And so came the Masquerade ball to usher in 1883.
Christine and Meg had survived a turbulent year under the same gargoyle-studded roof as last year's, and the year before.
Meg's personal trajectory in that time was no surprise – as predicted, she'd advanced considerably in her career, playing the sorts of roles good for a lead dancer of the corps de ballet to establish herself as a soloist.
Christine, however, had in twelve months flipped expectations so drastically it was as if a heroine from a romantic melodrama switched roles with the shy, awkward young beauty of January 1882. Starting the year as understudy in the ballet with a fair chance at a spot in the chorus, she ended it having made her debut in the lead role of an opera, been kidnapped by the infamous Phantom, and fallen in love with a viscount.
Madame Giry privately shook her head in disbelief at the two girls, so ambitious, so daring, so vulnerable.
They returned to their old habits this masquerade, turning their backs from the well-defined costumes of the shepherdess and moon goddess of last year to the usual bright vagueness of earlier years.
Christine was dressed in a beautiful gown with a skirt of sunset-colored tulle, wearing a tiara with a moon atop it again and a wand with a star. When pressed she called herself some sort of "star princess". Not too far a reach from last year's costume.
And Meg? Giry could only guess as she looked over her daughter. The girl wore a pink velvet jacket (pink, of course pink), a black top hat with veil, black tights with large pink spots all over, and riding boots. Some sort of equestrienne? Meg was surprisingly good on a horse for one who grew up in the Paris Opera House and who'd never even seen the country. Meg considered herself a good rider, visiting since childhood the horses in their stalls, Pierre the head of stables often taking the young girl for rides and giving her tips.
The ballet mistress couldn't help but feel a bit wistful as the celebration began. Last year Meg and Christine joined the ball hand in hand, constantly seeking each other out. Children.
Now Christine was with Raoul, staring at him with the eyes of a lovestruck woman, as the young man – dressed elegantly as a Hussar – spun her around in his arms.
Meg stood as merry and bright as always, but with a subtle poise about her that was different from last year. Her increased confidence at the opera house was evident in how she no longer cowered at the sight of La Carlotta or in quiet deference to the managers, but instead hobnobbed with them easily.
And she was prettier than ever, Giry noticed with both pride and a slight anxiety – Erik's absence did leave one less protector of her daughter's virtue around. But anyone daring to bother the girl, Giry noticed, was not only treated to the brotherly interference of one Raoul de Chagny, but by a dignified and distant coolness from Meg, leaving it clear she was not interested while still staying polite.
Just one year, Giry repeated to herself mystified. Just one year has passed by. She watched the two girls with a mixture of gratification in their accomplishments and regret that time flew by so mercilessly.
Still, overall it was the happiest masquerade so far Madame Giry ever attended.
As with the recent performance of David Copperfield, the masquerade ball was even more crowded than it usually was, thanks again in large part, Giry suspected, to the ghoulish fascination the public still held for the opera ghost.
Not that anyone anticipated his presence. Six months had gone by, and many assumed he was a freak incident, a transient madman who had moved on after his little charade.
How this transient madman was so familiar with the opera house to bellow from the rafters, cause La Carlotta to croak like a toad, and drop the chandelier on the head of an unsuspecting old woman, well, that was seldom discussed anymore. Public fascination surrounded the legend, not the truth.
Either way, Madame Giry had to admit that Paris outdid itself this year. She'd never seen such a turnout with such an eccentric and loud array of costumes.
Little Jammes was calling herself the "Triangle Girl", whatever that meant beyond carrying a triangle instrument and dressing up like some sort of peacock-colored, vaguely medieval sprite. Clownish Adele was dressed like a monkey, with cymbals she was not shy in clanging together, usually after sneaking up on an unsuspecting couple. La Sorelli was regal and cool-looking as the "Triton Girl," wearing a silver-blue wig in an up-do with a crustacean-like tiara on top.
