The Phantom's Apprentice

by Heather Webb

  He proffered another gleaming smile. “Let’s escape this drizzle, shall we? It’s not as nice a day as I thought.”

  8

  When the evening of Carlotta’s party arrived, my stomach churned. Carlotta had said half the town would be there. I toyed with my comb, making music as my fingers strummed its teeth. I pictured myself in a corner near a punch bowl, feigning nonchalance while cringing inside. I would recognize some castmates, more than likely, but Meg wouldn’t be there and I had yet to make more friends. My time had been consumed by the Angel. He would be angry with me for missing our lesson tonight, but I needed a reprieve. I hoped the note I’d left on my dressing room table would excuse my absence.

  Surely he would understand—he wasn’t a monster.

  I smoothed the skirts of a royal blue gown with lace overlay across the bodice. Meg insisted I borrow it, and I was glad I’d taken her advice. At least I looked the part of one of Carlotta’s wealthy friends.

  Carlotta’s luxurious apartment was in the fourth arrondissement, a charming and affluent quarter of Paris. The moment I entered, I felt transported to Italy. Silk the blue of a robin’s egg, imprinted with shiny leaves, stretched over the walls. Gold drapes with long tassels adorned the windows, and chandeliers made entirely of glass hung in each room in varying shades of turquoise, sea green, and vivid cornflower blues. The chaises wore flowered silk like elegant women, and a wall of mirrors reflected the room to make the space appear twice as large. Upon each gilded table rested a statuette of a nude woman in a tasteful yet sensual display. All was spectacular and dramatic, just like the owner.

  I accepted an aperitif from a butler and sauntered through the salon. Over the fireplace, a portrait of Carlotta in full costume dominated the mantel. I hid my smile and skirted around the edge of the crowd in search of a familiar face—without luck. Dismayed, I stationed myself by a window just as a silvery tinkle of laughter drifted across the room. It belonged to a pretty woman dressed in white satin, who pushed out her chest enough to bump the man’s forearm standing opposite her. Though attractive, her overt flirtation made her seem desperate. After another moment of forced giggling, the woman whispered in the ear of the younger woman on her right.

  The gentleman bowed his head, as if to excuse himself, and turned to go.

  My stomach plummeted to my feet. It couldn’t be . . .

  I stared at the gentleman. His eyes were the color of the sea and his tousled sandy hair accented the regal cut of his jaw—a grown Raoul de Chagny, the boy who had starred in my dreams for years, stood only a few paces away, here, in Carlotta’s salon. Time had made him even more handsome than I remembered.

  My heart fluttered like a starling’s wings in a morning sky. Memories flooded, catapulting me to another time: a time when Papa was alive and well and walked with me along a Normandy beach.

  My current surroundings faded, replaced by the pungent odor of seaweed, the feel of my hair blowing freely around my face, and the sensation of frothy surf soaking my hem.

  “I saved it,” Raoul had said, his trousers sopping from the knees down. He had rescued my scarf when a salty gale caught hold of its fringe and pitched it into the waves. Afterward, he had plopped down beside me on the sand.

  I had accepted the sodden fabric, secretly pleased he showed me such deference. He knew I feared deep water or swimming of any kind, and respected me rather than ridiculed me as his brother’s friends had. I had thought of little else beyond his bright smile, his constant teasing, and the soft sea green of his eyes since we had met a few weeks before.

  “I hope you didn’t ruin your trousers.” I picked a strip of seaweed from the heap we’d collected and weaved it into a wreath.

  Earlier, we had caught a pail of crabs and tried to make them race each other. To our amusement, they ignored our track of driftwood and seashells. We had forgotten they scurried sideways. How we had laughed at the sight.

  Raoul reached for his own piece of kelp, his hand brushing mine. He smiled as he met my eyes.

  I wrapped the wreath around his neck. “Your very own scarf, Monsieur le Vicomte.” I couldn’t resist emphasizing his title to tease him. He didn’t care for his noble status, disliking the way it separated him from his friends, an attitude for which I admired him all the more.

  Raoul laughed and slung wet kelp in my lap.

