"Ghostbusters."
"Aw, geez."
"…Really, Raoul? Really?"
"Aw, come on, you guys, that was just begging to be said," Raoul laughed as he plunged his hand into the bowl of popcorn that sat between us.
"What, kind of like how 'Edgar Allan Bro' is begging to be said whenever you see that picture of Poe wearing sunglasses?" I said, unable to suppress a smile.
"Exactly how 'Edgar Allan Bro' is begging to be said whenever I see that picture of Poe wearing sunglasses," Raoul said with a smart tilt of his head. He leaned in closer to Meg and stuck out his index finger. "A photo which, despite being Photoshopped, does not lessen Poe's status as a Soul Brother."
"Well, now," she said primly, "I can't argue with that."
We were in the living room of my apartment, crammed onto the woefully small couch and steadfastly ignoring the hammer horror zombie film that blazed defiantly at us in the dark. Every once in a while, the squelching of blood onscreen would draw a quip from Raoul about how all that blood was clearly ketchup or possibly cherry pudding, who did they think they were fooling? Occasionally, the scream of a buxom heroine wearing nothing but the remnants of a tank top would draw a resounding "Those are fake!" from Meg, but in general, the plight of the terrified masses onscreen was lost on us because, as Raoul had so emphatically put it, "There's a ghost on the loose."
"There is not a ghost on the loose," Meg said for the umpteenth time.
"How do you know?" Raoul shot back immediately. He loved this sort of thing. I doubt he truly put any stock into the possibility of the existence of an actual ghost, but I suppose his ever-present inner ten-year-old considered the idea to be a stroke of artistic genius.
Meg whipped her head around and fixed Raoul with an incredulous expression that was so eerily reminiscent of her mother's, I had to laugh.
"Are you actually being serious right now?" she said.
"All the evidence points to a ghost. That's all I'm saying."
"No, all the evidence does not point to a ghost. It points to a whacko with an unfortunate knack for playing the escape artist." She turned to me and raised one eyebrow knowingly. "The guy probably bribed a guard to alter the footage and start rumors about something creepy and then scooted out of there before the jig was up."
Satisfied with her explanation, she nodded smartly and shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth.
"Pfft. No way," Raoul said. "No way. There is no way he bribed a guard, Meg. Have you seen that security footage?"
"Yur I sthaw i'."
"What?"
She swallowed. "Yeah, I saw it. I'll bet you the guy bribed some security guard to bomb the room and then edit the footage later so it looked like he disappeared when really, someone just smuggled him out under a sheet, or something."
"Edda said he was comatose, Meg, how could he bribe the guard?" I asked.
Edda had been released from the hospital three weeks after the attacks, sore and shaken, but mercifully alive.
The police continually pressed her for information, and she told them everything she could: how the patient had been nearly comatose for twenty years, how he hadn't uttered a word since being admitted. How he couldn't have been dangerous because he was virtually helpless, but the hospital had insisted on keeping him under lock and key, anyway. How she pitied him in his loneliness, his helplessness. How she spoke to him and was convinced he could hear her. How she was convinced he was watching her.
How she always thought there was something strange about him.
But she remembered little from the attack itself.
"Just a flash of light and then everyone was on the floor," she'd said. "And he was gone."
And he remained gone. The police had scoured every inch of Paris, but to no avail; they were convinced he'd left the country, and what was more, convinced that he would strike again. Whoever he was, he was unstable. Mad. Dangerous.
Supernatural.
The police refrained from saying as much, of course. But the media pounced on it—that, and the inexplicable fact that they could not release a description of the escapee to help the public aid in his capture.
Apparently, no one had seen the man's face in the twenty-two years he'd been at the hospital.
Because the man wore a mask.
And, inexplicably, no one ever dared to remove it.
Edda seemed to think that it was just an odd quirk of his.
"Many of the patients have security blankets," she'd explained to me one afternoon shortly after her return home. "Teddy bears, favorite pieces of jewelry, pictures…his was the mask, I suppose. Only we couldn't remove it."
"Why?" I'd asked.
"He didn't...like it when we tried," she said quietly, and would say nothing else on the matter.
Word of the hospital attacks and the patient's escape soon spread beyond France's borders. The "ghost" became an international sensation. And Dr. Valerius was right.
"Ghost" became the word of the hour.
Because there was no other way to describe what had happened. What he had done, how he had done it, and how he had, for all intents and purposes, simply dissolved into thin air on the security footage.
"Obviously, he was faking it," Meg said.
"For twenty years?" Raoul snorted incredulously, sending popcorn chunks flying in an arc over the coffee table.
