A/N: Thanks again to Biskuits for her help with modern teen slang! Go check out her DeviantArt page for some awesome Phantomy goodness (and our evil collaberation from HELL!! ("Of Stupid Quips and Swivel Hips") XD) at http: / / biskuits. deviantart. com (minus spaces, of course); and thank you to everyone who reviewed! Next chapter next week!
Chapter Two: Bring Me To Life
"…his voice…"
"Oh em gee, I love his voice! It's so… so raw and passionate!"
"You know, my Mum took me to see the musical—like, the stage show? –last year, and his voice was totally different. Like, it was all… operatic and stuff."
"Ugh."
"Ew… Operatic?"
Triffy nodded vigorously. "Yeah, I know. Like, totally. And they didn't even have the sword fight. And the Phantom was, like, all old and gross and stuff…"
Megan nodded knowingly. "Yeah, they had to make his makeup, like, really gross so you can see it all the way in the cheap seats. But no one can act through all that makeup, so they made it much more realistic for the movie."
Melanie grimaced. "Yeah, I mean, we're much more used to seeing gross stuff nowadays because of the Internet and stuff. But, like, back then, he totally would have been shunned."
Kir rolled her eyes and snuggled further into her sleeping bag, trying to tune out the idiocy of the surrounding conversation, but sometimes she just couldn't resist. She was finding herself drawn in against her will.
"Yeah, like John Merrik was totally shunned…" she muttered to herself, quietly she thought, but Melanie, in the next bunk, heard her.
"John who?"
"Merrik. You know. The Elephant Man? It's, like, my Mom's favorite movie." The others rolled their eyes in turn. "And he was, like, way worse than even the stage Phantom. Like, his whole head and face and everything was all, like, lumpy and gross, and his teeth were sticking out everywhere, and his right arm was totally so lumpy and swollen he couldn't even use it. And when the doctor found him and took him in, he was working in a freak show, but, like, he had had a regular job before that."
"Freak shows were totally mean and exploitive," Triffy interrupted, looking angry.
"Yeah," Megan added. "They'd, like, totally lock them up in these cages and beat them and starve them—"
"Actually," Kir said, sitting up straighter, "They weren't. They were actually paid very well, and some of them got very famous. A lot of them, like, even had postcards made that they'd sell, you know, with pictures of them on them. And they had their shtick, you know, their angle. Like, Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy, and John being the Elephant Man, and stuff. Like, if they'd just said, "And here we've got a really hairy guy," no one would pay to see him, right? 'Cause, like, everyone knows someone really hairy. But The Dog-Faced Boy? That's a draw. And he'd ham it up, too, you know, like barking and stuff…"
"How do you know so much about freaks?" Megan looked supremely bitchy.
"I did a paper on it a few years ago." Actually, she'd had the 'freak shows were exploitive' argument with her mother herself, and finally did some research to arm herself. She'd been surprised to learn that much of what her mother had told her was correct; she was even more surprised to learn that there were still touring freak shows, right here in America. She wasn't about to share that with Megan, though; she already was looking at Kir like she was the freak for knowing stuff.
"Well, in any case, the stage show totally sucked," Triffy continued. "Like, they totally left out 'Learn to be Lonely'…" She smirked at the gasps of horror from two of her audience.
"How the hell can they have left it out?" muttered Kir, again unable to resist. "The stage show came first; the extra songs were written for the movie. Duh."
"What do you know about it?" Megan's angry stare was openly challenging.
"Well, Jesus," Kir snapped back, "Of course the stage show came first! Why do you think the movie got made in the first place? Like, it won almost every Broadway award in 1988—"
"As if."
"It totally did! My Mom watches the tape over and over because, like, Sarafina! was nominated for stuff, but Phantom came along and won, like, everything it was in. It totally pisses me off 'cause Mom says Mbongeni Ngema totally deserved the award for Best Director, and she won't shut up about it."
"Like there was ever even a show called Sarafina," Melanie stage-whispered to Megan.
"Forget it," grumbled Kir, and rolled herself up into her bag again, face to the wall, trying to ignore their snickers. "Keep it down. I'm going to sleep."
Music camp was, on the whole, actually kind of fun. Certainly more fun than she had thought it would be. Her Mom was right: she was learning a lot. She doubted that anyone would hear the difference, not after only a week of lessons, but if she kept up the exercises she might improve her range and her tone a bit. Already her breathing was better, and she could hold a note a bit longer, too. Really, it wasn't so bad—during the day.
