Letter Nine - The Angel of Music

This was new.

It was new, and it was not.

It was something like anger. Anger or annoyance, but he was familiar with those feelings and this...was not that.

It was also something like sorrow, sharp around the edges, soft and dark in the center, but this was not quite that either.

His eyes were stinging from lack of sleep, but at least the buzzing in his brain had lessened. He stood in the darkened passage behind the mirror and waited for the girl to arrive.

His pupil.

His project.

An ache in his teeth reminded him to unclench his jaw as previous night replayed in his mind. He had noticed, of course, that something seemed off when she returned from lunch. She seemed distant, but not in the way with which he was accustomed.

The door opened, and she stepped into the room. The cool of the glass beneath his fingertips registered before he realized his hand had moved. She unwound a diaphanous, scarlet scarf from around her throat. Good. The September air was growing cooler, and getting sick would only slow the progress she was making.

Wait.

A red scarf.

She'd mentioned a red scarf while filming yesterday. He watched as she hung the scarf carefully on her changing screen, her small hands lingering on the material for a little too long. She was still in the same strange mood.

See, he was used to the other distance. She would grow still, then somber, and he knew she was thinking about her father. Her eyes would take on a vague, empty look, and it intrigued him, in a way. He found the study of her grief quite fascinating. What would it feel like to care that much about someone else?

The girl quickly checked her appearance in the mirror before taking up her music folder and leaving the room. He turned sharply to the right, slipping down a tight passage that followed ran parallel to the corridor. Years of practice rendered his footsteps silent, and his limbs took on a liquid quality as he navigated around support beams, levers, and useful bits of rope. Her steps were soft, but he could make them out where the walls were thinnest. He kept pace with the girl, catching glimpses through well placed holes and panels where, years ago, he'd removed the plaster of the wall behind certain paintings and replaced the images with screen prints of the art on fine mesh.

But no, it wasn't so much a question about caring about someone. He knew that answer clearly as the child of any parent might. What he really wondered was what it felt like to lose someone who cared about you. Clearly the loss could be quite devastating, if she was any example.

She pushed open the doors leading backstage, and he listened briefly before sliding the false panel marking the end of the passage to the side. He slid the wall back into place, the seams disappearing completely, and he started up a maintenance ladder towards the flies.

The girl was already nestled in crowd of sopranos by the time he reached his favorite perch. She smiled in greeting at the other girls, before turning her attention to Reyer. The man was midway through his usual morning prattle, but he ignored the conductor, focusing instead on his student below. She had drifted away again, to that melancholic place she so often frequented.

But no.

That! That was the change. This distance wasn't sad. It was nervous. Buzzing. Fingertips running through soft brown hair. Feet that could not stay still as she bounced lightly on her toes. A jar full of lightning bugs and honey bees. A tiny, tiny smile on her lips and a melody started to take shape in his mind, fingers twitching, eyes drifting closed.

Three-quarter time. A waltz. No words. Just piano...perhaps an underlying melody with a violin. Bright, but contained, just enough of an edge to cut the sweetness, and -

She was happy.

His eyes snapped open, and he tucked the melody away in his mind for later. Not quite happiness, but almost. It was excitement and it was because of that boy. That boy she spent her whole "letter" rambling on about last night.

The sharp, soft, dark feeling he had been ignoring all morning rose a little higher. He could taste it, almost. A metallic green tang in the back of his throat. He followed her movements across the stage with sharp eyes as the day progressed. The company broke for lunch, but even that horrid woman's croaking once the rehearsals resumed could not break his concentration.

It wasn't that he didn't want her to be happy. Why should he care? He didn't care! He didn't care. It was simply a matter of principle. The girl was an investment, and as a wise investor, he knew to take precautions. That was it. That was all.

She had been a risk from the first, but the unmasked pain he'd seen on her face, the familiarity, the truth of it, rang so pure and loud inside of him that he had no choice but to answer. A shared kinship. Her talent, while raw, had demanded refinement. Refinement he could provide. Music had always come easily to him, and after a bit of observation he could see that music had come just as easily to her.

He had thought, as she grew more confident, that his desire to teach her would wane the happier she became. It would have made sense. He could jot it all down as a fluke, a strange bout of pity, a whim he'd followed too far. Something shifted, though, and knowing he had had a hand in creating the brightness growing stronger in her everyday...he almost felt brighter too.

