"He has you. The Phantom…Erik. That is his true name…
I hid him in the opera house, but I didn't do much else…I didn't know what to do. I was too young…
I had a horrible premonition that Erik would retaliate…"
Yes, you knew me well enough to know that, Erik bitterly reflected.
"…I can imagine that he saw you and acted rashly, as he has been known to do all his life.
I brought him into our lives…then, I betrayed his trust. He is not a forgiving soul. I know that better than anyone."
The letter was condemning, but Erik was pleasantly surprised to see that it was the late Madam Giry condemning herself. Her own mistakes. From her abandonment of him in the dregs of the Opera Populaire, to her interference in Erik's life and plans.
"I do not know what tactics Erik will use to keep you under his control…remember, he has never felt love in his life. Nothing real…he knows nothing of giving or receiving love...
Stay out of his path…if he seeks to steal her back.
I could not protect you…Please, Meg…please protect yourself."
The scathing words enraged him to his core. He wanted to rip it into a thousand pieces. Burn it until it was ash floating through the air. He reread the part where she had called him "rash." His teeth clenched in a silent growl and he reluctantly folded it and placed it back in the drawer where he had found it.
A strange feeling came over him. An urgency. He needed to speak to Meg. The second show was starting, but he would see her soon. There was a longer break between the second and final shows of the day. Enough time for the performers to have a meal. Meg would most certainly spend at least a portion of the time in her private haven.
Madam Giry was wrong. Even if he had never experienced it as most did, he knew love. It was sacrifice. Quasimodo and Esmeralda. Love was ardent affection. Emma Bovary and her many suitors. It was also protective. Valjean, as a father, and Marius, as a lover, for their dear Cosette. And it was transformative. As it was for Edmond Dantes.
Edmond wanted Mercédès. They were parted and forever changed by the separate paths they took. She married…had a son…
"Haydee was written for that purpose." Erik recalled saying to Meg, isolated within their hidden compartment of the ship.
"For what purpose?" Meg had asked him to elaborate.
"To serve as his hope for a new life, unblemished by his painful past."
"So, then…does that make me Haydee?"
Erik's eyes darted to the novel, again. His eyes widened with new clarity.
"Yes, Meg," he whispered to the empty room. "It does."
The curtain call for the second show concluded without a single red rose brought to the headliner. Christine was mildly surprised, but relieved all the same.
What she hadn't seen was Gangle taking the discarded bouquet from the first show and tossing it into the alley behind the theater. If Mr. Y couldn't be bothered with communicating more precise instructions, there was no need for the lead emcee to continue with a plan that had so spectacularly fallen apart. Gustave was with his father in the front row, Mr. Y was nowhere to be seen. Not even for those who knew where to look.
Christine saw her husband and son in the front row during the duet. The surprise on his face when she entered was exactly as she pictured his reaction to be. His countenance steeled, and he watched the rest of the number with a cold politeness. He clapped for the duo, along with the rest of the crowd, albeit less enthusiastically.
After the bows, she hurried to the women's dressing room, removing the final costume and throwing her robe on without worrying about the jewelry and accessories she still wore. Meg was suddenly beside her, but could sense that, if she wanted to keep up with her brunette friend, there was no way she, too, could change out of her white tutu. The two left the room together, and Christine was no longer concerned about Meg being with her for the conversation that was soon to take place.
She welcomed an ally.
"Raoul!" she exclaimed, bursting through the door to the guest parlor.
The Vicomte gave his wife a disappointed look, but he quickly feigned a more pleasant demeanor when he saw her friend enter behind her.
"Hello, again, Miss Giry," he addressed the blonde woman. "Gustave is playing alone, in his room. I wonder, would you mind watching over him, while I speak with my wife in private? Or do you need to go change out of your costume?"
"Um," Meg looked to Christine. Her friend nodded, and she acquiesced. "Yes, I'll just be in the other room." She walked toward the door that led to the single bedchambers. Closing it behind her, the parents heard her voice faintly greet their only child.