  I rolled the strip in the sand and slung it back at him—too late. His hand caught mine midair. Our laughter ebbed as he cradled my hand in his. My whole body warmed to his touch—a sensation I would never forget. I wondered if he had felt the tingling as I had. I wondered about the softness of his lips.

  “This thing stinks!” He pulled the wreath over his head, breaking the spell.

  I had laughed again, brushed the sand from my skirts, and headed toward Papa, who lounged on a blanket some meters away, picnicking with Raoul’s father and brother. The Comte de Chagny had met Papa years before at a fete. He never forgot my father’s skill and hired us for a performance at a gala in his vacation home nearby. Violin lessons for Raoul soon followed.

  My memories of sand and sea fell away as I stared at Raoul—now elegant and assured in his suit, among the educated and elite where he belonged. I stared at him as if under a spell, possessed by the aura of memory, and this dream of a man. My cheeks flushed. Would he remember me? I glanced at the women fanned around him, attempting to win his affections. My insides twisted. I couldn’t blame them. With his handsome face and a fortune to match, he would make an excellent husband.

  My heart skipped in my chest at the thought.

  Married to Raoul.

  I gulped down my wine and, with it, my heart. A poor musician’s daughter was of no consequence in a nobleman’s world. That fact had been reestablished firmly in my mind after Madame’s salon, and those men hadn’t even been nobility. Raoul would marry a woman of his own class to preserve the family name. Love would play no part in his decision.

  I tore my gaze away and glanced around the room, eyes settling on Carlotta. She winked and a feline smile curved her lips. I felt exposed, as if she’d peered inside my heart. Embarrassed, I looked down into the bottom of my glass. When I glanced at her again, Monsieur Delacroix was handing her a fresh drink. He brushed her forehead with his lips.

  My eyes grew wide. When had he arrived? Was she the mistress he mentioned in passing? Carlotta exchanged a look with him and then set her sights on me. She said something to Delacroix and they made their way across the room.

  “Mademoiselle Daaé,” she said in a singsong voice. Ever the performer.

  Monsieur Delacroix leaned in to kiss my cheek. “Ma belle! I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Likewise, Monsieur.” I glanced from him to Carlotta and back.

  “Could you excuse us for a moment, Professor?” Carlotta gave me a conspiratorial wink. “Christine and I need to have a little woman-to-woman chat.”

  “Of course.” He swigged from his glass and gave me a pointed look. “I would like to speak with you later as well.”

  I suppressed the instant uneasiness his tone inspired. Had he learned I’d been speaking with the phantom after all? Suddenly I felt like a child caught being naughty.

  “If we have time, of course.” I shifted from one foot to another.

  “You are busy with new friends?” He raised his brow. “Well, enjoy yourself at the party. I can always pay you a visit another time chez toi.”

  I clutched my glass tighter. At some point, I would have to tell him the truth.

  Before Carlotta could pull me away, three gentlemen joined our circle, two of whom engaged Delacroix immediately. The third leaned toward me with the hungry look on his face I had come to recognize. Though handsome, his expression made me uneasy.

  “You are Carlotta’s new protégé, I hear,” he said with a wink. “And my, aren’t you a beauty.”

  “Thank you. Yes, I am new to the Opéra de Paris, though not new to singing.”

  “I bet.” He laughed heartily,
then swallowed a mouthful of spirits. “I look forward to seeing you perform, shall we say?”

  My mouth fell open. The man was vile.

  “I’d like to refresh my drink,” I choked out the words. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  As I darted to the refreshment table, I stole another quick glance at Raoul. He conversed heatedly with a gentleman. I couldn’t help but feel relief the women had dispersed, at least for now.

  “Men can be such beasts,” Carlotta said from behind me.

  “So I’m learning.” I turned, not missing her amused smile.

  “You know, dear, we would make a fine pair, you and I. Two beautiful women, both singers destined for fame. We could rake in the attentions of the abonnés, if we chose. On our own terms, of course. It would bring in a tidy fortune for us, and the theatre.”

