Letter Six - New Friends


Christine turned off the camera and hurried out of the dressing room after Meg. She tossed her purse over her shoulder as the two kept pace with one another.

"Sorry again for crashing your video like that," Meg apologized, "I didn't realize you had anything going on or I would have waited."

"Oh, no worries – " Christine started.

"QUIET ON THE SET, PLEASE, QUIET ON THE SET!" Meg cut in, mimicking the voice of an old-timey director. She stopped and looked at the ground with a dramatic sigh, "and I've just interrupted you again."

"It's fine!" Christine laughed goodnaturedly, feeling more lighthearted than she had in weeks. Months. She was dizzy with something that danced along the edges of joy and mania. "Now tell me more about this jazz club."

"Excellent," Meg's eyes lit up as they exited the opera and were swept up the pedestrian stream, "I'm thinking *theme-night.* The twenties. You don't work at an opera as long as my mother has without inheriting some sweet costume cast-offs. We can just head straight to my place, some of the girls are meeting us…"

Christine's brain was spinning, bright little spots of light and swirls of golden fog clouded her mind. Little Lotte's head was was always full, but was it full of nothing?

He had spoken to her.

Her heart sped up at the thought. Good things, so many of them, and all at once. Here she was, laughing and climbing the stairs towards Meg's and her mother's eighth floor walk-up, preparing for an evening of flapper dresses and new friends and good music and he had spoken to her.

"Mom! I'm home," Meg called out as they entered the apartment. When there was no response, She shrugged and began pulling Christine down the hall, "huh, she must still be at work. Whatever. I'm thinking hair and makeup first. This way, to the costume closet!"

The two tried out various hairstyles and painted their lips in cupid-bows of red as the other girls arrived. The apartment hummed with the warm, hairspray-scented energy of girls getting ready together. Christine fell into the feeling happily, giving into the inviting warmth as a fellow chorus member zipped up her black, beaded flappers dress and one of the dancers adjusted a glittering headband across her brow.

"Does this place require costumes?" She called to Meg.

"Nope, I just think this is fun!" Meg said, flipping a feather boa over her shoulders with the practiced drama of a born performer.

As the girls filed noisily down the stairs and into the waiting ubers, Christine's only regret was that she hadn't gotten to vent this week. In just a month and a half, she had come to rely on these video letters, and Meg's interruption left her feeling off kilter. The videos gave her a space to be open, to speak, in a time when she felt her friendships too new and fragile to hold the weight of real, honest conversation.

She watched as Meg chatted with the Uber driver, causing the car to erupt in laughter as she spun a tale about getting her driver lost on her first, disastrous, Uber ride. One day, Christine knew, she'd have people other than Mamma Valerius to trust. But not quite yet, she thought, and not about this.

She wasn't sure if a miracle had occurred or if she, Christine Daae, had gone absolutely insane.

He had spoken to her.

o...o0o...o

Christine had buried the Angel of Music when she buried her father.

Some things were simply too painful to think about.

She didn't think about The Angel of Music the way she didn't think about her father. The great, yawning chasm, just to the left of normal. A butterfly alighting on stone, she would bump against memories, her wings would glance lightly against veins of what-used-to-be, and she dared not rest for long. Until one afternoon, when Mamma Valerius presented Christine with a tiny pair of paper angel wings, drawn all over with shaky, childish music notes in pink crayon and gold glitter.

"Do you remember making these?" Mamma V asked Christine, who could only nod in return; the wave of nostalgia and sorrow sweeping any words off her tongue . She touched the edge of the wings lightly and glitter flaked onto the tips of her fingers.

She set the wings on her nightstand, and woke the next morning from sad, sweet dreams.

A few days later, she came upon a knot of people after rehearsal, huddled backstage and sharing ghost stories. Not a single, Scandinavian story came to mind. Years of her father telling her dark stories of the north, and she could only think of the Angel. Not the De Underjordiske, lost souls who live underground and call for passing humans to join them. Not Pesta, who ushered in illness with her rake and broom. Not Draugen, the huge, horrifying, ship-sinking, seaweed-covered ghost of a man lost at sea. None of them. Only the Angel of Music and the whisper of a promise.

