OK, darlings, I've gota warn you about this chapter. (No, it's not a NC-17 warning. Yeesh, give me a little credit here.) The warning is that this chapter skips several years ahead into the story. I have some ideas about the plot line for the time span during those years, but it's not essential to the story as a whole, and there is still a lot of the story that I've got left to write. Also, that part of the story is the least developed, I'm not quite sure how to write it, and it's not incredibly important in the grand scheme of things. Mostly, I want to get on to the interesting part of the story. (Don't tell me that you can't wait for things to get exciting too!) I think that Leah and Eric do a decent job of explaining what went on during those missing years, so I'll let them have at it.

Oh, and don't worry, you'll find out what happened with Eric and Dr. Giry … eventually! I shall infect you all with ants in your pants! Muahaha!

(Cackles with maniacal glee in anticipation of the success of her ongoing evil scheme: Taking over the world! …. Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking? I think so Brain, but what would we do with the monkeys when we're done? … whoops, wrong evil plan…)

Um, and now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

This chapter is dedicated to JoaniePonyTail and the gilled girl wonders, Fish and Kipper. Keep your eyes peeled for cameos...

Chapter Forty Five: Lips and Wings and Secret Things, P.1

Leah

The woman was barmy as a bat.

Despite the fact that it was late July, Mme. Bygler insisted that we leave the window shut. After the first summer of this unrelenting, suffocating heat, I had determined that my supervisor was in fact 'cracked as a crawfish'.

One might think that I would be used to the annual evil of three months spent in the oppressive humidity of the costume department. After all, one might recall that having turned twenty five a few months ago, this would be my ninth year under her beady, squinting eye. Therefore, one might surmise that I had grown used to this yearly form of torture.

One might also belong in la maison de fous.

The years spent under my wizened taskmistress had only further confirmed my suspicions of her lunacy and reinforced my dislike of any thing involving a needle and thread. My recent efforts on the costumes for the latest upcoming production had done nothing to improve these opinions.

My back ached from spending the last few days bending over the cutting table, and the muscles in my neck were stiff from recent hours of concentration on my tiny stitches. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck, tingling and causing my high necked blouse to itch fiercely. The thin, rough cloth chaffed my skin in the most uncomfortable manner, causing me to shift in my hard, wooden seat. On days like this, I sometimes secretly wished for the expensive, silky garments that had once filled my wardrobe.

After a few seasons of living at the opera, the clothing that my Abuela had given me had slowly worn out. Dresses became frayed and stained, and most had been discarded by my twentieth birthday. I had grown out of nearly all of my things. My height had never increased, much to my chagrin, and I remained a slight five foot five inches. Though I had never acquired the fashionable ideal of a woman's voluptuous curves, my chest and hips had expanded as I had grown.

As a girl, I had wished for such maidenly assets, but now they were merely a bother, an extra several pounds to be constrained by my constantly worn out, natty corsets. I rarely had the money to replace the things, so they were threadbare affairs a great deal of the time. My clothing was no longer au courant or lavish, for instead of frequenting my Abuela's modistes, I now obtained my things from second hand shops or made them myself.

It had taken several years for me to make peace with my new life. I was not truly poor, but I was certainly not rich either. My salary was not excessive by any means. It was enough to support me if I was frugal, and there was usually enough left at the end of the month to put a little something away in a small account that I had opened for myself.

The account that my family had left for me was something I occasionally thought about, but the thought was always dismissed as soon as it arose. It was filthy, tainted by the fact that those traitors had tried to buy my forgiveness. In my eyes, Henry was the only family I had left, for Mama and my Abuelos had been dead to me since the day they left me behind. They had forsaken their promise to always be there for me. Like the little jewels that lay hidden somewhere in their dusty box, the bribe they had left me was as good as blood money. I would not touch it.

I sometimes found myself secretly longing for the life that I had so foolishly left behind me all those years ago. What a dense little goose I had been, believing that some far fetched dream could ever come true! I had left the safety of my home, the love of my family, and the comfort of my title, and all for what?

To sit in a stuffy little room for hours on end, trapped with a lunatic who had the body warmth of a reptile, three more hours of mind-numbing needle work, and a skull-splitting migraine.

That was my hard won prize. That was all that I could ever hope for. This was the dream that I had once stupidly claimed could take the place of husband in my life. Those ignorantly uttered words had unintentionally become a self-fulfilling prophecy over the years. After the disastrous Philippe incident, few men had been part of my life.

Apparently the Comte, being the thoughtful bloke that he was, had let word out that I my interests did not lean in the general direction that many of his peers might otherwise assume.

I had not known at the time whether to be grateful or furious, but I knew now that I ought to have been the latter. Only a handful of men had sought me out after that night, and all but Señor had only been skittish boys who were too timid to find more interested partners. After a few dull evenings in my presence, I had bolstered their courage enough enough for them to seek out other partners.