  I stiffened at her mention of the abonnés; the male season ticket holders. They doled out jewels to ballerinas vying for advancement on the stage. Not only did the abonnés shower the chosen ones with fine gifts, but they donated large sums to the opera house to keep the coffers full and to ensure they received certain . . . privileges. After the show, their money bought them a petit rat, as the impoverished and desperate ballerinas were called. Often, the arrangement included sexual acts in exchange for their generosity. I’d been an impoverished girl, but thankfully I had never been forced to such a level of desperation. Perhaps, without Madame Valerius, I would have. I felt a keen sense of pain on the ballerinas’ behalf.

  “I don’t understand,” I said at last. “I’m not a dancer, and neither are my circumstances desperate.”

  “They court singers as well if there is an attraction, or a willingness.” She batted her heavily painted eyelashes as if I were a man she could win over.

  The seed of anger I’d been harboring grew stone-sized in my gut. “Are you suggesting I forfeit my decency? I have no intention of allowing a man to despoil me. At the very least, not unless he intended to be my husband.”

  “Don’t act as if you are better than me,” she said, eyes flashing. “I worked my way up from nothing, just as you are now. My mother died in a brothel at the hand of some brute, and I learned to accept favors when they came my way. You may be high on your luck now, Daaé, but it changes in an instant.” She leaned closer, a cloud of her jasmine perfume clogging my throat. “Besides, I know you have lost your innocence already.”

  My mouth fell open for the second time that evening. How did she know the machinist attacked me? And she had her information all wrong. “How—”

  She waved her hand, the diamonds on her bracelet flashing like a warning. “It’s my opera house. Why shouldn’t I know what goes on there. Without me, the show doesn’t go on. Without me”—she paused and leaned closer—“you have no allies. You have nothing.”

  I opened my mouth to reply but quickly closed it. My retort shriveled on my tongue, as it always did. Another thought came, unbidden, and chilled me to the core. Did Carlotta talk to the Angel of Music?

  “I assure you, nothing happened with the machinist.” I willed my voice to remain calm. “I was accosted, but I managed to get away. Had it not been for—” I stopped myself, almost too late.

  Carlotta grinned her feline smile once more. “Had it not been for what?”

  In need of escape—from Raoul, from the overwhelming feeling I didn’t belong here, from Carlotta and this horrid conversation—I set down my wineglass. “If you will excuse me, I’m going to call it an evening. I’m afraid I’m not feeling well.”

  She stuck out her bottom lip. “You poor dear. I do hate when my guests leave early. But, Christine? Just one more thing.”

  I braced myself for insult.

  “Steer clear of the Vicomte de Chagny. He’s courting a friend of mine. It would do you no good to get foolish notions in your head. He’s a beautiful man, but taken already.”

  I couldn’t hide the shock I felt. “I haven’t even spoken to him.”

  “You have such an expressive face, dear,” she said sweetly.

  I blushed in humiliation. “Thank you for the invitation, Carlotta. I bid you good night.”

  Her brow wrinkled in false concern. “Do feel better.”

  I gathered the shreds of my dignity and strode to the door, pausing for a final glance over my shoulder.

  Raoul de Chagny stared after me, eyes wide.

  Sleep did not come easily. Memories of Raoul swirled around me like flurries in a snowstorm, glistening and magical, yet leaving me cold. I could still see the sheepish expression on his face from so many years ago when he gave me the magic box. My exclamation of delight had put a wide grin on his face. We had spent so many afternoons laughing.

  I pushed up on my elbows and peered over the tented blanket across my feet. My magic box lay inside the armoire just beyond the bed, untouched since the fire. The series of visions I’d come to expect whenever I remembered that night flashed through my mind once more: the Masked Conjurer, his “spirit” floating above the stage, the beautiful assistant in her glittering costume and mask. And then the flames, the falling beams.

  I huffed out a sigh and flopped back onto the mattress, wondering what Raoul thought when he saw me across the room. He seemed as surprised as I had been when I discovered him at Carlotta’s. I tossed in my sheets, finally ending up on my back and throwing my arm across my eyes. Carlotta’s warning rang in my ears. Raoul was spoken for, and I must watch my step if I wanted to remain in her good graces—as well as those of the directors.

