IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have read my story, The Origin, Disregard It! I
have new, bigger plans! (But it is unlikely that any of you have read it,
because it was really bad and hasn't gotten a single review, so it doesn't
really matter!)
Disclaimer: Don't own Erik, or no one else you seen any where else. A few of these guys DO belong to me, though, and I'd like to know before they go galavanting off into the realm.
Plea for reviews: I am a shameless review junkie, feed my habit!
--------------Lyra----------------
Father came in, hands clenched and jaw set. It must have taken a lot of will not to blow up, and I didn't know how much longer he could hold his temper. I didn't have a chance to find out. He brushed past me and into the music room. Three hours later, he came out, disheveled and, for the first time I had ever seen him, visibly exhausted.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes." He leaned against the wall. "I'm just tired. Looking after that fool was no vacation."
"There's no need to tell me that!" I remembered the long nights and early mornings all too well. "I was there too you know! But I can't think that that little marathon helped any after last night!"
He laughed drowsily. "No, probably not. If you'll excuse me, I need some sleep. We'll talk after I wake."
"Mmm."
Even as tired as he was, he caught my tone. "What?"
"Nothing. As you said, after you wake."
He nodded and stumbled out of the room. He didn't wake up until the next afternoon.
"Twenty-four hours!? That's just impossible!"
"I'm afraid not Father, maybe it's something in the water, but you were well and truly out of it. I couldn't bring myself to wake you. Here, have some tea. I used that old samovar in the cupboard."
"Would you be quiet about the water? I've used it for twenty years, and it's never done any harm to me. (pause) Well, you're getting better, the tea's not bad, but don't put as many leaves in next time."
"Right. But you've really got no idea where it comes from. The water I mean." I paused. "Father, um, about Christine."
He frowned, turning toward me slightly. "What about her?"
"Well, I didn't tell you before, but she, I didn't want to worry you, you know."
"Lyra, for goodness sakes, spit it out!"
"Well... When I... I told you she had mood swings."
"Yes. I intend to look into it as soon as I can, but we HAVE been a bit busy."
"Father, she was also having headaches, and her balance was off. And, when she had the dead baby, she sang to it and acted as if it was alive."
He set down the cup. "What are you getting at Lyra?"
"Um, well, remember when you gave me that book about brain disorders? The one that had a section about tumors?"
"Good lord!" He was up and out of the house in moments.
"Where are you going?!" I cried after him.
"To return a horse!"
Fine. Meanwhile, I had something to do myself. Three days later, while I was comfortably studying in the parlor, he arrived.
"Christine," he said, uncomfortably shrugging off his coat and collapsing into a chair, "has appearently taken her child and left for Sweden. I've hired a team of investigators, but she could dissappear there as easily as you or I could."
"I'm sorry Father. Surely she'll figure it out, won't she? She'll visit a doctor."
"I hope so."
I looked at him, sitting there, utterly dispondent. "Maybe," I added, reluctantly, "you could go after her."
He smiled at me. "No, Lyra. I can't. Thank you, though," he paused. "I've got too much keeping me here. I must be getting old."
"You're not old, Father."
"I'm older than you think, I'm sure. But, what about you?"
"Me?"
'What were you doing in Grimmerie Street again?"
I bent to pick up Mozart, scratching behind his ears, giving him all of my attention. "You do have sources don't you? I just went to find out about my mother."
"And?"
"She died only a few days after she abandoned me. She was killed by the cab driver, Jaques, when they were both drunk."
"It's not your fault, you know."
I exploded. "But, I should have known! I should have found out years ago! Instead, I just worried about myself!"
"You were six years old! You had every right to worry about yourself. When I found you, you were little more than a skin-wrapped skeleton! A few more weeks would have found you in a grave with seven or eight other bodies and lye poured over you!"
"I know! But, I still should have tried to find out years ago! She was my mother!"