"Christine," Raoul began, verbally acknowledging his wife with all seriousness. "What is going on?"
"I…I'm so sorry, Raoul."
"Sorry about what, exactly? Miss Giry informed me this morning that the two of you would be performing a duet. I was surprised, given that she was keeping both her true identity and your friendship a secret from everyone else. And then I see…" he paused and ran his hand over his mouth. "You emerge looking exactly as you did eight years ago! From the first night I saw you onstage in Paris! A perfect replica. And then you sing, and it's your words telling the story. You sang of the Opera Populaire! Not explicitly, but I knew. I knew. How could such a song be contrived that quickly? Why would it exist, in the first place? What is going on? Tell me, now!"
Christine breathed deeply and made her way to the sofa. She lowered herself gracefully, placing a hand over the robe's lapels at her neck and pulling them together tightly in her fist.
"He's here," she said simply.
Raoul paled instantly, knowing too well whom she spoke of.
"The night we arrived, the horseless carriage. It was his," she admitted. "He is Mr. Y. Danton Yelle. The producer and owner of Phantasma."
"Christine," Raoul spoke tersely. "Why are we here?"
She took another deep breath and looked up to the closed door to the bedroom. Where Meg was. This was it. This was the moment. The fork in the road.
"In our hotel that first night, after you left to meet with Hammerstein and Gustave was in bed…he visited."
"He visited?" the Vicomte gritted out.
"Our coming was no great secret. There was little Mr. Hammerstein could do, I suppose, to keep our arrival completely out of the papers. The Phantom must have heard, as well."
"No, wait," Raoul interrupted. "This cannot be the beginning. Why is Meg in his show? What happened, all those years ago? We believed him to be dead! We thought they had both perished!"
"Yes, we did. We were wrong. Meg explained what actually happened after you left to take Gustave to the park on Wednesday. The Phantom kidnapped her, and she became reliant upon him, in this foreign country. She had no way home, no way to contact us, apparently. Through the years, he granted her more freedoms, and she willingly stayed to run this odd production with him."
"Poor Miss Giry…" Raoul trailed off. He sat in the armchair adjacent to the sofa. His face hardened, while processing his unspoken thoughts. "She knew. You knew. You let us enter into a contract with him…bring our son under his roof."
He stood then, and Christine saw a resolved face she hadn't seen since her days at the Paris Opera.
"Where is he? There will be no mistake about his death, this time. Where is he? Why did you agree to sing for him? How did he threaten you?" His voice raised slightly, then lowered to avoid alarming Gustave and Meg.
Christine reached for the hand that was closest to her. He let her grab it and stopped his tirade of questions.
"He didn't threaten me," she lied convincingly. "He pleaded with me to perform for him. He…missed my voice. He reminded me that I had his instruction to thank for my illustrious career." The words were convincing because they were partially true. The Phantom had, indeed, used similar phrases to initially play upon her pity for him. When that hadn't worked, he had threatened to kidnap her son.
Raoul scoffed. "That's preposterous! The way he terrorized you and everyone else in the opera house negated any credit due to him for merely enhancing your God-given talent!"
"Raoul," Christine pleaded, now. "He had no ill intentions. He used the pseudonym because that is the name he is known by, here: Mr. Y. He didn't meet with you, because he knew it would be a death sentence. And…" she hesitated, needing to tread carefully with deceiving her perceptive husband. "And he hinted that, if I agreed to perform for him, I would meet with an old acquaintance."
He sat, again. His irate mood softened, a little.
"I didn't let myself believe it could be Meg, of all people. But I'd be lying if I said that I haven't always held out hope that she was still alive." That last part IS true, she asserted to herself. "He let us go; he stayed away. I have one more show, and we will leave Coney Island and never return. He knows that."