The managers even went so far as to hire professional living statues to stand still throughout the night in dramatic and comedic poses along the staircase, dressed as fancy dress horses, 18th century fops, chickens, etc. Giry wondered how much these living statues enjoyed themselves as the hours passed by, revelers thoughtlessly partaking in drinks, dances, and h'ordeuvres all around them.
The grand staircase itself was covered in confetti, the foyer lit with every candelabrum in the opera house.
But in truth, the real draw of the evening, and the reason the managers were so anxious that the party should come off without a hitch, was the new chandelier now swinging proudly in the theater. For the first time in the Opera Populaire's history, small groups were allowed onto the stage during masquerade to view the new fixture, which loomed proudly and celestially over the refurnished seats.
Madame Giry, as always, chose to make herself into a far less ostentatious display. The usual black sequined cape was her only decoration. Tipsy patrons prodded her about it, and she'd always have to bite her tongue not to inform them that she'd spent far too much of her youth wearing sundry disguises, and she was weary of it.
But she was of no sour mood this evening. "What a night!" She declared happily to the group congregated at the bottom of the staircase, including her own Meg sipping daintily at her champagne, Andre in his ridiculous skeleton pirate (?) costume, Firmin the alligator, and Piangi and Carlotta.
The singing duo arrived back in Paris just a day after Christine and the vicomte. Her furlough had done wonders for La Carlotta's self-esteem. In spite of her innate bravery, she'd initially quailed about performing even at private parties after her humiliating disaster at the hands of the Phantom. However, all it took was Piangi's encouraging words – and the diamonds he'd loaded her down with, evident even now encrusted in the elaborate, seemingly arachnid-themed gown she wore – for her to take a deep breath, stride forward, and command her audience with her invasive vibrato. Piangi was as fawning as always, dressed tonight as some breed of sun god (although his pointed crown appeared to evoke Medusa with its golden serpents springing from it).
Once more Madame Giry was impressed and surprised by how easily her Meg was mingling now. "What a crowd!" She replied, all smiling teeth, as she nodded easily at the formidable Carlotta, whom she once always scurried away from.
"Such a relief that the…horrid business from before is overwith," Carlotta declared, as utterly confident – or desperately hopeful - as anyone else that they'd seen the last of the dreaded O.G.
"A toast!" Firming announced jovially, raising his glass.
"To our good friends," Andre graciously contributed.
"And to the new chandelier," Firmin eagerly added.
"May its splendor never fade!" Piangi bellowed.
"What a change," Meg sighed. Was there something wistful, almost…regretful in Meg's words? Giry knew her Meg still nourished a ferocious curiosity about Erik, and so could it be she harbored an unconscious disappointment his presence was gone from her life?
Madame Giry did not let herself dwell on this for too long.
"What a masquerade!" Andre cried delighted, staring at the spectacle surrounding them, the whirling figures, and the high, frenzied laughter.
Madame Giry's barely perceptible smile was genuine, satisfied. Yes, indeed. What a masquerade.
Just outside the side windows by the water fountain, Raoul and Christine stood alone, once more bathed in moonlight.
Christine's dark eyes glowed ecstatically as she clutched the small golden ring on a chain around her neck. "A secret engagement! What a thrill! Isn't it exciting?" She squeezed Raoul's hand – a little too hard, willing him to be as excited as she.
He was straining, though. "Christine, I keep asking you, why do you insist on keeping it secret? I've told you I don't care what my family will say."
Suddenly acting as though she were afraid the very trees could hear, she hissed, "Please, Raoul! Not here! Don't speak so loudly of…of it."
Raoul frowned. "Christine, whoever that maniac was clearly is long gone. Is that what's bothering you? You're afraid he's listening in?"
"Let's not argue about this."
"Who's arguing?" Raoul felt almost at his wit's end. She'd seemed so calm and sure after David Copperfield, but since then she'd been skittish as a cat. "I just want you to feel how safe you are! Safe with me!"
"I do feel safe!" Her answer was too shrill, her jerky smile unconvincing.
"Christine." His look was serious.