The nights, though, were pure hell. Every evening, as soon as the girls retired to their cabins after campfire, Megan would lead Triffy and Melanie in a rousing chorus of "Oh em gee, isn't the Phantom hot?" usually followed by a verse or two of "Oh em gee, Christine is such a bitch for leaving him! I wouldn't have left him." They'd usually go on for at least an hour, keeping Kir awake with their inanity, and depriving her of much-needed rest. Music lessons were hard. And even after the lanterns were out and the flashlights extinguished and everyone nominally 'in bed,' there'd still be the occasional moans of, "Oh, Gerry!" followed by a chorus of giggles.
Luckily Randy, Suzanne and Sarah allowed her to hang out with them at lunch and stuff. Otherwise, Kir thought sleepily, she'd already have been driven insane, and it was only Friday…
Tonight, though, was even worse than usual. They didn't keep it down, and even after Miriam, one of the camp counselors, came around to tell them to turn down the lanterns and go to bed, they still wouldn't stop whispering and giggling.
The most annoying part, though, was that while they were too loud for Kir to get to sleep, they were mostly too quiet for her to make out what they were saying. She'd almost be drifting off, and then she'd hear, "Wiccan? No way!" or "Oh em gee! Summoning?" or "Yeah, totally a bitch whore. Stupid cow," and get woken up again.
She finally lost it, though, when they all started moving around and thumping things on the floor and saying stuff, like "I can't find the candles!" and "Does anyone have any more batteries? My iPod's dead," and "You're standing on my pants!"
"Jesus, guys!" Kir sat up again, frustrated beyond belief. "It's gotta be, like, almost midnight!"
"Almost…" someone snickered quietly.
"Can you please just be quiet and go to sleep? Please?"
"Don't worry," Megan's voice dripped with scorn. "In a minute you won't hear us at all. Go back to sleep."
"Fine, then." Kir flopped back down. And sure enough, a minute or two later the door creaked quietly open, and she could see their shadows crossing the square of moonlight cast on the opposite wall. The door creaked quietly closed again, surprisingly with no giggles or Shhh!'s, and, as promised, all was quiet.
Problem was, now Kir really couldn't get to sleep.
She tried telling herself she didn't care what happened to them (and she didn't think that she did), that it totally wasn't her fault if they went and got lost in the woods or eaten by a bear or, like, killed by Jason or something. Or that Scream guy. Yeah. With lots of stabbing and screaming of "Oh em gee, why me?!" and blood and stuff. Totally not her fault.
But she also couldn't help feeling that she'd wind up being blamed for it somehow. You know. Somebody (probably her mother) would say something like, "Why didn't you tell anyone?" The words "responsibility" and "Not how I raised you" would also probably be used. But she also totally didn't want to go and wake up Miriam. Megan would never forgive her if she got them in trouble (not that she cared what Megan thought of her, but it was bad enough spending every night listening to what a cow bitch whore Christine was, without having the comments being directed at her), and Miriam would probably be all mad at Kir for letting them go off into the night and stuff anyways.
Hmm. What would the logical thing to do be?
Logic. Well, Su and Randy and them were big on logic… Perhaps they'd have an idea what to do. Decided, Kir climbed down from her bunk and tried to find her clothes without using her flashlight.
As it ended up, once she was outside, the moon was bright enough that she didn't need her flashlight as she picked her way down the edge of the wide path to The Rationalists' cabin. It made the shadows under the trees dark and strange, though. Still, she managed to summon enough courage to stop outside the window and listen before just barging straight in and waking everyone up.
Luckily, though, they were still awake; she could hear Randy quietly say, "But the Jewel Song is a solo! My voice is deep enough to sing Faust!"
Su murmured a reply too soft for Kir to hear through the slightly-opened window, but she caught Randy's soft "So we transpose it slightly! And we can just leave Mephistopheles out—it's a recital for our parents, for god's sake. No one's going to care."
"Psst!" Kir hissed.
"No one's even going to notice."
"Psst! Guys!"
There was a pause. "Did you hear something?" asked Randy.
"Psst! It's me! Kir! Can I come in?"
There was a thump, and Su's tousled head appeared as she opened the window. "Kir? What are you doing here? It's, like, midnight."
"Yeah, I know. I need your guys's help."
