The Phantom

I dismiss Christine. Her brown eyes remain wide as she nods and attempts a smile before disappearing from the chapel.

Her fright would have once shamed me. But changes are necessary; I can no longer be her father, because a father is required to love. For months I have—stupidly—allowed myself to love the little girl purely, but I cannot afford to any longer. I will be her teacher now, and nothing else.

From my vantage point I can see Madame Giry in the shadows, an unreadable expression across her features. Christine passes her unknowingly, and after a moment Madame follows.

The dull pain in my gut is lessened as I centre my thoughts on my little soprano. Though time faithfully continues its course, my life is deviating from the road it has followed until now. Madame is no longer waiting at the end of my path. Instead, she will follow behind me and I will not look back at her. I will not be weak, as was Lot's wife, as she cast a glance over her shoulder for one last look at Sodom.

On this road a Phantom walks. On this road, Christine is waiting for me.

I wrap the violin into my cloak and pull myself back into the narrow walkway that will lead me away from the chapel. I can navigate the unheeded labyrinth within the opera house effortlessly. The renovations I instructed M LaBrant to employ before his untimely passing have served me well. The Opera Populaire is far smaller on the inside than it appears on the out, and that is due to the many hidden passages which circulate the entirety of the building and weave into every hall and every room. It is a wonder that only myself and Madame know of their existence.

Of course, it is also a wonder that my theatre still survives after the measures I took nearly two decades before to ensure my own complete confidentiality and authority in the happenings of the Opera.

LaBrant shuffles through each telegram, cursing loudly. I am slightly irritated. Until this day, he has always been so agreeable. "I am telling you, I had nothing to do with this at all. This Opera is haunted. Blame the Ghost that lives here."

The attorney sighs. "The disappearance of an entire construction team and all of their drafts and blueprints cannot be blamed on a superstition. I am willing to help you, defend you on any account you want, but you must be honest with me."

"For the love of all things sacred, I am being honest with you!" LaBrant shouts. "I am not responsible for the doings of our resident Ghost! I didn't even see the blueprints. I did only as I was asked; I collected them and gave them to the team without even a word. I don't know what additions they made, or if they made any at all."

"Witnesses swear that they've seen the team transporting material into the building on occasion. Something must have been done with it."

"Well I swear to you, the moment I stepped back into this place, nothing looked out of place or changed, not at all. The Opera we left last season is the same Opera we've returned to, the exact same. Nothing has been done here!"

The attorney leans back in his seat and sighs. "It looks like we've got a real live mystery on our hands then," he chuckles. "A haunted Opera, a demanding ghost, a private renovation, a missing construction team, and no blueprints to even hint at what when on inside before they disappeared."

The manager shakes his head, baffled. "I don't know how to explain it. I learned long ago not to question this chap's demands. I did only as he asked…took his note and closed the Opera for the entire season, and hired the construction team. The whole building was vacant. I was the last one out of it, though I suspect our 'Ghost' remained. I didn't look at the blueprints at all. I merely handed them off to the team. And I didn't return until last week when I began to receive all of these letters and lawsuits." The brittle crackle of stiff paper sounds as he waves the telegrams in the attorney's face.

I am quite comfortable beneath the floor under LaBrant's desk; the rewarding scent of freshly sheared wood drifting past my nose, the soft support of the crimson pillow beneath my neck, and the undying satisfaction at the panic laced through the words of my manager's outrage.

"Let's have a look at this place," suggests the attorney after a long pause. "I don't normally do this, but don't you find this the slightest bit intriguing?"

A delighted grin widens my face.

"You won't find anything, I assure you," says M LaBrant wearily, scratching at his despicable moustache.

Of course they won't. If they do, they will die.

"You know, before I got into law, I wanted to be a detective," comes the attorney's smooth voice. A great screeching of chairs against the hard wood attacks my ears, and I remind myself that this is the price to pay for instructing the team to hollow a space beneath the floor.

The two gentlemen leave the office. Narrow, golden shafts of light seep through the cracks in the floor, and spots of dust tumble about in them.

I hook my fingers in the cracks and used the leverage to pull myself into the drop sitting a few feet before me. The constricted cavity will one day become too small for me, as I am still growing. But for the present, it will serve nicely as one of my many outlets for eavesdropping on the most intimate and central affairs of the opera house. The construction team had no one to ask questions of, and therefore, my plans have been executed perfectly.

To my amusement, it soon became clear that the attorney would never have had a future in the detective agency. It was my manager whose search would one day prove fruitful; the attorney's love for intrigue far outweighed his knack for it.

At the time, though, I hadn't a concern at all.

Of course, the fact that my actions might have been the end of the Opera soon became more than a suggestion, but an actuality. For nearly two seasons after the aforementioned ordeal, my manager was plagued with lawsuits and threats that the government would close the theatre. What resulted was a series of clues, planted by myself, that led to believable conclusions which brought as much of the blame as possible away from the Opera Populaire and M LaBrant.

At long last, the mystery was quieted in the paperwork of the government, but ignited in the minds of the select Parisian society, who circulated their petty lives around gossip and scandal. The Populaire was officially "haunted"…the Opera Ghost became the main attraction that drew the elite to the productions, who would indulge in them delightedly while keeping an eye out for a shadow in the rafters. I am famous, and nobody has seen my face. I am a celebrity, but I have no means to enjoy my own self-inflicted renown.