"It took me almost twenty years to go back to my mother after I ran away. In that time, I thought as little about her as I could. She made my life miserable. I had no obligations to her, because she did nothing for me but give me this!" He jestured at his mask, or his face, or both. Then he tore his mask off and threw it onto a table. Thank goodness he had worn the cloth one while traveling, the ceramic one would have shattered everywhere. "Lyra, so help me, if you blame yourself I'LL never forgive you."
I laughed, despite myself. "All right, Father." Still though, I did blame myself, a little.
We slipped back into our old schedule, with music taking up most of the time, but we both knew that something had to change. The house on the lake was home, but I missed the sun and the outside. Father was still worried about my schooling. So, it came to a decision.
-----------------------Erik------------------------------
"Oh Father!" she exclaimed, "Not again! Another boarding school?!"
"No, Lyra. That obviously won't work. There is, however, a school nearby, in the Opera House actually, that might work. You'd really be here, and we could control what happened. If you got in trouble, or were tempted to do something, you could come down here. If the Thernandiers found you, it would be easy to dissappear. And, you'd still get credit for everything you can do. With background in a school, you could get a job anywhere, doing anything."
"We've been through this, Papa. I've heard these arguements before. And, as always, you're right. I'll go. How do I get in?"
"I know the teacher." I did indeed, even if she didn't know me.
-----------------------------------------------------
"Now, girls, on to your ballet class. Line up against the wall, all of you."
I watched, disgusted. The girls, who ranged from seven to nineteen, were all children of the cast and crew of the opera. On the far side was Andre's girl, Elizabeth. Next to her were the young Salaziri twins.
And directing the class were Madame Giry, and her daughter, Madame Salaziri. Madame Giry was so old, she reigned over the class form a throne- like wheel-chair. It's black fabric, and the black of her dress, made her look like a stern skeleton. Her daughter, who seemed to be doing most of the work nowadays, stood next to the chair, her hand on the back.
-Really Father!- I thought, joining the girls on the wall, -Ballet!-
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Megan Salaziri was about as far from Meg Giry as she could be. I remembered Mlle Giry as a slight, silly, ungifted ballet rat. Madame Salaziri, however, was a tall, composed, woman of about thirty, with a stern set of mouth and a gleam in her eye. What she lacked in talent, she made up for in experience. Plus, she was a marvelous teacher. That is, she was strict and headstrong, not allowing anything out of line from anyone. I settled in, behind the huge mirror on one wall. Too bad that the main class was ballet, but some things couldn't be helped. As Lyra walked by, I saw the look of disgust and dirision on her face. I grinned. -Put up with it Lyra, at least you're still in Paris.-
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On the other side of the room was the piano, being jangled by Mssr Salaziri. The poor thing seemed as if it would fall apart at any moment, and it was dreadfully out of tune. The noise coming from it was little more than that, noise. Salaziri wasn't doing it any good, either.
But, I didn't care. I paid more attention to Salaziri than to the distorted notes he made. He had taught every other class all day, and that was really the best thing about this school. His golden skin and pale gold hair framed eyes the perfect blue of the sky. As he played, he looked up and smiled at Marie Andre, and his smile was enough to make me blush madly behind my mask, even though it wasn't for me. Marie was little better off. -So what if he can't play?- I thought. -He can surely smile! And he has a doctorate from Oxford! He looks like Apollo, even if he doesn't play like him!-
"Now, class, to work!" cried Madame Salaziri. "Stretches on three! One, two, Three!"
-Stretches?- I thought. -What stretches?- I looked over at the mirror, mimicing the girl beside me. I was all too aware that I was at least three counts off, and falling even more behind, but no one pointed it out or corrected me. -It's sink or swim, Lyra.- I thought. -But don't count on these people for life-rafts!-
Finally, after making a fool of myself for nearly an hour, it was time for Math. -Step aside you lot! I'll wipe the floor with you!- I made my way to my isolated desk at the back of the class.
"Now, girls," said Mr. Salaziri. "Due to our, um, new student." -No, he didn't shiver. Stop imagining things.- "We will be taking an evaluatory quiz. Don't worry about your grade," he went on, over the groans, "you will not receive one. This is only to see how much you have improved! Or," -You're seeing things, he didn't shiver!- "How far along you are. Will the row leaders please take one and pass it down?"
