Ch 5 – Down Once More

This route had seemed so magical when the Phantom had first taken me down it. I'd felt as though I were in a dream. That dream had faded, but its echoes haunted me still.

Many of the torches that had used to line the walls were missing, but here and there a few remained. I took one and lit it with the matches from my pocket, in preference to using my candle.

The torch served a double purpose: it lighted my way, and it kept the rats, beetles, and spiders with which the passage was populated at bay. I have a great disgust of such creatures, and will speak no more of them. I managed not to drop the torch.

Meg had told me how to avoid the old traps that the Phantom had set; I jumped over the gap where Raoul had fallen into the water, feeling angry all over again at the indignities he had suffered. The anger fueled my courage.

At length, I found myself at the old dock where the Phantom had used to keep his boat.

The boat was missing.

I felt like a fool. I had not anticipated this, but of course someone had carried it off. The Phantom was surely long gone, his belongings destroyed, and I was wandering around this dark sub-basement in a ruined building for nothing.

My heart failed me. I put the torch in a bracket, sat down, and began to cry.

What on earth was I doing? What had I expected to find? I'm afraid that I spent a good while weeping, feeling sorry for myself, finally facing up to my expectations and fears there in the darkness.

Raoul couldn't have been serious when he had asked me to retrieve the ring. In fact, the last thing he'd told me was not to try. So why had I come? Why had it been such a sore point with him? Or had he been serious, and was the request a way to fid himself of a troublesome fiancée? Was he punishing me for my imagined transgressions? All manner of outlandish doubts assailed me.

Eventually, the storm of tears passed, and I began to realize a few things. Raoul had been correct that my heart had not been completely with him. But he'd been wrong about the reason – at least, I thought he had. I had retreated into dreams and had been distracted even when I was with him.

I was just not sure whether I was cut out to be his Vicomtess; I still wasn't sure, but I was only just now admitting the fact to myself. No matter my feelings for Raoul, the life was greatly different from anything I'd known. I'd expected the adjustment to be easy, and when it proved challenging, I retreated inside myself.

And inside myself – in my heart and mind – was where the Phantom had been since I was a small girl; I could not deny that he occupied my thoughts and dreams. No wonder Raoul suspected things. He wanted me to put those suspicious to rest, and I'd been unable to. I hadn't known what he'd expected from me, and his suspicions had caused me to retreat further. Neither of us had been acting like ourselves lately.

Well. Perhaps I really had been the thoughtless girl I'd been accused of being. But I was here, now, and I still had to deal with the situation I'd put myself in. My mind was more of a labyrinth to me than any series of underground tunnels, but I was beginning to make my way through.

I stood up. I'd started this, and I would see it through to the end.

I took up the torch again, walking down the step of the dock. The dark, murky water was uninviting, but was shallow enough to wade in, I recalled. I sat down on the ledge and slid into the cold water, shuddering and trying not to think of water-rats.

Torch in hand, I made my way to the secret grotto where I'd been taken twice before – each such a different journey.

I was in luck, this time. The portcullis was up.

The harbor itself was in darkness – black as pitch, blacker than any other part of the Opera House. No ray of light at all reached this remote hold save for that of my torch.

The torch began to sputter as I reached the shore, and I hurriedly began to light candle after candle, for I could see their shapes in the gloom…

…and I looked around me in wonder.

This kingdom, this tiny world, had been left undisturbed. Everything was covered by a thick layer of dust; a few of the draperied were damaged by the damp or in tatters, but not a thing had been touched. Not a thing was missing – except for the Phantom himself.

Why had nothing been taken? I knew that the mob had penetrated this far – Meg had told me as much. Did they have some superstitious fear about disturbing the lair of the famous Opera Ghost? I had assumed, from Meg's story, that he had been in hiding – he knew so many secret routes and tunnels – but had returned when the pursuers left.

But everything clearly had not been in use for some time. Where had he gone? Oh, God – was he even still alive? I couldn't bear the thought that he, who had played such a large part in my life, might be no more. It had simply never occurred to me that he might come to harm. I was more used to thinking of him as an angel or phantom than as a man.

I wandered around, sadly, looking at his abandoned belongings, and leaving trails in the dust with my fingertips. The mirrors had been smashed – looking in them, I saw my own dirty and tear-streaked face looking back at me, appearing half whole and half broken – the same as his. I had my broken places too, I now knew. Mine were less visible.

I found, to my surprise, that I was singing softly – the same sad melody I had sung at my father's grave.

My song had been stilled for so long – and this had been another point of contention between Raoul and I. Without my teacher, my inspiration, it was difficult to sing, even for Raoul. I had sung for him alone for so many years.

I had no idea where to turn. I'd come all this way only to find emptiness – in the quest I'd set for myself, in this place…and in my heart. This place, deserted though it was, still held magic for me. I missed that magic, but I did know how to reclaim or replace it.

I did know one thing – I was exhausted. I walked up the stairs and entered the bedroom, up the route I'd been carried once before. Mice had made and abandoned a nest in one corner of the black swan bed, and they had pulled bits of stuffing out of the coverlet.

I shook out the velvet coverlet, coughing at the dust, lit a few candles in the bedroom and extinguished those in the main room.

Then, as I was soaked to the skin, I removed my boys' trousers and hung them over a chair to dry. I put my boots next to the bed, took off my cap, shook out my hair, and composed myself to sleep.

The last thing I did before sleeping, almost as an afterthought, was to remove the faded rose from next my heart and place it on the table beside the bed.