Then there was night she had come home, shaking and unsettled, and told Mamma V of the voice that had called to her in her dressing room. The impossible, beautiful voice that knew her name.

"Christine," Mamma said, turning off whatever ghost-themed documentary she'd been burning through that day, "you don't think…"

Christine swiped at her runny nose with the sleeve of her sweater, surprised to find her cheeks wet. How long had she been crying?

"Think what, Mamma?"

"I used to hear the two of you talking, you and your father. Toward the end, before things got really bad, before we realized...I think he knew before the rest of us. I know what he told you."

"Told me…?" Christine loved the woman, but she needed to be spoon fed whatever revelation Mamma Valerius had stumbled upon. She was incapable of connecting any dots that night.

"He told you that when he got to heaven, he would send you –"

"...the Angel of Music." She and Christine finished together. It came rushing back to Christine, everything, the precious ore in the veins of the cavern. The stories, her father's promise, all the times she had curled up next to him and asked to hear about the Angel of Music. Her desire to hear the story had dwindled as she got into high school and later college, but every now and then, he would look at her with twinkle in his eye.

"Little Lotte's head was always full, but was it full of nothing?"

Hope, that persistent, stubborn little pilot light, flared inside her chest. What if? It was stupid. It was crazy. What if? Her father was gone. The Angel of Music was a fairytale. What if?

The rest of the week passed in a blur of music and fevered listening. Christine lingered in her dressing room in silence each night, straining for even the faintest rustle of, well, anything. Sunday she went to church with Mamma, but could hardly focus on the sermon. Weren't there all sorts of stories of God sending angels to people? Joan of Arc. The Apostle Paul. The women at Jesus' grave on the third day. She'd heard of others too, modern day miracles.

Could it be possible that God had listened to her father's prayers, and sent the Angel of Music to her? Lord, if this is from You, please make it clear. Please...let it be from You, she prayed. Her spirit remained unsettled within her. She pushed the feeling aside.

Monday passed without incident, a full week of silence. She headed home for the night, her heart a ship on uncertain seas. Maybe she had imagined it. Maybe she was going crazy.

What if?

Christine entered her dressing room the next night weary after a long rehearsal, and frustrated at that unflappable pilot light inside her. She straightened the sheafs of music in her portfolio. She set up her camera, but didn't sit to film. She dusted her shelves. She tapped together the pair of small silver egg cups to hear their bright Ting!

She was alive with sparks of anxious energy and small jitters of anger. She was angry? Yes! She was angry! She couldn't quite pinpoint the source, but the sucking, disappointing silence of the walls around her seemed a likely candidate.

Fine. FINE! She thought. Let's lean into it, shall we? Let's give full on insanity a whirl. And if nothing comes of this, SO BE IT.

"Um...Your...Celestial-ness?" She said softly. Nothing. She cleared her throat and said the first thing that came to mind. "Uh, Holy Angel...heaven..blessed?"

Fantastic! She was quoting Faust to her walls. Soon she'd be tossing salt over her left shoulder and carrying around a lucky charm like Mamma Valerius.

She raked her hair out of her face and a bitter laugh barked out of her. So much for what if. She angrily tied her hair in a ponytail, and turned towards the camera. Might as well document her lapse of sanity. For science. Surely psychologists across the world would be interested in dissecting the thought process behind –

Someone started singing.

Christine spun towards the mirror, and the laugh that spilled from her lips was the antithesis of the one that came before. It sounded like discovery and disbelief and joy. A miner who struck gold. A scientist exclaiming Eureka!

"Hello?" She called, tentatively. The song continued a few moments more, before fading to pause.

"Hello, Christine." The Voice. Caramel and sunset and pools of clear gold. Christine's breathing bordered on hyperventilation.

