The art form was different but nothing much had changed at the Opera Populaire. The theatre was overrun by ballet rats now, even congregating in areas of the upper cellars, this put a cramp in Erik's usual haunting routes.

"Don't they ever go home to their families?" Erik crept through the stuffy catwalks, wishing he had remained in the damp chill of the underground. Summer had enveloped Paris in a bubble of heat and life seemed to slow down to a lazier pace. A class of young girls assembled on the stage far below followed their mistress languidly, unable to muster any of the grace they were supposed to be learning. The rehearsal piano clanked on offensively, as out of tune as it ever had been. He was bewildered that Christine, as patroness, had neglected to replace it. "That poor thing needs a bonfire, not a job."

The girls continued to move nearly in time with the painful music, trying to keep up with their mistress who seemed to not notice the hot conditions. While the other senior dancers scattered to the winds at the conclusion of the season, Meg Giry remained behind, practicing alone or passing time teaching hopeless little girls to dance. Erik had come upon Meg more than a few times in random dusty rooms as he explored the recesses of the cellars; and, if she had been paying any attention, she would have spotted him as well.

Erik scowled down at Meg's golden head. He had not returned to the graveyard since seeing her and the Vicomte together there. Anger bubbled just below the surface; Erik withdrew a knife from the folds of his heavy cloak. He closed his eyes briefly, seeking composure, grounding himself in his grip on the knife. Erik had hoped that he had been mistaken by what he had seen at Christine's tomb, as he could not actually hear what they had said; but, he had seen them leaving a posh restaurant, arm in arm, Meg's smiling face flushed a lovely pink.

"No Erik is not stalking them, thank you very much." Erik glanced around the rigging, weighing his options. "Erik is just following him."

A few weeks of flower deliveries to her flat had followed, either by a florist or the fop himself. In his observation of that dull courting ritual, Erik began to realize that perhaps Raoul's courtship was not being welcomed by the dancer. The crush of hot house flowers hitting Erik in the head confirmed his theory, Meg having thrown that offering out of the window he had been lurking beneath as soon as Raoul had gone.

"How could that fop forget Christine so quickly?" Erik tugged gently on the ropes, testing for the one he wanted. "He never deserved her." He smiled thinly as he found his prize. "He doesn't deserve Meg either.."

Erik did not understand why Meg continued to allow the courtship when she was quite disinterested. Whatever had transpired between her and Raoul had not ended well when their carriage abruptly stopped and she threw herself out to the street and began walking home on her own. Despite his curiosity as to Raoul's midnight agenda, Erik shifted his priority to her and accompanied Madamoiselle. Giry in the Paris shadows to her front door.

"But why did Cricket allow it? Why would she upset Erik?" he pressed the blade into the rope and began to work through it. "Cricket has sensed him, she does suspect."

"God hang that pianist and burn that piano." Erik growled as a particularly sour chord reached his ears. "Erik only wants to frighten Cricket.. though it would be a pity if one of those children were to die."

Erik smiled behind his mask at the creaking of the rope straining under its weight. He shrugged; it was just a chance he would have to take. The quiet snick of the knife, followed by a woosh, the sand bag plummeted, crashing heavily into the stage below.

"Yes, a pity." Chuckling to himself, Erik slipped away from the scene as a chorus of screams replaced the music, more musical and beautiful than anything that dreadful piano had managed, he had to admit.

Somewhere between second and third positions, the stage exploded and Meg's class erupted into screams. She whirled around to find a sandbag on the stage, leaking sand from splitting seams. The little girls crowded around her, dozens of small hands grabbing for her skirt, her hands, at her legs. Meg clutched at as many of them as she could, her own heart thunderously marching out of her chest.

"Calm please!" she shouted to the students that had scattered into the wings. "Please, hush now my darlings. Come, let us move to the edge." She spoke soothingly as she guided the girls to the stage's edge, trying to offer them reassurance that she did not feel.

Stagehands rushed out to the scene, some of them herding the rest of the girls back to their teacher. Meg stroked the hair of the two smallest girls, who were sobbing into her cream coloured skirt; she looked skyward as though to offer a prayer but nervously studied the darkness instead.

"You clumsy fools!" Meg fired at the stagehands, channelling her best impression of her mother while inspecting the impact site. "Who is responsible for this?" she did not wait for an answer before crouching down and checking her students for injuries.

"There was no one up there, mademoiselle." One of the men, Jean, replied.

"Oh, so sandbags just fall out of the sky, all by themselves?" she rounded on Jean, ready to throttle him until his brain rattled in his skull.

"What on earth is going on?" Monsieur Desjardins demanded as he huffed down the centre aisle of the theatre, saving Jean momentarily from Meg's ire.

"Girls, please go change and wait for your families." Meg quietly instructed, trying to regain her composure. A woman from wardrobe kindly took them away, clucking over them like a mother hen.

"Well?" Desjardins demanded; he reminded Meg of a very angry tomato.

"One of these idiots," Meg jabbed her finger in Jean's direction. "just tried to kill my dancers."

"Was anyone hurt?"

"Non, thank God." Meg walked over to the sandbag and reached for the rope.

"It must have been an accident, sir." Jean protested. "No one was even up there."

Meg toyed with the rope for a moment, studying the fraying. "Does rope have a habit of cutting itself?"

"Maybe it was the Opera Ghost." One of the older men piped up.

"Don't be absurd." The manager scoffed but the rest of the stagehands mumbled in support.

"There was never a ghost." Meg declared. "It was only a man. He died years ago."

"Then maybe he's a new haunt, then, inspired by the ghost."

"Ghosts do not exist." She spit out each word like she might spit out a nail; her mother would be proud. "You oafs could have killed a child today and you have the nerve to blame a ghost?"

Desjardins laid a clammy hand on her arm to hold her back; Meg had not realized that she had advanced on the men, fists clenched and clearly spoiling for a fight.

"Easy now, La Giry." Desjardins murmured in a familiar tone that made her skin crawl. "I know there are no such things as ghosts."

Meg rankled at the childish treatment, she was not a girl to be soothed, she was a woman and should she not be full of anger? The young ones were her students after all and entrusted to her care even if for only an hour or two each week.

"Perhaps you should look to your students now, mademoiselle."

She nodded in acquiescence but bit her tongue at the condescending tone of the dismissal. Unfortunately, Desjardins was right; and, Meg really hated when that fat manager was right about anything. She spun on her heel and glided into the wings. Feeling like she was being watched, Meg spared a long glance into the darkness above her, half expecting a glimpse of a mask and cold golden eyes looking back at her.

But there was no one.