A/N: I know it's not Wednesday yet, but I figured if I gave you one update today and one tomorrow, that will be enough for the time I'm away...Thank you to the two who left lovely reviews for me...any more are extremely welcome. Once again, thank you to FantomPhan33 for beta-ing, and Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables do not belong to me.
Just a short one today.
"You were incredible," we crowd around Christine, Meg and I at the forefront.
"Thank you," she murmurs. "Thank you, Meg, Marianne, thank you."
"You did well," Madame Giry's words are accompanied by the stamp of her cane. "He will be pleased."
The other ballet girls look confused at this sudden mention of a he. Christine is too innocent to have a lover, has never mentioned anything to any of them. Meg and I exchange knowing glances.
"And you were a disgrace!" Madame Giry rounds on us. "Such rond des jambes! Such temps de cuisse! Come. We rehearse, now!"
I sigh as I follow the twittering flock of ballet girls, our tulle skirts white in the dark corridors leading to The Ballet Room.
"And one and two and three," Madame Giry claps her hands, and we form up into our lines, practising the same movements over and over again. Half an hour in, my legs are already shaking and I'm finding it hard to keep my head upright.
"Keep going, girls," Madame suddenly says. "Sylvie, you lead."
Sylvie Belanger, the eldest and second dancer to Meg takes the centre of the room. This particular girl has no trouble in pointing out everyone's flaws, and as her pale eyes focus on me, a blush rises to stain my cheeks and tears threaten at the corners of my eyes.
"Marianne Lemieux, you are not turning out," she says triumphantly. My chest tightens. "Relevé like this and then do two pirouettes and a rond de jambe…your arms are like a scarecrow. Gently, bend them gently."
The other girls snicker behind their hands, watching as I clumsily attempt her instructions, wobbling awkwardly on the tips of my toes.
The door creaks open and Meg appears, her blonde hair falling out of her bun. "Sylvie," she says. "Stop torturing Anne. I am to take over now."
Meg sends the other back into lines, me to the back and we start over again, the flush never fading from my cheeks.
As soon as Madame Giry returns, a troubled look shadowing her eyes, she dismisses us, telling us all to go to bed. We all sink into reverences and bid her goodnight, heading out in chattering groups of two or three.
"I'm going to see Maman," I say quietly to Meg as we pass a side-door to the servants' quarters. "I'll see you later."
"See you," Meg says absently, following the others towards our dormitories.
Ascending the stairs on shaking legs, I open the door to the servants' corridor, the flaking wooden doors a stark contrast from the grandeur of the main Opera House, or even the neat rooms in which we sleep.
My knock echoes around the silent hallway, and quickly, the door is swung open. "Cherie," my mother stands in the doorway, a smile already pulling her lips wide. "How nice it is to see you! You looked lovely up on stage this evening – I was watching from the wings."
"Maman," I say, enfolding myself in her warm embrace. She shuts the door behind us. "I did everything wrong. I can't have looked lovely."
"Is it Sylvie Belanger again?" she asks, knowing full well the cause of most of my problems.
"Yes," I nod, a lone tear trickling down my cheek. "I don't know why she always picks on me! There are twenty-five of us, Maman, and it's me she singles out."
"She's jealous," my mother says with the air of a proud parent. "She's jealous that she doesn't have your looks, or your smile."
"I'm not that pretty, Maman, Not like Meg or Christine."
"But you have your talent. I've been keeping it safe for you," she reaches under her bed and pulls out my treasured book. The sight of it brings a smile to my face, sunshine peeking out from the rainclouds.
"Thank you," I say, taking it in reverent hands. "Did you get a chance to look at the last bit I added? Fantine needed better lyrics to her song."
"No, not yet," she smiles, her eyes crinkling up. "Sing it for me."
...
As Christine sleeps and he sits at his organ, sound trickles down through the catacombs, a sweet, lovely sound with the rough edge of someone unused to practising.
"I dreamed a dream in time gone by…when hope was high and life worth living. I dreamed that love would never die…I dreamed that God would be forgiving…"
He has heard every single piece of opera music ever written, and he cannot ever remember hearing something with such lyrics, lyrics that speak of love gained and lost, a life plummeted into despair.
In a way, it reminds him of himself.