“Thank you.” I rub at my wet cheeks without looking up. “For taking such good care of it.”
He doesn’t respond, but I can feel he’s honored by my gratitude.
I touch the rich, black wood. When I lift it from the case and hug it, the scent of the wood fills me like a symphony, and in that moment, I’m holding Dad’s music snuggled against me. The O.G. engraved in the lower bout offers a familiar comfort as I trail it with my thumb.
Etalon crouches lower so I’ll be forced to meet his dark gaze, studious behind the mask. “Do you know those initials?”
I nod, swept away by Dad’s songs taking flight in my mind. “Octavius Germain. One of our ancestors from the eighteenth century. He marked it to keep it in our family.”
A pensive expression crosses the left side of Etalon’s face. “Yet I know it to stand for Opera Ghost. Someone has been lying to one of us, or both.”
I’m reminded of the signature on his note when he gave me the fiber-optic dress in the chapel. He’d signed it O.G. That’s why the initials had seemed so familiar. “I don’t understand.”
“Me neither . . . but I have a hypothesis.” He fishes two items from a hidden panel inside the velvet lining of the case. One is a picture, the other a rolled piece of yellowing paper.
First, he hands me the picture. I settle the violin on my lap to take it. The image is faded and grainy, yet clear enough to make out a tragic young boy, standing with a burlap bag over his head—holes for his eyes and mouth cut into the brown, woven material. In his arms he cradles my Dad’s Stradivarius. With the one-of-a-kind scroll at the end of the neck, there’s no mistaking it. “Is this you?”
“No. Look closer.” Etalon points to the photo. “This is a daguerreotype. The oldest form of photography. It’s dated 1840. Hundreds of years before I was born. There were no initials engraved on the violin yet, which discounts your ancestor doing it. In fact, the Opera Ghost still had two decades before he would manifest. The boy in this picture would one day conceive of that persona, when he traded the bag over his head for a mask and an opera cape.”
My mouth dries. “This is the Phantom as a child?”
Etalon nods.
“Okay. So, how is that possible?” I ask. “That he’s lived all these years? I mean, I get that he’s like us. I saw him channel the horror from everyone. But . . . do we reach a point and never age?”
“We have the ability to stall the aging process, to store a surplus of life energy within ourselves, but only by siphoning away all of our prey’s remaining years.”
“By killing them,” I say, almost choking at the thought.
He tilts his head in affirmation.
My stomach turns as I contemplate how many people the Phantom must have murdered to accrue so many extra years of life. Then nausea hits full force as I realize how close I came to doing that with Ben and Jax. Thoughts of Dad aren’t far behind. Did I take his remaining years? My vision blurs to even consider the possibility. But Etalon said I’m not to blame. “I still don’t understand what this has to do with my father’s death.”
“I’m getting to that.” He unfurls the rolled paper next. It’s an aged, hand-drawn sketch of a man in a vintage suit playing my dad’s violin—complete with the O.G. engraving on the bout—his deformed, hideous face relaxed in pure euphoria. It’s dated 1864 and signed by the artist, Christine.
“The Christine?” I ask, eyes meeting Etalon’s.
“Christina Nilsson often signed her name as Christine in correspondences and on her artwork. Not many people knew she was an amateur artist, but the Phantom did. He cultivated every creative outlet she had. He was her tutor, her angel of music, her muse. They had a passionate emotional affair, although sadly, she was young and immature. Contrary to what most people think, there was only twelve years’ difference in their ages, not twenty or thirty. But still, upon their first meeting, she wasn’t yet ready for the selfless, soul-deep level of love he required. She was little more than infatuated with his mystique and genius.” Etalon’s aura grows sad for an instant, then jumps back to stern determination, as if he catches himself. “Somehow, your family ended up with the Phantom’s violin. The exchange had to have taken place sometime after he’d trained the woman he loved to sing alongside the instrument’s voice, because that’s when he engraved the initials.”
My mouth sags open.
“I believe this violin had some sort of penalty attached to it when it was taken from the Phantom,” he continues. “A gypsy curse. Whatever you want to call it. I believe it drained your father of his life. I’m not sure how. But my gut tells me they’re connected. I think your family knows the answers. Possibly even your aunt. You should start with her.”