by Heather Webb
I crumpled the handkerchief and let it drop to the floor.
The onlookers watched in paralyzed silence.
“There’s nothing to see here, everyone,” Inspector Mifroid addressed the crowd. To his men he said, “Take him to the station.”
Erik locked eyes with me a last time. “I’ll never forget this.”
“Goodbye, Erik,” I whispered.
Three policemen hauled him toward the door, his form twisting in their grip. He shouted at the crowd, but they jeered in response, or stared in stunned horror at his face, until he disappeared from sight. Much of the audience followed, rapt by the spectacle.
Silently, I inched toward the cabinet. Another foot more and I could slip from sight.
“Mademoiselle Daaé,” Inspector Mifroid said.
I stopped cold.
“I need to speak with you. There’s a matter of a pistol to discuss. And a deceased woman.”
I nodded, a knot in my throat. Madame Giry’s death would haunt me if the final pieces of my plan failed. I glanced at the cabinet, desperate to get away. The time was now.
“Inspector,” one of the policemen called from the doorway. “He’s already gotten out of the cuffs! We need something to tie him with.”
“Here,” Raoul led him to a corner packed with crates and tools and assorted items.
I ducked inside the cabinet and stomped the lever. Its spring triggered another lever in the wall—like magic. I felt the now-familiar sensation of the floor opening beneath me as the opera house swallowed me.
“Thank you, Georges,” I whispered.
The sounds of angry voices faded as I slid down a shaft the length of two stories. When I reached the bottom, I was surprised to find my cheeks wet. I wiped the tears away and stood. I was doing the right thing, I reminded myself. Now, I needed to focus on the plan. Delacroix should already be waiting for me.
Heart quickening, I raced along the paths in the dark that I had memorized. When I made it to the passageway with the slide, I dove down it, racing toward the storage room that connected to the bedroom. In seconds, I waded through barrel after barrel of oil until I reached the far corner. I dropped on all fours to feel along the floor—and found it. A slight crack in the shape of a half-moon jutted out a few feet from the wall. I positioned myself in the middle of the hidden panel. The wall swiveled instantly, and I found myself in the room I’d come to know so well.
And there, in the middle of the room, stood Delacroix. He had come, as I knew he would.
“You’re here,” he said, a cold smile crossing his face. “I thought for sure you would send him after me. I’ve been waiting.” He opened his jacket to show me a gun tucked inside his pocket.
I inhaled a sharp breath, trying not to panic at the sight of a gun. “You found your way just fine, I see.”
He held out his hand. “Enough talk. Show me his notebooks. I want them now.”
The professor assumed he could command me as he had before, but he knew nothing—yet—of my newfound courage, or of what I had already done. Tomorrow, he would discover I’d written a letter to the Académie, informing them about his attempt to buy the medal he so desperately sought, detailing the threats he’d made to their former award-winner’s wife, Madame Valerius, and the dangerous ways he’d collected information with his henchmen.
I fiddled with the lock on the trunk for a moment and threw open the lid. Three notebooks sat on top of the pile of sundry items. I exhaled a small breath. Claudette had made it! She’d swapped the real notebooks for the copies we’d made, filled with fake tricks and food recipes, newspapers clippings and pamphlets. We had spent an entire evening making them. Yet, should Delacroix open a journal quickly, he would think they were Erik’s notes.
I thrust the notebooks at him. “Here.”
He clutched them to his chest. “Tell me about the spirits. How did he raise the dead?”
I shrugged. “It’s in the journals.”
He gripped my arm tightly and squeezed. “Show me how it’s done.”
“We don’t have the equipment here, and we need a third person.” I looked him in straight in the eye. I must let him know I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t the naïve girl he’d known for the last four years. I yanked free of his grip.
“Show me.” He waved the gun around.
“It’s there, in the notebooks. Study them yourself.” I called his bluff, praying he wouldn’t sort through them now.
He glanced around the room. “Where is he?”
