As Adele had noted, the door that the Phantom had come out of wasn't supposed to lead anywhere. In our free hours, all of us had explored the old hallway and the treasures in its rooms. That door revealed only a tall but tiny, dispirited cloakroom. It held only a rack of ancient, musty coats that must have been left by old denizens of the Opera. Nobody ever came to claim them yet no one ever threw them away.
We were playing hide-and-seek in this old part of Opera about ten days before this evening. Adele was "It," I remember, and she was such a poor winner that we tried to make it as difficult as we could for her. We used what open rooms and large pieces of statuary there were to hide in and among, upstairs and down; this hallway by the old practice room was less traveled on rest days like today and so we wouldn't be disturbing anyone by playing games.
Unfortunately all the best spots were taken before I could get to them, so I had unwillingly chosen the cloakroom, sure I'd be the first to be found. I was about to duck through the coats when Lili had come barreling in, knocking me through them and against the back wall as there was barely room for me as it was. Or so I'd thought.
The solid back wall of the cloakroom, suddenly uncomfortably close, seemed to collapse behind me as I fell out and down onto a hard floor. Lili was unable to stop her forward motion and came falling out on top of me, digging my back and elbows even more painfully into what was undoubtedly a stone floor.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Rae, I didn't mean to – where are we?"
"That's a good question," I said. "One that I might be better able to answer if you'd remove your elbow from my rib."
"Oooh, sorry," said Lili again. She scrabbled up off me and helped me up. Fortunately nothing had been torn – I hated mending, though we had to do it all the time. We brushed ourselves off, and then we looked around.
Torches were lit in brackets above our heads, one on either side across from the wall hanging open before us. Through their light we could see the dim outlines of the coats within the cloakroom; could see that we had fallen into a long, narrow corridor that ran in both directions.
Our torches shed the only light near us. Far down the right side of the passageway was another torch glowing softly high up against the wall, and I could just see the faintness of another further beyond. Looking to the left, I saw about the same thing. Above us, torn cobwebs above me gently waving back and forth against the stone walls, though I knew not where this current of air came from. From a distant source an irregular drip of water fell into the quiet. We were hushed, taking in the unexpected sight; foremost in my mind was a little thrill of adventure mingled with a greater fear of the unknown.
I stared off into the dimness that ran between the torchlights, and it seemed then as if one long sigh came wafting down to me from the shadows, carrying with it a resigned sorrow that touched something akin to recognition within me. With it came an undercurrent of a winding melody, as if a musical scroll was unrolling itself toward me. Its hint of danger I mistook for allure.
"We have to explore this place," I breathed, not knowing I was going to say it aloud.
Lili stared at me as if I'd suddenly taken leave of my senses. I hadn't, I wanted to tell her; I was finding them. But it was too soon for even me to realize what had happened.
"Explore this dank corridor? We'll catch our death of cold! Besides, we should tell the others what we've found. None of them could know about this place or they'd have said something."
"I suppose you're right," I said slowly, shivering a little. Until she'd said so, I hadn't found it chilly at all. "But wouldn't it be better if we had something to tell?"
"What do you mean?" Lili said, crinkling her brow in an expression I knew well.
"Don't frown," I reminded her. "Sure, we've found a corridor. An empty corridor. You know as well as I that Leonie will go dashing down here and find out everything there is to tell the moment we let her know. Don't you want to find something for yourself, for once?"
"Maybe," Lili said, unwilling to concede anything that would encourage me. She brightened as she continued. "When Adele looks in here she'll see right away that there's a door in this wall, we just have to wait a little longer."
"That's why we're going to close the door," I said, just a bit more calmly than I felt.
"You must have hit your head on the stone floor!" exclaimed Lili. She began to edge inside the open wall. "I don't want to get trapped in here!"
Her voice echoed down the corridor and I hushed her, not knowing why it was imperative that we keep quiet. Already on edge, she did as I said, though her lips were set mutinously.
