Disclaimer: All references to the characters from the Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera belong to their pertinent parties and publishers. I do not claim ownership to the characters, any iteration from a major production of the same material, and / or the original source material.
De petite souris a monsieur chat: Chapter 9
September 1882: Beneath the Opera House
Meanwhile Meg woke to find herself in a strange room. Her head pounded and she gingerly touched her brow. A small bead of blood clung to her fingertip. Whatever had happened, she had hit her head and hit it hard. She recalled seeing the Chagny carriage pull up to the Opera House and Christine exit. Meg had simply gone out for a few errands and hadn't anticipated seeing her old friend that day. She found it odd for Christine to come to the Opera House without sending word first. Curious, she watched as Christine waited for the carriage to leave and then walk to the side of the massive building. Quickly Meg moved to follow and watched from the corner of the alleyway. Christine glanced around to make sure no one was near her. Meg knelt and pushed against the wall hoping to remain unseen beside a few broken crates. An opening appeared in the wall and Christine descended into it. Meg approached and saw the door slide shut to reveal nothing of its existence.
As Meg pushed against the door, she realized two things: first, that the Phantom was alive, and secondly, that Christine had been visiting the madman beneath the Palais Garnier. For how long, Meg could only guess. It would certainly explain Christine's return the first time after her honeymoon. Oh, Christine... Why are you dallying with the demon again? Don't you ever learn! Meg scolded her friend. Meg sat back on her heels and examined the wall. Christine's hand had been at eye height. Meg was shorter than Christine so she looked higher than normal. The edge of a poster on the wall revealed a small square barely noticeable to the naked eye. Meg pushed it and silently the door slid open.
With a grin at her cleverness, Meg slipped into the dark passageway intent on following her friend to the ghost and confronting them both. What she hadn't anticipated was the inability to see in the darkness. Using her hands on either wall, she moved slowly forward down the center of the passage. She quickly came to a fork. Unsure of which way to go, she chose the right passage and found herself falling.
Looking around the room, she began to feel dizzy. The room was endless. The reflection of one mirror into the next created the illusion of infinite doors leading to infinite spaces. Even the floor and ceilings had been mirrored. She hadn't seen a door or any other means of escape. Carefully she pushed herself backwards until her back rested against a wall. Turning she began to pound on the wall as hard as she could.
"Help! Someone! Please, help me!" she shouted repeatedly. She gave up for a moment to listen and despaired upon hearing nothing. No footsteps, no signs of another human being. "I'm trapped... in one of the ghost's torture chambers."
She closed her eyes again feeling dizzy and laid her head on the floor. Meg began to despair wondering if she could get out at all. With the Phantom gone, there was no one to find her. No one had found this place during the searches for the Phantom's body. No one would find her. Her despair quickly turned to frustration at Christine. If the damned idiot had stayed away from the Opera house, Meg never would've felt compelled to follow her. Why would Christine venture into the bowels of the Palais Garnier again? Meg doubted Christine would return for the sheer lark of seeing the Phantom's ruined home. Meg wondered if the Phantom lived and still held Christine in his grip again. She shook her head. The terror Christine suffered had sparked the whole series of events. Christine wouldn't willingly risk her life to return to a man she feared unless something else...
"Christine, you idiot," Meg breathed angrily to herself. "I refuse to die because you refuse to accept your new life."
Stubbornly, Meg tried to ignore the growing heat in the chamber. She stripped off her coat, scarf and wool stockings. Pulling a ribbon from the coat's pocket, she loosely pulled her hair up. Sweat began to trickle down her neck and chest. Reaching back into the coat's pocket, she found the small push pin she kept along the edge. With a grimace, she pricked her pointer finger until a drop of red blood blossomed there. Turning to the mirror she drew a line down it. At the next mirror she drew two. She continued around the room, pricking each finger as she went. The heat was unbearable and she licked her upper lip for moisture. Just as suddenly as the heat had begun, it began to ebb. With a sigh of relief, Meg examined the red marks she had made. They helped to make the room of mirrors to appear smaller, less dizzying in their ability to multiple the small room into infinity. She hadn't noticed in the middle of the room the strange mirrored tree. Intricate, false leaves branched out from overarching limbs and hung downward.
She shivered and noticed her breath come out in a puff. Her eyes grew wide. The room goes from one extreme to the next? In a panic, Meg wrapped herself back up in her coat, scarf, and stockings. She crouched, trying to keep her body heat contained.