Randy joined Su. "Why? What's up?"
"Megan and her bunch all snuck out a little while ago. I think they may be doing something really dumb."
"So what? Go back to sleep," Su started to close the window.
"I can't! I'm gonna get blamed for not stopping them or telling anyone if they get, like, slashed or lost or something."
"So you thought you'd tell us?" Su sounded a little impatient, but Randy pointed out, "It's not like we were sleeping, anyways. Come on in."
Su closed the window as Kir squeezed through the door Randy barely held open. "So what're they up to?" she asked mildly, taking a quick peek outside before shutting it again.
Kir stuck her hands in her pocket. "I, ah, I'm not really sure. There was a lot of whispering and then they all got dressed and went out."
"Didn't you hear anything?"
"Well… Not really, just the odd word here and there. Like, they couldn't find the candles, and the iPod was out of juice, and, like, something about Wiccan and summoning. That's about it."
"Oh, my god." Sarah sat up in her bed and turned the low lantern up a bit brighter. "What do they think they're doing?"
"What do you mean?"
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Melanie thinks of herself as Wiccan—which in this case mainly means wearing a pentacle and watching Buffy a lot. But you know how a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing…"
Su looked concerned. "You think they're trying to summon something? What?"
Sarah ran her hand through her hair and sighed. "Really, it doesn't matter what they're aiming for. The odds are good that they're not gonna get it. But the odds are also pretty good that they might draw, shall we say, unwelcome attention."
"What, you mean, like, Satan or what? As if." Kir couldn't help feeling a bit scornful of Sarah's superstition, but Sarah shook her head in frustration.
"Look, it's not like some red guy jumping around with a pitchfork, okay? It's more like… Okay. Do you believe in God? Like, that there's some old guy in a robe up on a cloud somewhere?"
"Well, not like that, but I guess there's probably some kind of—"
"Exactly. Whatever you're imagining supernatural stuff to be is almost certainly wrong, especially if all your info comes from TV and stuff, but it doesn't mean that there isn't anything out there."
"So… What, then?" asked Randy. "They try to summon… something, and they get something else instead. What are we talking about here? Like, a cold spot that won't go away? A creepy feeling? What?"
"How the hell should I know?" snapped Sarah. "—Sorry. I'm just… I'm just a little creeped out by this. It could be anything. They could go and do whatever and have nothing happen at all, or they could summon a little energy that'll just disperse over a few days, or… Or I don't know. Something really bad could happen."
"So what do we do, then? Stop them?"
"That would probably be best, yeah." Sarah hopped down and began to get dressed.
"How do we do that?" asked Randy. "Has anyone seen my shoes?"
Su grinned. "Hide in the bushes and make a bunch of creepy noises and creep them out," she said. "Hey, Kir, you know where they are?"
"No, I didn't hear anything about that."
"They'll be at the Pit," said Randy confidently as she pulled her sweater on.
"Why's that?"
"Simple." She grinned. "One: it's far enough from the cabins to be private, but not too far in the dark. Two: the path is really easy to follow at night, what with all those white rocks along the edges. Three: they have no imagination. Honestly, where else would they be?"
They slowed down as they neared the last turn, and, sure enough, heard the faint strains of an electric guitar, and the crescendo of an organ. "Come to me, my Angel of Music!" someone cried.
"Melanie," whispered Randy with a stifled snort. "No sense of pitch."
"Shh! Come on!" Su led them aside into the surrounding underbrush for some distance from the path. Carefully, quietly, the foursome crept close enough to be able to see into the clearing.
The title song to The Phantom of the Opera seemed to have been set to repeat. "Movie soundtrack," grumbled Randy. Several candles supplemented the moonlight as the three girls danced about, gyrating wildly and occasionally calling, "Come to me, my Angel!"
As they watched, though, Megan suddenly stopped, stalked over to the iPod, and turned it off. "This is stupid," she announced ("Agreed," giggled Randy and Kir in unison). "This totally isn't gonna work."
Melanie stood for a moment, apparently deep in thought. "No, I've got it…" she finally said, slowly. "Hang on a sec." She bent over behind one of the seating logs, apparently rummaging through something, and then popped back into view and sat down, flipping through a small book. "I've got something in here." She chewed a thumbnail. "I'm pretty sure this'll work, but it's pretty advanced."
"Whatever. This isn't working."
