What a strange little girl, Raoul thought. She might be dangerous.
The young masked woman known to him only as Eris had taken him to what he imagined was several feet below the Opera House. It was disgustingly slimy, a condition Raoul rarely saw. There were several candelabras on the walls, which illuminated a filthy, damp corridor and the eerie white mask that made her look like a ghostly nymph.
"Pick up the pace, mon chere!" Eris whispered. Raoul almost shivered at the endearment. Eris noticed, and chuckled at his discomfort.
"Why am I coming with you?" Raoul asked aloud, but mostly to himself.
"Sheer curiosity, darling." Eris said, clasping his hand. Oddly enough, Raoul did not immediately rip his hand away from her frosty grasp. What are you doing? This girl is not only young, but dangerous too! Raoul thought furiously. And yet he couldn't seem to tear his hand away. Her grip was exceptionally powerful, stronger than any woman's Raoul had ever known. He realized with a start that she had intertwined her fingers with his.
"I am such a little soubrette, am I not?" Eris laughed. "The only difference is that - " Eris stopped to unlatch what appeared to be a door. She stepped through, and Raoul followed her. " – I am subservient to no one."
Raoul furrowed his eyes. "You are a woman, and that makes you subservient." Eris spun around, and gave him an icy black stare. She tore her hand away, and placed her face so near to his that he could feel her hot breath on his neck.
"I imagine that I would be subservient above my humble home. I see what happens to young women. But you see, dear Raoul, below the ground I am the master of life and death, and you would do well to remember that. Below the Operahouse, men whimper in fear before my judgment. And if I am not treated like an equal in my own home, you will join their ranks."
Raoul suddenly realized with a jolt of horror why the young woman had brought him down to this wretched place. She means to kill me. She will drown me, or poison my food, or some other ghastly method of murder…I must somehow escape.
Eris kept her distance from Raoul, turning back once in awhile to scowl at him. Eventually, they reached what appeared to be an opaque pane of glass. Eris grabbed a latch on the pane, and pulled it open, revealing a small doorway covered with thick red curtains. She pulled him through the curtains, and they were in a large flooded cave that was lit with a thousand candles. An enormous portcullis sealed what appeared to be the only way out. There was an enormous organ on one side, crowded with papers and wells of ink. Most of the cave was covered in sheet music and drawings of a young woman with long brown hair, but a smaller part of the cave was dedicated to something else entirely.
It was hung with many brightly colored silken scarves, and surrounded by enormous jars of paint. In the center was an easel, with a half-finished painting on it of two women in an unspeakable position. Stacked beside it were many more canvases, some of which were hanging on the wall. Although the paintings were varied in the subject matter, they were all similar in 2 aspects. The first was that they were dark, very dark. Each one was morbid, sinister, desperate even. The second was that they were unspeakably sensual. Something about the way the blood fell to the ground, the curl of the ivy on the fence, even the girl's expression with a knife in her chest seemed to speak of hot, sweaty nights and the sounds of passion.
Raoul looked at Eris, and decided nobody else could possibly paint such things, and so eloquently. She herself was dark and sensual, he mused.
Do not think such things. She is a child, a confused child, Raoul thought wildly. Do not forget, she wants to kill you.
His thoughts were interrupted by Eris taking his shoulders and whispering in his ear. He bit back the involuntary groan that almost escaped his throat, horrified.
"You're beautiful. Pose for me," she purred. Eris released him, and darted to the easel. She removed the painting of the women, and placed a blank one in its place. She turned to Raoul, gesturing for him to come closer. Raoul raised one eyebrow, but complied.
"You want me to…pose?" Raoul asked, somewhat skeptical.
"You're right, yes, yes…you would only look silly posing, just sit…" Eris muttered, and she pulled out a luxurious red armchair. "Sit! Sit and I shall paint you!" she said, her voice growing in volume a little. He obediently sank down into the chair, and Eris immediately jabbed her brush into a jar of light beige paint.
Raoul watched her intently as she painted. It was as if she was a different person. She was no longer the arrogant, dominant little girl she had been a moment ago. Her eyes glowed feverishly, and she painted so fast it looked as if the paint was seeping out of the canvas itself.
He could make out his face taking shape, boyish and with short hair. It looked like him, and yet it did not. The acrylic Raoul had the same qualities as the flesh-and-blood Raoul, but the look in his eyes was strange and foreign. She was adding the same spirit she had added to the other paintings.
"Yes, yes…" murmured Eris. "Perfect shading, just perfect…"
Raoul turned his face away from Eris, and looked instead at her table filled with pots of paint. She seemed to have every hue in the rainbow. But one was missing; there was no red…
An indeterminate amount of time passed. Raoul watched Eris as she slowed suddenly and began to meticulously detail each little hair, every grain of the leather. He looked to the large organ on the other side of the cave, and wondered if Eris played music as well. Perhaps she lived with someone else who did…but who else would inhabit such a cold, damp place?