Even he had lost his fiery interest in me after a few months. For nearly nine years, to the day, our relationship had only consisted of occasional sparing at a fencing hall or the rare dinner at a quiet restaurant. His kisses had become chaste, then nearly non-existent. At the same time, I often wondered about the state of his sanity.

That is not to say that I believed him insane for not caring for me, but rather that his personality took a strange turn about four months after we began to see one another. He remained suave and gentile, even when distant, but grew almost … morbid as the years went on.

Subtle changes in his sense of humor, and the fact that he would sometimes talk to himself when he thought I was not listening disturbed me at first. He became obsessed with death, making inappropriate and morbid comments at the worst times. He even purchased black-lined mortuary paper to use as stationary.

His odd habits had taken a little while to get used to, but I had slowly learned to accept them. I do believe that I would have accepted it if he took a liking to murder, for I desperately clung to the last shreds of male affection that I was ever likely to know. I was not growing any younger, and it was rare for a woman to marry at my age. Beth, Hortense, Amanda, and Alana had all said their vows years ago, so even now I was still determined not to ever loose Señor entirely. Yet I had accepted my fate.

By the time I turned eighteen, I knew that no man would ever take me for a wife.

I knew that God would be the only suitor that I would ever have.

That thought was the only one to give me some measure of comfort.

I had fought so valiantly with my inner thoughts, battling to keep that hope alive. At first, I had denied the obvious truth that men simply found me unattractive. Then I had raged against the thought of ending up as a lonely old spinster. Marriage was a woman's purpose in life, and motherhood her only real goal. Those roles were the keys to the very definition of womanhood.

Something deep within me had broken on the day when I had finally admitted defeat and given up hope of ever wearing a little band on my finger.

There had been a short few weeks the year I turned twenty two, when I had harbored an unspoken hope that Joseph might have noticed me. In his usual friendly manner, he had paid me an offhanded compliment and I had interpreted it to mean more than it should have.

During that wonderful little respite from reality, I had often dreamed of the simple silver wedding band that he might present to me, knowing that he could not afford gold or diamonds. When he learned of my delusion, he had made it clear that friendship was the extent of our relationship, and the last vestiges of female hope guttered out of my soul. I eventually learned to accept that friendship, and we had both chosen to forget my foolishness.

Fool was an excellent description of my life as a whole. I had been a perfect little ass; running away from all that God had given me to 'chase my dream'. How I wished that I had not left my home, my family!

"If wishes were wings, you'd be flying, girl." Came the familiar sound of Mme. Giry's exasperated voice from the corners of my memory. The old expression was one of her favorites, and though I was no longer a part of the corps, her reprimands and stiff advice were apparently capable of transcending any boundary.

The affection of the Giry clan had been the one assurance in my youth. Despite all that now separated me from them, Madame, Monsieur, Meg, and Beth had never ceased to care for me and had never left me lonely. True, Mme. Giry was still as cool and reserved as she had been when I was a member of the corps, and Tio Giry had never been around a great deal, but I knew that it was simply their way. Besides, the girls were still like surrogate sisters for me. Meg, Beth, Alana, Amanda, and Hortense still included me in their lives and their nightly conversations, and I spent every morning in the comforting presences of Beth and God, high above a sleeping Paris.

I sighed with relief when the last hours of my work were over at last. Submitting my finished work to Mme. Bygler, I paid no attention to her as she scrutinized my mistakes in a voice that was loud enough to enlighten the entire room. Though she was ancient and shrunken, the woman still had a set of lungs. She finally ceased her noisemaking, and as she made another inspective circuit of the five other girls that were still hard at work, I glared at her back and cursed her softly before rushing out the door.

When I was younger, I would never have dreamed of actually doing such an impolite, tactless thing. (Well, I may have dreamed about it just a little, but dreaming and doing are two different things.) Perhaps I was becoming pessimistic. Beth had expressed concerns about my attitude becoming more cynical several times over the years.

Happy to be free of Bygler's clutches, I escaped the opera house and headed for the stables.

Auntie Joanie (for I had come to call her by the name that Beth and Meg were accustomed to) had given me a short list of groceries to be picked up in the market that night. None of the boys were about when I arrived at Cleopatra's stall, so I saddled her myself. The good natured horse gave me a placid glance and went back to her hay until I had finished.

I braced myself against the wall (in a very unladylike fashion) and hoisted myself into her creaking saddle. Though it had taken me some time to do so, I had gradually learned to be at ease with riding. As calmly as her mother and grandmother before her, Octavia's granddaughter plodded on with her side saddle burden, out of the dim stables and into the light of the late afternoon.

"Perhaps Beth was right about my attitude." I pondered. "I could not tell you. Then again, it is not an easy thing to be objective in observing the changes in ones own character." The only thing that I knew with certainty was that the little girl I had been nine years ago was as dead as anything under a headstone.