Raoul looked at her dubiously. "And when will he cross our path, again? What if he changes his mind about letting you go? What about the deaths of Ubaldo Piangi and that stagehand? When does he answer for what he has done?"
Christine sighed. She couldn't tell her love about the nightly conversations with the Phantom. It felt wrong to share the contents of the letter that she had read, without permission, from Meg's mother. But there was one more thing she could reveal.
"If you seek to punish him, you'll be hurting Meg in doing so."
Raoul was utterly confused. "How in the world-"
"She…loves him. I don't know what happened, within the past eight years," Christine shook her head in dismay. "But she is not only dependent upon him. She cares for him. And, although I don't believe he has a single shred of love within him, he cares enough about her to want her here with him, too. I haven't spoken with much of the cast, here, but I gathered from the dressing room chatter and the costumes in Meg's area that she is the main attraction for Phantasma," Christine blushed, then, in realization of a fact that she hadn't paid much attention to, before this moment. "She's the headliner, most of the time." When I'm not here to take that away from her…
"He is obsessed with her, now?" Raoul's voice was challenging. Determined to work around his wife's misgivings and slay the monster that had reappeared in their lives.
"No, not obsessed," Christine answered thoughtfully. "I don't want you to hurt him, because I don't want to be the source of my best friend's heartbreak. We will leave here, and whatever happens will be on their shoulders. Not ours."
Meg entered the room at that opportune moment, slightly flustered. Gustave trailed her, without any cares of his own.
"I need to go change, now, and have something to eat before the final show," she excused her intrusion. Gustave went to his mother and sat next to her.
Raoul stood, in a chivalrous gesture for the lady's entrance and impending exit. "Yes, of course." Christine sat silently.
At the door, Meg paused and turned back to the family. "Will you…you won't hurt him?"
The Vicomte narrowed his eyes and stiffened at the statement that outright proved Meg had overheard their private conversation.
"I won't," he promised, his voice heavy with his reluctance to comply. "But, if we are reunited once more, I won't let him go a third time. Do you understand?" Meg nodded. "If, however, you find yourself in trouble, please don't hesitate to call upon us to assist you. I will be more than happy to pay for you to return to France, whenever you wish."
Meg smiled at the kind offer. "Christine," she stared into her friend's brown eyes. "I should very much like to show you something. Would you mind if we didn't perform our duet at this last performance?"
"I shall be very pleased to not wear that white gown ever again," the songstress quipped with warmth coloring her tone. "And I'm sure that I will be delighted by whatever you have to show me."
Meg nodded and left the room, satisfied that Erik was safe from Raoul's ire, and everything was, at the moment, as resolved as it could be.
She glanced at her bedroom door, still closed, but annoyed to see that she had left a light on. It would have to wait. There was much to do.
Her first stop was to Mr. Bailey. The portly man always made it a priority to eat during every meal time. His rigorous conducting required him to have a filled stomach to fuel his signature dynamic style. Finished with his meal and already back in the orchestra pit, Meg called out his name as she approached.
"Addie. What can I do for you?"
"Do you remember my first solo routine? 'Doll on a Music Box'?"
His forehead wrinkled and he rubbed his receding hairline. "Yes…why?"
"I would like to show the Vicomtess. She has agreed to forego the final performance of our duet, so that I can perform it for her."
The poor man glanced up to the ceiling of the stage, flustered by the prospect of making a change without express approval. His predecessors had been fired for less. Before he could speak, Meg continued her plea.
"Mr. Y will understand. If he is upset by the last-minute change, I will take full responsibility."
"Addie, this is most unusual. You know he will be furious, if you-"
"Yes, and I have never asked this of you. Not in the entire two years you've been with us. Never in the history of Phantasma, have I overridden anything on the program. Please, Mr. Bailey. Please? Will you please play my solo in place of the duet?"
"Addie, we haven't performed that in months-"
"I know you have copies of every piece Mr. Y has written in your collection of sheet music. I know it's on every music stand in the pit, just in case something like this comes up."
