by A. G. Howard
They walked, led only by a pinhole of light far in the distance and the fading glimmer beneath their own skin. Etalon tuned out the dripping water, their sloshing feet, and the stench soaking into the hem of the cape draped across his shoulders—so many sizes too big, yet something he aspired to one day grow into.
“Why did you wish to buy me?” he asked on a raspy murmur, half dreading the response, yet desperate to hear his rescuer’s melodic voice again.
“I thought you were someone else.” The answer broke beneath the mask, muffled and wracked with so much longing it bordered on agony.
“Who, sir? Who are you seeking?” Etalon pressed. “It will be my life’s work to help you find them.”
His savior stalled, those golden irises flickering in the recesses of the dark eyeholes, cauterizing Etalon’s heart like lit torches. “Your question will be answered in time, and I will hold you to that promise. Also, you are to address me as Erik.”
Etalon nodded. “And my name is—”
“Don’t even speak it.” Erik placed a glove on Etalon’s head, quieting him. In the blackness, the lower half of his mask made a scraping sound, as if a smile shifted the fabric. “Today, you become someone new. From this moment on, you belong to the underworld, from which you were born. You are something monstrous, but beautiful. Something fierce, yet fragile. You are Thorn. The part of the rose that is unloved . . . that everyone fears for its ability to bring a soul to bleed. That was your gift, and shall now be your identity, to honor what was taken from you by vile and treacherous men. It is a falsity, that monsters are the instigators of all the evil in the world. Our kind is capable of acceptance and mercy where mankind is not. For we see beyond the surface, as we live beneath it.”
Etalon leaned into the leather rested upon his head. He believed every word; this was the kindest, safest touch he’d felt in months. And it was at the hand of a monster. “Will you be my papa?”
Erik’s palm dropped away, and he turned his back, shoulders hunched as if the question pained him. “In time, perhaps. For now, the blood shed at our hands binds us. We will never again speak of our actions this day, unless I precipitate the conversation. Your secrets are mine to keep, and mine are yours. You will hide nothing from me. Swear to that, or turn away and leave me now.”
Thorn ended his violin’s song with a gradual slide of the bow, letting the note carry on a mournful wail through his underground home—the place he’d lived since he’d vowed his loyalty and devotion to the Phantom twelve years ago, a pact sealed by the blood of evil men.
Thorn had never spoken of that day, or of the children they saved and abandoned. In that, he’d been faithful. But he’d kept his visions of a twin flame silent for years, and harbored quiet, unspoken goals that he now knew went against everything Erik needed . . . everything he had waited over a century to possess.
Apprehension crept through Thorn’s blood, chilling him all the way to his bones. He rubbed his forehead, hard enough to pinch the skin—trying to erase his traitorous thoughts of Rune. Should he continue on this path, he would betray the only father he’d ever known. He would lose the accepting and merciful side of that heroic monster he met so long ago, and face the wrath of the scorpion with the Punjab-lasso tail.
13
SONG TO THE MOON
“You are the night, and the night alone understands you and enfolds you in its arms . . .”
Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire
By the time I’ve changed into a dry sweater and jeans, mopped all the puddles, and spot-cleaned the carpet, it’s five till five. The curfew for Saturdays is ten o’clock, with lights-out by eleven, but everyone planned to be back from Paris today by six. I need to look through my findings at the cemetery before they return.
The musical rush I experienced in the theater hasn’t left my system. It’s numbing me to things I should fear . . . to things I should reevaluate. It made me brash enough to hide a note for my maestro in the orchestra pit, asking to see him again. There are so many questions that need answers. I also want to look into his eyes and thank him for giving me power over Renata’s aria. Not the coppery eyes from my dreams, but the deep, brown, soulful ones I saw in the chapel for an instant. The ones that held so much vulnerability. . . so much longing for humanity. The eyes I looked through in memories that are somehow now mine.
I even went so far as to retrieve the book from my nightstand, the one my mom bought to remind me of Dad. I couldn’t stop thinking of how long it had been since the Phantom heard Les Enfants Perdus, our shared fairy tale. I couldn’t stop empathizing with how much he missed his mother. Since the story made him feel closer to her, I wanted him to have it. So I left it in the orchestra pit, too.
