A/N: OK, everybody, if I don't get gratitude for this, I will be angry. I am risking a lot to bring this chapter to you. Flames are OK, but only flames that I can use.

Chapter One

My eyes shot open. Adelita was awake, and staring curiously at my face—my unmasked face.

But she didn't look afraid or repulsed at all.

"Adelita..." I whispered, just as I had Christine's name two years ago. She gave the mask back and I put it on.

"What happened?"

"A story, Adele? I think I promised you one the day you came."

She curled up in a tiny ball. "All right. A story."

I shut my eyes as I had learned to do at the gypsy camp. "Once upon a time, for that is how all good stories begin, there was born a boy to a noblewoman in Marseilles. He had a terrible infection of the skin which made the right half of his face terrible to look upon. His mother loathed him, but did not have the cruelty to abandon him. She kept him in the house, but out of her sight as much as was possible. Whenever he came into her sight, she would throw him his mask and send him away. The boy had no name, for his mother had given none to him. As the boy grew older, he learned to get up after the house was asleep and steal into the library. He taught himself to read and write, and read all the books in the house. He learned many things. He learned to design, to compose, speak many languages, and a wealth of other skills useful to a man, but above all else, he learned that there was happiness in the world. One day, when his mother had been cruel to him, he ran away to a gypsy camp that had been erected near the city. The gypsies were amazed by the boy's intelligence, for he was not quite seven years old. They also saw profit in the boy's deformity, for many people would pay good money to see such a novelty. They gave him a name, a place in their tribe and taught him in their customs and in many skills they professed in. The boy, now Erik, had a talent for ventriloquism, the conjuring of fire, and music. The tent he worked in became the most expensive in the camp.

"When the gypsies moved into Russia, the Shah of Persia sent an emissary to find Erik, for he had heard of his talent in architecture. Erik, now sixteen, agreed readily for the gypsies had taught him to love riches. He designed a maze of mirrors for the Shah, and won favor with the court for his wit. One sultana in particular had taken a liking to Erik, and he accompanied her to Punjab, where she lived. He tutored her in mathematics, physics, music, dance, and other things dark and secret.

"After several years, Erik felt restless. The gypsy life had instilled in him a desire for travel. Erik left the sultana and traveled across Asia and Europe to Paris. When he arrived in Paris, he received news that a new opera house was in the planning. He submitted a design to the manager, and his opera house was built. Secretly, Erik made a labyrinth beneath the opera house and into it and came to live in it. End of chapter one." I opened my eyes. Adele was staring up at me with her thumb in her mouth, something I had never known her to do.

"Can I hear chapter two?"

I sighed. "Not yet."

"Why not?" she pouted.

"It's a very sad chapter, Adele. I don't think you'd like it. Besides, it's time for your lesson."

"Can I do dance first?"

"Fine. The new one. Are you ready?"

She hopped off my lap and got into position as I went over to the piano. "Yes, she said."

"No, you're not. Point your toes." She did, and I began. She was a very good dancer, almost too good for me to give myself credit for teaching. She was tiny, graceful, and flexible, though the first probably wouldn't last. After dance, we worked on singing, which she liked and was good at, then flute, then mathematics. She had a terrible head for numbers, but she was only five.

I believe I have mentioned how time seems not to pass when you live in endless night, but, reader, you must bear with me, for it needs reiteration. One does not go to bed at two in the morning, one goes to bed when one is tired. One does not say, "Today is my twenty-fifth birthday," one says, "I am older." This being so, it was very strange to watch Adele grow up, since it was the first time in—twenty years? fifteen?—that there had been something to show me that time was passing other than the clock I kept hidden in the closet. She grew out of her old dresses, and I bought new ones, stealing into shops at night and leaving money on the counter. She got taller, but never passed five feet—short ballerinas are always best. She stayed very thin, and her hair grew very long and stayed very black. She liked to write songs, though I could rarely and barely sing them. They were almost always arias for sopranos, which I was not. They were quite good, though, when she sang them.

One day when Adelita was maybe fourteen I came back from across the island where I had been repairing my boat. Adele was sitting in my desk chair with my sword across her lap, muttering to herself. As I came closer, I recognized what she was muttering—Mercutio's dying speech in Romeo and Juliet.

"Adele," I said smiling, "would you like me to teach you to use that?"

She jumped. "Yes. Just don't kill me in the process. I know all the lines for it if you do, though."

I took a pair of stage epees I had never used out of a dusty closet. "Don't poke me in the eye," I warned her, giving her one. "This is a bit like ballet. It's a delicate art, and it has a rhythm to it. Stand like this, with your feet perpendicular to eachother." I demonstrated and she copied. "Bend your knees more, and point your sword in the general direction of my face, thus. You are in en garde, but you'll need practice. Show me the smallest target possible, your side. To advance upon you opponent, move your front foot first, like this, and don't stop halfway through and advance. Good. Try a retreat. Good. Now to lunge, you straighten your arm first…" (A/N: I fence. It's fun.)

Her first lesson was very long. I didn't stop until she made me retreat into the lake. We saluted eachother, laughing, and went swimming.

"You know, Papa," she said, floating on her back, "we're like Prospero and Miranda—from The Tempest, you know. The banished wizard and his daughter who has seen nothing but the tiny island they live on."

"I suppose we are," I agreed absently. I was thinking, as I often was. It was time I sent her to the opera house above us. She was old enough, and she shouldn't be chained to this island forever, with her beauty and talents. Yes, it was time. But the small amount of father in me wanted her to stay. Why shouldn't I send her? Well, she didn't know I was the Phantom. I had done little in that line of work since I had promised her I would stay one the island, but I did enough to be remembered. The new owners, three brothers sponsored by some count or other, had taken a bit of beating to bend to my will, so Adele would not hear good things about the Phantom. She was sure to be able to connect what she heard to me; it did not take a genius, even though she was almost one. But she would hear me out, because she had known nobody but me for nearly ten years.

Now, there was an interesting thought. The only human she knew and could remember was I. What would that do to her? She knew quite well that there were other people in the world, but she might assume that they were all like me. I looked at her. Her thin ballet dress was all but transparent when it was wet, and she didn't seem to notice. That was a frightening idea. She had no sense of modesty, or even privacy, and the Opera Populaire was full of boys who would give anything for a night with anyone as pretty as Adele. And she wouldn't understand that it was not a good thing. I would have to talk to her about that before I let her go. How, I was not sure. But it could wait. Until she was a proficient swords—woman, I would hold my tongue.

A/N: Next chapter IN PROGRESS. I promise this will never hit R. By the way Shakespeare is the best thing that ever happened to this great lubber, the world, which has prov'd a cockney. And I am absolutely sure that it is "I" because "I" is a predicate nominative, and pronouns used as such are always subject pronouns.