I ran.
Laura's words cut like a knife in me as she had given voice to every doubt and insecurity about my ability on the stage.
Ever since the angel started coaching me on how to sing I've always had that seed of doubt that it wasn't really 'my' voice that people were hearing, but rather that it was their voice.
I heard Forrest yelling for me but his voice was distant, muffled through the fog rolling in off the ocean.
"Just a little bit further." The voice continued to guide me along the streets of Brockton Bay.
As I walked along Lord's Street, the voice guided me onto a smaller side street nearby. The late hour and the mist rolling in off the ocean had given the neighborhood a quiet—nearly suffocating—stillness.
As I passed a burned down house, I saw a small creek with a boat sitting on the banks.
There on the banks of the creek was a figure, tall and thin, nearly skeletal. It was wearing a tuxedo that had seen better days, along with a bone-white mask which held no features that covered their entire face, and a black and red cloak that draped over their shoulders.
"Bonsoir, mademoiselle." Said the voice. At the same time, the figure by the boat held out one hand while using their other arm to perform a gruesome parody of a bow.
"Angel of music, is that you?" I asked.
"At your service, mademoiselle." The figure spoke. It was their voice speaking. "Have I sufficiently proved my identity?"
"Yes, yes of course Angel." I replied.
"Shall we?" They asked. "Your carriage awaits my dear."
At their words, I stepped into the boat and the phantom pushed us off the shore using the oar.
"Some music for our journey perhaps?" They asked. I could only nod.
As if from nowhere, the sound of several chords played as if on an invisible organ surrounded me. The music was a tune I was unfamiliar with, and yet I felt like I knew it already.
As we followed the creek into a storm drain, the scant moonlight that had given form and shape to the phantom guiding the boat fell away, plunging us into near-darkness. The only illumination was from the kerosene lantern at the bow of our boat.
I sang along to the music to myself, with the phantom joining in as we travelled further and further up the storm drain.
After what seemed like an eternity in the dark tunnel, the bends of the storm drain began to brighten as we approached an area that was illuminated.
I couldn't believe my eyes at what stood before us so deep underground.
Our boat had entered a large cavern, with every wall and surface covered with candles.
On a rocky outcrop away from where the storm drain entered was a large rocky outcrop, and there was where a small living space had seemed to be set up.
In the candlelit cavern, I got my first true glimpse of the phantom, my angel. The first thing I noticed was that they were almost waifishly thin, which lent them an almost androgynous figure. Framing the white mask they wore was a shaggy mop of black curls that just graced the top of their shoulders.
"Angel... is this...?" I asked, hesitantly.
"My home." They replied. "A cavern carved out by a broken and forgotten storm drain."
As I stepped off the boat and onto the outcropping. I took in more of this place. Somehow a teachers desk that had been pilfered from one of Winslow's classrooms was there, a stack of papers on top showing some kind of handwritten sheet music.
"Did you write this?" I asked.
"I have little else to do so I spend my time down here writing." The phantom replied.
"You write music then?" I asked, eyeing sheet music in front of me.
"I write SYMPHONIES!" The ghost exclaimed.
I picked up one of the music sheets and hummed the melody to myself a couple of times to familiarize myself with the song.
"You were once my one companion," I sang. "You were all that mattered, you were once a friend and sister. Then my world was shattered."
I was broken out of the song by the Phantom snatching the sheet of music out of my hands.
"Please," the ghost pleaded. "Not that song. It's too personal."
"Who are you, angel?" I asked.
"I am unimportant." they said. "Merely a ghost in the night."
I wanted to press the issue and ask again but I heard the impossible. The sound of a violin playing Sibelius's Concerto in D. Back before he passed away, Dad had been the 1st violin for the Boston Symphony orchestra, and would often play this song as a solo. Hearing it know, it sounded exactly the way that dad used to play, even down to the little flourishes that he would put on the concerto. It was dad who used to encourage me to sing by playing his violin as a backing track for my singing. After he passed away, I had come close to giving up on music entirely, before the angel came into my life and encouraged me to start singing again.
"Angel, please." I said. "You have brought me so much in my life and I just wish to understand you."
"As I said." I heard them say. "This world is not one for me anymore. I am but a phantom who's time has come and gone."
I looked at the pages of music scattered around. There were so many songs. Was this all my angel spent their time doing? I grabbed another one, a complex melody that almost covered the pages in ink and corrections.
The phantom had gone off to the desk and had started writing another song. They had a small electronic keyboard on the desk next to them and would experiment with various melodies before writing one down.
It was so surreal to finally meet my angel of music in the flesh. To know that they're a living breathing person and yet, every word spoken here exuded self-loathing. I kept looking through the songs that the phantom had written.
And there at the bottom of the stack was a photograph. It took me a second to realize what it was, it was the same photo I had seen in Emma's dressing room of her with that girl with the black curly hair. Was that girl the phantom?
I had to know.
Slowly and quietly, I walked over to the phantom, where they were busy writing, and I lifted their mask off.
Behind the mask was the face of a girl. She might have been called pretty at one point, but instead her features were marred by masses of scar tissue and scabs.
She immediately jumped away and covered her face with the cloak, hissing in pain.
"Damn you!" She yelled. "You little prying Pandora!"
"I'm..." I stuttered out an apology. "I'm sorry!"
"Was that what you wanted to see?" She asked.
"Now do you understand why I cannot show my face?" She asked.
"Phantom," I asked. "What happened to you?"
"Go!" she yelled. "I'm sure the police are looking for you now."
She grabbed me by the wrist and nearly dragged me over to the boat, with her standing behind me at the stern with he single oar. As the boat pushed off from the shore, the candle-lit cavern where the phantom lived fell away into the inky blackness of the storm drain, before that too gave way to the light of dawn outside.
In the light of day, I realized that this neighborhood wasn't too far from Winslow. Checking the time on my phone. I saw that I had nearly a dozen missed calls from Forrest.
It was time to face the music.