Author's Note: To Aislin of the Shadows, Alicia Corbinwood, Angelus Musici, Baffled Seraph, convoitez, ElfLover, enigmatic mystery, flamingices, galabalesh, Han Futsu Anti Normal, Hikishianara, Jaina Kenobi, Lady Lorax, Lady Viridis, LejindaryBunny, lor, Masked Phantom. MindGame, Misty Breyer, Moon Avenger, Nade-Naberrie, notesinred, Patronus99, Phantom of Les Miserables, Pickledishkiller, Ravensmyst, rio, sharaku, StitchGrl, and Vix17... you guys make me incredibly happy. I'm sorry for the delay in updating; I've been getting sidetracked by pretty Québecois singers. Eek!


How to Be an Opera Ghost

Part Twelve: "Watch"


If Isabelle was going to be completely honest with herself, she would admit that she was a little scared. More than a little scared, in fact. Quite a bit scared.

But Isabelle had no intention of being completely honest with herself. So when she went home that night and found that her attempts to stop herself from shaking were unsuccessful, she blamed it not on fear, but on sheer annoyance. She was annoyed with the ghost, of course – the real ghost – for trying to frighten her. How dare he, after all the work she had put into restoring his reputation?

Even more than that, though, she was annoyed with herself. At the time, using Christine Daaé's dressing room had seemed a stroke of sheer brilliance; but in retrospect, Isabelle could see exactly what had been wrong with the idea. Moreover, she couldn't understand why she hadn't seen it before. She'd read Meg's letters. She knew that Christine had first known the ghost as the "Angel of Music," and that he had first spoken to her while she was in her dressing-room.

Therefore, shouldn't it be logical that he would have an established method of communicating with whoever happened to be in the dressing-room at any given time? And that, because Christine had been there, he might pay that particular room a little bit more attention than the others? And that there might be the smallest chance that when Isabelle showed up uninvited in the room that had been unused since Christine had left, he might have taken offense?

Hindsight made the answers to all of these questions painfully obvious.

So when she decided to haunt Meg's next solo rehearsal on the following evening, Isabelle made plans, in the most logical manner she could think of, to avoid another confrontation: she would simply find another dressing-room.

But whatever stroke of luck had left Christine's dressing-room door unlocked the previous night was evidently not going to be repeated. Tonight, nothing was open except the dancers' room, which was out of the question since Meg would be using it. Isabelle even ventured into the corridor where the men's dressing-rooms were. She took a cursory look around to make sure that nobody was there, and then she tried the nearest doorknob, only to find it locked. So was the next – and the one after, and the one after that.

This was not how she'd hoped things would go.

Looking up and down the corridor in disgust, Isabelle finally caught sight of another door that might prove worthy of trying. It wouldn't be as nice as a real dressing-room, of course, but it would do in a pinch. And this, Isabelle decided, probably qualified as a pinch.

To her great relief, she found the door unlocked, and she stepped quietly into the small broom closet and began to change. And as she did so, she found herself enjoying this tiny space even more than she'd enjoyed the dressing room. Broom closets, after all, featured in nearly every story she'd ever heard – every story that involved any kind of intrigue, anyway. Broom closets were where you went if you wanted to kiss your lover without anyone seeing. They were a place to hide if you didn't want to be caught by the police, or by your parents, or by anyone else who might have cause to chase you.

Isabelle had never used one herself, but somehow the presence of the broom closet made the whole experience seem even more illicit than it already was.

Five minutes later, feeling thoroughly ghostly, Isabelle cautiously opened the closet door. She looked right, then left, and after making certain that the corridor was still empty, she crept out and headed for the theatre.

As she'd somehow expected, the door to Box Five was closed and locked – and this time, there wasn't even a well-placed maid to help her gain entrance. She tried a few of the other boxes, but nobody had been remiss in their duties tonight; everything was properly locked, which was very annoying indeed.

But while it was annoying, it meant very little in the grand scheme of things – the grand scheme, of course, being Isabelle's intention to haunt Meg Giry. Meg had a rehearsal in the theatre, which meant the main entrance to the theatre would be open, which in turn meant that even if Isabelle couldn't sneak into one of the boxes, she could at very least sneak in through the back of the house.

So, after ascertaining that nobody was around to see her go in, she made her way into the stalls, chose a shadowed seat in the back corner, and waited for Meg to arrive.

Madame arrived first, five minutes early – and then came Meg, five minutes late and in a terrible frenzy. Madame was waiting for her on the stage, wearing a pointedly impatient look that Isabelle knew far too well, and Meg apologized for at least two minutes straight before she actually calmed down enough to concentrate on her dance. Just like Meg, Isabelle thought to herself with a smile. Even when there was nobody around to appreciate her dramatics, she still walked the fine line between earnestness and hysteria.

But while she danced, Meg was a different creature entirely. Certainly, Isabelle had seen her dance before, but only because Meg was the row leader and Isabelle had to watch her. She had always been too focused on her own movements to pay proper attention to Meg's. But now that she could watch, unseen and unknown, she found herself intrigued. No wonder Meg had been promoted to row leader at such a young age! Her arms moved with a weightless grace; her turns were flawless; and she carried herself with a measure of poise that most seventeen year old girls could not dream of achieving.

Isabelle, who was to turn twenty in little more than a month, could easily have been jealous of Meg's talent – and even as she sat there watching, she was aware that she probably ought to be. But instead, she just found herself staring in wonder at how such grace could emanate from the little Meg Giry that she knew. This was the same Meg Giry that giggled over the latest gossip with the rest of the corps de ballet, was it not? The same Meg who had gotten so drunk that she couldn't tell Isabelle from the real opera ghost? The same Meg who had kissed her…?

Feeling a flush rising to her cheeks, Isabelle shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Meg stopped dancing at a word from Madame, nodded her head as the instructor gave her a note, and said something in return. Isabelle was struck with the urge to move closer in order to hear what she was saying, but held herself in check. She was the ghost tonight, not Isabelle. She could not give her presence away – not when Madame was there!

Madame said something in return, and Meg laughed: a loud, tinkling laugh that made Isabelle grip the seat in front of her so as to keep herself from moving. Oh, this would not do. She couldn't stay here any longer.

As quietly as she could, Isabelle sneaked back out of the theatre and toward the dressing-rooms. She debated changing her clothes and leaving for the night, but then she paused. Couldn't she wait just a little while? Couldn't she hide in Meg's dressing-room until the rehearsal was over, and take the chance that Meg might think again that she was Erik? Or take the chance that Meg might not see her at all?

Before she could make up her mind, Isabelle's feet made the decision for her. In less than two minutes she was standing outside the dancers' dressing-room, staring at the door as if wondering how it got there. She reached a hand out to open the door – but before she could, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Whirling around to see what it was, she found herself face to face with something that nearly made her scream out loud.

A mirror image of herself, standing no less than ten feet away.

A mirror image that was at least six inches taller than she – and much thinner – and unmistakably male.

"You," she began, and tripped over the word, "you weren't here a second ago."

He inclined his head ever so slightly to one side. "Wasn't I?" he said. His voice, the same unearthly beautiful voice she'd heard the night before, was crystal clear now that he stood before her without walls between them.

"Er," she said lamely, "no?"