As soon as I clamped my hands on my quiz, I had no worries. This was my domain, I couldn't be made a fool of here. No one would ever contest my knowledge. I was done with the test before most of the others were a fourth of the way through. After that I just doodled lines of music in the margins.
"Very good, Marie. You've got nearly half of them right! Oh, Franceska, you really should have known that. Although, you did two questions better than last time. Lisa, the square root of 121 is eleven, ot thirteen."
-He's coming down this isle now. Three people away, two...-
"Angelique, this is really a good try! Give it a better shot next time."
-He's picking up my paper! He'll smile and say 'Oh Lyra, this is wonderful! Full marks! Who put you in this school? You should really be in a college!'-
Instead, he shuddered as he held the packet and hurridly glanced through it. Then he rushed on past me. He never even glanced at me. I wasn't a person. I was the daughter of a phantom, and the antithesis of what a good little girl should be. I was a monster. But I would not cry.
"Jacquiline, this is quite good!"
I would not cry.
Lunch was next, and I was actually looking foreward to it. Maybe, just maybe, there would be somebody like Sara there. A friend who would be willing to listen to my half of the story. Somebody who wasn't prejudiced. I didn't have a lunch pail, how could I eat with a mask on? So I tried to make a place for myself.
"Hello," I said, with a smile in my voice. (This was the largest group of girls, and really they looked quite silly. But everyone has to start somewhere.) "May I sit here?"
I realised, too late, that this was Marie Andre's group. Really, she reminded me of a second Jezzelle, she was obviously the queen of the court and she had a "What is that smell?" look on her face.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but only humans are allowed here." The girls gasped behind her. "Marie, sit down, you shouldn't."
"I'm as human as you!"
"No, you are a phantomess," she said, with the air of one who is educating a particuarly slow child. "The daughter (illigitimate, I am sure) of an aging phantom, who can only steal from better parents through blackmail."
I rose to the bait. "You would do well not to insult my father in his own house."
"This is my father's opera!"
"Your father is a co-manager, and not a very good one, at that. Because of his, and his partner's, ineptitude, the Opera Garnier is losing patrons right and left. Soon, despite all of my father's efforts, your father will not have a job, and this great building will fall into disrepair. You, I suppose, will have to sell that magnificent dress of yours to buy food. Perhaps if your father wasn't tone deaf.."
"Shut up! You Monster!"
I balled my fists. "If the truth hurts you that much, Mlle., you should not provoke people into speaking it." I turned my back and walked to the other side of the room, deliberately avoiding looking at the mirror. -Please, don't let Father be there. Don't let him have seen that.- But I looked, and there was a dim outline, only visible if you knew what you were looking for, of a man. I wasn't sure wether to be proud or ashamed of myself.
"Phantom Child, come here."
The crickety old voice came from the black wheel-chair in the corner. Really, I didn't want to be told off now, not while I was still breathing hard from the adrenaline pumping through me. But I went over.
The chair was turned away from the mirror, and close up, you could see why. The woman was old, probably over seventy, much older than Father, or almost anyone else I had ever seen. She smelled like a wilting flower, and it was so sickly-sweet that it made me nausious.
"Hello Phantom Child."
"Please, madame, my name is Lyra."
"I'm too old to remember names. A phantom child is what you are so Phantom Child is who you are. Or would you rather be called Monster?"
"No Madame."
"I thought not." She was silent for a while. "I once knew you father. Did he tell you?"
"Yes Madame. He told me that you were a great help to him."
She perked up. "Well, I was at that! But, I bet you'd like to know what really happened, from my viewpoint, wouldn't you?"
"Well, yes, Madame."
"Mama? Mama, what are you doing over there?" Mr. Salaziri practically ran to his mother-in-law's aid, worried to death. "Mama, it's time for your medication."
"It is not, Carlos, and you know it. I have the right to talk to who I want, when I want, where I want, and if it pleases me to talk to Phantom Child, then talk to her I will."