"But, Addie, having the sheet music and playing it without notice-"
"It doesn't have to be perfect," she silenced the agitated man. "It doesn't even have to be the complete orchestra playing…have the pianist play through it as best as she can. As long as I can hear enough to count and sing along, it will be fine."
The older man sighed. "You won't leave me alone until I agree with you, is that your tactic?"
Meg gave a strained smile. A little melancholy. "I'm afraid I won't budge on this, sir. I have been a diligent performer. I deserve this small favor."
He nodded in defeat. "Very well. As long as it is the only favor I am ever obligated to grant you."
She hurried to the dressing room, hungry, but determined to stave off that need for another.
"Greta?" she called out. "There's been a change in the program for this final show."
Predictably, the German woman was also unsettled with being given such little notice.
"What change? Where is deine Freundin? Your friend? Die show beginnt bald!"
Meg ignored most of the costumer's speech. She had no idea what the German words meant. Instead, she grabbed her costume for her opening number and quickly dressed herself, then plopped into an empty chair to redo her hair. Most of the female cast members were in the room, as well, prepping for the final Sunday performance. The exchange between the two women had silenced most of the conversations, as the rest of the ladies listened with genuine interest.
"The duet has been replaced with my 'Doll on a Music Box' solo. Please have my entire costume ready to go, I won't have much time between numbers."
As she pinned the curls atop her head, she thought for a second and then removed the pins from her hair. She fashioned it into a high bun, on the top of her head, using the same amount of hair pins to fasten it into a smooth, perfectly-round shape. Once that was done, she removed her headdress from the table and set to work pining it into place, too. A dab of rouge and a sprinkle of powder later, she was ready to take the stage.
Meg was one of the last to leave the dressing room, as places was called. As she went to walk through the door to the hall, Christine arrived in her robe. They barely exchanged a nod, as Meg hurried to the side of the stage. She found the stage manager in the shadows and informed him of the change, as well. He frowned at the extra order, but acknowledged that he knew where the pedestal for her number was stored. He sent an idle worker to retrieve it.
Having completed the necessary tasks, she allowed herself to calm down, ignoring the hunger pains that occasionally rumbled within her. She waited in her normal place in the wings, missing Christine who most likely was changing into her lilac gown. Meg glanced at the audience, still lit by the house lights, and smiled gratefully at the filled room. In the front row, Raoul and Gustave were perched in their favorite seats. The boy was all excitement and joy. His father seemed more reserved. No longer the jubilant, unconditionally supportive husband. His eyes showed how much he longed for the day to come to a close.
One last show, monsieur, she reassured him in her mind. One final performance, before we go our separate ways.
In her bedroom, the offending light was extinguished. Erik was at a loss for why Meg had never returned. Excepting the novel that he had rescued from the trash, her room was exactly as she'd left it. He'd even pushed the chair back into its tucked position. Shutting the door behind him, he could hear the orchestra warming up in the pit. There was the hint of a familiar melody within the muddle of noise.
This would be his last opportunity to hear Christine sing. He didn't want to miss it. The voice he had conditioned, trained…and loved.
"He was bound to love you,
When he heard you sing…"
Perhaps it was he, the Phantom of the Opera, who had fallen in love with a voice. There was nothing loving about Christine, when she wasn't singing for him.
Wearing his signature black tuxedo and cape, he was a shadow that seemed to everyone to be another body milling in the background. The opening number was already through the first two verses, and the darkened stage further served to conceal him as he made his way past the cast members he employed, the stage hands he'd hired, to the winding stair that would take him to his favored vantage point high above the action.
Christine was nowhere to be found, but she had time to arrive. He saw Meg, and he could immediately tell that she was nervous. She kept her hands together at her midsection, wringing them in an anxious manner and staring at the stage without seeing any of it. He willed her to look up.
Look up, Meg. You look up to where I am almost every performance. Look up and try to find me! I'm here! I'm here, in the darkness, and I can see you!
