A/N: Am so glad you guys are enjoying my humble interpretation of what I perceive to be the Hidden Plot story - and my idea of how the entirety of symbolism they put into the movie worked together. (There was also the same symbolism in the stage production, but nowhere near as much as was in movie, probably because they didn't have as much room to work with things like that) :)
Thank you so much for your feedback! It is highly appreciated...
XXxXX
II
Still trembling from the impromptu audition, Christine made her way through shadowed corridors, thankfully empty, to her cloistered place of refuge and direction.
Here, within these hallowed walls, she had often come to feel close to her father.
Here, the Angel of Music first beckoned when she had been sad and lonesome.
And here, in this sacred place of music and prayer, the darkness could not find her.
With the conclusion of her song onstage, there had been no danger to befall them, no more falling tapestries, no unseen threats. Indeed, the atmosphere had been relieved and triumphant, the new managers congratulating each other as if they were responsible, and Christine felt the need to escape the revelry and withdraw into seclusion….
She thought back to the audition.
On trembling legs and continually prodded along by Madame's persuasive nods, Christine had taken center stage, barely able to conceive how she had gotten there. And as she stood with her heart banging against her ribcage, unable to draw breath into frozen lungs to sing the notes required, without accompaniment and spotlighting her voice alone, she had sensed his presence, suddenly there, empowering her….as if… as if he sang through her – every pore of her body and soul in tune with his spirit. And, somehow, she knew that had actually happened.
She could still hardly believe that she had been awarded the part. She was to take La Carlotta's place and play the lead. She, Christine Daaé, fifth girl in the chorus line. And every minute that had built up to her operatic victory was all thanks to her mysterious and unseen Angel of Music.
In wistful contemplation, drawing forth flame to taper, she lit one candle above the memorial plaque with her dear papa's picture. The candle gave an airy crackle as flame met wick. "How I wish you were here to share my news with…" Her mind traveled down a different but familiar path. "And how I wish you would cease to always hide from me. Why, oh why is it that you never allow me to see you?"
Her mournful plea went unanswered, as always. Her solemn gaze lifted to the beautiful painting in oils of the nearest angel illuminated by the candle's solitary glow. Softly she sang...
"Angel of Music, come to the light. The delay has been too long…."
She brought the wish forth, kept long inside her heart, but still the silence lingered.
As a child, she had not minded his physical absence so much, too terrified and awestruck to dare question heavenly matters. Once she'd grown into a woman, childish uncertainty faded and the eternal mystery he presented intrigued her into wanting to know more, to truly understand the paradox he created. Any questions tentatively asked were never answered, as if he'd already left or, perhaps, left afterward in his displeasure to hear her challenge him, even so meekly. On the rare occasion she was gifted with a response, his reply had been swift and to the point that she must never ask to see him again, that such requests were forbidden. Yet even the angels of the Holy Bible that once belonged to Papa appeared to those whom they visited, a point she'd softly made when she knew she had his attention. It failed to matter; by his answering silence, he refused. Like the king, her Angel preferred to remain unseen…
Like the king.
Earlier she had toyed with the fanciful notion of the elusive Phantom and the hidden king being one, but what if...
Her eyes remained fastened in startled thought to the celestial being painted in muted and golden tones upon the stone wall. Her Angel wasn't composed of strokes of paint or carved of plaster, and a part of her had begun to believe he wasn't entirely made of spirit either. He, with the heavenly voice that could make all other angels and mortals weep, singing to her so beautifully, so tenderly – surely a being that could only belong to the cherubim – and in the next moment, cursing all who worked within his opera house for their inadequacies.
As a mortal might do.
As a king would do…
Angels did not swear in fury when others made mistakes, not the angels she was taught existed.
Nor did angels speak of foreign gods and demonic entities in a chamber designed for worship of the one true Deity, telling tales strung together with magic designed to fascinate a young mind.
Most of all, angels did not…should not…make a young woman feel such a dependency on them that when they were absent the soul felt adrift - and cause such a peculiar stirring inside the heart, inside the blood, when they were near. To hear his magnificent, rich tenor during her lessons, and especially while in slumber, made Christine feel things she should never, never feel for an angel…
Her angel, who she had begun to believe was as mortal as she.
If she was right, God help her, her heart might break like fragile glass to know he had deceived her all these years.
And if she was right, she could at last forget the hidden shame to dream of those things that should never come to pass.
And if he was the king of legend -
She sucked in a flustered breath. No, she could not think beyond that. Surely it was only a legend, a story of fiction crafted by a bored thespian, and any references she'd heard made to a hidden king or signs of fearful respect shown him over the years were enforced only by the superstitious.
