The Secret Door: A Phantom of the Opera Novel

by J. Smith

  He was impeccably dressed in a white button down shirt and black slacks. His hair was dark, a few clumps falling forward over his …mask? Yes, he was wearing a mask. A smooth white mask which covered only half his face.

  Suddenly, a rush of memories came back to her. The accident—her car going into the water—the certainty that she was going to die—the long, dark corridor with the old wooden door—the two men discovering her—the man in the mask, carrying her back to this room, cleaning her face, humming to her as he stitched her wounds. He had seemed a little perturbed when he first found her, but he had shown her nothing but kindness and gentleness when he was tending to her injuries. But who was he? And why was his mask so familiar?

  Erik's eyes peeked over the piano's open lid as the girl awoke. He watched her take in her surroundings, her eyes darting all about. When her gaze finally fell on him, he saw her flinch. He felt a sardonic smirk appear on his face. He was well acquainted with looks fear being directed toward his person—it was the standard first reaction to his presence. And why should it not be? He was, after all, a monster. He took a deep breath and sighed.

  “Good evening, Mademoiselle,” Erik said, by way of greeting as he ended his song.

  “Where am I?” she asked again.

  Erik rolled his eyes and said, “Again, Mademoiselle, we have already established that you are in my home.” As he watched her, she lifted a hand to the stitches in her head, a look of recollection seeming to wash over her features, and he was relieved that he did not need to add amnesia to her symptoms of dementia. “Does your head hurt?” he asked.

  “It's a little foggy,” she admitted, nodding her head gingerly. When Erik saw her wince, she added, “And a little achy.” She looked at him hopefully, “Do you have any Tylenol or Motrin?”

  Erik raised an eyebrow at her, realizing that the rest had done nothing to improve her delusional state. “No Mademoiselle. I do not.”

  She looked down in disappointment, holding her head in her hands.

  “Am I dead?” she croaked, not certain that anything she was seeing before her was real.

  Erik's brow wrinkled in surprise at her question. “Do you think your head would hurt so much if you were?” The girl shook her head, wincing again. “It might, if I were in hell,” she groaned.

  Erik smirked again, in ironic amusement. “Though I have often felt as if I were residing in hell, I assure you, Mademoiselle, that you live.” Erik watched her, and realized she needed something to lessen the pain she still felt in her head. Following Omid's lead from earlier, he crossed over to his liquor cabinet and poured her another glass of cognac. “Here,” He said, unceremoniously handing her the brandy. “This should help dull the pain.”

  The girl took the glass from him cautiously, trying to determine his intentions, meeting his gaze, for the first time. It was then that she noticed his eyes were of two different colors. The right eye, peeking out from behind his mask, was a striking, icy blue, the left one a brown so rich, she felt as if she could see forever in its depths.

  When Erik felt her gaze lingered a little too long on his mask, he turned away and walked over to his reading chair. She was going to have to learn to stop staring!

  “So, where is this place?” she asked again, in a shaky voice as she took a small sip of the liquor. She raised a hand as if to stop him from interrupting when she saw him let out yet another frustrated sigh, which seemed to be his favorite way of dealing with her questions. “I know it's your home. But, really, where are we?”

  “We are in Paris, Mademoiselle,” Erik supplied simply, not willing to divulge the full details of his home's location.

  “Paris?” she asked, a look of shock on her face. “That's impossible!” She felt a knot form in the pit of her stomach. Obviously, her night had just gone from bad to worse. Regardless of his beautiful “home,” and his intriguing eyes, this man must be some kind of loon who had delusions of New York being a grandiose European city.

  “I assure you, Mademoiselle, that we are, in fact, in Paris.”

  “If we are in Paris, Sir,” she asked, not able to stop herself from trying to make him see reason, “why are we not speaking French?”

  Erik looked at her quizzically for a moment. “Mademoiselle, we are speaking French,” he informed her—in perfect French.

  “What?” she asked incredulously, her voice rising a bit, “Of course we're not speaking French. I don't even know how to speak French.”

  Erik sighed deeply once again, running his hands through his hair. Where was that blasted Persian when he needed him? It seemed he could never be rid of the Daroga when he didn't want him around, but now, when he had a lunatic houseguest, the man could not have taken his leave fast enough. While he was grateful to have finally found some method of deterring unwanted Persians, what he really needed right now was some help.

