CHAPTER ONE

(in which our heroine has an unexpected audience and hears a ghost story)

My father died, very suddenly, scarcely a month after I entered the Conservatoire. I'm not certain how I continued living after that. He had been the center of my life, the heart of my existence, for so long that I didn't know how to live on my own. Perhaps it was the generous care of Mme. Valerius, a long-time friend of my father's, that forced me on. What I remember best is no such practical stuff, but instead clinging to my old belief in the Angel of Music, and to the hope buried deep in my heart that my father would keep his long-ago promise.

I graduated from the Conservatoire near the bottom of my class. Through the good offices of Mme. Valerius, the managers of the Paris Opera Populaire granted me a job. Not as a soloist, of course: all my talent, my potential, had apparently died with my father. But they allowed me to sing in the chorus. It didn't really matter to me, though I had once dreamed of being a diva. I spent most of my time alone, either sitting apart at rehearsal, or wandering about the Opera House, trying to distract myself from the grief that constantly threatened to overwhelm me.

Then I found something I hadn't expected.

"Hello? Is anyone here?"

Christine cautiously edged the door farther open and looked inside. There was no one seated at the grand piano looming in the center of the room. Yet only moments before, beautiful music, unearthly music somehow come to earth, had whispered from this room and drifted down the hall, drawing Christine from where she'd sat on the floor trying not to think about anything, calling her to follow...

She shivered with something not quite fear, not quite delight. Perhaps it was a lingering memory in this place, the ghost of some long-ago love...or Someone more than a mere ghost. Why not look closer? Another delicious shiver ran up her spine at the thought, and gave her the courage to step inside the room and approach the piano.

There was no dust on the keys -- but that meant nothing. Heaven knew one tripped over door closers everywhere one went in the Opera, why shouldn't there be piano dusters? It might have been a man who'd played that haunting music...but it might have been the Angel of Music. Christine shivered at naming her hope, even to herself, and moved forward a few more steps.

A score lay on the piano, scattered as though hastily abandoned. Its notes were written in ink red as blood, both accompaniment and voice. Christine couldn't see any accompanying libretto, no words to be sung. Her eyes returned to the music. She could almost hear the musical line in her head. If only she could get the starting pitch! Her hand went to the keyboard hesitantly, as if drawn there against its will by the power of the music before her eyes.

Then a nearly physical shock shook her, as a chill danced down her spine. She could feel someone else in the room, the composer of the blood-red music, angry that she dared disturb him and invade his solitude. Christine shrank back from the haunted piano, but the music called her with a voice louder than its composer. She hesitated, looking at it again.

All nonsense, surely, she thought, slowly moving back to the keyboard. No Angel, no ghost, only a mortal man who'd stepped out for a moment. If she were at all sensible, she would turn around and leave now before he returned, whoever he was, and caught her at her dreaming. Mme. Valerius would shake her head kindly and send Christine to bed with a hot posset if she heard. But still she reached out and inexpertly struck the starting note for the vocal part.

Then she could hear it. Note followed note so easily; even under her unskilled hands, the music enchanted like no music she'd ever heard before. It soared in unearthly beauty, music that caught her soul in a golden net and drew it from dark grief to bright sunlight. Before she could stop herself she'd abandoned the piano and was singing the notes -- no particular words, merely nonsense syllables -- and still she sang better than she had in years, sending her soul soaring with the music as it had when she'd sung with her father's violin so long ago --

The thought broke her absorption in the music as effectively as cold water thrown over her. The feeling of being watched returned, even stronger than before, and somehow not as hostile. Christine pushed the half-hearted hope aside, furious at herself for acting as she should not have, singing what she should not have, trespassing on music as intense and private as her sorrow. She ran all the way back to her dressing room and locked the door, just in time to collapse into tears. Never again, she swore silently. No matter how lonely and isolated she felt, no matter how friendly or spiteful other chorus members might be, she wouldn't leave the sanctuary of this dressing room -- no, not for the Phantom of the Opera himself!

Of course I knew of the Phantom of the Opera. One could scarcely live in Paris in those days, much less work in the Opera, and not hear of the Phantom. Even I, reserved and isolated, stood in the corridors and eavesdropped on the gossip of the ballet 'rats' about him.

