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Chapter Text

“I don’t know who you are, or what your purpose is in disrupting everything everyone is working so hard on, but IT MUST STOP!  I have had it with you!” She felt like such a child as she stamped her foot hard upon center stage overlooking the completely empty and deserted grand auditorium.  The performance had long ended hours earlier, patrons now in bed with their prospects, the Paris elite now departed enjoying late dinners and drinks at fine restaurants.  But here Meg Giry stood, demanding to know why, yet again, the Opera Ghost had disrupted the first performance of the new season.  “Do you hear me: IT MUST STOP!  No more of this!”  Silence again greeted her.  In a huff of exhausted fury, she stomped off the stage and headed back to the dormitories.

The next morning greeted the corps de ballet with the wrath of Madame Giry.  Always stern yet sometimes forgiving, the ballet mistress was certainly not tapping into her forgiving side this morning.  “You were a disgrace!  I have never, in so many seasons at the Palais Garnier, seen such absolute abandonment of technique: such rond de jambe! Such temps de cuisse!  You will rehearse into the evening if we must.  I will absolutely not tolerate such carelessness and recklessness!”

“But Madame Giry, it is not our fault!  The Opera Ghost -,” whined little Jammes but was abruptly silenced with the loud bang of Madame Giry’s cane.

“SILENCE!  I will hear no complaints, no whines, not a word!  I will not tolerate placing blame on an apparition and taking no accountability for yourselves.  We rehearse, NOW!  On the barre!”

The ballet girls scurried frantically to the barre in front of the long wall of mirrors.  Practice leotards and chiffon skirts hugging muscular bodies, en pointe ballet slippers thumping rhythmically on the hardwood floors.  Finally by dinnertime, bodies worn completely through, toes bleeding, sweating beading on foreheads, and the ballet girls about to collapse in exhaustion and pain, Madame Giry dismissed them for the evening.  “We begin after breakfast.  You may leave.”  Grumbles and mumbles from the corps de ballet echoed quietly in the corridors after they exited through the grand foyer of the opera house.

Remaining behind, however, sat little Meg Giry in the massive practice room, staring back at her reflection, a defeated expression on her face.  “This is all your fault, Mr. Opera Ghost,” she said quietly as she carefully unwrapped the ties of her ballet shoes.  Ever so gently, she pulled her foot from one slipper, wincing and grimacing in teeth-clenching pain.  “I blame you… you have no idea how hard we try, how hard we practice, and how excruciatingly painful this is.”

Silence met her words.  And her own tears met her reflection.  Taking a white towel, she dabbed at the blood oozing from her big toe.  A low rumble suddenly caressed her ears.  “Such hatred coming from such a small ballet mouse,” the voice said.  Meg squeezed her eyelids shut quickly and blinked furiously, wondering if her exhaustion and pain was making her hallucinate.  “So meek, so helpless, so unlike the rest of the ballet rats.  No, you are a mouse.  A small little mouse.”

“You don’t understand anything.  All you do is wreck everything.  You have no idea how hard this is,” Meg whispered, not daring to look up into the mirror.

The boisterous laugh echoed in the empty room, “Empathy is for the weak!”

“But not being an absolute mischievous, evil, vindictive jerk isn’t?!” Meg shouted.  Her pain coursed through her body fueling her frustration and anger.  “Stop sabotaging us!”

“Oh, ma petite souris is now a raging rat.  How sweet is she, hmm?” the voice teased.

“I am neither.  I am Meg Giry!  I am a dancer!  And what are you?  You are NOTHING!  You are a voice, a menace, a nuisance, and an annoyance!  All I want to be Principal, and if you keep doing this, then I will end up like so many others!  Leave us be!”

“Such wrat, ma petite souris !  A spirit of fire.”

“You just don’t understand, do you?  How much do we give up to be here?  I know you’ve watched all day today what we endure for this trade.  What I wouldn’t give to have a hot mug of milk with honey at the end of a grueling practice; a warm, buttery croissant that melts on my tongue.”  Her voice dropped off silently as her eyes slid close imagining the comforting food and drink that made her stomach rumble loudly in hungry protest, echoing loudly.  “I’m so hungry,” she whispered.  She heard the voice’s chuckle again.  “Tease me all you want, but please, for the love of God, please stop sabotaging me.  This is all I want.”

“It can’t be that hard, ma petite souris , to dance like the others.  Effortless.”

Now it was Meg’s turn to laugh bitterly, “Effortless?  Effortless?!  He says it’s effortless!”  Now she was laughing and the voice went quiet.  “You are so stupid!  You don’t have a clue, do you?”  Silence.  “Fine, Mr. Opera Ghost, or whoever you are.  I will show just how effortless you think this is.  Tomorrow evening, ten o’clock.  Meet me in the old dressing room corridor, the room with the large mirror, La Carlotta’s old room.  Then I shall show you just how effortless it truly is.”

“A challenge, ma petite souris ?  Do you not know who I am?”

“A coward if you don’t show up.”  With a stifled grunt, Meg Giry picked herself off the floor and hobbled to the door.  