But this? This nervous excitement over some boy? He felt no brighter when he saw this. This sliced at the threads he felt connected them, and he was not yet ready for those cords to be cut. The girl still had so much to learn. So much he could teach her. She could rise to great heights, he was almost certain. He could lift her to those heights, certainly, if need be. Rehearsals wrapped up below, and he hurried back towards her dressing room. A headache began to radiate from his jaw, but he didn't bother to unclench his teeth. He'd only start up again.

The girl was his pupil.

His project.

Aggravation swept through him as he arrived in the passage behind her mirror. He'd wasted his day in contemplation. Important matters had been left unattended. No matter, he would simply have to address them tomorrow. She was there now, in the room, smiling that secret, tiny, hopeful smile that had nothing to with him or the generous assistance he had been providing for the past four weeks. The churning in his stomach only grew stronger. Just a few days ago, she'd smiled at the sound of his voice. She'd smiled because of him.

That didn't matter! The girl's smiles meant nothing. Nothing aside from the fact that smiling meant she wasn't weeping, and if she wasn't weeping, she could sing.

He watched as she wandered in small circles, studying the music in her hands. She would sing a few measures, then sing them again before pausing to jot down a note or two. After an hour of this, she checked the time on her phone and left the room. He presumed she was checking to make sure the halls were empty. Whether this was due to his instructions to keep their meetings discreet, or to see if there was someone she pin the Angel's voice on, he couldn't be sure. The girl seemed to want to believe the story, but she wasn't a fool.

He pulled out his phone and checked the feeds to the security cameras, and then checked feeds to the cameras he had placed personally. At this point, nearly everyone had gone home, and the few people still lingering were either too far away or smart enough to mind their own business. He tracked her progress through the halls (first to the left to listen at each door, then back to the right, passing her own room on her way to the end of the corridor, stopping in at the bathroom before returning down the hall, as per usual). She entered the room and came to stand before the mirror. It was time.

"Good evening, Christine." He threw his voice just far enough to make it to the other side of the glass. As had happened yesterday, he couldn't seem to summon the energy to perform the part of the Angel tonight.

"Good evening, Maestro!" Her face lit like a candle. He did not care if she smiled or cried. He did not care.

"First, you shall warm up. Then, we shall we begin where we left off yesterday." His voice fell, flat and gray, like pebbles at her feet. Her expression dimmed momentarily. He instructed her to start singing, and she complied. Splendid. Her face fell further with each new comment, each flat platitude.

"Maestro?" The girl stopped singing, her concerned eyes scanning the mirror. "Have I done something wrong?"

An angel would respond with grace. An angel would be full of wisdom. Confidence. Endless calm and patience. Strength.

"Something has happened with you, Christine. You are distracted. It has to do with that man, that De Chagny fellow, at the box office," he said.

Idiot! An angel would not say something like that!

"Oh, Raoul? Yeah! I was so excited when I saw him because..." Her face brightened again as she spoke of the boy. On and on, just like yesterday, and his teeth were in the verge of cracking and everything was same roiling, raucous, metal, green.

No. That was enough.

He stormed down the passage, away from her lilting voice and the waltz refusing to stay silent at the quiet hope in her eyes. He heard her voice turn questioning just as the trapdoor closed over his head.

o...o0o...o

The subway roared past the service door. He waited for the sound to die down before slipping quickly into the dark tunnel beyond. Taking care to avoid the electrified tracks, he made his way towards the faint glow of the 66th Street–Lincoln Center subway station. He pulled himself onto the platform with ease, pulled on the hood of his sweater, and brushed the dust from his long black overcoat. He leaned against the wall, with his head angled down, keeping an eye on the stairs leading to the streets above. Vivaldi's Summer played softly through his headphones as he watched the girl walk down the stairs. Her face, open as always, was clearly troubled. The train arrived, and he pushed off the wall, keeping an eye on the girl, and entering the car behind hers. She dipped in and out of his view with the sway of the subway, blocked by a host of bodies and the doors between them. When the subway opened at her station, he overtook her on the stairs and brushed past her. Using his long stride to cover the now familiar few blocks to her home, he ducked into an ally with a good view of both the street and her front door. He waited there, in the shadows, as his investment walked slowly up the sidewalk, arms crossed, swiping occasionally at her eyes. He stayed there until he saw her close the blinds of her bedroom window.