In truth, I needn't have bothered with my careful eavesdropping. People in the Opera could scarcely talk of anything else. The Phantom was apparently everywhere. When stage ropes were cut, dropping the curtain right in the middle of La Carlotta's showpiece aria, the Phantom must be up to his old tricks -- no matter that even the stagehands rolled their eyes at our diva's over-developed voice and arrogant manner. When Meg Giry missed her makeup, the Phantom must have borrowed it; when Cecile Jammes couldn't find her shoes, she shook in her bare feet, wondering what she'd done to offend the Phantom -- but those I believe were practical jokes, more likely committed by another dancer than any ghost. When the chandelier mysteriously began to shake, however, or I saw ahead of me in the corridor the figure of a man, who vanished by the time I reached the spot, without my looking away from him more than a moment...well. I would have been very hardened if I hadn't at least wondered about the Phantom.

Yet I didn't fear him. Perhaps my isolation, or my continuing grief, protected me. Heaven knows everyone else held him in terrible awe.

"...and so deep-set you cannot see them. All you can see is..." Buquet paused for dramatic effect, then leaned forward and lowered his voice, "...the empty holes of a skull!"

His audience of ballet 'rats' gasped in appreciative horror. Christine shook her head and smiled, watching them from the shadow of a looming set piece. The Phantom, always the Phantom. Even Buquet, serious and unimaginative Buquet, was telling tales of a skeleton in evening dress he claimed to have once met in the cellars. Her father had told better ghost stories than this. No matter how grisly the description --

"He only has three or four long, dark locks of hair that hang over his forehead and behind his ears. His skin is ugly yellow, and tight as a drum," Buquet continued in an impressive whisper, "and you can't see his nose unless you look at him full-face." He shivered. "You can't imagine how horrible that lack of a nose looks."

-- but there was nothing more than description. What had the Phantom done? Christine turned away, impatient with her own interest, then hesitated as one of the dancers piped up. "What about what the fireman saw?"

"The fireman?" another demanded. "What happened?"

Christine looked back. This was something new.

"Weren't you in the auditorium the other night? The Phantom was seen again!"

"What, in the auditorium? Impossible! He never comes up there, he always stays down --"

"No, silly, the fireman was in the auditorium. He nearly fainted from fear, because he'd seen the Phantom."

"Really!"

"And he didn't look like M'sieur Buquet's description at all. He didn't have any body at all, only a head all aflame!"

"The fireman?"

"The Phantom, silly."

"Are you sure, Cecile? A fireman wouldn't be afraid of fire, of all things! Fireman are brave!"

"I was there, I saw him! He was scared out of his wits, just ask anyone!"

"But M'sieur Buquet just told us --"

"Don't you see? The Phantom must have more than one head, that he changes whenever he wants!" At that thought, the entire collection of girls shuddered, and several glanced over their shoulders, crossing themselves. Even Buquet shook his head and shivered.

"Enough about the Phantom, girls," another voice said -- the ballet-master, hidden behind a chance drape of curtain. "Do you not have rehearsal?"

With a sigh, the group of girls gathered themselves together, and hurried off en masse toward the ballet-master. Christine watched them go without moving herself. Just a silly ghost story -- her father would have laughed.

"They don't know what they're talking about," a voice muttered from just behind Christine, startling her out of her sorrow. "Flaming heads, skeletons in evening dress..."

Christine could barely breathe for a moment, imagining the notorious Phantom had heard the gossip and come to...correct it? Then she recognized the voice, and breathed again. "Meg Giry," she said softly. "What would you know about the Opera Ghost, besides what you hear in rehearsal?"

"My mother -- you know her, she's the concierge -- she speaks to him. She says he can't be seen at all."

"Speaks to the Phantom!" Christine looked over her shoulder, but she could see no smirk on Meg's pretty face, no hint that she meant a joke. Nonetheless, the idea refused to penetrate. Ghosts were ghosts, not people, and the Opera Ghost had already proven himself special. The notion of speaking to him as one might any ordinary man -- impossible!