Meg brandished the remote. "He was a good actor."
"You can't just pretend to be comatose for twenty years," Raoul said. "Why would you even want to?"
"He was in a mental hospital, Raoul," I reminded him. "He didn't need a reason."
"See?" Meg said triumphantly. "She agrees with me. Also, Raoul, your half-eaten popcorn remnants are all over the TV screen. So your point is moot twice over because you can't even control your food—"
"I don't think he bribed a security guard," I interrupted. "I mean, clearly, he wasn't as ill as they thought he was, but I just…I don't know. Dr. Valerius is right. There's something off about all of this."
"Oh, don't tell me you buy all of that ghost crap, Christine," Meg scoffed.
"No, no, not necessarily, but—"
"Wait, wait, who's to say he's not a ghost?" Raoul interjected.
"We've discussed this, popcorn sprinkler: your points shall hitherto be moot," Meg sniffed.
"No, no, just hear me out for a second." Raoul held up his tanned hands and shook his head, shifting to his knees with all the excitement of a kid about to tell a horror story at summer camp. "Nobody can explain this. And I mean nobody. You've seen the news reports. They had all those forensic experts and scientists and what-have-you analyzing the footage, playing it over and over, but not one of them can come up with an answer as to how a patient in the high security ward could have escaped under any circumstances, much less escaped by dissolving.You've seen that video. I know you have."
"Doctored," Meg sang. "I'm telling you."
"But then why would the police keep saying they still don't understand what happened?" Raoul asked. "If they knew the video was doctored, why keep saying they couldn't explain it? They were the ones who called it supernatural. Why didn't anyone see this guy's face? Why didn't they just sedate him to take the mask off? And what about that DesMarais guy? The doctor? What about his interview last week, huh?"
"Oh, please, you can't put any stock in that. He had a concussion. He's probably whacked out."
"He called the guy a ghost. He flat-out called the guy a ghost," Raoul finished. "I'm just saying."
"I'm just saying that I think Christine's dad had a bad influence on you two and now you both can't get enough of freaky Swedish things," Meg said. Her lips were pursed, but her eyes were twinkling.
Raoul and I both laughed.
"Freaky Swedish things?" he said.
"Raoul's got it worse than I do," I pointed out.
"True," he conceded. "Who doesn't like a ghost story now and again?... Aw, I don't know. Maybe he did bribe a guard. But you have to admit, that footage is just weird."
"Weird" wasn't nearly descriptive enough. The quality of the footage left a lot to be desired—odd, considering the facility had equipped the room with state-of-the-art monitors—so the man in question was nothing more than a tall, thin, pixelated blur. The film showed him prostrate in bed as the doctors entered the room, argued, and then...
There was a flash of light. Bodies flew backwards and the footage went black.
And then the man was nowhere to be seen.
In truth, it was all very weird. And quite frankly, I'd had enough of "weird."
In the weeks following the attacks, I tried my utmost to recapture a semblance of normalcy. For a while, I nearly believed I had succeeded. Edda recuperated and though she could not immediately return to work (the hospital was a crime scene, after all), she felt well enough to take tea with me whenever I dropped by. Dr. Valerius, however, did return to work and threw himself into it with renewed vigor, determined not to be swayed by the terror he'd doubtless felt upon seeing his wife injured and helpless.
Antoinette was as busy as ever with the bookstore and meetings at the opera. She was no longer a principal ballet instructor, but the management so valued her talent and expertise that they occasionally called her in to teach a master class, a children's class, or to give a tour of the building, which she absolutely loved.
"Why don't I put in more hours at the store so that you can spend more time at the opera?" I'd suggested one day. "I know how much you like—"
"No," she interrupted with such vehemence that startled me. "No. No, Christine, I do not want you in that store."
I frowned.
"But why? Someone has to help patch up the ceiling. And I thought if we moved the bookcase with the Boswell collection, it might make the whole place look bigger—"
"Christine, listen to me." Her eyes were intense. Sharp. Concerned. "You do not need to go back to that store. Take a break. Focus on your schoolwork."
"Antoinette, is this about the…um…fainting?" I asked. "Because I promise that won't happen again. I was just tired."
More lies. Well, half-lies. I certainly had been tired that day. But I mentioned nothing about the red score. The red ink.
1881.
Hot in my hands. Breathing. Alive.
Such a sublime melody.
"Christine…It is called—"
"...can handle it just fine myself right now," Antoinette was saying. I blinked. Swallowed. Squashed the memory—-not a memory! How could it be?— into oblivion and inhaled slowly. She did not appear to notice that anything was amiss.