Surely it was only that.
But if she was wrong, if he was in truth an Angel of Music, her spotless guardian and celestial mentor that with his last words Papa promised, and her education of the traits of angels was woefully incorrect…then she had much to atone for with prayers of repentance to offer heavenward.
At least, if she was wrong, she had never spoken aloud of those things that had tempted her mind…
And she never would.
"Lonesome child, why do you kneel there in such despair?"
"Angel?" she breathed a happy sigh to hear the deep and airy reverberations of his distant tone, all melancholy having fled her heart with the first utterance of his sweet words. Lifting her eyes, she felt a flush paint her cheeks to think he might have discerned her most private thoughts. "Your dreams for me have at last been realized. I am to play the part of Elissa. Tonight."
"Yes, I know. Why then are you not pleased?"
She heard the first hint of impatience thread his tone with his query and hastened to implore, "Angel, forgive me. Please, don't be angry. I don't mean to sound ungrateful." She pressed nervous fingers together in the concealment of her skirts. "It is only that…" She hesitated with what to say, how to express her fear... "I am not certain I can fulfill all that you wish me to be, and I have no desire to disappoint you. I am only a simple girl of sixteen; a chorus girl, until an hour ago."
"Christine, you are worthy, far more worthy than any of the peons that inhabit this theatre. You, dear heart, are my Angel of Music," he stunned her by saying.
"You truly think that of me?" she breathed in wonder.
"Yes, Christine. I have chosen you, to impart my music, to you. The music is not only in the words you sing; it is an intrinsic part of who you are. For you, too, are now its guardian."
"I…don't understand." So often he spoke in riddles that fascinated even as they confounded.
"All will become clear when the time is right. The hour of your debut draws nigh and you must prepare yourself to take the stage. Remember, dear child, I shall be with you, though you cannot see me. My spirit is forever a part of you. You felt that bond today – I sensed it – and it will sustain you in all things musical. As you stand and sing, remember you are not alone. You are never alone. Your song, this night, will be ours…"
His dulcet words grew more distant as he spoke, and in distress she realized he was leaving.
"Mon Ange! Please wait. Why must you forever remain hidden from me? You said I was worthy - am I not yet worthy enough to see you? That is my fondest wish. What must I do to gain your trust?"
Endless words of quiet yearning, and again they echoed softly against stone walls of the hollow and empty chamber, silence the only reply. She sighed in disappointment that her deep-seated need to know, to see, to understand might never be satisfied.
xXx
Madame Giry rested in the hour before she must arrive backstage and studied the oft-times corrected libretto, ticking off areas where small changes might be beneficial to the dance and jotting notes to herself in the margins. Too late to incorporate any changes into tonight's opening, her notations would have to wait for the next rehearsal.
Suddenly, without a breeze to stir them, the steady flames of three candles on her desk blew out all at once, leaving her sitting in the dark. Startled, she groped to find a lucifer from the drawer where she kept them and struck the flint to relight the tall candles.
A white face appeared in the burst of flame, and she almost dropped the lit match in fright to see the masked man who so silently had strode to her desk and now stared at her from the opposite side.
"Master…" she breathed, for she had no doubt who visited her. His eyes were hard, like green bottle glass, or the depths of a chill lake, soulless and empty. A half mask of ivory he wore fastened to his face, the expression on the unhindered side cold and commanding. His long cloak hung from rigidly-set shoulders, the low light catching the inside edges of the black satin lining.
He frightened her when he was like this, and she concealed her apprehension to the best of her ability, nearly twenty years at the task giving her endless practice. She had served him…them…ever since this man was a child, ever since he whom all feared killed through the child…now a man. No, more than a mere man - a king.
Few knew his full title, only those longstanding members of the theatre and perhaps, Christine, though she had yet to understand the truth of his identity or the source of his power. Other than Madame, only a small number had seen him in the flesh, always by accident, according to those fortunate few who lived to tell the tale, having each survived their own individual "accident" from those brief encounters. Two drunken stagehands and a flighty dancer, all three of which had little credibility and could have easily tripped and fallen, hitting their heads and hallucinating ghosts.
Most in the theatre believed the curious legend that more than two decades ago, an outcast royal found sanctuary somewhere within these walls, a legend passed down through the years and perpetuated through the authoritative notes and demands of the Opera Ghost who worked for the king...
A legend which bore its weight in truth.
