Palais Garnier, Spring 1884
"Emma, pay attention. Were you listening to what I was saying?" Madame Devereaux scolded. The ballet mistress was glowering at Emma, who didn't seem to be concentrating. "I want you to pay attention, not stare off into space. Class dismissed."
As the ballet rats hurried back to their dormitory rooms, Lucienne nudged Emma. "Emma, what's wrong with you today? Were those biscuits bad? I hate those new chefs—they don't know anything about cooking. They always misplace food and confuse ingredients."
Emma didn't reply.
"Emma, what's happened to you?"
Emma looked up at Lucienne and said, "While you were in the kitchen last night, I saw a pair of glowing eyes. At human level. I-I-"
Lucienne twisted her head around to face Emma. "Maybe you saw the Opera Ghost."
Emma blanched. "The Opera Ghost?"
"Non, I'm just joking. What you saw was a cat standing on a ledge."
Emma closed her eyes and took a deep breath. So it wasn't the devil or some otherworldly apparition after all—just a cat. But then—
"What's the Opera Ghost?" Emma inquired. Oh, why did she have such a terrible feeling about this? She regretted those words almost as soon as they came out of her mouth. She didn't want to know.
On the other hand, a strange part of her—curiosity—was gnawing at her. She had to know what this Opera Ghost was. Perhaps it had something to do with the murder of Louis Durand.
"Three years ago," Lucienne started, "in tandem with the mysterious goings-on at this very Opera House, there was said to be a ghost. A ghost who would play all kinds of pranks on the staff and extort the managers for money. They also said the ghost demanded his very own private box in which he could view performances in—Box Five."
"Did these events happen for real?" Emma felt a strange feeling—wonder edged with terror.
Lucienne replied, "Of course they did, Emma. Come on—I'll take you to a ballet girl who witnessed these events." Lucienne took hold of Emma's arm and led her down several passageways that diverged from their typical path to the ballet girls' dorm.
Eventually, Lucienne stopped in front of a door. She knocked. "Meg? Are you there?"
The door opened and a jet-haired girl peered out. "What?"
"Can you tell Emma here about the very real—" here she turned to glance at Emma— "events that happened here?"
Meg turned to look at Emma. "Yes. Of course. Lucienne, you shouldn't go around talking about those happenings to everyone, though I suppose telling her is alright." Here she gestured at Emma. "Emma—that's your name, is it?—we should talk. Come in."
Emma stepped into the room. It was just like any other dorm room—except there were no girls in it except Meg, Emma, and Lucienne.
"The other girls in the room have left for a stroll," Meg explained. "So we're alone here. Have you come to hear the story of the Opera Ghost?"
Emma nodded, sitting down on a bed. Lucienne, excitedly, hopped and pranced about before settling on a different bed. "I've heard this story many times before, but each time it seems new and everything! You should start, Meg!"
Meg sighed. "I used to be like you, Lucienne, but have since matured."
Lucienne paused, and opened her mouth to launch a retort.
"Don't worry, Lucienne. You'll mature in your own time," Meg said affably. "Alright, I'll tell my story. Three years ago, these strange events happened. Back then, my mother, Madame Giry, was the box-keeper of Box Five." She paused. "I remember when I and some other ballet rats were practicing, and we saw a man who suddenly appeared out of nowhere. We panicked and rushed into La Sorelli's room—she now performs in other places in Europe. There, as we were huddled about around La Sorelli, I accidentally blurted out what I knew about the Opera Ghost—that he inhabited Box Five, my mother's box, and that he didn't like it whenever people went around telling wild tales about him. A moment later, Jammes' mother—Jammes was a ballet rat who has now left the Opera House—Jammes' mother then came in and told us that Joseph Buquet, the chief scene-shifter, was dead.
"Buquet had gone around telling tales—he claimed to have seen the Opera Ghost himself, and he gave such a ghastly description of him! Well, he was found dead hanging from a set piece from the Le Roi de Lahore—just like what happened to the other scene-shifter, Louis Durand."
Emma felt a strange sensation of fear. So assuming Meg's story was true, this Opera Ghost did have something to do with the Louis Durand's death. She shivered.
"Well, anyways, it was also found out that a Swedish ballet girl, Christine Daae, had the most beautiful voice, even though—and I swear on my heart that this is true—that six months before, she sang like a rusty hinge!
"The Comte de Chagny was a patron of the Opera House at the time, and his brother, the Vicomte de Chagny, started flirting with Christine. I heard they knew each other as children. Well, my mother told me the ghost was threatening the managers, so they had to give him twenty thousand francs a month—"
"Twenty thousand francs!" Emma exclaimed.
"You didn't tell me that before!" Lucienne protested at the same time.
"Oui, the managers had to give twenty thousand francs to the ghost every month. And Lucienne, be quiet. Anyways, the managers planned to replace Mother and everything, but they failed, because at one point during a performance of Faust, a singer, Carlotta, started to croak like a toad, and then the chandelier fell. It was a miracle that only one person lost her life—and it happened to be the concierge that was supposed to replace my mother.
Emma blinked. "How-"
Meg shrugged. "I have no idea how it happened. And then Christine Daae disappeared for two weeks. The Vicomte was worried sick. And when she came back, the two pretended to be engaged for a month before the Vicomte was supposed to leave on a polar expedition. Unfortunately, Christine was abducted at the end of that month. I didn't witness it myself, but someone told me how it happened:
"Christine was singing about angels and the like when suddenly, the stage lights turned off, plunging the stage into darkness. The lights were on again before the audience had time to exclaim, but by then, Christine had vanished. A freak accident was ruled out—the event was too precisely timed for that. I heard the Vicomte left to rescue Christine, but he was never seen again. Most people assume he's dead. Several days later, the Comte's body was found on the shore of an underground lake. He had presumably gone off to rescue the Vicomte, but had died.
"At the time, all this was all over the newspapers, but now, everything has long since been forgotten."
Emma sat in her dorm room, pondering Meg's tale. Several minutes earlier, she had gone off with Lucienne for a third kitchen raid, and as Lucienne munched on a biscuit, Emma wondered if Meg's tale was true.
Suddenly her eyes widened, for she heard a faint voice right next to her right ear: "Meg's story, I assure you, is true."
Emma froze, but the voice had disappeared. She glanced at Lucienne.
"Uh, was that you?" she asked.
"What?"
"I heard someone say something. Something about how Meg's story was real."
Lucienne shrugged. "Wasn't me." She brushed off some crumbs on her lap and turned away, settling into bed. Within minutes her chest was rising and falling at a regular rhythm.
Emma yawned. She was tired, too. Her eyes began to lower tiredly, when she saw something on her periphery. Whaaaaa...
They were eyes.
Glowing eyes.
Emma's eyelids snapped open. She opened her mouth to exclaim, but a hand was clamping down hard on her mouth, a hand that smelled of dust and decay...
She fainted.