Erik watched from behind the wall of mirrors at his little mouse as she limped gingerly towards the door.  A coward; she called him a coward?  Perhaps he had underestimated this little ballet rat.  He was determined that he would break her.  But little did he know that she would eventually break him and relish in the victory.

“Tomorrow night, ma petite souris ,” Erik said.

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The Opera Ghost mocked her.  He mocked them.  Madame Giry would hear of no excuses for missed plies and collapsed j etés .  And Meg felt defeated.  No doubt her challenge to him the night before had only fueled his sabotage, his vindictive taunts, his insufferable chuckling with every authoritative, corrective growl of the ballet mistress.  Yet here she was, quietly tiptoeing down the darkened corridors to La Carlotta’s abandoned dressing room.  Clearly she hadn’t thought this through.  If he really was a ghost, do ghosts dance?  Perhaps with the devil but that image sent chills down her spine. How do you teach a ghost to dance?

He watched her from behind the mirror, quietly chuckling to himself as she struggled to move the heavy furniture out of the way to have enough space for whatever it was she would attempt to teach him.  Ha!  The thought was laughable of course; the entire situation was!  He knew everything about art, about music, about magic, about deception, and even more humorously, about mischief.  This caused a more audible chuckle which left his petite souris frozen with fear in the middle of the room.

“So you’ve come,” she managed to respond.

“Indeed,” Erik snapped and let an uneasy heaviness fill the room.

“Suppose we’ll start,” she spoke mostly to herself and settled herself prominently in front of the massive mirror.  “Um, ok, well, let’s see.”  Meg positioned her heels in a perfect linear line and began to explain.  “This is the first position.  It will feel awkward until you find a center of balance and…” Her instruction trailed off as she heard an awkward shift of what sounded like a gentleman’s dress shoes shuffling across the floorboards.  “If you feel off balance, imagine a string is attached to the top of your head and someone above you is pulling it up.”

“ Un marionnettiste ,” Erik grumbled. “I am no one’s puppet.”  

“I heard that, and you’re not a puppet.  It’s just an illustration to keep your back straight,” she quipped easily and quietly mumbled under her breath, “If you even have a backbone.”  She rolled her eyes and sighed.  “This is second position and much easier than first.  Heels are spread apart.  Like this, and again, imagine the string pulling you up.”

“Easy as expected,” he responded bemused.  “And you call yourself a professional.”

He wasn’t going to phase her, she was determined to focus.  The only way to shut up an all-knowing opera ghost was to make him fall hard.  “Very well, third position is the same as first; however, one heel in front of the other is like this.  Back straight.  Shoulders relaxed.  No slouching, no rounded shoulders.  Straight, perfect lines.”  She wasn’t going to give him any chance to respond.  “Fourth position.  Make the letter Z, like this.  Back straight.”  The sound of fabric frantically trying to keep up only fueled Meg to move quicker.  I’ll show you exactly how easy this is, Monsieur le Fantôme .  “Final position is fifth, close the Z, feet parallel.  Back straight.  Head up.  Shoulders down and relaxed, no rounding.”

BOOM!  His body hit the floor, and hard.  An audibly angry growl roared through the mirror as Meg barely held back her laughter.  “Easy, right?” she said overly joyous sarcasm.  “Next we'll go back to first position and introduce the arm motions.”

With a painful grunt, he huffed out, “There’s MORE?”

“But you said so yourself, Monsieur le Fantôme , it’s easy as expected.  Now, let’s begin.”

Behind the grand mirror she once again heard the shuffling of a rather large body picking itself off the hard floor.  A woosh of fabric seemingly to be discarded sounded like the fluttering of frantic doves stuck in the rafters.  More like uneasy .  Meg quickly silenced the doubting voice in her head.

“Now, back to first position.  Arms in an angel’s halo in front of your torso.  Lines are long.  Graceful, floating.”  Erik watched, feeling ridiculous trying to mimic his petite souris’s movements, but something stopped him.  Watching her eyes glaze over as if she was entering another realm not of this earth.  She was graceful.  She was floating.  She was ethereal.  She was lost to the world, pirouetting her way to the heavens.  Perhaps not a petite souris as he initially thought; perhaps a petit ange .

Meg seemed to come back to her senses and abruptly stopped as the sound of his low hum of… satisfaction?  “Forgive me,” she whispered, “I must go.  It’s late.”  She turned to swooped up her items, grabbed the oil lamp, and scurried to the door.

“You are indeed graceful, mon petit ange .”  Just barely above a whisper.

“ Merci, Monsieur le Fantôme ,” she cautiously replied, glancing at her reflection in the mirror.

“I am called Erik.”  And the room fell completely silent and still, leaving Meg’s heart pulsing frantically.  He is real; he is a man .

Meg navigated her way through the halls back to the corps de ballet’s dormitories.  Splashing cold water onto her face, she continued to feel the chill that enveloped her since parting ways with Erik.  She tried to brush off the feeling of him watching every move she made.  Too exhausted to fight it off, she moved to her bedside table to extinguish her lamp but to find a hot mug of milk infused with calming lavender and honey.  She sipped appreciatively as the liquid caressed and warmed her deep into her core, her muscles relaxing under the healing lavender, lulling her mind into a calming cloud of sleep.  As the steam from the mug danced its way to the ceiling, Meg’s eyelids slid close and she heaved a contented sigh, “Thank you.”