"Yeah," chimed in Triffy, "Just try it, please, Melanie?"
"Fine." Melanie stood up with sudden confidence. "Okay, you guys smooth the ground out over here as much as you can. I'm gonna need a clear area about, oh… Um, about so big." She spread her arms wide. "And there should be say another couple of feet clear all the way around." She went back behind the log to rummage more.
"There isn't enough room here." Megan sounded pouty.
"Then find room!" snapped Melanie. "Do you want to do this or not?"
Triffy cast about while Megan tapped her foot in apparent disgust. "How about over here?" she finally called. Melanie went over to look, something shiny in her hand.
"There's a big old tree down that way, just down the path to the beach, that's pretty clear at the base," Randy whispered in Kir's ear. "That's probably where they are."
"Should we go over there?" Kir whispered back.
"Not yet," Su replied. "Megan'll hear us if we try to move. Shh!"
"Yeah, this'll do," Melanie's voice drifted back. "Go and get me a candle so I can cast the circles, will you?" Kir felt Sarah stiffen beside her.
Megan wandered over as Triffy scurried back to the fire pit. "What's that knife thing?" she asked idly.
"It's not a 'knife thing', it's an athame," Melanie answered rather tartly. "It's sort of a small ritual sword. It represents the masculine principals."
"Whatever," they heard Megan reply, sounding bored.
"It's a very important part of a witch's ritual tools," Melanie continued, undaunted.
"So, what, you kill things with it?"
"Of course not!" Melanie sounded shocked. "That's barbaric! Animal sacrifices are something Heathens do, not Pagans. No, you don't need to kill an animal to use the life force. You just cut your finger for a bit of blood, that's all. And it's all totally consensual, so it's okay. Unlike animal sacrifices."
"I can probably find a cat or a squirrel or something if you want to call up your dark master or whatever, though. Perhaps a bat?" Megan's voice was snide.
"Don't be an idiot," Melanie sniffed ("Ooh! That's gonna cost her," joked Su). "I need to use blood for this ritual, but my own will work just fine, thank you very much. –Oh, thanks, Triff. Here, come and stand over here…"
Triff's hesitant voice barely carried. "Shouldn't, um, shouldn't we all give a little bit of blood? I mean, it's not like I'm into cutting, or anything like that," she hastened to add, "But, I mean, like, if we're going to share him…" her voice trailed away into inaudibility.
"Look, just cast the spell," snapped Megan.
"Let's move a bit closer," suggested Su. "They're all over there; we can work our way over while they're distracted. If they hear us rustling about it might just scare them away anyways."
They were just settling into their new position when Melanie started chanting. "Darkling night and shining moon, hearken to my witch's rune…"
"We've got to stop them," Sarah snapped. "Now." She stood up.
"Wait, what?" asked Su as Randy stood, pulling Kir up as well.
"Hey!" she yelled, waving her arms. "Hey, guys!"
The girls didn't react, though. "Shit!" swore Sarah. "Anyone got a pen? Quick!"
No one did. "Shit," she muttered again, and dashed to the fire pit. "Come here!" she yelled. "This isn't a joke!"
Stumbling a bit as a cloud obscured the moon, the rest of The Rationalists followed her. Grabbing each in turn, Sarah yanked down their collars and drew a symbol where a pendant would hang. "Don't let that smudge," she gasped, trying to draw on herself.
"Here, let me," Randy grabbed it away from her and carefully copied the sigil from Kir.
Su looked annoyed. "What the hell, Sarah?"
"The spell she's doing," Sarah said, "It's very powerful. Not newbie stuff at all. And we're not in any protective circle or anything…"
"So what?" Su asked, coughing as a sudden gust swept ashes into her face. "Goddamn it…"
Dark as it was, Kir could see how pale Sarah's face was. "So I think something's happening. And we were close enough that I don't know if we'd be considered participants or not…"
"Shit." Randy sounded scared. "What do we do?"
"Get inside. I don't know what else we can do." Sarah sounded close to tears.
"What about them?" asked Kir. "Should we…"
"The hell with them," snapped Su. "They made their own bed. Let's just get Sarah inside."
Kir didn't like the thought of leaving the others in what was rapidly becoming a storm, but her guts clenched at the thought of going back. "Wait for me," she called, and hurried after the trio dashing to safety through the sudden downpour.
A/N: Please review if you read! Next chapter going up the end of next week! Thanks for reading!