handled things appallingly, he couldn't help but wonder if this could have been avoided had Poligny not caved to the blackmail.

"I've spoken to the police," he advised, "in case things start up seriously again. I'm looking at possible places to transfer the girl to, since the trouble stopped when Christine left."

"Is that safe for her?"

"It will be safe for the opera house. The girl is being supervised."

"By who?"

"Giry…" He took another cigar from its wooden box. "On second thoughts…"

La Therese pushed her bottom lip up, signalling her disagreement.

"Are you particularly concerned about her getting alone time? I don't recall having much of it when I was a ballerina."

"This is a little off-topic but why did you leave, if not the ghost?"

She smoothed her skirts out.

"I barely remember," she said, a little quickly. "It was a long time ago." Her mouth stretched upwards at the corners. She glanced at the door. "Here, perhaps it would be better if I kept an eye on the girl. She could come with me to the hotel and I could give her some singing lessons, perhaps – see if she has any new talent. Christine Daae's voice left me smiling for days no matter what mood I was in. If the opera ghost has been at her, it might be nice to hear that again." (God knew she needed it: it was nearly January.) "There's a sofa in the dressing room, she might be safest in there since it's boarded up anyway."

"Are you sure you'd be happy with that?"

"I'd be happier with it than going the way of Carlotta," she replied, remembering the prima donna's tears. There had been one night before she'd left that she came across the prima donna sobbing and vomiting, and had held her multitude of curls back. Her voice had croaked from crying. They had both cried. They both knew loss. They had talked about it the whole night, over the wine Carlotta was downing. It was Carlotta who had come to her that day and offered her a conservatory place in Italy, arranged through some of her friends. She didn't have to. Therese hadn't asked for it. She still wrote to her sometimes – not about this of course. Her first ever bouquet had come from Carlotta. Carlotta still sent money for the orphanage, too. She was surprisingly mellow when she not under the threat of death or usurpation.

Monsieur Simon smiled slightly.

"That's a better idea than I currently have," he replied, glancing at the clock above her. "If the girl says anything unusual, I need to know about it."

"Of course. With any luck, it may be a coincidence."

"And it may be no threat at all. After all, that man must be at least in his sixties, if not older."

As it happened, Justine was not at all seraphic. She sounded far better than a rusty hinge, at least, but she had a decent mezzo-soprano range and a nervous look that betrayed an eagerness to please. La Therese knew that look; it troubled her. She resolved quickly to supervise the girl carefully – not so much from the opera ghost but from other sinister types. Both being quiet by nature, they quickly gravitated to separate sides of the room: La Therese at her desk, practicing her lines, while Justine stretched and danced in the corner. Justine was given time to sob in private, and in return Justine asked no upsetting questions when La Therese cried out in her sleep.