What drivel, she thought as she tossed the book aside. The author couldn't get a story right to save his life. Yes, he started out with the basic event, but…
The old woman sat back in her chair and her her coffee, silently fuming. The minute her friend in Paris had sent the book, she had a feeling the real story would have been lost by the author. That Leroux couldn't write a "true crime" novel to save his life. How could he focus so much on Christine,Raoul and that Persian man, totally ignoring the real events surrounding that Phantom at the Palais Garnier?
Carlotta Guidicelli looked around her home, her blue eyes settling on a photograph of her past – a photograph of a younger version of herself, back when she was prinicple soprano of the Paris Opera. She wished the picture showed the colour of her hair, it had turned grey in the intervening years and she swore not one of her portrait artists had ever gotten the colour quite right.
Her living room was full of things from her past – books, stacks of old letters, photographs… Here eyes finally settled on a picture of a young woman that was displayed on the piano. She was, according to popular convention, quite beautiful, and in her mid-twenties. Carlotta stood up and walked over to the picture, touching it tenderly. If Leroux's version of events became the "official" one, people like Carlotta and her tagedy would be forgotten from time.
She couldn't allow that to happen.
Heaving a sigh, she walked to her writing table, sat down, and began to write.