Here's chapter five. I'm sorry I'm not posting the chapters in any select order. I usually just post them when I have free time and am in the mood (yes, I have very strange mood swings. One second I could be glued to the internet but then the next I wouldn't be able to believe I could do such a thing when I have wonderful books to read).

I'd like to give some thanks:

Mademoiselle Justicia: Thanks again for your reviewing! I love you for it! I'm glad you liked the Madame Giry part. She's not going away any time soon, has a rather large role in this story also.

Priestess of Anubis: Thanks for writing. Even if it's simple it still means a lot to me. I hope this chapter will satisfy you.

Enjoy!

MaskedDreamer

Chapter Five: Dance of Rebirth

"No, no, no!" Madame Giry wrapped her cane against the floor, making everybody turn towards her, even the chorus members who were just starting to retire for the day.

A week had gone by since Loralee's strange interaction with the so called "Phantom," if it even was the Phantom. She had come to realize that it was more and more likely for the mysterious man in a mask to be a stage hand who'd had a bit too much to drink and thought he'd have some fun with the newest Opera Populaire member. They had performed one opera, and although she was just a mere chorus member and no one barely noticed her, she still got a bouquet of flowers. It was from the Giry's and Loralee's heart went out to them. She even used her free time to make the best lemon cake she knew how to make in the kitchens after much arguing from the chief for them.

"I won't let you girls go until you, Mademoiselle August Wells, have perfected this move."

The little curly red headed girl blushed crimson and clumsily got up from where she had fallen on the floor. All the other members of the corps de ballet groaned and whispered unpleasant comments behind their hands about August who now did her dance with pure determination.

Loralee watched as August danced, and she felt a tingle through her bones and muscles. Suddenly, she stood up, a fierce urge of wanting to move coursing through her body. She drank in all the moves August was performing and looked around.

This won't do, Loralee thought, shaking her head. There's too many people. I'll surely make a fool of myself.

Quickly moving away from the stage and through the crowd of back stage, Loralee went into her room. She decided she'd follow her urge and go into her new favorite room of the Opera House and dance.

In her younger years, when she was about eight, Loralee had a great love of dancing around the countryside. Soon she was traveling to a nearby city to take dancing lessons with the more gifted dancers. She had danced, learned, and mastered every single step and technique at a rather young age. While dancing, she also took a joy in singing which seemed to come rather easily to her.

She had only stopped dancing 5 years ago when she met Hector Chaffee, or at least, when she figured out who Hector really was. He didn't like her dancing for some strange reason (but then again, he didn't really like her doing anything), and she would only stop after he twisted both her ankles when she protested. He promised he'd break both of them next time she ever moved in a way that hinted ballet around him again.

But tonight - a night with no Hector - Loralee would end that running record of non dancing and brush her fears away.

Anyway, no one would see her in the depths of the Opera House when most people are resting or going out to the market in their free time.

She stripped down into her under dress seeing she didn't have anything else to wear that allowed her to move free. Shuddering at the scars on her body, the bruises and minor cuts now gone, she realized she didn't have any ballet slippers or pointe shoes.

Figuring out she'd just have to snitch a pair from the costume room, she slipped on the heavy black cape, which was many sizes too big for her, and quietly slipped out of her room.

After about twenty minutes of waiting for the right moments, sly and stealthy moves, and hiding from many pairs of eyes, Loralee was racing down the corridors or the Opera house, all of them now familiar, with a pair of rather worn out, but still functional and fitting, pointe shoes.

The past week, besides the time she baked that lemon cake, Loralee had taken a great interest to wander the corridors, memorizing every bit of it she could. Soon it seemed she new the whole place by heart in the light or the darkness.

One room she had discovered while wandering was secluded off from the rest. It was rather big, about the size of the stage, and one side of it was lined with mirrors and a bar for ballet stretches and warm ups. Seeing that there was lots of dust all around and no marks what so ever in it, she figured out it was unknown to the rest of the Opera Populaire.

Loralee, finding it very comforting as if it was her home, had dusted it out and taken to singing in it, walking or sitting in it, or gazing and getting lost in the depths of the mirror. Sometimes the mirror would give her inspiration and she'd make up her own dance or song to preform in it's welcoming solitude.

Tonight she'd put the room to use in the proper way.