"I've been thinking of that," I said, though I hadn't known it until I said it. "All we have to do is find what made the door open on that side, and then on the side of this wall, and we can close it and know we can always get back."
"Who do you suggest is going to test that out?"
"I will," I sighed. "But first let's find it, shall we?"
We studied the opened wall from the side of the closet to see if we could find anything that had made it open. I thought I found it in a small indent near the bottom of the wall that didn't match the pattern, where my heel could easily have struck. This solution didn't match on the other side; neither of us could find anything that seemed to serve as a depression or a lever. Bravely I gave Lili one of the torches nearest us and made her go back through the wall while I pushed it closed from my side. If I couldn't find the mechanism on my side, she would be able to rescue me, or at any rate find the others.
After the door closed, a small hook depended out from the top of the wall. On Lili's side, she (with some danger to the coats) found that a protruding knot evidently pulled the wall closed.
It all seemed so easy to find that it was a wonder nobody ever had before. For a moment I fancied that the sighing air had formed a figure behind me that was leaning over my shoulder, guiding me to the secrets of the wall; certainly we had found them more easily than I would have imagined.
We experimented with pushing and pulling the wall open and closed a few times. Our way back assured, Lili came back out into the corridor with me. I saw that she was lugging two of the coats.
"I don't intend to expire from cold even if you do," she said, somewhat tartly. "Here, put this on."
I silently put the coat on, grateful for her brusqueness, for it meant that she was starting to relax into the adventure of it all.
"Well, which way should we go?" she asked after settling her coat about her.
"That way," I said, pointing towards the right, not entirely serendipitously. "And we can leave the torch here. There's plenty of light down the hall. We'll just go to the next light, and see where we are."
Lili looked at me with an unreadable expression, but acquiesced.
"I don't know why I'm going along with this," she muttered as we set off. There was just enough room to walk side by side, though the bulky coats made our gait ungainly.
I was wondering why I was going along with it, myself. I was not really the adventurous type like Leonie, or the forge-ahead, elbows out, bullheaded type like Sami. If Joseph Buquet said not to go into certain sections of town after a certain hour, I didn't tempt fate by going traipsing there blithely; if the wearily superstitious Carlotta decreed that no one should pass her on her left before a performance, I didn't tempt certain painful retribution by doing it; and if Madame Giry said to be at practice on time, I didn't tempt life by lingering on the way.
So why this?
I pondered this as we passed out of the last glowing remnants from the first torches and into a shadow like false dawn. I half-closed my eyes for a moment, the better to feel the silent tragedy in the air that was still winging down to me and, now that I was moving toward it, swirled in my wake. It was that call that was drawing me on, rushing cleanly through me and around me, neither demanding nor indifferent, but compelling all the same. For a moment I thought I heard the music in it again, a mirror's image of an echo, of fairy bells on a distant, forested hill. This was why I was so compelled. I reached to grasp it and it drew away.
"Watch your steps!" hissed Lili, as I stumbled against her.
"Sorry."
"That light seems awfully far away," she said then.
"We're almost there." We weren't, but I couldn't stop now. Lili's hand crept, cold, into mine.
I don't know why it didn't consciously occur to us before this that lighted torches meant that someone had to have passed this way before, and perhaps frequently; but then I was caught up in following the pure tones of the passageway, the sorrowful sigh, and Lili was concentrating on the distant light itself with all she was worth. I didn't notice that the floor was ever so slightly sloping downwards, and neither did she.
Despite myself, the chill and closeness of the air and the utter solitude were starting to affect me. The shadow between the torches had deepened to first an indistinct and then a pitch-black gloom; it seemed that we were walking forever to the light ahead of us when suddenly the first few radiant tendrils touched our eyes.
Lili rushed ahead into the circle of its glad light, hugging herself with relief. Then she stopped and stared at something on the floor. The very abruptness of her action and the stillness of her form made me feel more ill at ease than I had this entire journey.
I hurried forward and made to ask her what she was staring at, when she merely pointed at the floor ahead of us.