Good.
"Are you sure?" I said. I would just take care to avoid the sheet music. That was all. I could handle everything else. I missed working in the store, to be perfectly honest. I missed the books. The history. The distraction. And while a larger part of me than I would have liked to admit protested the thought of being anywhere near that score, another part of me, that which longed for normalcy, craved routine. Anything. Anything to clear my mind.
"Yes, I'm sure," Antoinette said firmly. "Don't worry about it for now. Take a break. Focus on your studies."
"Because I could always—"
"Christine." Uh oh. "Listen to me. Do not come to the bookstore. At all. Do you understand me? I want to you focus on school. Your music. Do not come to that bookstore. I do not even want to see you near it. "
I frowned. Her mouth was tight, her eyes tinged with concern and—-was it fear?
It couldn't have been. This was Antoinette, after all.
"Promise me you'll stay away from the store for now," she continued, almost urgently.
"Alright," I said slowly, "I will. But Antoinette—"
Her phone chirped. She held up one finger and answered. It was someone from the opera. I didn't want to pester her further, so I mouthed a goodbye and she offered me a sincere, albeit stern smile and retreated into her living room. My mind raced as I left the house.
Why on earth would she be so adamantly against my returning to the store? She knew how much I enjoyed spending time there. The past several months hadn't exactly been ideal, but chaos aside, I considered La Plume D'Oie a second home. Was Antoinette simply concerned for my well-being? I had taken on too much lately. That much was true. Maybe this was her roundabout way of allotting me a reprieve.
I did appreciate it. There was certainly more wiggle-room in my schedule when I didn't spend so much time in the bookstore—something I conveniently neglected to tell my manager at L'Opéra Restaurant. I knew I should have picked up more hours there, as I was in constant need of extra money, but I kept quiet. I was enjoying my newly-found free time immensely.
For the most part.
Because there was still a problem. There was always a problem. There was always that monumental Something that blocked the path to normalcy, clawing at my subconscious and hanging on the periphery of my every waking thought.
The visions.
Memories?
Nightmares.
Because that is what they became. Despite their weather-beaten familiarity, despite the fact that I had been inundated with the same images for years, they had suddenly become tinged with something decidedly disturbing. I couldn't identify exactly what was rendering them so unsettling.
They would not stop.
They replayed with an alarming frequency. Before, I would have the dreams several times a month. Now, the images rushed past me countless times a night, sickeningly repetitive. Over and over and over again, blurring colors and sounds and sensation together in a carnivalesque, nauseating wave that left me drenched in sweat and gasping for air.
The painted geishas in the dressing room. The dressing gown with the tear in the bodice. The hand—-my hand?-—wrapped firmly around it.
The instrument room. The acrid smell of varnish. The gleaming piano keys. The whirring instruments.
The Voice.
That voice. Louder and stronger and more commanding than ever before, speaking my name. Letting out a cry drenched in unspeakable agony, raging with a white-hot fury torn from the fevered bowels of hell.
And that vicious, aching proclamation, the sole decipherable phrase amidst the mess of sound:
"…bound to me! And you have done it yourself-we are bound irrevocably now, and this will never leave you! Are you satisfied? It will never leave you! You are bound to me!"
Bound to me.
Over and over and over, the words echoed in my head, ricocheted through the walls of my skull like rebounding bullets.
Bound to me. Bound to me. Bound to me.
In time with my pulse. Vividly alive.
Something was coming. I could not shake the feeling that something was coming. I made a conscious effort to carry on as if nothing was wrong, but I could not escape my conviction, perched in the wings like some great predator ready to strike, that something was coming.
Bound to me.
Bound to whom?
I could never answer that question. Never.
Who was the man crying out to me? Raging? To whom did that Voice belong? He had no face in those visions. I never saw him. Not once. It was simply his Voice, its sublimity simultaneously beautiful and terrible.
And perhaps that was all he was. A Voice. A suggestion of the hellish divine. A concept, perhaps, a fevered fancy. The same grave certainty that told me the visions were not dreams at all, but memories—-the same certainty that spelled doom—-compelled me to believe that the man was nothing more than a shadow.
That thought was more unnerving than anything else. I was torn between a desperate desire to see the face of the voice and a hollow fear that that desire would become reality.
Because I knew that despite its staggering beauty, the Voice was something sinister. Otherworldly.
Ghostly.
I didn't want to believe in anything of the sort. I wanted safety, stability. Normalcy. I couldn't confront the vividness of death again. I didn't want to believe in ghosts.
Little did I know then that I would soon have no choice.