"Oh, yes," Meg insisted, coming around to perch on the edge of the set piece. "He has Box Five, on the First Tier, reserved for every night, and he knocks on the door to let my mother know when he's arrived."

"Oh, indeed?" Christine discovered she still knew how to smile, after all. "And is the Phantom punctual?"

"It's not funny, Mademoiselle Daae. If he knew I were telling you this..."

"What if he did?" Christine said, though she obediently swallowed her smile back down. "I doubt he would drop the chandelier on our heads merely for talking about him, not when so many others do the same."

"I don't want to get him angry, that's all," Meg said uneasily. "He spoke to the managers, got me promoted to the front of the row..."

"If he's pleased enough with your mother to help you like that, I shouldn't think a moment's slip would anger him that much," Christine said, amusement receding. Now that she thought of it, she had seen Meg Giry more often, passing each other backstage. Not a jest, then. Not laughable enough in any case to push away the clouds covering her soul for longer than a few minutes.

"Oh, yes!" Meg cheered up a bit, blessedly oblivious. "He tips her regularly, sometimes as much as ten francs when he's been away. He arrives sometime in the middle of the first act, and asks for a program, and a footstool -- but Maman says that's for his lady, not himself --"

"He's married?" That had to be a jest.

"I don't know...Mademoiselle Daae, we really shouldn't be talking like this..."

Christine glanced behind her again. Now she felt it too: the neck-prickling sense of being watched by an unseen observer. But it didn't feel angry, it felt...admiring? She must have lost her mind. Few enough men looked at her with admiration as it was, and certainly none would admire her for gossiping like a schoolgirl!

This is not to say that Opera folk spoke of nothing except the Phantom. There was the Gentleman In Lavender, who wrote lovely poetry to every chorine in turn; there was the Persian, who watched everyone as if he suspected them of some elaborate plot and who always turned up, backstage, when we least expected him; there was the Comte de Chagny, who was carrying on an outrageous courtship of the premiere danseur. But I paid most attention to the tales of the Phantom. They reminded me a little of the ghost stories my father used to tell. As the months passed, however, I became preoccupied elsewhere...with an admirer I could see no more than the Phantom. Someone who spied on me in my dressing room.

It looks sordid, written down here in black and white. After all, proper young ladies are not supposed to enjoy a voyeur on their nakedness. They are to keep their knees together and their skirts down at all times. Had I been more certain of myself, I would have reported a Peeping Tom to the management or the gendarmes, and had myself transferred out of my dressing room.

But I had immersed myself in my grieving for too long, and begun to emerge too late. I had few friends, a scattering of fellow chorines and ballet rats, and certainly no admirers who followed me back to that solitary dressing room. If I tried to tell anyone, they would surely think I had gone mad. The room was, after all, supposed to be haunted.

If I tried to tell anyone -- but I did not, and I will not speculate longer on might-have-beens. I was not shocked and frightened, as a 'proper' lady would have been. Proper behavior, standing behind a dead father and a sweet but weak guardian, had gained me only an isolated dressing room and a career without hope of advancement. I did not turn around when I felt the skin-tingling awareness of being watched, nor attempt to approach whoever it might be. But I would pose for him, when I thought he wouldn't suspect, taking longer to draw off my stockings than strictly necessary, or not pulling on another dress as soon as I had taken one off, giving him a glimpse of my scantily-clad body -- such as it is. I have never been the most voluptuous of women, certainly nothing on the order of La Carlotta's magnificent curves. Nonetheless, it gave me a naughty thrill, to think a man would want to spy on me.

Now, Carlotta, for reasons of her own which I could not then fathom, came to listen to general chorus rehearsals every few weeks. I suspect now she was watching to see if any were good enough to rival her. Even if that were her reason, I still cannot explain what she thought to accomplish when she approached me, one afternoon, perhaps two years after I joined the Opera.

"Christine Daae?"

The singer with whom Christine had been talking murmured an excuse and escaped offstage. Christine herself folded her hands tightly together to keep from nervously reaching for her hair, and turned to face the speaker -- a tall, swarthy, dark-haired woman who carried herself with boundless arrogance. "Yes, Madame?"