"Uh, hi! You're...here. You're here! You're, uh...you're real?" Her voice went up like a question.

"Yes, Christine. I'm here. I'm real." The pool of clear gold was tinged with amusement.

A strangled, happy sound burst from Christine and she clapped her hands over her mouth. Spinning abruptly away from the mirror, she took a few steps towards the door, then spun right back around and strode right up to the long, elegant mirror.

"You're not just someone hiding behind my mirror?" She asked determinedly, tapping smartly on the glass with one finger to emphasize her point.

"No. No. I am not just someone hiding behind your mirror." The sunset said, first by the door, then from the chair at her vanity, then from behind the changing screen. She turned to follow the voice as it spoke, completing the circle as the voice swelled on every side and sucked back towards the mirror, slipping past her like a caress. " I merely thought it would comfort you to hear me from a single point of reference."

"...oh. Oh, uh, so... If you're not...If you aren't…" Christine took a shuddering breath, and squared her shoulders. "Who are you?"

"Christine," the Voice said gently, "I'm disappointed. Don't you know me?"

A million different thoughts swirled through her head, bible verses, her father's voice, her own unsettled prayer on Sunday. She shook her head, trying to push through to some sort of conclusion.

What if?

It was on the tip of her tongue. She had promised herself she would ask. She had promised herself that the next time she heard the voice, she would ask, outright, are you the Angel of Music? The listening silence had grown long. The words formed on her lips.

"Christine," the Voice said, gently cutting off her unspoken question, "I must bid you goodnight."

Already he sounded further away. A humming sort of melody drifted through the air.

"Will you come back?" She called, voice frantic at the edges.

"Only if you learn your lessons, practice your scales, and have a pure heart…" The Voice, distant but tinged with warm laughter, whispered around her before fading into silence.

Christine put one hand to her forehead and stared down at the floor, processing. A full minute passed before she moved a limb. Her actions seemed distant and far away, her mind autumn and her thoughts falling leaves. When next she fully came to herself she was sitting in a crowded booth in a jazz club with seven other girls costumed, as she was, in full flapper regalia.

A waiter had just left, his tray held high, after depositing a still flaming sample of...something.

"Langue de bœuf la flambée!" Meg laughed over the upbeat jazz, blew out the flame, and pushed the dish towards Lyla. "Beef tongue flambé. Take it away, lil' Jammes!"

"Meg, don't call me that!" Lyla said, as she adventurously grabbed a sliver.

"Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat!" The girls chanted, pounding their fists rhythmically on the table as Lyla adventurously grabbed a sliver. Christine joined in and cheered with the rest as Lyla chewed and flashed them a thumbs up. She stood and bowed before them with an elegant flourish and held out a hand.

"Anyone care to dance?" Lyla asked. All eight poured out of the crowded booth and trouped onto the dance floor. The dancers tried to teach the chorus girls how to Charleston, and the chorus girls tried to learn. It went rather poorly. All agreed that they would not be switching roles anytime soon.

The night wound to a close, and Christine hugged Meg and thanked her for the invite as the uber rolled to a stop. She waved and smiled at the retreating taillights, and turned to unlock the door.

The excitement inside her burned so hot it almost felt like anxiety. It glittered, refracting and reflecting off of itself. The house was quiet, Mamma Valerius already asleep. Christine slipped out of the flapper dress and laid it on a chair. She would return it to Meg tomorrow. She pulled on her soft cotton pajama pants and a ribbed tank top before padding into the bathroom on bare feet. The water was cool as she washed her face. As she brushed her teeth, she realized, maybe, it was a good thing her letter had been interrupted. It was still too fresh, too shiny, too recent to say out loud. Maybe later, when she was more certain. Maybe later, when this felt less like a dream.


Woohoo! New Chapter! I also went through and fixed some of the spelling erros and such I'd missed in previous chapters. I got the stuff about Swedish monsters from an article titled 10 Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore on the website Listverse.

Thanks for reading, please review!