"But, Mama."
"No buts!" The man jumped back as if he had been struck. Then the woman turned to me "I will talk to you tomorrow at lunch, Phantom Child."
"Yes ma'am." I said, backing away. The smell was really too much. This time I sought refuge by the mirror, where I had seen Father's shadow. No sooner was I there than,
"Listen here Feo. You leave my step-mother alone. She is old and loco, and you can not help her. All you can do is hurt her. Leave her alone."
"Tu mujer es muy divertido, interesante, y inteligente. No es loco. Y me llamo no es Feo. Me llamo es Lyra Angen. That's not an easy mistake to make, Se~nor"
"I don't care what your name is, leave her...."
He trailed off, staring over my shoulder. I turned and saw Father's outline fading back into the mirror. Sr. Salaziri had lost about three shades in his skin color.
"Just leave her alone," he finished, staring wildly at the mirror. Then he took off across the room, as fast as he could go and remain diginified.
I glared at the mirror, sure that Father would know what I was doing. "I can," I whispered, "take care of myself, thank you very much."
The mirror remained silent.
"Crazy. Talking to her reflection," came a voice from across the room. "Probably cursing it. Wouldn't you? I mean, she probably doesn't even have a face! Wait, my mistake, that's no she! That's an It!"
Oh, she would pay.
That night I pillaged and plundered the room of the girl who had insulted me during the day. Rats went into drawers, cockroaches into make- up kits. Worms slithered along the sides of potted plants. And then I sat back and enjoyed the screams.
But something else must have happened too, because that was the last time she dared to stand up to me, or even look at me. She was obviously just as terrified now as all of the other girls had been before No one ever insulted me again.
Or did anything else. Never did one take any notice of me, except maybe to squeal with fright when I popped out from behind a corner. They were scared to death of me, Madame Salaziri was too preoccupied with other things to even notice me, Sr. Salaziri handed me my papers silently, and I sat alone. Excepting lunch, that is. Then I would sit at the feet of Madame Giry, where the smell was better, and listen to her tell me of her life. Ballet I found mindless and pointless, but I struggled to do it well, to please Madame Giry, the only person who treated me as a human being. After lessons, I would sit by her throne and listen to all the tales she cared to tell. Sometimes she would prattle on for hours, about everything. Sometimes she would forget and tell me the same story over and over again. And, sometimes, she refused, utterly, to talk to me at all.
So, I took classes for three years. After Marie graduated, I moved to the head of the ballet class, and stayed there as all of the girls under me moved on to the corps. I moved to the head of everything, and stayed there, bored out of my mind, as the other girls struggled with fractions and flirted with Salaziri until they left. There were sometimes thirty girls in the class, and yet I was utterly alone.
At first, I would go straight home after school. Then, I got rather angry at the flighty idiots that looked at me in fear whenever they saw me. I took to frequenting their rooms after school, listening to them giggle and moan over school, and shreik over the stories they told about me and Father. Then, I began to live up to thier stories. They would find their toe shoes filled with cow dung, or some equally nasty ingredient. They could never prove that I had done anything of course, and I planted evidence in the other girls' rooms. I broke cliques as quickly as most people break eggs. Then I moved on to separate them from their boy-friends and lovers. I was determined that they would be as miserable as I was, and they were.
But I grew, and bored with them. Their silly problems and ideas seemed one-demensional. I no longer cared. I decided to find something else to do with my time.
Father had, of course, watched me at all of this, but he had never interfered, probably because he knew that it would do no good. I had latched on to those girls and worried them as a dog does a bone, and now I tossed them aside. The problem was, of course, that now I had nothing to do. I had graduated from the school, and suddenly there was a huge hole in my daily schedule. Father was always busy with his architecture buisness, which was booming, and I tried to help him, but I found it boring, creating what other people wanted. I took to wandering around the Opera, just watching people.
I found the singers pretentious and boring, the dancers silly and stupid, the managers far too worried about finance, and the set people too visual. Then, I happened upon the orchestra.