She shivered at the secret so long concealed, the entirety of which no one but Madame knew, having long ago, from the start, chosen to play her own integral part in this protective masquerade. She did not ask the reason for his presence at this time; he needed no reason. She had brought him to the Opera House to live, to claim the musical kingdom that was, in fact, his to rule. But he had not come alone.
The Master she served out of fear; the Maestro she served out of fealty.
The flame singed her fingertips, startling her out of her nervous daze, and quickly she lit one candle and shook the flame of the lucifer out. "What is it you wish of me?" she asked in nervous obeisance.
"Christine will sing Hannibal this night," he announced what they both knew in that strange whispery voice which proved exactly whom she addressed.
The Maestro had arranged the incident, and Madame lent her aid, encouraging the managers to give Christine the audition. But the Master, the Phantom, also had a part in requiring Christine to sing, though for what reason she failed to understand… unless he hoped to manipulate and control the girl as he did the king, and Madame desperately hoped that was not the case.
Christine was somewhat naïve, as innocent as a girl could be raised in a theatre that trumpeted lustful decadence at every turn. And in her quiet innocence, she was entirely too trusting.
"She has a lovely voice," Madame said in cautious earnestness. "You have trained her well. She will surely be a credit to your mastery, and together you will share in this great triumph."
Before her eyes, Madame watched as he dropped his head, chin to chest, and set his gloved fingers to the edge of the desk. A troubled expression of uncertainty swept across his features before he again straightened. His eyes were brighter, lighter in color, haunted and sad, but no longer without a soul. When he spoke this time, it was with more volume in the clear, rich tenor of the Maestro, soft and commanding. The voice of a king.
"After the performance, I will give you a rose with which to award her as a token of my appreciation and my intent – a message that I will come for her, as she has long asked of me. You are to keep all admirers from her door and all interlopers from interfering."
"You mean to take her with you?" she asked in shock. This, he had never done. "To your home?"
He inclined his head in a solemn nod. "I have given her all that I am, a very part of my nature, molding her and shaping her for the destiny that is hers to claim. She is to become my queen, in word and in deed, to reign by my side."
Hers was not the place to question, only to serve, but Madame thought of Christine as a daughter, and it was this that prompted her to speak. "She has been well guarded, for you, into her womanhood. I remember well the arrangement you made with her father, and I have gladly done all I could to aid you and carry out his wishes. But she is naïve and tender in years, despite her now being of an age to wed. May I hope that marriage will be the prelude to the life you have planned for her below ground?"
His lips thinned in anger. "You dare question my motives?"
"No," she said with haste, "I wish only for your assurance. She is very dear to me."
It was a moment before he answered. "Christine is the embodiment of all that is beauty; Aphrodite in the flesh. I would not sully such perfection and treat her in a lewd manner that would suggest anything less than the commitment of matrimony. To live with and be one with me, always..." He hesitated and she sensed his sudden lack of confidence, lightning swift, as though he recalled why he hid himself away from others. Only in the matter of Christine, had he ever exhibited such uncertainty. "...That is, should she accept a union with this monster, this fearsome spectre…no, no. Arrangements must be made; she cannot see the truth. I will not let her!"
As he spoke the last, his words sounded even less certain, almost afraid, and he seemed to draw into himself. The shadows crept closer as he moved back in retreat to hide within their embrace.
"Be warned, Madame," he whispered. "Do nothing to interfere."
In the weak flame of the one candle she'd lit, she couldn't see well into the darkness across the room, but she needed no more light to tell her they had gone.
xXx
A knock sounded in warning before the door opened to admit Meg.
"Oh, mon ami," her friend breathed, closing the door behind and swiftly moving to where Christine stood. "You look simply divine. Are you nervous?"
Christine surveyed her image in the looking glass, which was crowned at the top by golden angels flanking a clamshell that held a pearl. Dressed as divinely as she was, she felt like that pearl – a hidden gem coveted and kept safe, soon to be revealed. Clad in the replica of an Empress dress designed for a royal named Elisabeth, Christine felt like a princess or a queen. Golden spangles designed as starbursts were sewn into the skirts of the pristine white gown that was tied in back with a ribbon of sky blue. The glittering starbursts were repeated in her ringlets of curls and from the lobes of her ears, dangling as iridescent jewels.
The exquisite costume fit her like a glove – designed to complement Christine's slender measurements, not Carlotta's, who was much more buxom and larger all around. Christine studied her reflection in dawning confusion; there had been no time for alterations. Even had there been, she'd never been called for any sort of fitting. The seamstress brought her the dress less than an hour ago, had helped her into it, and behold…like the recipient of a fairy godmother waving a wand, she had been transformed.