Christine dropped her cheerful façade and Raoul saw anxious anger. "Please don't pick at me right now! Why can't we just have a good time?"
Raoul's temper matched hers. "Because we can't, not if you're too afraid to tell the world we're en" –
"Fine," Christine interrupted, striding angrily toward the ballroom. "I only hope you'll understand in time." With a brazen toss of her hair she suddenly dived into the dancing throng, leaving him behind.
She felt defiant, reckless. If Raoul wanted to nag at her, she'd…she'd…she'd do exactly as she'd like, including keeping things she wanted secret…secret. She swung in and out of dances with figures in brightly colored costumes, they spinning her around the room with laughing cries. The room blurred around her.
The determined smile on her face slipped.
She saw a white mask.
Or did she?
Yes, the figure in the emerald green cape had a white mask on.
Her heart pounded.
Then a relieved sigh.
It was a white mask, but it wasn't that white mask. It covered the face too fully, and it might have whiskers drawn on. And the figure was too short.
But what about this figure? This one was all in black. He had a white mask.
She turned around panicked to her next partner. Yes, he, too. A white mask on a body clothed in black.
And this one, too –
Her breathing was quick, sharp. She was close to hyperventilating and she felt her knees buckle.
They were all around her now, they were all him, and her lungs filled with air as she prepared to scream –
Suddenly warm, secure arms around her. She looked up dazed into sea-blue eyes.
And a sensation of safety like she'd never known filled her.
She buried her face in Raoul's chest as he rocked her back and forth on the dance floor.
Meg was surprised how easy it was to talk to La Carlotta. They were chatting now about their favorite seamstresses at the opera house, a conversation that started from their mutual compliments about each other's costumes.
Meg tilted her head as Carlotta showed her the diamond pleating on her own skirt and told Meg about the expert hand that stitched them in. Meg supposed she'd never really talked much with Carlotta before. In the past, Meg was always too preoccupied with keeping away from the temperamental lady and staying close to the dancers, and Carlotta was too focused on the spotlight to take much notice of one more white tutu twirling about the stage.
The ballet dancer, for all that she'd matured and become savvier in the six months that passed, was still too innocent – one might even say ignorant – of the intricacies of ambition to realize that part of Carlotta's geniality might now owe to Meg's own recent successes. Carlotta now considered Meg – not an equal, very few people were equal to herself – but worthy of condescension. Unlike Christine or one of the other lead singers, Carlotta had no fear of getting upstaged by this one. Singing and dancing were different arenas, different battlegrounds.
Plus, there was something disarmingly charming about the little Meg's genuine directness that appealed to Carlotta. She'd rather the girl wasn't so pretty, but again, Carlotta decided she was no threat.
The singer even deigned to lay a hand on the girl's arm, pointing to the staircase. "Look, my dear! That fool Andre is trying to capture everyone's attention."
Meg frowned to herself at the way Carlotta spoke of the manager. Monsieur Andre might not be the most impressive figure Meg ever met, but he certainly always showed Carlotta every consideration and admiration. Seemed a bit ungrateful on the diva's part to call him thus.
Still, Meg turned her attention to Andre, who was indeed trying to speak over the din, holding up a pocket watch and beaming benevolently. "Thirty seconds, ladies and gentlemen, until midnight!"
At once, almost the entire party (excluding those canoodling with lovers outside and curious lurkers on the stage) gathered around the grand staircase.
"Twenty-five! Twenty-four! Twenty three! Twenty-two! Twenty-one! Twenty!" Everyone chanted in happy unison. So enraptured was Meg she failed to notice her mother approach and look fondly at her wide-eyed child with her brilliant smile.
Raoul and Christine also gathered near at the opposite end, Raoul securing a champagne flute for him and Christine. His fiancée was smiling again, and so all was well with the handsome Hussar.
"…Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five!" Meg in her excitement even dared to squeeze La Carlotta's gloved hand, which the diva allowed as she was too distracted with her beloved Ubaldo pressing a kiss to her other.
