"Once again, little Diane. You must practice more."
The girl stamped her foot stubbornly, her dress of lilac shades shuddering around her.
"I have been. You just are too picky. With you as my maestro, I shall never get anything done!"
The man, his hair graying as he spoke, sighed and tapped his music stand with the conductor's wand once more.
"From the top, little one."
And the music started. Music. It was what little Chagny lived for, and nothing more. Without music, she would not be able to survive. Without the sound of a violin flooding her heart, she would crumple into dust! Oh, if music was a person it would have full control of her! She loved to sing! It was the one thing she would like to do all her life.
And that she did, sing so that her throat and breast vibrated with sound. She wasn't bad, but it was said behind her back that she would never be as good as her mother, Christine Daae.
The maestro, of course, could not accept that Diane would not precede her mother. He was a stubborn, wide-set man, with darting, dark eyes. So he made Diane sing over and over, refusing her request, and soon demand, for a break. Eventually, (meaning two hours later), the orchestra complained of sore fingers and breathless lungs, and Gemmé, the maestro, finally agreed for a stop.
Diane ran off the stage, or rather skipped. So innocent, she acted. At the age of fifteen she had still collected flowers and braided them into a crown. Now, at seventeen, she was as stubborn as a young one and with the heart of one as well.
Wavy brown curls bounced at her shoulders as she rushed to find her friends who had the night off. She hummed a song as she ran, a smile dancing across her face as usual. Her mother had taught her the little song, and it was her favorite already.
"Father once spoke of an angel. I used to dream he'd appear. Now as I sing I can sense him, and I know he's here!"
Much of the song made no sense to Diane, for Christine had never told her of the things that had happened when she had been at the Opera Populaire. But it was very pretty, and Diane longed to meet this angel that sang so sweetly. Perhaps he could teach her something more about singing.
In La Belle's dressing room, people gathered around one of the stagehands, one that Diane did not know the name of. He leaped forward, his face contorted in an evil grimace.
"They say his skin was the color of curdled cream and his eyes a nasty yellow color. He'd smile in a way that showed all of 'is sharp teeth! And when you were alone, he'd a go and suck yer soul right out of you, and then you were nothing more than a husk. A dry, withered husk!"
Timid dance students backed away from this imaginary apparition and the bolder, older singers giggled nervously. La Belle, the star of the opera, simply fluttered her long lashes and shooed the stagehand away.
"There was no such thing as the opera ghost. It is just a story."
A boy spoke of, one that Diane knew. His name was Adamo Giry. His mother, Meg Giry, was a close friend with Diane's mother. Of course that made she and Adamo friends as well.
"My mother says that the phantom did exist. That was why the old opera house was destroyed. The ghost cut the rope to the chandelier and the place burned down."
There were proclamations of disbelief. Some even left the dressing room, whether because of fear or anger of telling such stories was untold.
Adamo folded his arms and shook his head, his golden-red hair falling over his eyes.
"Oh, but it's true! Ask Diane! Her mother was what started the whole thing!"
Silence descended upon the room, and all eyes were on the chorus girl. Diane, however, had no idea of what to say. She turned to Adamo.
"What do you mean?"
Adamo, surprised, leaned over from his seat on the dresser, looking into Diane's blue eyes with his own emerald ones.
"She never told you?" he whispered.
Diane shook her head. "Told me what?"
Adamo stood, going for the door. He refused to say more of what Diane did not know of.
"I think you should write to your mother and ask her to tell you. It's not my place to tell you of what happened."
Diane stood as well, deciding to head for her own bed. She ignored the calls of goodnight from her comrades, a blank expression on her face. As soon as she was back in her room, she changed into her nightgown and took a pen and inkwell and balanced it on a piece of wood she used for writing on. She placed that on her lap as she sat down in her bed, and with the dim light of the oil lamp at her beside, started writing.
Little did she know of the eyes that watched her from the shadows of the doorway.
(Woo, suspense! hehe, I'm liking this story more and more. And that means, of course, that reviews are most wanted. Thanks to the three that reviewed. I'll get around to personally responding to my reviews, but I'm too lazy at the moment.)