"I am La Carlotta," the woman declared. "The diva of this opera company. You are a chorus girl. Do we understand each other?"

Christine blinked in bewilderment, and gripped her hands even more tightly. "I was not aware there was anything complex to understand, Madame."

Carlotta leaned forward, hands on her hips. "Understand this, then, Mademoiselle Daae. I have sung hundreds of roles. I have been acclaimed by royalty and heads of state. I have never sung off-key or too softly. Men have died, gladly, to please me."

"I fail to see what this has to do with me." What in pity's name had she done to offend the diva? Perhaps she'd accidentally upstaged her during a recent performance. But she had no control over blocking --

"You are just a chorus girl, and lucky to be that," Carlotta continued in a hiss. "God only knows what idiot told you that you have talent, because you don't. You sing like a rusty hinge on a good day -- and the rest of the time like a crow three days dead. If you have any sense, you'll go back to whatever village spawned you, Mademoiselle Christine Daae, and leave the Opera to those of us who do have talent. You never will, not if God sent down all his angels to help you."

"Carlotta." One of the managers -- Debienne, the taller one -- stood behind the diva, frowning. A pulse of hope went through Christine's heart: perhaps he would say something, offer her a small role, tell Carlotta to stop browbeating the chorines at least. "Come," he said, and offered his arm to the diva. Christine's spirits sank. "You have a rehearsal also, do you not?" He glanced over his shoulder at Christine as they walked away, and Christine heard his final comment dreadfully clearly. "Must you speak so plainly? It's hard enough trying to make a silk purse out of that sow's ear without you discouraging..."

Christine swallowed and pinned a cheerful expression to her face as she left the stage. Her father had told her she had talent. But that had been long ago...and what good was the word of a father who promised the Angel of Music? No Angel had come to her in all the years since Daddy's death. Perhaps the Angel of Music had come to Carlotta, she thought dismally as she walked back to her dressing room. Perhaps this was the message from her father, so long awaited: 'apologies, but you do not have enough talent after all, and the Angel of Music has better things to do.'

At last she reached her room. Only when her dresser was dismissed and the door safely locked did she allow herself to collapse into tears. Certain phrases echoed too clearly in her ears: "You sing like a rusty hinge on a good days...it's hard enough trying to make a silk purse out of that sow's ear...God only knows what idiot told you that you have talent...not all of God's angels --"

"I tried," she whispered to the air. "I tried, Daddy, but it won't work." She gulped back the lump that threatened to block her throat. "Carlotta's right: I don't have talent, I haven't for years if I ever did. Why did you lie, Daddy? Why didn't you just tell me the truth? It wouldn't have hurt for as long..." A sob hiccupped out, and she sagged on her seat, letting the tears escape. "There is no Angel of Music, is there, Daddy? There's no heavenly angel who grants music...why didn't you just tell me I'd never be any good, Daddy?" The words came out choked, hardly intelligible. He'd have to understand them as they were. She wanted to scream them, but not even here could she do that. "Why? Why build me a, a castle in the air you knew I'd never inhabit?" She couldn't manage words any more. She gave up and cried.

She'd gained control of her sobs before she realized she'd been hearing the singing for quite some time. As she listened, her tears dried on her cheeks.

It was a man. At least she thought so. She'd never heard such a singer before, so beautiful a voice. She turned to the door, convinced for a moment that some great visiting tenor had been given a dressing room nearby, and was using the privacy to practice. No, Meg Giry would have mentioned it, or someone would have said something. Besides, they would never give a great tenor a dressing room here, so out of the way. Who could it be? No tenor on earth had such resonance, such incredible purity of sound --

No...tenor...on...earth.

What about Heaven?

The singing grew louder. It emanated from the mirror, the reflection of Christine's tiny window outside. Christine slowly walked toward the mirror, then knelt before she could talk herself out of it. Let this be true, let this be the Angel of Music and not some cruel joke.

The singer paused, and silence stretched out, short as a heartbeat and long as eternity. Then a Voice spoke, and lifted Christine's heart from the floor.

"Good evening, Christine Daae."