Only now, when I’m starting to come back to myself, do I realize that’s another detail that doesn’t fit with the phantom from the novel. His mother hated him.
I stop at the kitchen to grab a plate of crackers, a chunk of cheese, a knife, and a bottled water, still plagued by the intense hunger I sensed in the Phantom as a child. A shiver of bells bounces behind me and I turn to find Diable at my ankles, looking up at my plate. He’s tagged along since I left the theater. He still won’t let me pet him, but seems determined to stay by my side. I get the distinct impression he’s either guarding me, or stalking me.
I pour some milk into a bowl for my jingling shadow, then together we retreat to my room. I place the cat’s treat close to the stairs leading up to the mini-loft.
His lapping tongue and rolling purr drown out the gurgle of my lava lamp as I use the lavender glow to help me slice cheese and make cracker sandwiches, while sifting through the items in the steel tub.
Keeping busy is the best way to block Madame Bouchard’s cruel insinuations from my mind. Considering the impression I made from the very beginning—crashing an audition, stealing the limelight from students who’d been practicing for months, then fainting like a histrionic heroine from some outdated romance novel—it’s no surprise the school’s distinguished voice teacher wouldn’t want me for her lead role. But I would never try out for that part. I want Audrey to have it, more than anything.
Bouchard just doesn’t understand . . . I had something to prove to myself today. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been singing on stage in the dark. It certainly wasn’t for my love of music.
Or was it?
My face flushes, remembering how it felt to be one with the song again. So accomplished, so alive . . . so complete.
And I have the Phantom to thank for it.
My skin grows warmer at the memory of our fantastical dance on stage. Besides the fact that somehow he took his glove back, my senses say it was anything but pretend: the heat of his body, the scent of him, the press of his muscles moving against me, and his violin’s voice in my ear—seductive and empowering. I can see how Christina was drawn to him. In that moment, while sharing in the glory of music, wrapped up in the essence of his genius, the deformity he hides under his mask no longer mattered.
Lifting one of my uniform vests from the tub, I debate how best to fix the torn lapel, trying to get him off my mind. I shouldn’t be drawn to someone who’s over a century old, or to someone I don’t know enough to trust. Yet on some level, it makes sense that I am.
On Tuesday, Madame Bouchard gave us a project in our historical musicology class. Since some operas are considered “lyric fairy tales,” she assigned each of us a performance to research that encapsulates the construct of that narrative. By mid-November, we’re to have journal articles, a biography of our composer, a list of the roles, and photocopies of a traditional fairy tale similar to our production. After Thanksgiving break, we’re to turn in an essay focusing on how the words and music contribute to the fantasy atmosphere.
I was assigned a Czech opera called Rusalka, by Antonín Dvořák. As I was researching in the academy’s library with Audrey and Sunny, I found the plot similar to The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. A Water-Goblin’s daughter falls in love wit
h a mortal man, and even though her father and water-nymph friends tell her it’s a mistake, Rusalka takes a potion so she can be human, at the expense of losing her beautiful voice forever. She sings one final song to the moon, begging its silvery light to carry her message of love to the human prince. They meet, he falls for her, but then betrays her. By the opera’s end, the prince is dead, and Rusalka is imprisoned in the river as a demon of death. The moral “it’s safer to stay with your own kind” rings in my ears as if meant for me alone.
Was Christina my kind—whatever I am? Was she like the Phantom?
I drop the vest back into the tub and glance over my shoulder. Diable stretches out on the chaise lounge as if he owns it, having finished his milk. He mewls at me, his big eyes blinking contentedly. White droplets coat his whiskers, and I can’t help but smile as he licks his paws and cleans his face. I’m hoping he might stay until morning. I had a hard time sleeping last night without Mom, and I expect tonight to be even worse, considering all that’s happened.
