As if feeding off my morbid thoughts, the music overhead changes to a throbbing, angry song, snapping me back to the present. All around the room, the candles flicker, as if blown by a breeze. Yet there’s no wind anywhere. I turn my attention to the entrance just as he steps in—black pants and shoes, black leather jacket and gloves, black rubber gas mask molded to look like a jackal with a pointed muzzle and ears, yet somehow still human and undeniably male. In spite of his monochrome ensemble, everything else seems to drain of color and life, paling to his feral dominance and those yellow eyes glittering in the depths of his mask.
I hunch my shoulders to make myself small, long enough to nod to my aunt who’s talking to a group of junior dancers she’s been tutoring. She nods back, the worry on her face glaring. Although my instincts tell me to crawl under the table, I stand.
His eyes lock on mine, and the shock wave of recognition snaps through my legs and arms, sapping me of my strength. The wrap falls off my shoulders as I grip the table to hold my balance. At the same time he wavers and backs up four steps in a daze, bumping into Headmaster Fabre, who’s speaking to Principal Norrington and Madame Harris. They all three turn to him and laugh, then welcome him into their group, chatting, oblivious.
His eyes keep flashing in my direction, his wits gathering again like a lightning storm radiating through his frame and coloring his aura brick red: controlled anger, simmering resolve.
My heart rate spikes. Sunny and the others head my way with full plates in their hands. “Okay, Rune,” she says. “We’re going to share our desserts with you. You’re looking way too lonely over here. Time for bygones to be bygones, right?”
Sensing the Phantom’s gaze on us, I shudder. I can’t let him come to me. I can’t risk them getting in the middle.
I shake my head at Sunny, a signal just for her. I mime “the plan,” then turn, leaving my friends gaping as I head for the door.
I pass the Phantom. Even with the distance between us, I feel the energy pulsing around him. His voice bewitches the teachers—the perfect imitation of Tomlin with an underlying musical command so subtle they’re helpless to stop it, so heart-wrenchingly lovely it nudges that song he planted inside me at the rave, and wakes it up.
Pushing through a cluster of students, I step into the abandoned corridor where the glossy floor reflects the shimmering candlelight from the ballroom. The marble is cold to my feet, but it’s my breath that freezes, my lungs that feel heavy and glacial. I force the air in and out. Then I head for the stairs.
Bouchard’s workroom. All I have to do is make it there. Jippetto’s waiting with the animals, and I won’t have to sing that haunted ballad.
I sense Erik’s ominous presence following. Not rushed. Cat-footed and quiet. That celestial song he planted in the back of my mind is guiding him, twisting and twining . . . restless.
My legs shake as I take the steps, winding as fast as I can go without sliding on my bare soles. At last, I’m on the second flight and the door is just at the end of the hallway, ajar and slanting light onto the floor like a beacon.
He’s close enough now to hear his breath inside the gas mask, a grinding, mechanical sound that worms its way into my brain, causing me to stumble over my dress and bang my scarred knee on the marble. Wincing, I glance over my shoulder. He’s just coming down the last step, yet his grisly breath rattles in my ears, a ventriloquist’s trick.
Gritting my teeth, I limp the rest of the way, then push Bouchard’s door open.
Jippetto lifts his white eyebrows with a question and I nod, backing up to the far wall underneath the stuffed crow that greeted me with a cat’s meow the first day I arrived . . . what seems a lifetime ago.
The Phantom steps in. His eyes graze me but fix on Jippetto as the caretaker releases his trilling whistles. Erik’s head darts left to right, taking it all in, and I see it . . . the clarity, the guilt, the change. A melting of ice and frost. His vulnerability gives me the strength I lack. He needs one more push, so I unleash the ballad. My voice lifts, soars above him, angelic and accusatory. He drops to his knees and joins in—a sobbing duet—pure, beautiful, remorseful. His body trembles, his eyes wet with tears inside their shadowy depths.
It’s working. I raise the volume of my voice, channeling the ghost of his dead love with new confidence.
He slumps forward, the jackal’s muzzle almost touching the floor. His gloved hands grip the ears of his mask. “Forgive me, Christine”—his voice a potent, symphonic wail as he looks up at me—“I had to keep her alive. Please, please, let me do what’s left. I’ve waited so long.” Heaving sobs roll out of him, shaking his entire body.
Still humming the ballad’s notes, I inch closer, trying to make sense of his confession, when I catch movement in the corridor and lose the melody.