Footprints faint in the dust were leading away from us, illuminated by the torch in its bracket above. Fainter still, lying beneath them, I could see more footprints coming toward us. Both sets disappeared in the shadows beyond this light to a slight glimmer down the hall. I became aware of how the feeling in the air had changed to a watchful waiting.
I don't know how long we stood there, staring silently at the marks, knowing what they meant, not wanting to know what it meant for us.
"We're not the first persons here," Lili said finally, quietly.
"We knew that," I said. "The torches are lit, after all."
Lili shuddered. "Yes, but…oh, you must know it, Rae, the only other person who could have used this is the Opera Ghost!"
Opera Ghost, cried the echoes as they wheeled down the hall. I cringed and so did she.
I was not immune to the fear that the very name carried, but something about it didn't ring right with me. I followed the thought that came to me.
"If it's a ghost, it's not a person," I said. "And only a person would leave footprints."
"What do you know about ghosts?" Lili scoffed, angry in her fright.
"Nothing, and I don't particularly want to either. But every story we've heard doesn't mention anything about his feet!"
Lili barked a laugh despite herself, and I could see that she felt better because of it.
I followed this up, eager to gain an advantage.
"It could just as easily have been scene-shifters," I said robustly if not very convincingly in my own ears. "After all, the stage was near here."
"Scene-shifters, here? But there's a prop room off the stage! Why would they need to come down here?"
"Well, how should I know? Isn't there a spare prop room somewhere back there?" I waved vaguely behind me, meaning the old part of the Opera where we were playing. It seemed so far away now, that game of hide-and-seek.
"Maybe…"
"Or maybe it's just an old part of the Opera. It didn't all appear at once, you know," I said, rather pleased with myself for thinking of it.
"Maybe," said Lili again. "It's rather narrow, though." But she seemed to accept my words. I surreptitiously breathed a sigh of relief.
Then the seclusion of the corridor came back over her, and she shivered once more, and she said what I knew she'd say.
"We should go back, Rae."
I knew I had to find the right words. "I just want to see a little further. This corridor can't possibly go on much longer, if I have my bearings right, it would go right through the stage."
"It is lower, though, remember, we fell down as well as out."
"Not that low. I would think that it would have to curve, though; see the way that light up ahead shines as if it's filtered through a curtain? We're seeing only part of it, which would mean that it comes from a curve in the passage."
"You're clever enough to have your own salon, you are," Lili said, half in admiration, half in disgust. "Or are you just talking for the sake of talking?"
"Oh, I've been around, you know," I said loftily, to make her giggle again.
"I suppose if you really want to, we can go on. But why do you want to?"
"Didn't you hear the music?"
I knew my mistake before I even saw the stunned look complete its passing over her face. I should have listened to my instincts, which now reminded me that I alone had heard its majesty, its tattered sorrow; its enchantment.
"Never mind," I said. "I must have heard it from the stage." Never mind that the walls seemed thick enough not to transmit any sound from beyond the corridor.
"Of course," Lili said, looking at me askance. But she dropped it, and I was grateful.
We drifted on, then, and the sighing of the air returned to me, and me alone.
There was just enough light to see that there was indeed a curve to the corridor before we came into the shadow once more. I could feel Lili regretting her every step, especially now that I had as much as admitted to her that I must be slightly unhinged. I hoped it wasn't affecting our friendship past mending. I just needed to go on, to find the source of this sadness.
We noticed now how the corridor was slanting downwards; more than once we took a misstep and had to grab at each other for balance. The cold stones seemed to wrap around us with an indifference that felt sinister. I didn't want to think of it as a mausoleum, but I did anyway.
Lili kept pace with me, grim and silent; no happy remark would reconcile her to this now even if my font of quips hadn't suddenly dried up.
Just before all sight faded completely from us, the glimmer I had seen ahead became strong enough to see the dust motes lazily golden in the air. It was shining from behind the curve ahead, and our eagerness to reach it made us fail to realize then just how far down the corridor had been taking us.