Perhaps my morbid wonderings were prompted by the cemetery that I was riding past. In another graveyard, not far away from the Garnier, my surrogate family would be visiting a grave today.

Today was the anniversary of the death of Dr. Giry. He had died nine years ago, as the result of a heart attack late one night. Though it had been well known that he had possessed a weak heart, no one had ever learned what caused his demise. I had mourned his passing for a few days myself that year, for the man had been very kind to me during the dark days of my recovery. His memory still held a fond place in the back of my heart.

His family, however, was a bird of an entirely different color. After his death, Mame Jules and her 'little Meg' had come to the Garnier. They were his deceased brother's wife and child, and he had cared for them until his untimely demise.

Margosha (for no one but her mother referred to her as little Meg, to avoid confusion with her cousin) had taken my place in the academy and her mother had been employed as a box keeper. She was, in fact, the keeper of what I privately referred to as 'my box', box five. She had put a stop to my late night drawing there, and was rude and pompous and self important.

Needless to say, I was not fond of her.

We finally reached our destination, for I was startled out of my secret daydreams by a voice that I was much more fond of. This voice was attached to a throat, and the throat resided in the body of one of my favorite venders, Mme. Olivia. Middle aged and very kind, she was a warm acquaintance and married to a respectable man, a fishmonger. Her sister, Mme. Allegra, was the shopkeeper who supplied a great deal of the costume department's fabric and sewing notions. Both women were very friendly, even allowing me to address them by their first names.

Mme. Oliva was the proprietress of a modest little shop that carried spices, sweets, and teas, among other things. Her shop smelled of her husband's salty little fish and a faint trace of dusty spice that always made me want to sneeze, and she smelled of cinnamon. The walls were lined with hundreds of little bottles, bags and tins, and one wall was covered in its entirety by hundreds of little wooden drawers filled with spices.

Once Cleopatra was secured to a hitching post, I heeded Mme. Olivia's warm call of welcome and entered her shop, causing the little bell above the door to jingle.

We chatted for a bit before I made my purchases, and she slipped a small chocolate into my hand along with my change. She was a sweet woman, for she did this occasionally once she learned of my affection for the things.

A few years past, I had given into a heavy temptation and bought an entire pound of the maddening goodies for myself, wiping out that month's tiny bank deposit. Chocolate had been one of my private weaknesses for ages, and I hadn't had any since coming to the Garnier. When she had seen my purchase and inquired about such an unusual errand for the kitchens, I had let her in on my indulgence.

She had merely smiled and given me a knowing nod. On my next trip, she had quietly included a small chocolate in the bag with my purchases, saying that she had been needing someone to sample her incoming shipments and besides, I ought not eat so many at a time.

"Once on the lips, forever on the hips, dearie." She had quoted in her charming British accent.

There had been a grin on her face throughout the entire matter, and though I hated the idea of charity, it had seemed wrong to refuse. In return, I sometimes spent a free evening cleaning the shop for her. It was nice to know someone outside the opera house.

Bidding her a warm farewell, I clambered back onto Cleopatra and covertly slipped the chocolate into my mouth. My heart lightened, I hummed a little tune from the last performance and eagerly anticipated a little nap before dinner.

Little did I know that my return to the opera would set in motion the events that would radically change my life…

Authoress's Notes: Can anybody say "Dun, dun, dun!"? Cause I can! Guesses on what is waiting for her, anybody?

♪Oh, and did ya'll understand what happened with Eric and the good Dr.? Maybe I'm the one who's thoughts are becoming morbid … yep, some of them are, and this is not the last instance of death in the story … Oh my, there I go again with my terrible habit of dropping hints… (evil grin and cackle) But be at ease, (as much as you can be with me writing anyhow) I will tell you that neither Eric nor Leah are targets of my killing spree.

♫ (Hey Fish, Look! Mme. Giry and Little Meg … Leroux style! I've got the best of both worlds. I can have my cake and eat it too! Woot.)

♪Oh, and here's some food for thought for those of you who are waiting for the Persian to pop out of the proverbial woodwork, (Fish, I think the cycle has restarted, aren't you glad?…giggle.) go and re-read Eric's description of Dr. Giry. Then ponder. You might just find the answer… Good luck!

♫Fish, Kipper, and Joanie, did you find your cameos? Does anybody else want in on the story? Faithful reviewers, lend me your ears ... oh whoops, I meant send me your theories... In the real world, I am rather deaf too... New readers, if you reveiw, you might find yourself in here as well, cause I've got a few new charecters who need names in the near future...

Responses: next chapter. I seem to end up posting late at night recently, and finding my brain incapable of responding at such an ungodly hour of the night. Or in this case, early morning, for it is about 5:00 in the A.M., and I have been typing since about ten o'clock last night.

Oh, and I am wearing my bright pink bathrobe today.

That is all.