“You promised you’d let Madame go.” I ignored his question.
He stepped closer and pushed the barrel of his gun against my forehead. Through clenched teeth he said, “Where is he?”
I knew, in that moment, my instinct had been correct. It wouldn’t be enough to ruin his career and leave town, or even to send his enemy to prison. Just like Erik, I had to escape him in the only way that appeared permanent.
Death was my path to freedom.
“The police have detained Erik,” I said. “Arrested him.”
He dropped his hand to his side.
In a split second, I threw myself into the armoire. The force made the panel pivot swiftly—just as Delacroix fired a shot. Too late. Inside the storage room, I dismantled the counterweight rapidly to prevent him from following me. I would have to wait it out, and risk going back through the room later. And the only way I could leave, would be the passageway across the lake to escape.
“You’re hiding him! Where is he?” Delacroix roared and pounded against the armoire.
My heart thrashed beneath my ribs.
The gun fired again. The ricochet of a bullet sent me to my knees. I panted in fear. It couldn’t get through the stone, I reminded myself, or the wood paneling. I was safe—for now.
After some time, Delacroix’s footsteps receded. He didn’t know the storage room was a dead end. I’d left it off of his altered map completely, hoping he would assume I had escaped.
The final pieces of the plan remained. I had to destroy all evidence of Erik’s lair to protect his secrets. From one illusionist to another, it was my gift to him; to the man my mother had loved.
Most important of all—I had to fake my own death.
I clasped Mother’s rose pin to my bosom; it was the only thing I knew that could withstand excessive heat. It had survived one fire—it could survive another. When the wreckage was picked over, they would assume I had burned to death, as well. Ashes to ashes.
I selected the largest barrel of oil I could manage from the stockpile, and reattached the counterweight. I said a prayer that Delacroix had really left, and pumped the lever with my foot. The panel swung around.
Delacroix had gone.
Without pause, I turned the oil barrel on its side and rolled it from the bedroom and down the passageway to the lake. Using all of my strength, I hefted it onto the dock. Unscrewing the tightened cap with two hands, I rubbed the skin on my palms raw. I winced in pain, but worked at it until oil gushed from the opening, spilled over the dock, and slipped down its edges into the water.
Pockets of oil plunked into the lake and rose back to the surface. As more oil spread, the pockets joined to form a stream that snaked across the lake. Once the barrel was empty, I released it into the water as well.
I ran back to the bedroom, grabbed several candles, and one by one, set the drapes, the bedding, and the rugs on fire. As I started back to the dock, candle in hand, Delacroix’s voice echoed from some hidden alcove in the underground chamber.
“Who’s there?” he shouted.
I slipped behind a rock pillar and held my breath.
A shadow moved in the dimness. My heart thumped.
Lord, let it not be Erik, escaped somehow.
I strained my eyes and made out a slight form, petite, but definitively male.
“Show yourself at once, or you’ll be sorry.” Delacroix stepped out from his own shaded nook and raised his gun.
The figure didn’t move.
Sm
oke billowed from the chamber, and spread across the lake.
My pulse thundered in my ears. The terror that came each time I smelled fire ignited and my hands began to tremble. Soon, it would be too late. The emergency cistern would collapse, the chamber would be flooded, and we would all drown.
Delacroix advanced another step. “I know you’re there, conjurer! Don’t be such a coward, lurking there in the shadows. Face me like a man!”
I wanted to scream at him, but the surprise might cause him to shoot.
The hidden person advanced a few steps.
The gun fired. A body fell to the ground with a thump.
I covered my mouth with my hand, squeezed my eyes closed, praying it wasn’t somehow Claudette, lost underground. Fear seized my throat, my stomach, and a rush of panic took hold. But I had given her a detailed, map, I tried to reason with myself. She knew my plans to set the place on fire. She wouldn’t be stupid enough to hang back, but if she were lost somehow . . .
