Chapter 2
To Meg's great happiness everyone had agreed with Monsieur Francois overwhelmingly. She had been given the role of lead dancer in the Opera Populaire's reopening gala. It would be a production of Samson et Dalila, the tragic story of Samson and Delilah.
Meg was ecstatic, but she kept her feelings inside because she knew that many other girls had wanted the part, and they were very disappointed. But they hadn't wanted it like she had. They hadn't stretched and practiced everyday for hours in the cold. They hadn't been forced to dance on the roof top of a small building with cheap rooms for rent just to have enough room to move. After working for most of the day in a small dress boutique, Meg and her mother would eat something small and go straight to the roof to continue her training.
Antoinette Giry was determined that her daughter's dance career would not end because of the tragic accident. Meg could hear her mother's stern words as clearly as if she were standing there next to her.
"Again Meg, keep your posture. If you want to be the best you must be more than good, you must be perfect."
On the roof Meg didn't have any music, so she became accustomed to listening to her mother's counts and creating melodies in her head.
Oh Maman, we did it, she thought.
She remembered their last conversation together in the tiny room they had shared for so many months.
"Meg, my darling little girl, I am so proud of you already," she said as she touched Meg's long blond strands of hair.
"I know you will accomplish so much, I will be with you always in your heart."
Her mother had been ill for about three weeks. Doctors had come and gone, but nothing seemed to help, and her mother was fading from Meg's grasp all too quickly.
"I want you to be there to see me, Maman, please," she begged.
"Meg, darling I will see you. I will have a better view than anyone," she said with a small, but warm smile. "You must listen to me now; I must tell you something that no one else in the world knows."
"What is it, Maman?" she had no idea what she would learn there on her mother's death bed.
Her mother told her all about the truth behind the Phantom of the Opera, the story that had frightened her since she was a child. Her mother described the gypsy fair and helping the tormented, deformed boy escape to the dark caverns of the Opera house, after he had killed his gypsy captor. She told him of his brilliance and the world of music and labyrinths that he had created beneath the Opera. The story both captivated and broke Meg's heart. It all made sense, the ghost, the Angel of Music, and Christine. She wept when her mother finished the story.
"Why did Christine have to embarrass and humiliate him further?" Meg sobbed for the man she did not know. "Why didn't she just run away with Raoul? I don't understand; she was always so kind. And now he's dead. It's so terrible. He was born into betrayal and hurt and he died in the same pain."
"Dead? Erik is not dead my love. The Phantom is dead, but the man is still alive."
Meg wiped her eyes with astonishment, "He's still down there? All alone?"
"I don't know, but I doubt he would leave the safety of his home," her mother answered.
"I still can't understand how Christine could break his heart, he loved her so much!"
"His love for her was not blind. He loved her beauty and her voice. Unfortunately, her feelings for him were not blind either. Love between hearts and souls, not faces, is the real lasting love to be cherished, Meg. Matters of love can often be hurtful and confusing at times, my dear," her mother offered wisely. She paused for a moment and then spoke again.
"Try never to speak or act without thinking or in moments of anger when love is involved, it can slip away very quickly."
They talked late into the night about the past, her childhood and dancing. She fell asleep next to her mother in her small, warm bed and that was the last time she saw her alive.