Immediately settling down in the middle of the room, Loralee started putting on the pointe shoes. As she did so, many good memories of living in her home town of Sligo, Ireland came back to her. She remembered the sun rises and sun sets that she woke up to and went to bed with everyday. She remembered sneaking about the land while everybody else was asleep and dancing in the tall grass. She remembered her fathers great stories and her mothers delicious stews. She remembered her older brothers playing with their friends out in the hills while caring for the dozens of sheep they owned.

Then she remembered Hector and her beautiful memory shattered. A stronger determination to dance coursed through her blood as she fought to shove the memory aside, but it would not budge. Loralee could clearly remember the sharp pain in her dainty ballerina ankles when she promised him that she would not dance again while lacing up her pointe shoes.

Now Loralee realized it's best if some promises are broken.

Standing up after finishing, she looked at herself in the mirror.

Her ballerina body form had been long gone and instead replaced by the unhealthy underweight girl with many scars of the past. Her body seemed to have shrunken, and her her waist had considerably skinned. Loralee's face had become unnaturally pale, but the days at the Opera Populaire were helping her come back to her normal old self. She knew that her old perfect image would never fully come back, though, and cursed the truth.

Starting with some basic warm ups, Loralee already felt the strains of not practicing for five years. None the less, she got up and practiced some leg movements on the bar. After she had gone through each step she new about once, she thought back to Mademoiselle August and the moves she was doing.

And off she went.

The rhythm of the dance was locked inside of her mind and she hit every beat perfectly. Every one of her jumps, twirls, and feet movement were correct (although a little shaky and rough) and her hands moved as if they were water. Now and then she caught glances of herself in the mirror and tutted because she would see how her feet were slightly off queue or her arms are more stiff than they should have been.

She finished the dance and practiced parts over again that she messed up on. Her toes were already throbbing, but instead of the throbbing in all her scars, it was a joyful and wonderful throbbing bringing Loralee pure bliss. A smile broke over her face as she finally realized how much she had missed dancing and how lucky she was to be doing it now.

Laughing out loud for joy, Loralee jumped up again. Ignoring the pain in her feet she set off to do the dance all through the late afternoon, supper, and evening, only retiring when she felt as if her legs and arms would fall off her body.

XxXxXxX

This pattern of doing chorus and then going to her "Freedom Room," as she now called it, happened for the next few weeks. Soon she had mastered and perfected every dance in the newest opera, Il Muto.

The only problem was that every day she would get more tired from hard nights of practicing. Meg noticed Loralee's drowsiness once as she stumbled over and almost fell down the stairs one day.

"Beth, what's wrong?"

"Hmm. . . ?" Loralee asked, raising her dreary eyes to Meg.

"What's wrong with you?"

Loralee looked taken aback. Meg rolled her eyes and sighed in frustration.

"Not that way, silly!" she said, making Loralee calm down. "It's just that every day you get more tired and tired. I'm asking why?"

"What? Oh, nothing. . . nothing's wrong with me."

Meg didn't look satisfied with the answer and Loralee just tried to look innocent but it didn't work.

"Beth, you know I'm your best friend, so you shouldn't be afraid to tell me anything."

"Thanks Meg, but I promise, nothing's wrong with me."

"I don't believe you," Meg said, eye brows drawn together as she looked away with a "humph!" of frustration.

"Then don't," Loralee replied rather too curtly than she would have liked it. Meg sent Loralee a glare and Loralee sighed, rubbing her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Meg, I'm just. . . I'm just tired. All right? I'm. . . I'm still getting the beat of things down."

"I want you to go to bed early tonight," Meg said suddenly, rounding on Loralee. Loralee stared at her blankly and a little surprised.

"But-"

"No 'buts,' Mademoiselle McLay," Meg said, a small smile appearing on her face. "You are going to bed early whether you like it or not."

"And how, may I ask Mademoiselle Giry, are you to make me?"

"Umm. . ."

Meg was at a clear loss. She obviously could not stay in Loralee's room for all night. She needed rest herself. Also, her mom would punish her for staying at a random chorus members room.

"See? You can't make sure I'll go to bed early," Loralee said. "But, just for you. . ." A smile suddenly grew on Meg's face. ". . . I might!"

The smile got wiped off just as quickly as it came.

"You are one stubborn girl, Beth," Meg sighed before parting with Loralee.

Loralee rushed to her room and after waiting a while for all the corps de ballet and chorus members to settle down, she stripped off her dress until she was only in her under dress and pulled out the pointe shoes. Then, slipping on the still mysterious black cloak, she went out of her room and into the now familiar shadows of the Opera House hallways.