Yay! I am so glad that you all like my story! And don't fret, for I still have much to cover in this story. Well, here is chapter 16, enjoy! And don't forget to review, ya'll are my motivation!

Oh, and one more thing, just I little bit of clarification. Some of you were wondering why there was no one in the opera house except for Erik and why the opera closed down. Well, I based that part of my story on the ALW version, because the opera burned at teh end of the movie... so I made it so that they closed down the opera because of that and the opera ghost. Hope that helped and sorry for the confusion!

Chapter 16

It had been one year since that day when Christine agreed to let me live with the Phantom for two weeks. Never thinking that my mother would let me live with Erik for two weeks, I was quite surprised at her response. I did wonder at why she did choose this, but when I asked her, she only said that it was because he had already done a pretty good job of raising me and that he deserved somebody to live with him. This response did make some sense to me, but still… her answer to me living with Erik still wondered me.

For the past year, my two-week plan did not work out perfectly. For the first month, the idea was fine, but then my parents changed it to one-week with Erik and three weeks with them. At first this change did anger me, but eventually, I got used to it. I still continued my organ lessons with Erik and my mother taught me how to sew. Of course I did wonder why Erik never taught me, since he sewed all his own clothes, but I figured that him teaching me just never crossed his mind. Other than that, nothing else had changed over the past year, except that I was now sixteen.

Today I was on my way to Erik's. It was just the end of my three-week term with my parents, and I was ecstatic to get to see Erik again. As I got closer and closer to the Opera House, I noticed that something had changed in the appearance. Then when I was close enough to see it perfectly, I saw that there was construction going on. Wondering why in the world there would be any sort of construction going on here, I entered the Opera House.

My eyes widened in awe as I looked around me at the new interior. The inside was all refurnished and redecorated in its divine gold. I had never seen any place quite like this and this image far surpassed anything that I had ever dreamed it would be like.

I moved slowly through the room and eventually I made it down to the cellars. Everything down here still looked the same and I was relieved when I saw the familiar boat docked at the ramp. I got in and began the long path down to Erik's lair. As I neared the gate and saw inside, I noticed that Erik was quite busy. He was moving all over the place and reshuffling papers and moving different items.

"What are you doing?" I asked Erik as I walked over to him.

"I have lots… busy…opening…" he was not speaking in complete sentences and every new word confused me even more.

"Slow down Erik!" I exclaimed. "Now tell me, slowly, what's going on here?"

He looked at me, but his look was far off. "The Opera is reopening. A new owner bought it and they are starting the opera back up again."

"Oh my…" I said quietly. "How am I going to get down here? There will always be people up there and…"

"What!" Erik nearly yelled at me. "You are only worried about you? What am I going to do? What if they come back down here and look for me to make sure that I am gone… Or what if the new owner doesn't care about "the Phantom" and won't obey his orders…. Or…"

"Erik!" I said while shaking him. "Everything will be alright! No one will come down here. Even if they do suspect that you are down here, they are too afraid of you to look anyways!" Once I was sure that he had calmed down a bit, I continued on.

"Now, back to my situation. If you still want me to come down here, we are going to have to find some other way. For people will always be up there and they will wonder what I am doing and I cannot tell them that I am here to visit the Opera Ghost!" I took a breath and still continued on. "Now, do you have any ideas? You area an architect so maybe you can think of something."

"Yes, I do think that I have an idea." As he said this, he led me over to the back of his home and opened up a door in the floor. "Now," he explained to me, "if you follow these stairs, it leads to a tunnel. Once you go down the tunnel, you will take your first left and then you will see more stairs. Go up those stairs and they will take you up to an alleyway on the side of the Opera House." He gave me a hard look. "Do you understand?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Good. Now I want you to go in the route I just explained to you so that you can see where the tunnel comes up. Then take a look at your surroundings, maybe mark the door with something little and unnoticeable, so that you will be able to find it when you come to visit. Then once you have done that, come back down here and we can start our lessons for the day."

I nodded my head in understanding and went down the stairs.

The tunnel that I descended into was dark and stank. All around me it was pitch black, except for the light that extended form the torch I was holding. I was walking slowly, so that I would not trip in any of the cracks in the stone beneath my feet. Taking the first turn on my left, just like Erik told me to, I came to another set of stairs. I ascended up this flight and when I got to the top I ran into a wooden hatch door above me. Pushing it open, I came out in an alleyway on the side of the Opera House.

I took in my surroundings and then searched around me for something that I could mark it with. At first I wondered why no one had ever seen this door before, but when I looked at it against the wall, I figured that it did blend in pretty well. After a few minutes of searching, and still not finding a good marker, I just decided to tear a strip off of the bottom of my skirt and tie it onto the knob. Luckily, my skirt was brown and it too blended with the door and the wall. Standing back and looking at my piece of skirt, I was quite satisfied with myself.

Deciding that I should get back down to Erik, I descended back down the stairway and headed back to Erik's home.

"I did it," I said as I walked back into the room.

"Good, good," Erik replied, though I do not think that he completely heard me.

"Erik," I began, "You must not worry about the Opera reopening. They would not even think of opening it back up again if they did not truly believe that you were gone. So just do not even think about it. No one will see me enter or leave, and you should try to live as you normally would."

"Nothing is normal about the way I live!" Erik told me. "I live in a cellar underneath an old Opera House for God's sake!"

"I live down here for two weeks too, so I guess that I am not normal then, either?"

"Oh," Erik said with a swoosh of his hand, "you know that I did not mean it that way."

"Yes, I know. But honestly, Erik, do not worry about this, alright?"

"Alright," Erik said while clearing his throat.

"Then, now that that's settled, how about we start my lesson for the day?"

I went over to the organ and sat down, ready for my anticipated lesson. Soon Erik joined me and began teaching me one of his own songs that he had written. He said that he wrote it because of me, and that I was his inspiration. I was quite flattered by this and it was a well-written piece, as well, so I graciously accepted his offer of teaching me it.

As we sat there, we were quite unaware of a visitor that was approaching my skirt scrap and began pulling it gently, only to reveal a door to a world unknown to the outside.