AN: AND THAT'S ALL, FOLKS! This is the final chapter of Forgotten Melodies! Thank you so much for your readership, everyone. The views, the reviews, the fact that Forgotten Melodies has sold like hotcakes on amazon... I couldn't possibly be happier about how this has turned out.
The sequel, Something To Sing About, will be published on amazon next June, but I will start posting chapters of it here far sooner than that. Stay tuned!
I sincerely hope you've enjoyed Forgotten Melodies. Don't forget, you can buy a wonderful (lightly edited) digital or paperback copy of your very own from amazon. Just search "Emmaline Westlund Forgotten Melodies".
Much love! Enjoy the final chapter!
The managers, for only the second time in their history of dealing with the so-called Opera Ghost, ignored his demands.
Perhaps it was because he had gone to the trouble of threatening their tired leading lady, or perhaps they thought that Christine would sing as she had when she'd first arrived. Whatever the case was, Hesham would not have it.
He wrote a series of letters to each manager, addressing them personally and trying to appeal to their sense of self-preservation.
You will not allow La Carlotta to sing at the gala, he wrote. Christine Daaé will sing on her behalf. If you continue to ignore my demands, a disaster beyond your imagination will occur. I am not a patient spectre, monsieur. You would do well to oblige sooner rather than later. Your humble servant, OG.
It wasn't until three days before the gala, with his little songbird worried that her angel would fail her, that he finally took action. You could have easily stayed my hand, you fools!
As they rehearsed on the stage below, he paced on one of the catwalks the sceneshifters used to quickly change backdrops. His mind was already on the devious; he'd spent much of the last week lining the majority of the cellars with booby-traps and alarms.
He had to be quick. He knew he wouldn't have a very wide window of opportunity to do what he planned.
As Carlotta strutted around the stage squawking, he readied himself to cut down a sandbag. It wouldn't be enough of a weight change to disturb the backdrop, but the sandbag would be heavy enough to do some real damage. That's right, Carlotta, he thought with a grin. Just a few more big steps forward.
He had her precisely where he wanted her. He cut the sandbag loose and watched as it dropped, landing on the soprano's shoulder and knocking her to the floor. There was a chorus of screams from the others present both on and offstage and one of the ballet rats screamed, "It's the Ghost! Look, he's there, the Phantom!"
Phantom. He liked that. It was far more fitting than ghost. He let out a devilish laugh, throwing his voice so it sounded like it was coming from box five. Everybody looked up to the box as two stagehands ascended the ladder to the catwalk to investigate. By the time they reached it, however, Hesham was gone.
He'd lowered himself to a separate catwalk nearer the back of the stage, where he could see the managers and the cast panicking as Carlotta wailed in pain. He wondered if he'd broken any of her bones. He found he didn't much care.
They had every opportunity to stay my hand, he thought. They could have acquiesced to my demands. Now they've no choice.
"Oh, this is terrible!" one of the managers, a white-haired man named Poligny, exclaimed. "Three days until the gala and we'll have to cancel!"
His partner, on the other hand, remained fairly cool and collected as he helped the diva to her feet and instructed that she be taken immediately to the hospital.
"We may not have to," he said as he turned to face Poligny. "There is one option."
Both men turned to look at the girl who stood by Meg Giry, chewing her lip nervously as her eyes flitted between the managers and the retreating form of the diva.
"Miss Daaé," Poligny called, and her attention turned to him. He beckoned for her to approach.
"Monsieur?" she asked. She seemed startled that she had a voice, much less that she could speak a single word. The managers exchanged nervous glances.
"We have it on good authority that you are able to sing?"
"I… I have been taking lessons," she said, nodding in agreement with the man's words.
"Lessons? From whom?"
Christine glanced up toward box five, trying to decide what to say. Perhaps it would be best if she kept the angel's involvement secret. She shook her head.
"I do not know monsieur."
"We shall have to cancel," Poligny groaned. His partner gestured to the conductor.
"Do you know Marguerite's part from Faust?" The girl nodded. "Then you shall have no trouble singing from it for us now. Maestro!"
Christine's eyes widened and she shook her head as her cheeks flushed a deep crimson.
"Oh, I can't—" she insisted, but her words were lost to the swell of music. She took two deep breaths to steady herself and calm her nerves before she began to sing.
Her voice trembled and faltered on the first few notes, but with another deep breath and longing glance to box five, she found renewed strength within her. Her voice rang pure and melodic through the theater, causing both managers' jaws to drop as they stared at her in awe. All they had heard of the girl had been that she refused to put forth the effort to truly master her voice. They never imagined someone who immediately transferred to the corps du ballet would have the lungs to sing as beautifully as she did then.
As she held the final note of the aria, applause erupted from the crowd around her. Meg and two other girls flounced over to her with tears in their eyes.
"You have the voice of an angel!" one of the girls said.
"The show will go on!" Poligny said once he found his voice once more. He turned to Christine. "You will sing for La Carlotta. Take care to learn your part."
"Yes, monsieur," Christine said before she was whisked away to a dressing room.
My very own dressing room, she thought with no small amount of glee as she surveyed the space once the small entourage of dancers and chorus members left her to her solitude.
The room was sparsely decorated, containing a small sofa, a table, a stool, a large cupboard and a mirror that stretched from the ceiling to the floor. She loved it for its emptiness. She loved it because it was hers.
Her performance brought a tear to Hesham's eye as he watched from above. He'd known she had it in her. It was truly a shame that the managers were retiring. He'd only just broken them in and now he'd have to repeat the process with new ones.
He knew that Christine would be waiting for him once she'd been brought to a dressing room, her dressing room. Just one of the things she deserved.
If he could, Hesham wanted to give her the world. Were it within his power, he would give her anything she desired. All he asked in return was that she sing for him.
He disappeared through a false wall and hurried down a long, dark corridor, stopping just on the other side of the mirror in Christine's new dressing room.
He found himself face to face with the girl. Well, face-to-face with the empty air above her head as she looked at herself in the mirror, but it was the closest he'd ever been to her. Just a thin pane of reflective glass separated the two. Should the need arise, he could reach out and take her by the wrist, leading her away from the surface world and its problems and people.
As he watched her brushing her hair and inspecting herself in the mirror he found himself constructing a life for the two of them in his mind. In his thoughts, she never questioned his mask. She caressed it as though it was his real face. She spoke to him quietly and lovingly, the same way she spoke to her Angel.
As he opened his mouth to announce his presence, there was a knock at the door. She turned away from the mirror to answer, and the squeal of delight that tore itself from her lungs startled Hesham. He tried to see past her, but quickly wished he hadn't.
There, in the doorway, stood a tall, broad-shouldered sailor with sun-kissed skin and a delicate blond moustache to match the wispy blond hair on his head. Christine threw her arms around the man, laughing as he lifted her into the air and spun her around.
Hesham watched as the man led her out of the dressing room and out of his sight, and his heart fell. He hadn't even had the chance to tell her how proud he was before she went off with another man.
Fool, he scolded himself. She will never see you as more than her angel. It hadn't been until he'd seen her in another man's arms that that particular thought had bothered him. And how it bothered him! He'd spent months grooming her and preparing her, and in comes this sailor with his broad shoulders and face free of deformities to steal her away from him.
As he skulked back to his home in the cellar, he decided once and for all that the girl would be his. She would sing only for him and he would create for her a cage of gold where she would want for nothing. Perhaps, with enough time, he could convince her to love him.