Spreading an empty garbage bag over my bed to protect the covers, I lay the damp pieces of my uniforms atop the plastic. The skirts’ front panels gape, ripped open to the thigh. My fingers trace the frayed fabric. Madame Fabre has a box of scrap fabric from old costumes. All I need are lace ruffles and netting to mend the skirts and shirts. Zigzag stitches, along with trims—like lacy strings of butterflies or satiny roses sewn onto strands of ribbon—can patch the stockings’ side seams.
The only piece I can’t save is the shirt that covered the bleeding roses. I doubt even bleach can take out those stains. I wander to the corner of my room where I earlier piled my wet dress, leggings, and tank top, stuffing the soiled shirt beneath them.
I’m not sure how I’m going to explain the state of my uniforms to Madame Fabre. Since everyone already thinks I misplaced them on purpose, what’s to keep them from thinking I ruined them, too?
That would be the last straw. They’ll send me back home for sure. Now that I’m so close to understanding things that have haunted me for years, I can’t leave.
I don’t understand why the Phantom took such measures. If he was trying to lead me to him so he could train my voice, why do something so destructive as part of the plan? I would’ve followed the trail of clothes, even if they’d been whole. And what purpose did the dead bird on my chair serve?
A shiver shuttles through my bones without warning. I debate going to the theater and taking back the note and my fairy tale book before he finds them. There’s a dangerous side to my maestro. The Phantom in the original novel occupied the shadows, and had little respect for human laws and morals. This one seems to share those characteristics. So is it really safe for me to be alone with him?
Memories of Ben resurface, reminding me it’s not safe for anyone to be alone with me.
Nibbling on the ends of my hair, I kneel once more on the floor next to the steel tub and turn my attention to the two-toned roses. I pull one out. Taking the knife I’ve been using to slice off wedges of cheese, I sever the stem, careful to avoid the thorns. Even before it snaps in half—releasing the grassy scent of chlorophyll—I already know the truth. These flowers are real. There’s no trick valve to pump out blood, and the stems are too narrow to be hollowed out to make room for one. These roses literally bled, just like the ones in the garden died at his touch.
What kind of creature has the power to manipulate nature like this? The stories claimed he was an accomplished magician. That explains how he vanished into the floor in the chapel behind the puff of smoke. Most likely he has trapdoors there, just like here in the opera house. But there’s still something preternatural at play. Something that keeps him from aging and gives him the power to step into my mind not only in dreams, but in a reality that straddles the physical and the spiritual.
Desperate to find a loophole, I tear apart each rosebud until my floor is a pile of fragrant, red-edged white petals and broken, thorny stems. The cloying scent seeps into my head, making me dizzy. I jump along with Diable when someone knocks at my door.
I glance at the digital clock: 5:40.
Still fuzzy, I stumble to the threshold and pull it open.
The Phantom faces me from the other side: Red Death costume, skull mask, dark hair, red suit, and cape. “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”
Clapping a palm over my mouth to stifle a scream, I stumble backward before realizing the voice belongs to Sunny—that the phrase is from the movie Casablanca.
I trip over Diable, who’s hissing at my heels, and plummet into the stack of petals and thorns. Little droplets of blood ooze through my sweater sleeves at my elbows where I catch myself. The sting from the punctures clears my head enough to recognize the “Phantom” is a life-size 3-D cutout from the movie.
Jax curses and shoves aside the cardboard outline. Quan and Audrey rush into the room behind Sunny, and Diable darts between their legs to make his escape.
“Bless your heart!” Sunny helps Jax lift me out of the mire of vicious potpourri. “Quan, go fetch some bandages.”
Rolling his eyes, Quan steps out again.
“What’s he in a grind about?” Sunny asks no one in particular as she helps me straighten my clothes.
“Probably that we all told you it was a stupid idea to wave that thing in her face,” Jax scolds as he and Audrey pluck stems from my now crimson-dotted sweater.
Sunny sighs. “I was hoping to impress you with my resourcefulness, Rune. Last night you said you wanted your own Angel of Music to help with your songs. Remember? I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.” She hands me a bag filled with Halloween candy that fits the Red Death motif. Her mournful expression looks like a fairy who misplaced her wings.