Delacroix lowered the weapon and bent over the figure. He stumbled backward, face blanched white with fear and disbelief. Whoever it was, he had made a mistake.
Smoke wound around my ankles. Any minute I would be coughing and giving away my position.
Noticing the smoke, Delacroix snapped out of his horrified trance. He glanced down at his map, and raced toward the only exit I’d indicated.
I exhaled a breath as he escaped through the tunnel opposite the lake—a different exit from my own. The stairwell to my safety lay on the other side of the lake.
As his form retreated from view, I darted to the body. I choked on a flood of relief as I realized it wasn’t Claudette—or Erik. It was a man in white costume and multi-colored turban with toffee-colored skin, his expression now in a permanent state of relaxation. I knew him at once, though I’d seen him only once before. The Persian; a shadowy figure I would never know.
Something crashed from the bedroom, collapsing under the fire’s destructive force. I glanced down at the poor man once more. An idea came, unbidden. I had planned to leave my pin somewhere in the bedroom, but now there would be the remains of a body, too. Disgust twisted my gut. This is what my life had come to—never again would I travel this path.
Quickly, I removed Mother’s pendant, kissed it, and whispered, “Your final gift to me is freedom. You owe me that much.”
I bent over the body and pinned the jewelry to his shirt with care. Smoke filled my throat and I coughed. The memory of another horrible night vibrated in my mind, my gut, on my tongue. Time to run.
I raced to the boat tethered at the dock, paying mind to the flame that had slowly made its way along the first few boards. I sucked in a breath and boarded the boat, loosening the rope tying it in place. I shoved off and began to row as fast as I could. Realizing I could row faster backward, I turned the boat in a circle, all the while heaving, praying.
Let me make it. Please, let me make it without falling in.
When I had paddled halfway across the lake, the flammable oil pooled in the middle of the dock, burst into flames. In seconds, the blaze spread across the slick river of oil on the water’s surface. Horrified, I watched as the flames moved toward me at lightning speed. My muscles screamed as I pushed faster, harder. Soon the fire would engulf me, too.
Smoke burned in my lungs. Go, I chanted in my mind. Go!
Only a few more feet and the flames would take the boat. I wasn’t going to make it. I would be trapped by fire again and, this time, there would be no one to rescue me. I was on my own.
Then it happened.
The fire split in two, and darted toward the shore in opposite directions. Away from me. As if my boat was surrounded by a protective shield.
Tears flooded my cheeks. I wasn’t alone after all. Thank you, Papa.
I pushed hard, ignoring my raw hands.
The next instant, I crashed into the edge of the dock and flung forward on my knees. Too busy watching the fire, I hadn’t gauged how close I was to freedom. I stood and the boat rocked violently. With a screech, I launched myself at the dock and scampered over the edge.
A siren wailed over the roar of the fire.
I knew what came next. The cistern would release its contents. Water would rush like rapids through the caverns, and drench the fire to save the grand palace above it. I took a last look at the dark world, ablaze with light. And turned to go.
I darted up three flights of stairs, raced across two floors, and back to the third mezzanine.
As I tripped into the room, I cried out. “I made it!”
“Christine!” Claudette dashed toward me and threw her arms around me. Raoul followed. “You’re all right! What happened? Did you see Delacroix?”
I worked to calm my breathing. “The cistern will collapse any minute and the fire department will arrive. Did they manage to take Erik into custody?”
Raoul smiled. “I saw them lead him outside myself.”
The darkness that engulfed me began to lift. Relief flooded my heart, and I stepped into the protective circle of Raoul’s arms. “I love you.”
“And I you, mon amour.” He brushed my lips with his.
Claudette cleared her throat. “I hate to break up the romance, but shouldn’t we get going?”
I took Raoul’s hand and the three of us groped along the wall to find the hidden staircase I knew was there. Within minutes, we found it, climbed two flights of stairs, and spilled out into the emperor’s former apartments.