“Sleep now, mon petit ange . Dors bien .”

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Two weeks.  Two weeks of teaching a supposed ghost how to dance ballet.  This is ludicrous .  Meg untied her ballet shoes and shoved them into her bag.  “That’s all for now.  Although there is no way to measure progress, or if you are in fact doing anything at all.  I cannot believe we’re doing this.”

The barked laugh echoed in the room.  He was amused and found this entire situation completely absurd.  “For once I must agree, mon ange, c'est drôle .  For what it may be worth, if anything at all, you are indeed a fair teacher.”

“Compliments of the invisible student.  This would be easier face to face.”

Silence permeated and an uneasy shift in movement sounded behind the mirror.  “Impossible to ask,” snapped the deep voice.

“I asked nothing of you; simply a comment, Monsieur le Fantome .”  Meg walked delicately and slowly towards the mirror.  Placing her hand upon the cold glass, she stared at her reflection, not realizing that the man behind the mirror stood before her, feeling her eyes pierce right through his heart.  He raised his hand to meet hers.  “I’ve grown to enjoy this, despite the strangeness of this arrangement.  It’s fun.”

“Fun,” he chuckled.  “Torturing me is your idea of fun.”

“No, hearing you trip and fall is fun,” Meg giggled back and lifted a bemused grin at her reflection.

“You’re too mischievous; perhaps mon ange is too sweet to call you.”  His finger tracing her face’s reflection.  “Perhaps, we can come to some sort of agreement.”

“Agreement?”

“To the stage, mon ange .  Meet me there.”  As like that, the air was sucked out from the room as a cold stillness infiltrated all around her.  To the stage?  Would the opera ghost manifest himself into human form?  Oh God, what have I agreed to?

Quietly running through the vacant, dark halls, she finally made it to the backstage area of the grand auditorium.  This cavernous place was haunting, eerie, unsettling in the dark.  As noiseless as the space was, she swore she could hear her heart pounding.

“Come, mon ange .  Stage center,” he voice echoed.  Reluctantly Meg stepped out from the wings, the cold wooden stage meeting the soles of her feet and she shivered.  “You are afraid.  Afraid of me.  Afraid of darkness.”

She swallowed hard, nodding her head.  With the snap of his fingers, seven lanterns mysteriously sprung to light as the flames danced in their wicks.  “Turn around,” she felt his breath whisper against her ear.  Startled, she whipped around, fumbling forward in anticipation of meeting a human body instead of the empty, cold air.

“Vous êtes un esprit ou un fantôme ou... un ange? ” she shivered.

“What do you want me to be?”  His voice again, a whisper upon her ear.  

Her eyes slid close.  “To be real,” she said.  The brush of fabric caressed her face.  Instinct told her to run, to pull away from the silky fabric now being gently tied behind her; the folds pulling on the loose hairs of her head.

“You must not look upon me; you must not touch me.  For now,” he breathed steadily as he removed his cape in one fail, majestic whoosh, “for now we dance.”

His gloved hand met her waist from behind as he placed his left arm under hers, forcing her movements in mimicking rhyme and time.  From somewhere, the sounds of fingers dancing in time with their bodies were on the piano, a haunting waltz.  The gentle plucking of violin strings tapping in time with the piano.  Cellos pulled on their long, melodious haunting strings.  His hands pulled on her, guiding her across the stage: she the marionette, he the puppetmaster.  

“How can this be?” Meg whispered breathlessly.  This music was so strange, nothing like she had before.  And who could possibly be playing?  Erik was here, behind her, under her, he was everywhere.

“This is the music of the night, mon ange ,” he said in her ear.  He released her and watched as she twirled through the dim lamplight, her long lines casting shadows everywhere while bringing light with every step she took. Erik watched mesmerized as his music serenaded the dancing angel before him.  “Dance, mon ange , dance for me.”

The climax of music and dancing sent Meg in a frenzy of unending twirls, caught in the moment where arpeggios met petite allegros.  Closer and closer she came when suddenly her body crashed into his arms.  Breathing heavily she gathered herself, feeling strong arms about her, holding her, preventing her from falling.  Her wits crashing her back into reality, she ripped away the blindfold and gazed horrified as the lamplight cast ghastly shadows upon the towering figure of man before her.

Eyes wide, frantically feeding upon the white-masked figure towering over her.  “Le diable… le diable déguisé! ” she trembled and shook with absolute terror.

“Le diable, mon ange?  Le Diable!!! ” he roared at her.  “I warned you not to look upon me, rat !   Cours, espèce de rat, cours !  Run, you rat, run away!”

Her scream and frantic footfalls bellowed and she ran.  She ran as fast as her bruised feet could carry her, through the corridors to the dormitories.  Terrified, she fell into her bed and pulled the covers tightly over her head.  “ Mon Dieu! Oh mon Dieu, aide-moi ,” she cried helplessly.  Tonight, le diable would haunt her dreams.  She had danced with the devil.