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Thank you all for reading this far! And again, thanks to my incredible reviewers!
Disclaimer: Don't own Erik, or no one else you seen any where else. A few of these guys DO belong to me, though, and I'd like to know before they go galavanting off into the realm.
Plea for reviews: I am a shameless review junkie, feed my habit!
--------------Lyra----------------
Father came in, hands clenched and jaw set. It must have taken a lot of will not to blow up, and I didn't know how much longer he could hold his temper. I didn't have a chance to find out. He brushed past me and into the music room. Three hours later, he came out, disheveled and, for the first time I had ever seen him, visibly exhausted.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes." He leaned against the wall. "I'm just tired. Looking after that fool was no vacation."
"There's no need to tell me that!" I remembered the long nights and early mornings all too well. "I was there too you know! But I can't think that that little marathon helped any after last night!"
He laughed drowsily. "No, probably not. If you'll excuse me, I need some sleep. We'll talk after I wake."
"Mmm."
Even as tired as he was, he caught my tone. "What?"
"Nothing. As you said, after you wake."
He nodded and stumbled out of the room. He didn't wake up until the next afternoon.
"Twenty-four hours!? That's just impossible!"
"I'm afraid not Father, maybe it's something in the water, but you were well and truly out of it. I couldn't bring myself to wake you. Here, have some tea. I used that old samovar in the cupboard."
"Would you be quiet about the water? I've used it for twenty years, and it's never done any harm to me. (pause) Well, you're getting better, the tea's not bad, but don't put as many leaves in next time."
"Right. But you've really got no idea where it comes from. The water I mean." I paused. "Father, um, about Christine."
He frowned, turning toward me slightly. "What about her?"
"Well, I didn't tell you before, but she, I didn't want to worry you, you know."
"Lyra, for goodness sakes, spit it out!"
"Well... When I... I told you she had mood swings."
"Yes. I intend to look into it as soon as I can, but we HAVE been a bit busy."
"Father, she was also having headaches, and her balance was off. And, when she had the dead baby, she sang to it and acted as if it was alive."
He set down the cup. "What are you getting at Lyra?"
"Um, well, remember when you gave me that book about brain disorders? The one that had a section about tumors?"
"Good lord!" He was up and out of the house in moments.
"Where are you going?!" I cried after him.
"To return a horse!"
Fine. Meanwhile, I had something to do myself. Three days later, while I was comfortably studying in the parlor, he arrived.
"Christine," he said, uncomfortably shrugging off his coat and collapsing into a chair, "has appearently taken her child and left for Sweden. I've hired a team of investigators, but she could dissappear there as easily as you or I could."
"I'm sorry Father. Surely she'll figure it out, won't she? She'll visit a doctor."
"I hope so."
I looked at him, sitting there, utterly dispondent. "Maybe," I added, reluctantly, "you could go after her."
He smiled at me. "No, Lyra. I can't. Thank you, though," he paused. "I've got too much keeping me here. I must be getting old."
"You're not old, Father."
"I'm older than you think, I'm sure. But, what about you?"
"Me?"
'What were you doing in Grimmerie Street again?"
I bent to pick up Mozart, scratching behind his ears, giving him all of my attention. "You do have sources don't you? I just went to find out about my mother."
"And?"
"She died only a few days after she abandoned me. She was killed by the cab driver, Jaques, when they were both drunk."
"It's not your fault, you know."
I exploded. "But, I should have known! I should have found out years ago! Instead, I just worried about myself!"
"You were six years old! You had every right to worry about yourself. When I found you, you were little more than a skin-wrapped skeleton! A few more weeks would have found you in a grave with seven or eight other bodies and lye poured over you!"
"I know! But, I still should have tried to find out years ago! She was my mother!"
"It took me almost twenty years to go back to my mother after I ran away. In that time, I thought as little about her as I could. She made my life miserable. I had no obligations to her, because she did nothing for me but give me this!" He jestured at his mask, or his face, or both. Then he tore his mask off and threw it onto a table. Thank goodness he had worn the cloth one while traveling, the ceramic one would have shattered everywhere. "Lyra, so help me, if you blame yourself I'LL never forgive you."