I force a grin. “It’s all right.” The truth lumps in my throat: that I managed to find the real angel of music all on my own. “I’ve had a weird day. Otherwise, I would’ve been impressed. He’s actually pretty hot.” I gesture to the phantom’s back, a flat brown-paper shadow on the floor, although he holds no candle to the real man I met earlier. There was an undeniable sensuality and grace in every move he made.
“Darn right he is.” Sunny nods at her cardboard boyfriend. “So, about this weird day . . . do we get deets?” She drags her boot’s toe through the petals. “Let’s start with the roses. Are you making a rug?”
“Maybe that’s how they garden in Texas,” Jax teases. “Bringing the great outdoors indoors. Kind of like Bouchard does, with her hobby.” He grins at me, releasing my arm and dropping the last stem to the floor.
I smirk conspiratorially—a façade to hide my jittery insides.
“Where’d you find these?” Audrey interrupts, her soft voice barely audible as she picks up a two-toned petal. “I’ve never seen any roses like this in the garden here.”
Before I can fabricate a response, Sunny’s blurting another question. “What happened to your clothes?” She’s halfway over to the muddy dress and tank top in the corner. I’m fidgeting—worried she’ll find my bloody shirt—when she pauses beside my bed. “Oh my gosh, your uniforms! What happened to them?”
My brain spins like a top over all the questions flung my way.
“Sunny’s a little amped up. We let her have too many espressos on the outing.” Jax mimes taking a drink.
Sunny scowls at him over her shoulder, lifting up a stocking. “Shut your pie hole, Jax. If that were true, I’d have the backdoor trots. Caffeine tears up my tummy.” Eyes narrowed, she turns to me. “We all know who did this. If it weren’t for our pact with Tomlin, she’d get expelled for sure. Then Audrey would have Renata cinched tight.”
Audrey paces over to my chaise lounge and sits down, a strange expression on her face. “Did you any find proof it was Kat?” Her question is directed to me, but her smoky-eyed gaze bounces between the rose petal in her hand and the stocking flapping out of the top of Sunny’s fist.
“Who else is devious enough to do it?” Sunny retorts.
Jax snaps his fingers. “I got i
t. It’s Jippetto. Pretty sure he secretly wants to be in the spotlight.”
Quan chuckles from the doorway. “Well, there’s a week’s worth of nightmares. Old Jip in a ball gown on stage, twittering soprano with his bird whistle while his mannequins dance in tutus around him.” He lifts to his tiptoes and pretends to dance ballet.
It’s a disturbing image. I know firsthand after the closet scare that Jippetto’s mannequins are old-world and exquisite—made of soft white pine and painted to realistic perfection. Jax and Quan, along with some of the other senior guys, once spied on the old man in his forest cottage and swear he has a shed filled with naked pieces of the eerily lifelike figures—arms, legs, torsos with red hearts imbedded in their white chests, and heads—caked in spider webs.
Strangest of all, he had three completed, fully dressed mannequins—the ones that often accompany him around the school—posed inside his house around the kitchen table. He sat having tea with them, as if he believed they were real. The idea is unsettling, but more than that, sad. He must be so lonely out there.
In spite of those melancholy thoughts, Quan’s clumsy pirouettes spark laughter from all five of us. He leaps across the threshold and tosses me a box of Band-Aids.
I shake my head, still grinning. “Thanks.” Sitting down next to Audrey, I roll up my sleeves. She takes a few and together we stick them into place over my seeping wounds.
Sunny methodically sifts through my uniforms. “Rune, you never answered what happened to the clothes you were wearing earlier. Did you get caught in the rain?”
Quan crouches beside Jax who’s scooping up rose petals and dropping them back into the tub.
I bite my lip. Where did I get the Fire and Ice roses? Why are they torn up? And the same questions for my clothes and uniforms . . . It’s hard to decide what’s safe to answer. The one thing I’ve learned over the years while trying to hide my secrets: The most believable lie has remnants of the truth.
I preoccupy myself with one of the Band-Aids hanging off my elbow—only half stuck to my skin—pressing it into place as the four of them watch me expectantly, their faces lacquered with purplish light. “When I was gardening today, a storm hit. I went inside the chapel for cover. That’s where I found my uniforms and the roses.”