“Yes. And your father, bénissez-le, was the bridge. The voice was waiting to be reunited with Christine, the moment she was reborn as another person. You. All it took was your father choosing to play the right kind of music . . . opera. That was the key. Once those familiar notes wailed forth from the violin’s strings, her voice found its way back. But being that bridge drained him of his life-force. Had he been like you or me, it wouldn’t have harmed him. He could’ve recharged by feeding off any living thing. If only I’d known . . .” Her graceful figure curls to a slouch, like a candle melting. “So often I’ve mourned that. Not knowing in time to stop it. When I realized, it was too late, and I—”
“You couldn’t face Mom or me.” I wipe tears from my cheeks. “That’s why you didn’t come when he got sick, or for his funeral.”
“Forgive me, Rune.” She pats my hand, blotting moisture from her eyes with her robe’s sleeve.
I nod, sniffling. Diable leaps up between us, scowling at her, as if blaming her for my change in mood. I place a hand on his back and he lies down, but doesn’t stop glaring. “That’s why Grandma hated me . . .”
“No. You were a vessel. Maman knew that. But she also knew that if Erik ever learned of what he’d forfeited by giving up his violin, his wrath would come down on our family. So she tried to scare the voice out. Submerging you until your screams turned to bubbles that burst with Christine’s song . . . starting a fire that would singe Christine’s harmonious notes to smoke. She wasn’t trying to harm you. She was trying to kill the voice . . . hoping to free you. Maman was half-mad with grief and determination. Losing a beloved child can make even the sanest person crack, and she was never sane. She even mailed the violin to me, demanded I bring it here to this opera house and leave it in box five, with an anonymous note requesting the Phantom lift whatever curse had been brought upon you in exchange for the instrument, yet not specifying what that curse entailed. So much time went by, and you never improved. But then, out of the blue, he tracked Maman down. Showed up at the prison three years ago, offering his aid. Desperate, she confessed the truth about your voice. He took it in stride, almost as if he already knew somehow. He proposed we open a school of arts in his opera house. Proposed establishing its legitimacy by inviting the Nilsson girl . . . Katerina . . . so we’d have the support of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. He said if we brought you here, he could train your voice himself in secret as you slept, using the violin as your father had. He instructed we not tell you anything. He said it was best if he cured you via your subconscious.” She inhales a deep breath, then all her somberness melts away to an expression of pure joy. “And he did it. You won the role of Renata earlier without any pain! And your voice, oh, Rune. I’ve never heard anything so pure and powerful.” Her smile is dreamy. “Your grand-mére was right. It was worth the risk after all.” She laughs, a liberated silvery sound that rivals the bells on Diable’s collar as he jumps at the outburst.
Unlike my aunt, I don’t feel any contentment, because it hasn’t been the Phantom training my voice. How does Etalon fit into this?
“I’m just so relieved you can go home now and live a normal life at last. Well, as normal as any of us do.” Aunt Charlotte winks at me, then stands and puts the remaining items in the shoe box. “You wouldn’t believe the crazy theory going through Fran?oise’s head. That somehow the Phantom was planning to take back his true love’s voice—surgically. It’s because of her paranoia I tried to frighten you and you mother away in the beginning. She had me convinced that the students’ rumors were true. That the forest creatures were modified for practice or some such folly, although I’ve never seen any evidence myself.” Strolling to the armoire, she tucks away the family treasures and slides the wood into place, hiding them. “But then, when you started to improve, I realized the flaw in her rationale. Erik is renowned for his affinity with animals. He could never bring himself to imprison them for experiments, much less take a knife to them for his own selfish motives. Even the all-powerful Opera Ghost would need aid for something so adverse to his nature. And I can’t imagine anyone brave enough, or deviant enough, to be the Phantom’s apprentice. Risible.” She chuckles again, moving the boxes back into place over the secret panel.
Ridiculous indeed, to imagine anyone brave or deviant enough . . .
Anyone other than family.
The air gushes out of me, as the realization punches holes in my lungs.
That night, when Etalon and I spoke through the vent and I asked what his hobby was. And his gentle, broken voice answering: “I tend the animals of the forest. I suppose you could say I’m their . . . doctor.”
The blood rushes to my head, and the bottom drops out of my world.
22
THE IMITATION OF LIFE
“Art is always and everywhere the secret confession . . . The immortal movement of its time.”
Karl Marx