I laughed, despite myself. "All right, Father." Still though, I did blame myself, a little.
We slipped back into our old schedule, with music taking up most of the time, but we both knew that something had to change. The house on the lake was home, but I missed the sun and the outside. Father was still worried about my schooling. So, it came to a decision.
-----------------------Erik------------------------------
"Oh Father!" she exclaimed, "Not again! Another boarding school?!"
"No, Lyra. That obviously won't work. There is, however, a school nearby, in the Opera House actually, that might work. You'd really be here, and we could control what happened. If you got in trouble, or were tempted to do something, you could come down here. If the Thernandiers found you, it would be easy to dissappear. And, you'd still get credit for everything you can do. With background in a school, you could get a job anywhere, doing anything."
"We've been through this, Papa. I've heard these arguements before. And, as always, you're right. I'll go. How do I get in?"
"I know the teacher." I did indeed, even if she didn't know me.
-----------------------------------------------------
"Now, girls, on to your ballet class. Line up against the wall, all of you."
I watched, disgusted. The girls, who ranged from seven to nineteen, were all children of the cast and crew of the opera. On the far side was Andre's girl, Elizabeth. Next to her were the young Salaziri twins.
And directing the class were Madame Giry, and her daughter, Madame Salaziri. Madame Giry was so old, she reigned over the class form a throne- like wheel-chair. It's black fabric, and the black of her dress, made her look like a stern skeleton. Her daughter, who seemed to be doing most of the work nowadays, stood next to the chair, her hand on the back.
-Really Father!- I thought, joining the girls on the wall, -Ballet!-
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Megan Salaziri was about as far from Meg Giry as she could be. I remembered Mlle Giry as a slight, silly, ungifted ballet rat. Madame Salaziri, however, was a tall, composed, woman of about thirty, with a stern set of mouth and a gleam in her eye. What she lacked in talent, she made up for in experience. Plus, she was a marvelous teacher. That is, she was strict and headstrong, not allowing anything out of line from anyone. I settled in, behind the huge mirror on one wall. Too bad that the main class was ballet, but some things couldn't be helped. As Lyra walked by, I saw the look of disgust and dirision on her face. I grinned. -Put up with it Lyra, at least you're still in Paris.-
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On the other side of the room was the piano, being jangled by Mssr Salaziri. The poor thing seemed as if it would fall apart at any moment, and it was dreadfully out of tune. The noise coming from it was little more than that, noise. Salaziri wasn't doing it any good, either.
But, I didn't care. I paid more attention to Salaziri than to the distorted notes he made. He had taught every other class all day, and that was really the best thing about this school. His golden skin and pale gold hair framed eyes the perfect blue of the sky. As he played, he looked up and smiled at Marie Andre, and his smile was enough to make me blush madly behind my mask, even though it wasn't for me. Marie was little better off. -So what if he can't play?- I thought. -He can surely smile! And he has a doctorate from Oxford! He looks like Apollo, even if he doesn't play like him!-
"Now, class, to work!" cried Madame Salaziri. "Stretches on three! One, two, Three!"
-Stretches?- I thought. -What stretches?- I looked over at the mirror, mimicing the girl beside me. I was all too aware that I was at least three counts off, and falling even more behind, but no one pointed it out or corrected me. -It's sink or swim, Lyra.- I thought. -But don't count on these people for life-rafts!-
Finally, after making a fool of myself for nearly an hour, it was time for Math. -Step aside you lot! I'll wipe the floor with you!- I made my way to my isolated desk at the back of the class.
"Now, girls," said Mr. Salaziri. "Due to our, um, new student." -No, he didn't shiver. Stop imagining things.- "We will be taking an evaluatory quiz. Don't worry about your grade," he went on, over the groans, "you will not receive one. This is only to see how much you have improved! Or," -You're seeing things, he didn't shiver!- "How far along you are. Will the row leaders please take one and pass it down?"
