Chapter Two
"Imaginary Opera"
Claire sat in the drawing room with father, who was napping. She often spent hours like this in silence watching father snore. She hummed to herself absentmindedly as she played with the folds of her dress. She fiddled with the black fabric, running her hand over it then tangling in it. She bunched it up then let it go only to bunch it up again. After she had tired of her dress she began playing with her hair, curling her dark locks around her fingers. Suddenly a thick and icy chill filled the air snuffing out the candles on the walls. And then a presence dark as night clouded the room. "Who is there?" whispered Claire as father shivered in his sleep. No reply came only a melody carried on an angelic voice but no words adorned it. The wordless song seemed to make Claire's eyes heavy and her soundings to blur into darkness. A gray mist rose up around her muddying and slowing her thoughts. She watching through thick lidded eyes as a shadowy shape appeared before her and words began to adore the once wordless song.
"Lonely child
So lost
So empty
Yearning for true beauty"
Came a shadowy, haunting, and yet beautiful and seductive voice.
"Who are you?" Asked Claire the words seeming to come slowly.
"Too long have you been cold
Without a fire
To set your soul alight"
Answered the figure reaching out a hand to her.
And even as Claire raised her hand to fall in this Dark Angel's she asked once more, "Who are you?" Her hand was so close to his, she could feel the heat from him, when—
"Claire! Claire, wake up!"
Claire found herself being roughly shaken by the nurse. Her mind cleared and she was in the drawing room once again. Father was awake and looking worried in his wheelchair.
"I'm alright." Said Claire breaking free of the nurse. She stood shakily and made for the door.
"Are you sure?" Came father's aged voice.
"I am fine. Just tired."
"But you were talking in your sleep, miss." Scuffed the nurse.
"Was I?" Asked Claire trying to sound natural. "In any case, I'm going for a walk."
"Not long?" Inquired father.
"No, just for air." Said Claire and on her way out heard the nurse murmur,
"Just for air? In the middle of winter, likely story."
Claire ignored this wanting to get outside. She fetched her cape and almost ran out of the house. The dream she had had began to fill her mind again as she walked through the snowy streets of Paris. She had the strangest feeling that she had had the dream before, that Angel or man or Phantom whatever it was seemed familiar. She tried to get the image out of her mind but could not. She needed a distraction.
Father had never let Claire take music lessons or go to the Grand Opera Houses; he wouldn't even permit her singing around him. But his efforts only made Claire more obsessive with her music. And so on her walk that evening she decided to visit the old Opera House, L'Opera Populaire. It was run down but still a site to be seen. She entered through a back door (she knew the place like the back of her hand) and took several passage ways and went up a few stairwells until she came to the grand tier that was lined with the Boxes overlooking the old stage. The Opera House was bear now (and held the scars of being ravaged by fire many years before), all of it's masterpieces of props and such and been auctioned away, but it was still beautiful in Claire's eyes. She found her way to a Box, Box Five it was, and sat down imagining it was just before the rise of the curtain on an Opera, maybe Faust. She could almost hear the music beginning to play as the crowd hushed into silence. She lost herself in her imaginary Opera for how long she did not know she had even begun to sing as if she was the diva in the lead role. When she finally came to herself and remembered that she should have been home long ago she jumped up and ran from the Opera House.