We rounded the corner into a burst of golden light and saw – nothing. The corridor curved into a blank stone wall. The one valiant torch showed us the darkened age of the stone, the disturbed dust, the jagged cobwebs – and nothing else.
Because of the torch and the footprints, we knew that this could not be just an alcove. I also knew it because of the air shading into music, stronger now than before.
I didn't even bother to speak to Lili for her uncompromising stance was withholding a fearful scolding – or worse, disappointment in me as her friend for leading her to such a place. So I stepped forward, disregarding the cobwebs, and started feeling about the walls. I had to find something to prove to her that this wasn't just a fearful waste of time.
In vain I searched for the same kinds of levers and depressions that we'd found on our cloakroom wall; in vain I ran my fingers in the dirt and dust in the floor edging the wall.
With a long-suffering sigh, Lili finally bent to help me too. I was grateful but had enough sense not to mention it.
"I don't think we'll find anything," Lili said after awhile, straightening up. I eased my aching back as well and was staring disconsolately back out into the corridor when her sudden clutch at me brought my attention back to her. Her mouth was open in a silent shriek and she gestured with her free hand toward the wall in front of us.
A section of the wall was silently swinging open. We pressed back against the wall behind us, shuffling over a little so the opening wall wouldn't strike us. Blackness poured out from within the widening gap and we heard, petrified, the echo of a footstep in a steady, merciless tread. It came as if from down a well, rising up to meet us in our terror; with it came the darkness shot through with a gossamer glimmer of light.
The music poured out of the death-like gloom, turning painful in my veins, painful and oddly triumphant, and a moan spilled forth from my lips.
This was enough to jar us both into action. Lili grabbed my hand and we were away from the alcove and running as hard as we could back down the corridor. We somehow managed to keep from falling, though our coats impeded us sadly with the now-rising slope; the music chased us in vain, though, as we never looked back.
There was the second torch we had come to; there were the distant pair of torches finally becoming clearer, never so friendly as they were now. We were panting terribly, our breath coming raw-edged in our throats. We scrabbled at the closed wall before collecting our wits enough to find the mechanism and yank the door outward.
We piled out into the mass of coats, frantically turning to pull the wall shut, then we burst out into the hallway and slammed the cloakroom door shut. Fortunately, the hallway was empty. As we stood there against the door, choking a little on our breath, we could hear sounds of merriment from an upstairs room.
"We…he…he may be coming after us," panted Lili.
"We'll go upstairs straightaway, but we really have to catch our breath first or they'll ask questions," I said. "Ugh, I feel like I'm suffocating." We were still wearing our coats.
Afraid to reopen the closet door and hang them back up, we took them off and stuffed them behind a large, rather hideous bit of statuary that had never seen better days. Lili was having better luck with calming herself down but I felt a little light-headed. I leaned back against the cloakroom door.
"Rachelle, what are you doing?" she hissed at me, tugging me away.
I wasn't quite sure. For a moment I was oddly reluctant to move from the spot. Did I want him to come out and find me? But there, I couldn't know where he was intending to go. We must have passed other hidden doors in that passageway, or so I imagined.
"We mustn't say anything to anybody," I warned Lili, gripping her arm in turn.
"Fine, all right, just let go, you're hurting me," she squealed. I let her go, apologizing profusely.
A head appeared over the banister.
"There you are," exclaimed Liana. "Adele gave up long ago. Where did you all hide?"
"Oh, we kept moving around," I said truthfully.
"Well, come up, she's driving us distracted with her complaints. Better still, hide somewhere and let her find you."
We exchanged a glance. Adele was an even poorer loser.
"All right," I said with an exaggerated sigh. "Give us a few minutes and we'll hide near the doors to the Opera."
"Good," said Liana, and disappeared.
"Sorry," I said to Lili.
"That's all right, I need the extra time to compose myself. I don't know how you answered her so calmly!"
"I don't know either, but it's a good thing I did."
We ran off to find a ridiculous hiding place that Adele would swear she searched before.
