Editor's Note: Please Read/Review, I like having feedback that's helpfull. I'm not afraid of critisim, even though I can't spell it. lol Enjoy :)
"Careful Marlette, you wouldn't want to run into the Phantom."
Marlette jumped at the sound of the voice. She thought she had been alone.
"Don't be silly Gerard." She replied, turning to face her best friend.
"The Phantom is merely an old wives' tale. Most likely kept alive by our parents to keep us from wandering where we don't belong."
"How can you think that when your mother is who she is?"
"Who is she exactly?" Marlette replied frustrated. They've had this conversation many times before. "Madame Christine. Mediocre opera singer. Prim Donna for one night in a ballet preformed in this very opera house. Supposedly haunted by a living ghost until father saved her. But how can I believe any of this? Mother is dead, and I've never heard her sing or tell the tale of the Opera Ghost. And father? He's too busy running this old theater, restoring it to the great splendor it once held, all in the name of mother, yet he'll never speak a word of the Phantom who once threatened her."
"You've heard the stories the same as everyone else Marlette, they're common knowledge around here, you know that."
"Gerard, we are sixteen now. When will you stop believing in Fairy Tales?"
"How can I when I have already found my princess?"
"You're being silly. Please leave me alone. I'd like to pray."
"It's not wise of me, but I can see your stubborn nature beginning to surface so I shall leave you to your prayers."
Gerard slowly turned and walked up the winding stone staircase that lead to the lavish foyer of the theatre. Marlette turned to the statue of the Virgin Mary and bent down on both knees. Suddenly, notes began to fill her head and she couldn't tell if it came from her imagination or some unseen organ. She knew the tune well. It played over and over whenever she would be lying in bed, waiting for sleep to come. She had even giving the melody words which she sang now quietly, trance-like.
"There is a place for me in someone's heart
Where I will find solace in the comfort
And peace in their wake
I pray that today would be the day
He will take me away
To his beautiful world
And calm me with his song of love
He'll soothe me
And prove to me
The fantastic tales I've never believed
And I'll come quietly into submission
When he leads me to his world of fantasy"
She realized that she had been singing out loud when a voice answered her.
"Just like your mother in so many ways,
And different in just one."
"Father!" she exclaimed, rising to her feet. She rarely saw him during the week. He was always promoting the latest Opera or attending a social event, and now to see him here, where she had been forbidden to go so many times before was shameful.
"I don't want you coming down here Marlette. I thought I had made that perfectly clear."
"But why father?" she cried, "How can someone so grounded as yourself believe in unseen enigmas?
"I will not have you question me! If I find that you have gone back to this chapel or wandered anywhere past your limits I will have you sent away to finishing school like normal girls of your age."
"I will not leave until you tell me why you are afraid of a man who hasn't been sighted for over seventeen years!"
"Please do not question me! Do you not see how it drains me? It was unfair of your mother to leave me here with you. I cannot raise you myself. It is too much."
Raoul sank down into one of the stone pews, his head in his hands. Instantly regretful, Marlette rushed to his side.
"Please father, don't be angry with me. I just have so many questions…"
"And I will answer them one day." Her father replied, stroking her hair gently, "Look at you. You've grown so much. And yet I never noticed how wise you were until just now."
"You never look at me father."
"Marlette, you are so much like your mother. Your hair is the same shade, the same length, the same texture. Your eyes, the same hazel color, and they hold many secrets. I can tell. Even your boy moves the same way hers did when she was a dancer your age."
"Before, when you found me here, you said that I was just like mother, except for one thing. What did you mean?"
"You mother was frightened by mystery, scared of the darkness that enveloped her. You seem to seek it."
"I've lived here my whole life father, and yet I've seen very little of this opera house. I hate not knowing. I cannot see a shadow without exploring it. It is my nature."
"The shadows of this Opera House are better left undiscovered. There is nothing to be found except dust and old props."
"And a Phantom." Marlette added quietly.
"Angel, please, do know that much of what you hear is untrue. But the stories of your mother being entranced by a demon are not. And there is more. More that no one knows, except your mother, the phantom and myself. But you are too young."
"I suppose I always will be."
"One day Marlette, you won't be. And you'll wish you were sixteen once again, dancing and playing with the others."
"Father, I am a young woman. I've stopped dreaming of fairy tales and princesses. I've been hearing music in my sleep, and it calls to me, urging me to explore. Urging me to seek-"
"What do you mean, music?"
"In my head. I think. I can't tell anymore."
Raoul's face went stone cold. Marlette had never seen her father look so serious. "Does anyone ever sing in your dreams of music Marlette?"
"No. Except myself."
"Never a man?"
"No father."
"Listen closely to me Marlette. If you ever begin to hear a man's voice inside your head, you must tell me. Immediately. And never, under any circumstances, do you listen to it. Do you understand?"
She didn't. But she shook her head yes to comfort her father.
"Well, I certainly think this has been enough for one day. Let's get you to bed angel."
The pair rose silently and ascended the stone steps slowly. Marlette had to help her father move, for he was growing old and he was showing signs of arthritis. Marlette could hardly imagine that the stories of him dodging a Phantom's sword with the agility of a cat could have ever been true.