As soon as I clamped my hands on my quiz, I had no worries. This was my domain, I couldn't be made a fool of here. No one would ever contest my knowledge. I was done with the test before most of the others were a fourth of the way through. After that I just doodled lines of music in the margins.
"Very good, Marie. You've got nearly half of them right! Oh, Franceska, you really should have known that. Although, you did two questions better than last time. Lisa, the square root of 121 is eleven, ot thirteen."
-He's coming down this isle now. Three people away, two...-
"Angelique, this is really a good try! Give it a better shot next time."
-He's picking up my paper! He'll smile and say 'Oh Lyra, this is wonderful! Full marks! Who put you in this school? You should really be in a college!'-
Instead, he shuddered as he held the packet and hurridly glanced through it. Then he rushed on past me. He never even glanced at me. I wasn't a person. I was the daughter of a phantom, and the antithesis of what a good little girl should be. I was a monster. But I would not cry.
"Jacquiline, this is quite good!"
I would not cry.
Lunch was next, and I was actually looking foreward to it. Maybe, just maybe, there would be somebody like Sara there. A friend who would be willing to listen to my half of the story. Somebody who wasn't prejudiced. I didn't have a lunch pail, how could I eat with a mask on? So I tried to make a place for myself.
"Hello," I said, with a smile in my voice. (This was the largest group of girls, and really they looked quite silly. But everyone has to start somewhere.) "May I sit here?"
I realised, too late, that this was Marie Andre's group. Really, she reminded me of a second Jezzelle, she was obviously the queen of the court and she had a "What is that smell?" look on her face.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but only humans are allowed here." The girls gasped behind her. "Marie, sit down, you shouldn't."
"I'm as human as you!"
"No, you are a phantomess," she said, with the air of one who is educating a particuarly slow child. "The daughter (illigitimate, I am sure) of an aging phantom, who can only steal from better parents through blackmail."
I rose to the bait. "You would do well not to insult my father in his own house."
"This is my father's opera!"
"Your father is a co-manager, and not a very good one, at that. Because of his, and his partner's, ineptitude, the Opera Garnier is losing patrons right and left. Soon, despite all of my father's efforts, your father will not have a job, and this great building will fall into disrepair. You, I suppose, will have to sell that magnificent dress of yours to buy food. Perhaps if your father wasn't tone deaf.."
"Shut up! You Monster!"
I balled my fists. "If the truth hurts you that much, Mlle., you should not provoke people into speaking it." I turned my back and walked to the other side of the room, deliberately avoiding looking at the mirror. -Please, don't let Father be there. Don't let him have seen that.- But I looked, and there was a dim outline, only visible if you knew what you were looking for, of a man. I wasn't sure wether to be proud or ashamed of myself.
"Phantom Child, come here."
The crickety old voice came from the black wheel-chair in the corner. Really, I didn't want to be told off now, not while I was still breathing hard from the adrenaline pumping through me. But I went over.
The chair was turned away from the mirror, and close up, you could see why. The woman was old, probably over seventy, much older than Father, or almost anyone else I had ever seen. She smelled like a wilting flower, and it was so sickly-sweet that it made me nausious.
"Hello Phantom Child."
"Please, madame, my name is Lyra."
"I'm too old to remember names. A phantom child is what you are so Phantom Child is who you are. Or would you rather be called Monster?"
"No Madame."
"I thought not." She was silent for a while. "I once knew you father. Did he tell you?"
"Yes Madame. He told me that you were a great help to him."
She perked up. "Well, I was at that! But, I bet you'd like to know what really happened, from my viewpoint, wouldn't you?"
"Well, yes, Madame."
"Mama? Mama, what are you doing over there?" Mr. Salaziri practically ran to his mother-in-law's aid, worried to death. "Mama, it's time for your medication."
"It is not, Carlos, and you know it. I have the right to talk to who I want, when I want, where I want, and if it pleases me to talk to Phantom Child, then talk to her I will."
"But, Mama."