"Christine?"
She broke out of her curious bewilderment and regarded her friend's face in the mirror. "How can I be anything but nervous, Meg? You heard me at the audition – I was unprepared. Though the song… at least, I did know the song, thanks to my teacher."
She thought of how her angelic Maestro introduced the aria into her nightly lesson weeks before. Had he planned for this to happen? Did he know all along that Carlotta would leave the rehearsal in high dudgeon, the plummeting tapestry not a spur-of-the-moment prank but a devised scheme to remove her from the production? Christine had gone back and forth with the belief that her Angel might not be a celestial, but surely he could not be the Opera Ghost!
Her breaths quickened as she desperately tried to join obscure pieces together, an impossible puzzle with identical edges that seemed to fit, but despite repeated attempts never gave the true picture. Madame Giry earlier persuaded the managers with the suggestion that Christine sing, but Madame worked for the Phantom, not the Angel… right? Madame, who took flak from no one, but acted toward the Opera Ghost as a servant and aide to a higher authority…but surely not…a king?.
"Christine – you look ready to swoon," Meg said with concern, slipping her arm around her cinched-in waist and drawing her back to the dressing table. "Perhaps your corset is strung too tightly?"
"No, no, it's fine." She waved away her concern. "I'm fine."
"Well, sit here until your call comes," Meg suggested, helping Christine to the bench near the dressing table. "Would you like some water?"
Christine shook her head. "Thank you, no, I'm alright now. I just had a foolish thought – it was nothing."
Meg would only tell her that she was dreaming, allowing her imagination to dwell in fantasies yet again. Besides, she had never told her of her Angel.
"You have taken the stage already," Meg teased, "Or have you forgotten that you just performed in Act One?"
"Yes, but only within a group, never a solo. Never in the limelight, alone on stage, with everyone watching and waiting for me to make a mistake and horrendously fail."
Meg dropped to her knees and clasped Christine's hands that were held together tightly in her skirts. "You will do wondrously well, Christine. I know it. You have the voice of an angel."
An angel, yes…a Phantom…or a king.
But which one was he?
"I had better change into costume for my next entrance," Meg said. "Will you be all right?"
"Yes, of course," Christine assured with a tiny smile and watched her friend hurry away to the common dressing room that before tonight, Christine also shared with the rest of the chorus girls. But tonight, she was the star, and with that privilege came use of the star's dressing room decorated in bright shades of pink. Oh, vanity, vanity! A dressing table with a trio of mirrors stood near the elaborate full length gilt mirror, and a dressing screen stood near the double doors. It was a posh room designed for comfort, woven throughout with little luxuries to aid its star performer. And, for this evening at least, it was hers…
Christine brought her gaze around to the center oval mirror, noting the wide, startled expression in her dark eyes, and how pale her skin appeared, the face paint on her cheeks standing out in splotches.
A star…?
Though she had convinced Meg that she was alright, Christine had yet to convince herself.
Angel.
Phantom.
King.
She was no more certain of his identity than her own.
x
The call to take the stage arrived, and minutes later, Christine stood in a wash of blue-white light on the Meyerbeer set of a rock cliff sparsely studded with evergreens. To one side and behind, two children dressed as white-winged angels tended to two white horses. The backdrop of an ancient city was enclosed by a stone curtain, nestled far below in front of snow-capped mountains with a narrow river winding before it. A crescent moon, reminiscent of a woman, shone in a star-spangled sky, all of the lovely scene suggesting that Christine stood within heaven's realm, or perhaps, at the gateway of the gods and goddesses.
Directly above where Christine stood, in the center of the framework bordering the stage and in a place of honor, two golden statues were displayed, unlike any of the others throughout the entire Opera House. The woman, fully gowned, lay half reclined and looked toward the large cross she clasped in her left hand. Her right hand was held by a robed and hooded figure that reclined beside her. Where his face should have been was only darkness, and atop his hood a halo had been carved…
The Angel of Death, and a constant reminder of the wicked evil that infiltrated the theatre.
It was an absolute contradiction to her glorious Angel of Music, whose presence she again felt, as he had promised, and in that experience she found a measure of peace. Her voice brought the lyrical notes forth, but his spirit was what gave the music life and enabled her to sing with confidence.