I paused for an instant to look at the two people I loved most in the world. “Thank you. For believing this could work. For believing in me.”
“We always will.”
Raoul squeezed my hand, and Claudette threw her arms around me.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said, without a backward glance.
27
A train whistle split the night air, announcing its impending departure. I knelt beside Madame Valerius’s wheelchair and embraced her gently. Albert and the police had freed her from Delacroix’s home, and her loyal footman had escorted her to the train station immediately, trunks in tow.
“There, there, child.” She stroked my hair. “I will be in good hands at my brother’s, especially with Albert at my side.”
A genuine smile crossed Albert’s face. He was loyal as always, and grateful to be going with his mistress to Giverny, a beautiful town outside of Paris. She would spend her final days surrounded by peace, beauty, and family. I would never divulge what I’d learned about the professor and, with any luck, she would miss the story in the papers. I had instructed Albert to hide it from her, if possible.
Tears pricked behind my eyes. “I can never thank you enough for what you’ve done for me.”
“I would give you all I have and more, all over again,” she said, her blue eyes wet with emotion.
“Christine, we must go.” Raoul touched my shoulder.
He was right. It was getting late and if we were to make the last train out of Paris, we’d have to hurry. I kissed Madame’s cheek one last time.
Claudette followed suit. “It was a pleasure to know you, Madame.”
She grasped Claudette’s hand in hers and squeezed.
With a final parting wave, Raoul, Claudette, and I headed to our escape.
We arrived in Le Havre early the next morning. At my insistence, we rode until we reached the town of Mantes the previous night, and rested just long enough to board the first morning train to the seaport town. Once we arrived at the port, I exhaled a sigh of relief.
A seaman tipped his hat. “Your luggage has already been stowed aboard. We debark in two hours.”
I laced my arm through Claudette’s. Raoul took my free hand in his.
“This is it,” I said, looking out at the docks bustling with sailors, passengers, and seagulls. “We’re off on an adventure.”
I had done it—pulled off a grand illusion—escaped my tormentor and traitorous friend, made right my parents’ deaths. I was free. Seagulls swooped ove
rhead and the tangy odor of seaweed filled the air. I smiled in spite of my fatigue.
“We’ll have to work on your English, Ma’moiselle,” Claudette said with a wink.
“And our act,” I said.
“Find a place to live, and adapt to a foreign land,” Raoul added.
“With my dearest friend and my fiancé, I can do anything.”
Raoul unleashed his exquisite smile and pulled me into his arms. His face bent to mine. After a lingering kiss, he swung me around. I threw back my head and laughed, releasing the last of the tension from the past few days, months—years. Maybe even a lifetime.
I would be the illusionist I longed to be, with a new start in America.
Ovation
New York City, 1891
I looked out at the packed theater. Claudette and I had filled every show, along with the two male illusionists who shared our stage. A bevy of stagehands clamored at our heels. I’d found my most talented helpers performing in the streets, and at a local fair. When I’d asked Harry Houdini to join our show, he had leapt at the chance. He was a gem. In time, I might make him a more regular act.
Even ten years later, I didn’t have the nerve to send for news from the Opéra de Paris. In the beginning, I feared being discovered by the authorities every moment, should my name be implicated in Madame Giry’s death. Over time, my worry dissolved. My life in Paris was over. There, I was dead. In America, I had become someone new, an intoxicating woman who performed magic and made others believe the impossible. Christine was buried at sea. Her torment of that horrible year and the deaths of her loved ones drowned with her. But a newer, stronger self had emerged: a wife, best friend, and conjurer: Allegra the Great.
My talents created a show unlike any other. No conjurer sang as I did. No one fused illusions with drama, accompanied by scores from the greatest opera house in the world. Not as I did.
In my fine velvet gown and feathered hat, I walked to the opposite side of the cabinet centered on the stage and pulled the curtain closed to obscure Claudette. Immediately, she ducked behind a mirrored panel out of sight. When I opened the curtain, she had disappeared.