"No buts!" The man jumped back as if he had been struck. Then the woman turned to me "I will talk to you tomorrow at lunch, Phantom Child."
"Yes ma'am." I said, backing away. The smell was really too much. This time I sought refuge by the mirror, where I had seen Father's shadow. No sooner was I there than,
"Listen here Feo. You leave my step-mother alone. She is old and loco, and you can not help her. All you can do is hurt her. Leave her alone."
"Tu mujer es muy divertido, interesante, y inteligente. No es loco. Y me llamo no es Feo. Me llamo es Lyra Angen. That's not an easy mistake to make, Se~nor"
"I don't care what your name is, leave her...."
He trailed off, staring over my shoulder. I turned and saw Father's outline fading back into the mirror. Sr. Salaziri had lost about three shades in his skin color.
"Just leave her alone," he finished, staring wildly at the mirror. Then he took off across the room, as fast as he could go and remain diginified.
I glared at the mirror, sure that Father would know what I was doing. "I can," I whispered, "take care of myself, thank you very much."
The mirror remained silent.
"Crazy. Talking to her reflection," came a voice from across the room. "Probably cursing it. Wouldn't you? I mean, she probably doesn't even have a face! Wait, my mistake, that's no she! That's an It!"
Oh, she would pay.
That night I pillaged and plundered the room of the girl who had insulted me during the day. Rats went into drawers, cockroaches into make- up kits. Worms slithered along the sides of potted plants. And then I sat back and enjoyed the screams.
But something else must have happened too, because that was the last time she dared to stand up to me, or even look at me. She was obviously just as terrified now as all of the other girls had been before No one ever insulted me again.
Or did anything else. Never did one take any notice of me, except maybe to squeal with fright when I popped out from behind a corner. They were scared to death of me, Madame Salaziri was too preoccupied with other things to even notice me, Sr. Salaziri handed me my papers silently, and I sat alone. Excepting lunch, that is. Then I would sit at the feet of Madame Giry, where the smell was better, and listen to her tell me of her life. Ballet I found mindless and pointless, but I struggled to do it well, to please Madame Giry, the only person who treated me as a human being. After lessons, I would sit by her throne and listen to all the tales she cared to tell. Sometimes she would prattle on for hours, about everything. Sometimes she would forget and tell me the same story over and over again. And, sometimes, she refused, utterly, to talk to me at all.
So, I took classes for three years. After Marie graduated, I moved to the head of the ballet class, and stayed there as all of the girls under me moved on to the corps. I moved to the head of everything, and stayed there, bored out of my mind, as the other girls struggled with fractions and flirted with Salaziri until they left. There were sometimes thirty girls in the class, and yet I was utterly alone.
At first, I would go straight home after school. Then, I got rather angry at the flighty idiots that looked at me in fear whenever they saw me. I took to frequenting their rooms after school, listening to them giggle and moan over school, and shreik over the stories they told about me and Father. Then, I began to live up to thier stories. They would find their toe shoes filled with cow dung, or some equally nasty ingredient. They could never prove that I had done anything of course, and I planted evidence in the other girls' rooms. I broke cliques as quickly as most people break eggs. Then I moved on to separate them from their boy-friends and lovers. I was determined that they would be as miserable as I was, and they were.
But I grew, and bored with them. Their silly problems and ideas seemed one-demensional. I no longer cared. I decided to find something else to do with my time.
Father had, of course, watched me at all of this, but he had never interfered, probably because he knew that it would do no good. I had latched on to those girls and worried them as a dog does a bone, and now I tossed them aside. The problem was, of course, that now I had nothing to do. I had graduated from the school, and suddenly there was a huge hole in my daily schedule. Father was always busy with his architecture buisness, which was booming, and I tried to help him, but I found it boring, creating what other people wanted. I took to wandering around the Opera, just watching people.
I found the singers pretentious and boring, the dancers silly and stupid, the managers far too worried about finance, and the set people too visual. Then, I happened upon the orchestra.
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Thank you all for reading this far! And again, thanks to my incredible reviewers!