It is truly a shame that M LaBrant's curiosity one day got the best of him. Before his death, he always conducted himself so agreeably.

The sounds of supper and merriment drift lazily to me as I pass over the dining hall. I can feel Christine there, though I cannot hear her. She is always so silent when in the company of others. Good. The less she associates with the calamity that is the world, the more suited she is for my plans.

I swiftly find my way back to my house below the Opera and lay the violin aside. Spread across my organ are sheets of halfway-penned music. I have written many symphonies in my incongruous life, many of which have been performed in this theatre when there is an under-abundance of worthy music on the market. Often I marry my music to words. I have sung many storeys to Christine; my talents as a lyricist are unquestionable. For years now, though, the idea of intertwining my gifts of storeytelling and composing on a larger scale has played at my mind.

I lower myself onto my seat before the grand organ and let my eyes consider the unfinished music. Each sheet declares a different emotion; by merely glancing at the unique spread of notes it is clear what each piece is saying. The dissonantly stacked chords and sharp leaps between the black dots of the first page scream of incensed, wicked corruption. The characters on the second sheet of music are more softly contrasting, slinking in their rests and minor arpeggios in a manner that whispers of slow seduction and the beginnings of desire.

There are three instruments that I feel are incarnations of the mortal soul. The organ is anger; the piano is love; and the violin is pain. The harmony or disharmony of the three different instruments together is passion. It occurs to me that the dozens of incomplete pieces I have written could all be merged into one magnificent endeavour that encompasses each of these. Is there a more obvious choice, than that I might make these into an opera instead of simply a symphony? There are innumerable storeys to be told, endless great lives and heroic voyages to be recounted on the stage.

A myriad of opportunities for me to release Christine and the talent I am moulding within her to the recognition she deserves.

I close my eyes and play from memory the music written out on the various sheets, willing my mind to produce an instantaneous recollection of a deserving tale or hero of the past that could find new life on the stage. Names and legends spring into my psyche of worthy candidates: Julius Caesar…Mary Tudor…the Odyssey…Cristobal Colombo…the Knights of the Round Table. Typical, natural, obvious choices, each with fascinating storeys that have been clichéd as the result of far too many retellings. Really, where is my imagination? Clearly the music is not inspiring any true creativity within me. Perhaps my approach is wrong.

I abandon the organ and walk the expanse of the room. The lake, where it is not shrouded in fog, glimmers in the firelight. I kneel where the water breaks on the stone shore and steal a fleeting glance at my reflection. Flashing back at me is a menacing shadow with a skull of white over half of its face. It is clear, all of a sudden, why none of the historical figures satisfies me. The storey that brims within me is not one of heroes and goodness at all. Instead, it is the desperate, brooding cry for understanding, and if not understanding, esteem, for the villains and their misdeeds who have haunted history and its ethics. The storey that begs to be told is plainly mirrored in my music.

I sit at the mahogany desk in front of the fireplace and rest the tip of a pencil against golden parchment. The music still plays within the confines of my skin, and names of entirely different historical and mythical figures and expeditions dance through my mind. The pencil strokes over the surface of the parchment in a long, oval motion. Men I would long ago have strangled or drowned before giving even a second thought to the purposes behind their actions. A great eye opens on the page, with lashes of soft, smudged lead. Traitors and mutineers and pirates, Cain and Judas and Morgan LeFay. My hand aches furiously as I grip the pencil, but surprisingly, the strain I feel is impossible to detect within the graceful, easy lines I produce. Cortéz, Attila, Nero, the witches of Salem and the Titans and Hades himself.

My hand drops to the surface of the table, and the pencil clatters and rolls off the side. My fingers lift delicately the golden parchment, and I behold it in the light of the fire beside me. The child returns my gaze with a ghost of a smile playing at her dimples. My mouth is slightly parted, and I draw a slow breath through it. It is Christine, and I had not even expected it.

"Aminta," I breathe. "You will play my Aminta."

I have found my muse, and upon looking at her, I know exactly whose tale my music is meant to retell. Mozart beautifully attempted such a feat with his Don Giovanni, but where he triumphed with his music, he failed with his storey; his intent was only to recount the "evil" of such a man and disregard the passion with which he seduced. It is time that his legendary romance be told in the unblemished, hidden truth of his twisted soul. The stage will again be haunted by the great lover of the world, but where Mozart failed, I will triumph; my Don Juan will forever be looked upon in a different light, in which I will retell history in his favour and he will at last be acknowledged as the genius he was.

I lay the drawing of my ingénue in the dark studio next to my music quarter. When she is ready, she will sing my opera…and the world will finally hear me through them both.

A/N…Sorry for the delay. Unfortunately, this will be the last chapter up for awhile, as life has unfortunately gotten severely in the way. I am a lead in the musical at my college, and between classes and rehearsals I am at school from early morning until late evening, and I just no longer have time for anything. I have several more chapters written, but until I can't upload until I have written more to fall back on. Thank you so much if you've stuck with me so far! If I have been reading your fics and have failed to review your most recent chapters, PLEASE bear with me! I promise you I will review, when I have time to thoroughly read them.