"There! It is complete!" Eris cried suddenly, pulling the canvas off with a flourish. She twirled it around in barely restrained glee. "Look! Look, Vicomte!" Raoul looked back to Eris, who held the painting up for him to see. It was an amazingly lifelike picture. He was reminded strongly of looking in the mirror.
"It's lovely, lovely. So simple, so complex, yes…" Eris rambled.
"Mademoiselle?" Raoul asked. Eris seemed to snap out of her passionate state at the sound of Raoul's voice, and reverted to the calm, chilling demeanor she had used earlier.
"Yes?"
"May I…may I see more of these paintings?" he asked hesitantly. Eris raised an eyebrow, and ran her hand over the canvases stacked against her easel.
"You want to…see them?" she asked in confusion.
"Yes." Raoul responded, puzzled as to her hesitation. For a moment, Eris looked horrified and confused. She stepped away from him, and backed up into the now-blank easel. Then, she straightened up and cleared her throat.
"Of course." She reached for the heavy stack of canvases, and was surprisingly able to lift the lot of them without buckling. She placed them in Raoul's lap, then turned away from him and slunk into one of the caverns.
"No! Stay out!" Madame Giry shouted to the screaming crowd outside Christine's dressing room. She turned to the young ingénue.
"Well done, Christine. You sang wonderfully tonight." The ballet instructor turned away, taking a rose from the table. It was red, with a black satin ribbon tied around it. Christine recognized the rose, though only faintly. When she was very young, a teenaged La Carlotta Giudicelli had received one after her first starring role in an opera. But it was only a faded memory.
"It is pleased with you." Madame Giry said. Christine raised an eyebrow.
"It…?" she asked questioningly. Madame Giry looked at her, surprised.
"The Opera Ghost, Christine. It enjoyed your performance tonight. It is good for you to stay in its good graces, dear, for it is a dangerous being…"
"I did not think you were a superstitious woman, Madame Giry." Christine said, trying to make her voice lighthearted. But she could not deny the sense of fear that pervaded the operahouse, nor the notes that came to the manager demanding money, or the mysterious and frequent deaths of stagehands and the brats of the ballet. Deep in her mind, she knew that Madame Giry knew what she spoke of.
"I suggest you go to bed, Christine." Madame Giry said quietly, handing Christine the rose. She nodded, and Madame Giry left the room.
She sank down onto the chair in front of her vanity, her mind somewhere else entirely. Meg hadn't believed her when she told her about her angel. Christine admitted to herself that her story was far-fetched, but what else could explain the voice she heard in her head?
Christine sighed. Maybe she really was insane. She picked up her hairbrush, and began to attempt to straighten her thick, curly locks.
She did not hear someone turning the key in the lock and removing it from her door.
"Bloody curls…" Christine muttered, slightly surprised at her own use of profanity.
"Mademoiselle, your hair could never be more ravishing than it is now," came a voice out of nowhere that seemed right next to her ear. Christine blushed furiously. She was quite used to her Angel speaking compliments to her, but she didn't believe any of them to be true.
"I did do good tonight, didn't I, Angel?" she asked nobody.
"You did wonderfully. The angels wept tonight," nobody replied. Christine turned a brighter shade of red, if it was possible. Then, she remembered what she had been thinking about before he had arrived.
"Angel?"
"Hmm?"
"Are you real? Am I imagining all of this?" she asked slowly. Christine heard a deep laugh.
"I am quite real, Christine," the voice said. Christine swallowed the lump that had just formed in her throat.
"Show me?" Christine asked. There was an uncomfortable silence between them.
"Show you?" the voice asked.
"I want to see the musical genius who taught me to sing like this." Christine said, voice wavering. "Please."
The voice chuckled darkly.
"Flattering child, you shall know meSee why in shadow I hide
Look at your face in the mirror
I am there inside!"
Christine stood, and looked in the mirror. Suddenly, a figure appeared, his head just above her own. He was very tall and thin, with black hair and glowing yellow eyes. He was dressed entirely in black, except for a stark white mask that covered half of his face.
She stepped toward the mirror, putting a hand out to the mirror, touching it.
"Angel of music
Guide and guardian
Grant to me your glory
Angel of music
Hide no longer
Come to me strange angel!" she sang. The angel's voice dropped.
"I am your angel of music
Come to me, angel of music…" he sang.
To Christine's surprise, her hand went right through the mirror.
"I am your angel of music
Come to me, angel of music…"
She took his outstretched hand, her mind in a haze.
What the hell am I doing? Erik thought wildly.