A week later, Gaston was strolling leisurely towards the market to pick up a few provisions. He had spent his time writing incessantly during the daylight hours, and bracing himself each evening for the dreams that he both dreaded and thrilled at seeing in his sleep. However, none came. His life was slowly becoming more and more like it had been before the night he spent in a corner chair in an abandoned dressing room of the Opera. Madame la Baronne had returned for her trunk, and the writer watched it go, feeling perturbed, as if the green eye was still staring at him, still silently pleading with him.
It was a beautiful spring day in Paris. The trees were all in full bloom, the air warm and comfortable, and the sun was glorious: Apollo's chariot high above in the Heavens. Moving easily, Gaston found his feet taking him through the Tuileries, where many Parisians were already walking, chattering, or perched on benches, fully taken by spring fever. He paused for a minute, shutting his eyes and raising his face to the suns warm rays.
Red, orange, and gold swirled madly behind his closed eyelids. He inhaled the sweet fragrance of the floral air, then opened his eyes again. He was disoriented; brightness and contrast shot to Hell. And in the peripheral whiteness, he made out a figure not a few metres from him. A woman with impeccable posture, dressed in black taffeta that rustled in the breeze. As his eyes readjusted to the light, he met her cool blue eyes.
He jerked forward, but she held up a gloved hand, and said calmly, "Go the Opéra."
"What?"
"Quickly. You must go." And she turned away briskly, just as she had in the theatre's foyer that first time he saw her.
"Madame Giry," Gaston called out. "Thank you."
Casting a glance over her shoulder, she only smiled at him; then, she vanished. Before his very eyes, her seemingly-solid form dissolved into the atmosphere.
As Gaston made his way into the brilliantly-lit foyer of the Opéra, he saw a group of burly-looking men carrying some heavy equipment. Hammers, chisels, shovels, and lanterns. Many, many lanterns. Most of the men ignored him, standing stoically as their leader conversed curtly with a familiar face.
Monsieur Gabion, the acting-manager, broke off a rambling sentence he was spouting off to the tall man with a large lantern in hand. The manager greeted Gaston amiably with, "Ah, bonjour, Monsieur Leroux! How was your stay in Canada?"
Gaston replied distractedly, "Very good, merci. But what is happening here?"
"We are just about to bury the old phonographic records in the catacombs of the opera house. It's a routine descent," Gabion said dismissively.
"The catacombs...How far down will you venture?" A journey deep down below! Surely, this was an opportunity not to be missed! The foreman's response was heard through a fog of excitement and fear.
"Just above the fifth cellar, monsieur. We are to expand the storage facilities there."
"May I accompany you?" Gaston asked politely, slipping his hand into his pocket. Hidden by the fabric, he pressed his fingertips against the smooth curves of a tiny object.
The leader of the group gave him a quick, doubtful once-over. But Gabion said gaily, "Monsieur Leroux here is a great journalist. Surely he had seen perils greater than a little basement! Let him go with you, Monsieur Auclair."
Auclair lifted a brow. "Very well."
"The phonographic records are to go right here."
Jean Auclair halted directly in front of a wall made of stone bricks. He held his map of the subterranean passages in one hand, and his large lantern in the other. Victor and Louis were carrying the crates of wax cylinders, and looked relieved in the flickering light to set down their burdens. Jean ordered the others to begin tearing a hole in the wall, where they would eventually stow the crates.
It had been a long and trying journey down to their destination. A few stumbled along the way, and an impenetrable sense of dread and gloom pervaded their senses. Perhaps it was the darkness. Perhaps it was the silence. Perhaps it was simply the feeling of being beneath the ground, at the level of thousands of the dead.
The party made its way down to the third cellar scenery store place, and through what seemed like an endlessly long and winding passage. All the while, the air grew closer, colder, and increasingly damp. They could smell the lake, and hear its gentle rushing. Jean's infallible sense of direction led them with relative ease to the wall where the group stood nervously.
Jean repeated the order to several of the men to pick up their sledgehammers and get to work on the wall.
He didn't notice when the reporter that had meeklytailed his men wandered off.
At first, Gaston thought it was just the ringing in his ears from the impact of the men's sledgehammers pounding against the stone walls. But as he concentrated, he realised there was a different rhythm to it, and he heard a tune.
It was music.
Spellbound, he moved away from the workers quietly, leaving behind their boistrous noise and irritating shouts. And the music reached him like a dream.
First he heard the man's tenor, singing distantly. The words were at first too faint to make out, but as the author moved along, they gradually increased in volume, until Gaston distinctively heard an echoing song, aching desperation tinting the melody.
Have you forgotten all I knew,
And all we had...?
You saw me mourning my love for you,
And touched my hand--
I knew you loved me then...
Resonating silence. For several moments, Gaston froze, panicked. He was hopelessly lost in the labyrinths, alone, out of earshot of any living man. He stood in the darkness, clutching his lantern. Then, her dulcet voice rang out like a bell on a clear night:
I look in the mirror and see your face
If I look deep enough...
Gaston followed the song down a slippery, narrow corridor, until his hands, brushing the stone wall, felt a man-sized opening, like a makeshift doorway. He sucked in his breath and pushed his way through the rather narrow gap in the stone walls. He held his breath and listened against his heartbeat for a song, or a bodiless voice. Nothing but the soft whispering shush of water. Cautiously, he lifted his dim lantern, and blinked as the abject darkness receded.
It was the cavern. He was in the huge grotto that had haunted his dreams. An alcove that may at one time have stored fantastic things, a shallow hollow that held the pipe organ. The bedroom, where a huge, metal swan-shaped bed still sat gracefully. Everything was coated in thick, grey dust. Fallen, tarnished candelabras, the broken mirrors, the organ, barely recognizable as a boxy shape with jutting pipes that had fallen down.
Shaking, Gaston tiptoed from his vantage point toward the swan bed. There, just as expected, was a corpse.
No, not truly a corpse... for all flesh had decayed. It was a skeleton that lay there upon the cold stone ground, undisturbed. The skull was normal-looking, save for the slightly-protruding right cheekbone; and the body lay half-curled, like a child taking a nap. The right arm was bent beneath the collapsed ribcage, but the left was stretched out--as if reaching out for something. Salvation. Honour. Retreating life. Memory. Hope.
Love.
Gaston slipped closer to the bones. It looked like an ordinary skeleton, but he knew better. He knew who had lain there dying, clinging to a spider's silk thread of hope.
His hand trembling violently, he held the gold ring tightly, pressing it into his palm, and knelt beside the bones. He felt tears of pity pricking his eyes. Under his breath, he whispered softly, "I'm sorry. I know she was supposed to do this. Believe me when I tell you that she wanted to. She still does..."
Without wanting to disturb the bones, he slipped the ring onto the forth finger of the left hand. He waited. He expected tremors to race through the ground, flashes of light, a cold wind, apparitions to rise from the darkness, even the skeleton itself to sit up and speak... But nothing happened. Only his own ragged breathing broke the stillness and silence. Almost disappointed, but deeply relieved, he sat back on his heels. Then, he bowed his head and shut his eyes, and offered an earnest prayer to whomever or whatever may be listening in the vast, dark waste of eternity.
Forgive him...and her.
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Author's Note: The song is adapted from "Taking Over Me" by Evanescence. Review please!