"Four! Three! Two! One!" The glasses were raised, and Meg cried out as loud as she could in her small voice. "Happy New" –
A shocked hush suddenly rippled through the crowd, preceded by gasps.
The horde of revelers parted like the red sea all down the staircase.
And Madame Giry felt so very, very cold as she saw why.
A tall figure stood at the top of the stairs, resplendent in the most ornate and gruesome costume Meg had ever seen.
He was Red Death in person.
Red everywhere: red velvet doublet, britches, stockings, shoes, immense feathered hat, tassels, and cape. Black and gold ornaments dangling from the doublet lent a flash of color beyond red, along with the white ruffles on the voluminous sleeves. A black cowl surrounded a skeletal mask so realistic it looked as if a man dead for centuries walked among them.
He held a libretto as red as his costume in one of his elegant hands.
Everyone knew, somehow, without being told. Before one word was spoken. Everyone – old and new to the opera house, employed there or otherwise – knew.
Meg could not even find speech enough to declare, "He's here." She was pulled toward the side of the staircase's bottom by her mother, who held onto her tightly next to the cowering managers.
A moment of dead silence as the red creature stood on the center step, surveying the crowd through the black holes in his mask.
At last he spoke.
"Why so silent, good messieurs?"
This quiet question sent more shivers up Meg's spine than anything else had: more than his entrance, more than his voice from the rafters, more than Buquet's body, more than the chandelier.
His voice was elegant, polite, smooth, electric, and beautiful, strangely beautiful. Unearthly.
And more threatening than a thunderclap.
Meg's heart beat like a jungle drum.
He continued speaking as with a sort of feline grace he slowly descended the stairs: towards the managers, towards them.
"I would not leave you for good, my friends," He assured them. "Have you missed me? I only took a brief sabbatical, I assure you, much like other cast members here. To rest my nerves. And!" He lifted his libretto high. "To finish my opera: Don Juan Triumphant!"
Meg just barely kept back the irrational shriek when quick as lightning he threw the libretto down to them, which landed in Andre's fumbling grasp. "That is the finished score," the figure continued, just a foot away from them now. He smelled of dark earth. The expressionless death's head was a blinding white amidst the blood red. "Not a note needs fixing, not a lyric needs changing. My instructions are clear: casting, costume designs, and other sundry directions are listed throughout. I advise you to comply. I remind you, there are worse things than a shattered chandelier!" He raised his finger high, and the crowd around him involuntarily shrank back at the gesture and the words confirming his identity:
For the first time the Phantom publicly revealed his physical self, buried as it was beneath his costume.
He turned away from Meg's group to the opposite end of the stairs. He gestured to someone there. Meg looked.
"Christine!" She couldn't help call out. During the stunned moments following the Phantom's entrance, Meg had forgotten about her friend. She stared at her now.
Christine's face was an open book of frozen terror. White as the living death's head that beckoned her, she seemed to glide toward him, almost as if by his very will.
So odd were the circumstances, so sudden, that even the protective and quick-witted Raoul did nothing but stare aghast at the scene.
Meg watched the pair – Red Death and the soprano – closely. She suspected everyone else did as well.
The air was thick around the two. For what seemed like an endless amount of time they locked eyes.
Then his hand shot out and clutched a chain around Christine's delicate neck Meg never noticed before. A ring hanged there.
In a snarl more vicious than any hound's, Erik announced, "Your chains are still mine, mademoiselle. You will sing for me."
He tore it ruthlessly from her throat, causing her to gasp in shock. This appeared to break the spell of stillness over Raoul who lunged for her, sweeping her away from the Phantom as the specter raised his fist high and suddenly hurled it to the ground.
Meg did scream now along with others as the thick cloud of red smoke erupted from his hand.
Madame Giry pulled her away, whisking her toward the dormitories, pushing through the crowd scrambling frantically for the exits through the crimson fog.
The last Meg heard of the figure was his almost childlike cackling as he was left alone in the foyer.
Madame Giry had only one despondent thought running through her mind as she pulled her Meg to safety.
Oh, Erik.
Why...why?