"Damn you, Ghost," she muttered through chattering teeth. "How am I supposed to concentrate to get out of here with these ridiculous tricks?" She stared at the tree. There were no limbs for her to climb up into the leaves. In fact, the limbs were part of the design of the ceiling. She closed her eyes feeling vertigo again. After a minute, she strode out to the tree to look underneath it. Drops of water were near frozen underneath. Meg's eyes grew wide. If the room grew hot again and the water fell, it would began to steam in here. If the temperature cycled through again and again increasing and decreasing more rapidly, she'd either be boiled by the steam or freeze by ice to death. She slowly backed away and shivered. I am going to die in here.
"Ballet rats should stay on stage and not venture into the labyrinths underneath the opera house," his dark voice rumbled. Meg pressed her back against the mirror marked four. It shifted and her weight fell against something solid but not flat. Gloved hands firmly gripped her upper arms and hauled her out of the dizzying room.
"Stay out of my affairs!" He roared as he threw her to the ground of his underground lair. His anger boiled over. He hovered above her like a murderous hawk over a tiny brown mouse. She stared up at him in horror and surprise. The mask was different; it wasn't white like the one she had seen as a child. It wasn't a skull or a black one. The man, however, with his hypnotic voice and powerful body was the same. The Opera Ghost was alive and had seduced her friend once more with his promises. He reached down with those murderous hands. Something in Meg snapped and anger gave her backbone iron.
"Stay away from Christine!" she yelled back. Her words stunned him visibly. "Haven't you done enough, Monsieur Fantôme?" She sat up taking on the same tone her mother used to scold her as a child. "She drove you into madness with her silly dreams of angelic beings! She drove you to destroy the Opera House, my home! Why do you tempt Fate again? Do you wish to see every last innocent here burned because of your folly for... for... that naive girl?"
"She is not naive..." he replied in a weak defense of Christine. What had happened in the tunnels stung him. She knew what he had wanted, but... she didn't want him. He had hoped to take his confused feelings out on the intruder, but finding the intruder to be Madame Giry's daughter had thwarted that release. Her defiance surprised him in fact. He had expected the ballerina to wail and scream. In actuality he had found a small ballet rat that was in reality a she-cat intent on putting up a fight. Meg waved his response away like a bothersome fly.
"She is my friend, Monsieur, but she is indeed naive." Meg heaved a heavy sigh. Her anger melted into frustration. "She is married and has married well, but she gives no thought to how Raoul may feel. She cares only about her own well-being… still."
"You know nothing, child," he muttered out of frustration at her. Her words were truer than she knew. They plucked a string in him, but he refused to admit she was right. "You call yourself a friend to Christine... Like you would know the meaning of the word."
"Oh, I do, Monsieur Fantôme. I know Christine's mind. She's scared of her new life, a life not filled with singing. She doesn't see the potential for doing good in the world so she runs back to you without a thought of the consequences. The world changes and so do we."
Erik glared down at the girl at his feet. Little Giry is very much like Madame Giry, he mused. Again her words held a ring of truth. Upon learning of his return to the living, Christine had wasted no time in contacting him and rekindling their musical amour. She toyed with the broken pieces of his heart, of his opera house... But... it's Christine, my ange de musique, my blue-eyed goddess... the woman who had broken his heart and married another, who had tempted him now with her body and shunned him again. He scowled at the voice inside his head.
"As her friend, I can't let her jeopardize our lives once more for her... musical whims."
The steel in Meg's voice turned Erik's hot anger into a dull burn. She lay sprawled on the floor at his feet with her brown coat revealing glimpses of her drab old skirts. Her glare softened as Erik let the silence drag out between them. She began to examine her surroundings and ignoring the hulking man.
"So, this is where you live," she asked in a quiet voice. She had seen the place before when she had squeezed passed the portcullis ahead of the mob. She had been there when they had torn the organ apart, damaged the piano, destroyed the Christine mannequin, and smashed the swan bed to pieces. To see the place somewhat restored and changed was a marvel. She noticed the bookcase in the corner; it no longer stood flush to the wall and light shown out from behind it. In the meantime, Erik ignored her remark.
"No more," he stated with a finality that stopped her curious mind from wandering. Her body tensed and she stared wide-eyed at him as he knelt down in front of her. From his back pocket, he pulled out his clean white handkerchief. "Close your eyes, Mademoiselle. I'm sure you understand that I cannot let you see the way out of here." He tied the knot above her loose ponytail made by the worn ribbon in her hair and carefully helped the blindfolded girl up onto her feet. "Do not let go of my hand until I tell you to."
