Epilogue: The End of the Ghost's Love Story
"Holy Angel, in Heaven blessed, my spirit longs with thee to rest!"
- Faust.
She broke the enduring silence.
"Go on, write your story, Monsieur."
"I beg your pardon?" he said, his uneasiness relenting slightly. Her voice contained something very strange indeed: reason. She was "sitting" on a stool before what must have at one time been her vanity table. The tabletop mirrors were cracked and covered in soot. Gaston rose from his corner seat and knelt beside her. She looked exactly as she had when she first appeared to him, dressed in white lace, hair free and wild. Even the same faint coalescence of light pooled around her. She looked, ironically, like an angel.
"You may write your novel on the 'strange affair,' if you wish," the Ghost said, adding sardonically, "You have my sanction. I ask only that you do not tell the whole truth. Mix fact and fiction."
"How?" He blinked. What could she possibly mean?
She shook her head in mocking exasperation. "I do not know; you could make my hair blonde, or change the managers' names ... make mon ange into a--a living corpse, if you will."
He nodded thoughtfully. Yes, he had some ideas of his own. Some Gothic horror touches that would, no doubt, obscure the tragic romance. He would respect her requests; the story would change.
"And you will not speak of me--my fate, will you?" She looked at him imploringly as he hesitated. She held his long-lost portfolio in her slender hands.
"I swore to you never to tell the secrets I know of the Angel in Hell," he answered solemnly.
She nodded, an indescribably heart-rending expression crossing her features, as she offered his old research files. "Merci, monsieur."
"Plaisir," he murmured, taking them, wanting no more than to kiss her hand, or show some other means of gratitude and reverence. But when he reached to take her hand, his fingers passed through hers like she was no more than a shadow. A deep melancholy welled up in him as he realised that they couldn't touch.
They never would.
He saw that she still wore the image of the slim plain gold ring on her finger. It glimmered.
Suddenly, she snapped her head toward the grand mirror, and sat completely still for several moments. Then, her face lit up, and she breathed, almost too softly for Gaston to make out in the silence, "I hear him..."
Gaston strained his mortal ears.
Silence.
"What? There's nothing, Mam'selle."
His comment went unnoticed as a beautiful smile curved her lovely lips, and pure love shone in her heavy-lashed eyes. "Monsieur Leroux, I can hear him—he is calling me! Mon ange, he-he's singing. For me!"
She rose, and sang fervently, "My love, I hear you: speak, I listen—stay by my side, don't leave me! Mon cher, my soul was weak, forgive me. I come to thee, my Angel..." The mirror began to glow with brilliant white light. Did he imagine it; or did he truly see a dark, cloaked figure on the other side, shrouded in glimmering white mist that extended his hands in yearning and welcome?
"Au revoir, Mademoiselle le Fantôme de l'Opéra," Gaston whispered, as he watched her glide blissfully through the solid glass.
And the mirror shattered into thousands of pieces.
Gaston sat at his desk, staring at the tiny object sitting beside his pen: a shard of silvered, transparent glass, shaped like a rose petal. Such an ordinary piece of rubbish, but it held such significance for him. His thoughts and emotions were raging like a typhoon. He hoped that, now, the Ghost was finally with her Angel, and they could sing, all by themselves, until they swooned away with delight.
He leaned back in his chair, attempting to calm the racing words in his head, and thought, Where to begin?
After several moments of extraordinary contemplation, he had it; he picked up his pen and wrote with a flourish:
"The Opera Ghost really existed."
The end of one story ... and the beginning of another.
I hope you enjoyed my little story...Thank you for reading!Please take the time to leave me one last review. It has been the longest and most-involved fic I've ever written. So far, of course! Dedicated by Henry and I to Nade, my most loyal reviewer. I may write another chapter in "Faire des Achats," but I think I am going to finish writing my "Nightingale" poem first off. I do have an E/C story in the early stages of development; keep an eye out for "A Perfect Cage."