  Not a problem, I reminded myself. I wouldn’t see Raoul again anyway.

  After another two hours of fitful sleep, I crawled from bed and completed my toilette, preparing to go to the opera house early. At home, I would do nothing but fixate on Raoul and the unknown woman to whom he was essentially engaged.

  I walked through the opera house corridors later that morning, holding my breath, knees wobbly as noodles. Day after day, I waited for a voice to whisper in my ear, or for someone else to corner me as Joseph Buquet had. I wondered when the fear would finally dissipate. Perhaps the only way was to learn the building’s secrets, to make it less mysterious and eliminate the unknown.

  I would give it a try, now. Today.

  I found a staircase, descended to the floor below, and continued through the room beneath the stage. Machinists buzzed about, while others constructed scene flats for a new set. I watched in awe as the stage floor lowered from eye level to the deep cellar to make way for another platform. Envisioning the gears and mechanisms responsible for such a feat, I continued to the recesses of the stage. Three men teetered on a bridge overhead, painting a forest on a muslin drop secured to a wooden frame. It would span the entire wall when finished. A fourth man on ground level puttered with a horizontal pocket along the drop’s hemline, designed to disguise a pipe or chain to pull the cloth taut on stage.

  “Would you like to help us, Ma’moiselle?” One of the men in paint-spattered pants and apron called down to me.

  I smiled. “You’re doing a great job already.” I would sooner enjoy working on the mechanics of the sets, see how the pieces fit together to create a certain effect. Still, I admired the lush foliage expertly painted on the drop, the sweep of branches shading a grotto in the foreground. The set looked almost real.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “Thank you.” The painter winked.

  I continued to the next section of the stage where a machinist struggled with a long rod fitted with a series of wheels.

  “Is it not working?” I asked, peering over his shoulder.

  “It’s jammed.” He pointed to a cord tangled along the track. “Can’t move the bedroom furniture on the stage tomorrow night without it.”

  “If you fit the screwdriver under the edge here”—I pointed to the metal end—“and force the cord upward, it will release the bearing.” I glanced at the machinist’s face to see if he understood.

  He smiled, showing a large hole where his front bottom teeth shou
ld be. “You interested in machines, Mademoiselle?”

  “I like to understand how things work. Machines are like puzzles.”

  “Haven’t seen many ladies fussing with them, I must admit.” He scratched his unshaven chin. “I could tinker with them for hours.”

  I nodded. “I just solved a lock puzzle, at home. A German trick lock. I managed to open it after a few weeks, but I can close it again and you can have a go, if you like.”

  He whistled in amazement. “You opened one of those by yourself? I’m impressed.”

  His praise inspired a happy warmth in my veins. I smiled again. “Thank you.”

  “I’d like to take a crack at it, if you don’t mind sharing.”

  “Not at all. I’ll bring it in tomorrow.”

  “Say, you care to see the rigging loft? I can show you the flies.”

  “Oh, yes!” I followed him to the wings of the stage and climbed a spindly ladder after him, careful to keep my dress from tangling in my legs.

  “You go out on these platforms.” He demonstrated, walking along a narrow wooden plank that floated over the stage. Dozens of people milled about beneath us. “When it’s time, you crank the right lever at the same time the fly boys pull the ropes below.” He gestured to a series of ropes and wires. “And voilà! You’ve got yourself a set change. The drops are painted cloths with the background scenery. And these pieces here”—he motioned to thin sheets of wood—“are called borders. They’re used to change the skyline.”

  Though it made sense, I couldn’t imagine keeping it all straight during a production. There had to be dozens of wires and ropes, and if someone chose the wrong one during a show one night, they’d likely be dismissed.

  We descended the ladder and continued on our tour, the machinist explaining the function of each backstage area. I felt myself relax as we continued. It took far more people than I had realized to run an opera.

  When he finished, I touched his shoulder lightly. “That was very kind of you. Thank you, Monsieur—?”