His power confused and in a small manner terrified, in that she did not understand its source...Surely only an angel could sing into a person's mind, and only an angel could teach her to respond to him through her own thoughts…
A stir at the curtain of Box Five brought her attention there, and she saw with a jolt of shock that an intruder sat in the Phantom's Box, reserved for his use, though she had never once seen a clue that the Opera Ghost inhabited what he claimed was his to own. Blinded by the brilliant light above the royal box directly facing her, at first she could not see, and when she did, she noted it was the Vicomte who sat there. What nerve he had, to seize the Phantom's box! She wasn't certain she admired such reckless arrogance that could only bring trouble to everyone involved. Did he not recall Madame Giry's words that Box Five was for the Phantom's use alone? Or perhaps, since he'd been absent, no one had bothered to inform him of the note Madame Giry read to the managers. Monsieur Firmin, especially, had seemed hostile to the O.G.s orders.
Looking away from the Vicomte, Christine focused on her performance. But as she sang Elissa's song of wistful resignation blended with hope, her thoughts wandered to the man who beamed down at her from above and had once been a childhood friend. She thought, too, of her Angel who had been her teacher and confidant throughout most of her life. It was his spirit that sang through her, her words becoming their own to give, to covet and treasure, like a rare pearl of great worth …
"We never said our love was evergreen or as unchanging as the sea, but if you can still remember, stop and think of me... Think of all the things we've shared and seen... don't think about the way things might have been..."
In the words of the aria she drew comparisons to her own life. A spirit, her Angel remained hidden, always hidden, but what if one day he should leave her? And all she would have for companionship were memories, as Elissa faced? How devastated she would be! While Christine sang the next verse, with lyrics that oddly contradicted all the others, she thought only of her Angel, and with a mournful smile, she swept out her arms in an empty embrace…
"Think of me, think of me waking, silent and resigned. Imagine me, trying too hard to put you from my mind. Recall those days, look back on all those times, think of the things we'll never do. There will never be a day, when, I won't think of you!"
Far beneath the opera house stage, beneath the floor's grating of the musician's pit and down, down, down through the stone floor into the third cellar, the Phantom and King of Music stood within a mist of blue light. His head was lifted and his heart urged the angelic voice that drifted to him from above… His Christine... Her voice was sublime but her words were exquisite. For in that moment, he knew they were for him...
Inside the theatre, the audience applauded in astonished appreciation of the high note flawlessly held, while the Vicomte de Chagny stared with wonderment at the beautiful, be-gowned woman in the white, spangled dress. In that instant, he recognized her, even while his discerning soul sensed something hidden beneath the music and her ethereal voice.
"Can it be…can it be Christine?" Stunned, he shot to his feet and clapped. "Bravo!" Immediately he turned on his heel and left Box Five, striding past the concealed figure of Madame Giry hidden behind a curtain, watching - and a mirror that stretched along the length of the entire wall and reflected in its glass everything but his image…
"Long ago, it seems so long ago, how young and innocent we were…"
In his exuberance, he took the stairs two at a time down to the foyer, paying little heed as he strode past a royal guard of uniformed soldiers, all of them bearing sheathed swords and standing in formation and at attention, like those found in service to a king at his palace.
"She may not remember me, but I remember her!" ...
Christine noticed the stir near the stage, in Box Five, once the Vicomte stood and left. Things were changed; her life had changed, and she kept that in mind as she continued into her last verse:
"Flowers fade, the fruits of summer fade, they have their seasons, so do we…but please promise me that sometimes, you will think …."
She felt almost buoyant as she proceeded into her intricate run, her voice trilling sweetly along the cadenza of notes in a flawless demonstration of skill and ease, while behind her, on set, a cloud moved in to cover the moon. She stair-stepped the notes into a brilliant finish and allowed her voice to reach heights that had been designed for the angels alone -
"…of ME!"
Behind her, the heavy cloud rapidly skittered away from the crescent moon, which again shone bright and unhindered, while the audience cheered and stood to their feet in continual waves of praise.
Christine smiled and looked around the theatre, drinking in the boisterous adulation, as a shower of pink roses rained around and in front of where she stood and curtsied in gratitude.
She had succeeded! She had fulfilled all he wished for her and created her to be! She was a star!
Together, they had fulfilled their shared aspiration, the single most greatest triumph of her life…if only he would come out of hiding and into her presence now, if only to stand beside her and receive the ebullient praise that belonged every bit as much to him…
If only.
xXx
A/N: Would love to know what you think! :) Sorry for the back and forth POVs (I know it's a writing no-no, but frankly, I don't care. ;-) You might say I'm a writing rebel when it comes to some of the stodgy rules that I have no idea who made up) - but at the same time, I don't want reading this to become confusing and tried to make it easy to tell whose head you were in ... The POVs changed pretty fast and furiously- lol- (and might again) - but it lacked in writing this scene any other way...