The number concluded without his wish being fulfilled. She went to her spot behind the curtain and posed.
"Welcome…each and every one,
To our festival of fun!"
Ever the professional, she pranced and paraded around the set, flirting with the patrons and promoting the various acts to come.
There was something different in her appearance, but Erik couldn't tell exactly what it could be. When she finished, he watched her rush toward the ladies' dressing room to change. Christine was still not present, but he imagined they would enter together.
Christine sat in one of the many empty chairs, already in her final dress, watching as Meg silently dressed herself in a breathtaking costume. The hazardously bright pink tutu was already discarded on a table, waiting to be hung in a less-hectic moment. Meg left the white tights on, but her high-heeled boots were replaced with the white ballet slippers she wore for the duet. The headdress was carefully removed by Greta, herself, who was silent throughout the process. Under the headdress was a simple bun, done to perfection by the experienced prima ballerina.
A costume that Christine had seen and knew to be Meg's was laying across the chaise lounge in the room. It looked like a proper tutu, with an ivory and white lace bodice that had tiny jewels scattered and glittering in the light. The skirt going from pure white to a light blue in the subtlest of gradients also benefited from various crystals that were smattered in a whimsical way towards the lace hemline. Christine smiled at the stiff tulle that held its shape around her delicate frame.
Greta went straight to a table at the back corner of the room, retrieving two light blue arm cuffs with lacework. As she did so, Meg carefully perched on the edge of a chair and applied an appalling amount of pale powder to every inch of her skin. After caking it on as a foundation, she grabbed another container and added even more powder over the thick layer. She used a towel to dust the portions of her costume that had seen a cloud of the makeup fall upon it.
She stood and batted at the skirt, twirling back and forth to loosen any more of the excess powder. Greta helped her place the cuffs on her upper arms, in line with the strapless bodice of the costume. The older woman returned to the table and searched through one of its shallow drawers. Meg, meanwhile, turned to Christine, smiling proudly.
"Meg- er, Addie," Christine stumbled. "That costume is…absolutely incredible!"
"Thank you."
"Did you…design this?"
"I did."
"Well done," Christine complimented in awe.
Greta returned to Meg's side and motioned for the blonde to bend down. A comb with multiple blue crystals was placed securely in her hair, right against the front of her bun. Greta nodded in satisfaction and returned to her reserved chair. She held nothing in her hands, more interested in watching the diva's reaction to Phantasma's star performer. The ladies were speaking in French to each other, but she needed no translation.
"You look like a porcelain figurine!" Christine said gleefully.
"Thank you," Meg replied. "Walk with me?" The two walked arm in arm, with Meg offering Greta a heartfelt "danke," as they left the room.
"This song is the first thing Erik and I worked on together," Meg quietly confided. There was no one in the hallway, but Meg didn't wish to tempt fate.
Christine was perversely curious to know more about the mysterious past the Phantom and Meg had shared, but, at the same time, she was repulsed to hear anything about her former Angel of Music. But she listened patiently, for the sake of her friend.
"On the ship, on our voyage to New York, he asked me what I wanted to perform. If I had any ideas for a musical number. I think, at that time, he realized that his kidnapping me, meant to hurt my mother, came with the consequence of also ruining my life. And he wanted, from then on, to include me as much as possible in his future plans. To give me something to strive for, so that I could move on, as he intended to do."
Before entering the stage left wing, they stayed within the last few feet of the hallway.
"I told him a story, hummed him a tune, and he wrote this song. For me. He let me make every decision, from the choreography to the costume design. I even designed the pedestal prop for this number!"
Christine forced a smile, to be courteous to her friend, but she couldn't bear to hear Meg speak about the Phantom in such a loving way for much longer.
Meg sensed her friend's discomfort. She shivered and gave the famed singer a wide grin. "I hope you'll like it. I hope it's how you'll remember me."