He tugged once at her and began to stride forward. Meg tripped on the carpet and nearly fell into him as he led her out of his lair. While he led Meg back to the land of the living, Erik warred with his emotions and over this strange twist of events. Christine did and didn't want him. She wanted the music, the passion, and God knew he wanted to give all of himself to her… but she didn't want him. She wouldn't be returning unless something changed her husband's plans. Now this noisome and stubborn child threatened his life. He should have left her in the torture room to die, but he couldn't bring himself to kill the innocent child of Madame Giry. He dragged her around a corner and felt her trip again. For a dancer, she certainly lacked grace in his opinion.
"Monsieur."
How in the seven hells did the girl even get down here? She came from the direction of the passage Christine had used... She must've followed. What a cheeky child. He cursed realizing he would have to close that door and find another way to lead Christine down to him.
"Monsieur!" Her outcry made him stop and she ran into his backside as he stopped abruptly. He scowled at the contact.
"What do you want?" he growled at her. "Are you going to scream? Say that you will tell the authorities of my existence? I should've skinned you alive and used your fat like cat gut on my violin's strings."
"I have your mask," she said trying to look to where the voice had come. She shivered slightly in the dank tunnels but stopped feeling a pair of strong, gloved hands on her upper arms. Her words came out in a panicked rush. "I found the mask upon the chair since I was the first to enter your home. I had squeezed between the bars of the portcullis since the others could not. While the mob ransacked and destroyed your home, I tucked the mask into my shirt. I've since hid it among my belongings and told no one of it."
He chuckled to himself. The irony of his mask closer to a woman's heart than he had ever been was too much for him. The fact a small ballet rat had saved it from destruction as if it were a toy or prize to be treasured was too much. "In your belongings?"
"Y-yes... in my intimates drawer."
He laughed out loud at that. Meg listened to his rumbling voice. The laugh wasn't menacing like it had been the night of Carlotta's croak. It was genuinely filled with mirth at her hurried admission. For Erik, the thought of his mask lying among such garments was too much irony to take. This day was proving strange indeed.
"So, YOU are the mysterious M," he said with a chuckle. He took her chin in his fingers and titled her head up to him. She couldn't see him, but he wanted her undivided attention. He let honey drip from his voice to entice her. "My dear, would you be so kind as to return it to Box Five? Simply lay it on the seat closest to the stage so I may retrieve it."
"What if someone sees me and follows?" she asked hesitantly. She had been worried to do the same thing he suggested out of fear of being labeled a conspirator.
"Do it at the witching hour tonight, M," he said with a hint of arrogance. He leaned over so he could whisper in her ear. "Or is Little Meg too scared?"
He laughed at her shiver and slight jump away from his voice. Taking her wrist, he led her up the passageway to the trapdoor leading to the backstage hallway. He listened for a moment before pulling the lever and letting the door pull back and slide open. No one was there. Quickly he pushed Meg out into the hallway. He pulled the lever back into place. As the door shut, he saw Meg pull the handkerchief off and glare at him with dark eyes. With a smile, he threw his voice to say into her ear, "Stay away, curious little mouse, or the cat will find and eat you."
He chuckled to himself hearing a loud thud. It sounded as if someone had kicked the secure panel in frustration. His mirth didn't last as the nagging voice returned to taunt him with every step taking him back to his dark home.
Well, well... first you are denied by the woman you love, a woman you wish to shower with your affection. She seemed ardent enough to let you take her. Pressed against the walls of the tunnels, in the dark in the dirt, like a secret, like a lie. Your precious angel… wanting you! HA! What a laugh. She desperately wanted something – someone – and it wasn't YOU.
"Enough," Erik ground out through clenched teeth. He clenched his fists and fought to keep the sound of Christine's pleasure-filled voice out of his mind. The inner voice chuckled darkly.
Then you find a ballet rat! A curious little mouse that weaseled her way into YOUR domain. She nosed her way into the tunnels and by chance, she fell into a trap of your design! Not just any ballet rat either… the voice mused. Little Meg discovered your home AND that you are alive. What's to stop her from revealing you? Of gaining some reward for your life? The thoughtful voice grew angry. What a fool, you are! YOU the Sultan's assassin, the torture mastermind, the ever-so-secretive Phantom living in the cellars and a girl finds you!
"What would you have me do?" Erik replied to the thoughts in his head.
Get rid of her.
"No, she's a child. A brat really. Always has been," he paused to rip his mask off and look at it. He rubbed the worn mask with his gloved thumb. "And she is Josef's daughter." The voice didn't reply and Erik thought of the past as he continued his descent to his home. He wouldn't kill the ballet rat... at least not yet.