o...o0o...o

Another day of rehearsals passed. She stood again at the mirror, as she had every night. He watched, but he did not sing. Eventually, she took her bag and left.

o...o0o...o

He avoided rehearsals the next day, choosing to attend to small fires that needed his attention across the opera. Notes to be left for certain members of the orchestra, instructions for the tech crew as to the lighting for Faust and the upcoming Gala, and other such matters. He did not go to the mirror, did not visit the passage behind her room. The security footage from the opera played across multiple monitors deep below the streets of New York City, and he watched her leave hours after everyone else had gone home.

o...o0o...o

On the third night, he approached the mirror at the appointed time. She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the glass, her head in her hands. He studied the figure before him for a long moment, taking note of the soft shaking of her shoulders.

"Why are you crying?" No singing this time, no warning violin. Her head shot up and he saw the red rimming her eyes.

"Angel? You're here!" She scrambled quickly to her feet, almost falling in her excitement. She stumbled to the mirror and placed both hands on the glass. "I thought you were gone! I thought I was crazy! That I'd imagined the whole thing."

"Did you miss your angel, then?" His question came out sharper than intended.

"Of course I did! I was –"

"I assumed since your old friend has returned, you no longer had need of me."

"I-I don't know what you mean…" she said, her brow wrinkling in confusion.

Of course she didn't understand. How would she? She was sunshine and warm breezes and walks in Central Park. She was friendly. Open. She was sand-dusted memories of happy times with people who loved her and she could never understand. Maybe she had felt pain. Maybe she'd tasted a sip of what he'd been forced to swallow his whole life. What was a sip when compared to an ocean? Soon, even the aftertaste of what plagued her would be washed from her tongue and she'd brush the fine cobwebs that spread between them away with sun-drenched fingers. She could do it whenever she wanted to, and he would not waste his time, his effort, on someone so ungrateful. So unworthy.

"Angel?" Her voice cracked on the word, and the soft, broken sound pulled him out of his thoughts. He would give her one more chance, but that was all. He would remove her from the opera entirely if need be.

"If you want to give up this music, the music your father promised you, for earthly love, then that is your choice." Yes, this is how an Angel would react. He let his voice fill the room beyond, powerful and golden once more.

"No, I–"

"It is your decision. I will go to another who needs my tutelage, if I must. Someone who will dedicate themselves to music and music alone."

"Please, let me–"

"Do not answer now. I will give you a few days to decide. Be ready with your answer when I return."

o...o0o...o

He kept an eye on her over the next few days, checking in periodically to read what her open face was saying. He had rocked her with his words. Good. She should know the stakes, the value of what he was offering. He could give her the world, if she wanted. He could list her name in the stars. She could become one of the greats, but only if she chose him.

The new-found confidence he had worked so hard to instill began to crumble. Her singing suffered. At this rate she wouldn't have the drive to sing karaoke to a roomful of drunks. She waited for him every night in her dressing room, staring hopefully at the glass.

On Tuesday, she gazed thoughtfully at the mirror for a long time before setting up her camera and sitting down to film.

o...o0o...o

If the Angel of Music was looking for some assurance of her faith in him, she would give it. Christine knew she had been dancing around this for months now, refusing to admit even too herself what was going on. She pushed the truth of it aside as something too wonderful and impossible, taking each encounter as the gift it was, expecting every moment to wake up and realize she had truly broken, truly cracked.

But now she needed to decide if she was in, all in. Had she been hearing voices, or had her father been true to his word. Did it even work like that in heaven?

She didn't know, she couldn't know, but stranger things had happened, right? Look at Joan of Arc!

All she knew for certain was that she could not lose the Angel. Not now, and if that meant putting aside the silly dreams of reuniting with some guy who probably didn't even want to speak to her, then she would do just that. She looked into the camera, and began to speak.

"At first I didn't want to say anything, because, well, it makes me sound crazy," she began. A weight seems to lift from her shoulders as she spoke. " I am taking voice lessons...from the Angel of Music."

o...o0o...o

He listened with growing satisfaction as she spoke. A great slumbering something seemed to turn over inside of him at her admission, and the experience was not altogether unpleasant. He had her. She believed. She had chosen, and she had chosen him. The waltz sprung from the dark corner of his mind where he had hidden it, fully-formed and wonderous, dancing circles through his mind as he watched her.

His pupil.

His project.

His Christine.