  “Well, Mademoiselle, if we are not speaking French,” Erik asked in his most long suffering voice, “what language are we speaking?”

  “Eng-lish,” she said slowly, as if she were speaking to a child.

  Erik tried his hardest to hold on to his last shards of patience, but they were leaving him quickly. “Mademoiselle, I speak English quite fluently, and you, are not speaking it.”

  “You really are crazy,” she said in a soft voice while staring at him intently.

  “I'm crazy?” Erik snapped, at the end of his patience. “You are the one who has obviously escaped from the mental asylum! Just look at the way you're dressed!” he threw a hand out, pointing to her scrubs.

  “Ok,” she nodded simply with a smile, placating him, not wanting to upset his fantasy for fear that he might become angry. Or violent. Of course, he had to be crazy, she thought. What other kind of man goes around wearing a mask? Unless he didn't want his identity known because he was some kind of criminal. “Listen,” she began, in a sickeningly sweet voice, looking around the room once more, “Can I use your…um… cell?” She didn't care what had just gone down with Jake. He was going to come get her out of this mess, even if it was the last time they ever saw one another. After all, it was his fault she was stuck here in the first place.

  “Cell, Mademoiselle?” Erik raised an eyebrow. “I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about.”

  A look of worry entered her eyes. “Your cellphone,” she repeated, her voice rising slightly. “I just want to call my boyfriend”—could she still use that term for Jake?— “to come get me out of here.

  “Mademoiselle,” Erik began calmly, putting on the pretense of a smile, but realizing that that was probably not the most comforting expression, given his mask, “I do not know what a cell phone is, and I certainly do not have one myself.” Maybe dealing with a mental patient was going to prove more difficult than Erik had expected.

  “Look,” she began, her voice rising slightly again as a panic slowly seeped into her veins, “you can't keep me here against my will by pretending you don't have a phone!”

  She shifted on the settee, and began to push herself off. Her ankle giving out from under her, she landed on her knees, a moment later, with a howl of pain.

  Erik stood before her, looking down where she remained heaped on the rug, his arms folded across his chest, “By all means, Mademoiselle, you are free to leave whenever you wish.” When she looked up at him, he waved a hand in the direction of the cavern in which he had found her, a smug look across his face.

  She took her own deep breath. She was getting annoyed with this stranger's attitude, as well as her own body's refusal to cooperate. “Look, if you don't want me to use your cell, can you just give me my purse? I'll use my iPhone.”

  “You were not carrying any purse when you arrived, uninvited, in my home, Mademoiselle,” he spat the words out at her, irritated at her brazen demeanor. “Perhaps it is still floating in the Hudson—along with your Chevy—or failing that, it may be lying in the tunnel which you say you traversed to get here.” He could feel that his brow was wrinkled in annoyance. He felt
obligated to help this injured girl, but he was finding that he tolerated her much better when she was silent.

  At his mention of the tunnel, she recalled the passageway that had led to that strange door. It had been long and dark, cool and damp. She remembered wrapping her arms around herself to block out the cold. The corridor had seemed to go on forever, but finally, at the end she had seen a door. It was a simple door, made of wood, curved at the top. She could finally make out some light glowing between the boards, and when she reached its threshold, she eagerly grasped the old black door handle and turned.

  The door had opened easily before her, and she found herself in a cavern. The light she thought she had seen through the slats of wood was softer and more distant than she imagined it would be. She had tried to walk toward it, but she tripped on something and twisted her ankle just as she heard the door slam shut behind her. It had not seemed like such a simple door would have been able to make such a loud sound, but the crash of its closing echoed through the cavern. And that was when the two men had found her.

  Had she somehow gotten into the subway system? She knew the urban legends about secret tunnels and abandoned stations that were no longer used, but as she looked at her surroundings, she could hardly imagine that such an elaborate dwelling could exist under the streets of New York. And if they were beneath the city, where were the rats?

  “I just want to go home!” she insisted, forcefully.

  “Well, if you would simply tell me your name,” the masked man said in exasperation, “it might be easier to get you to your home.”

  “My name is Genevieve,” the girl spat out.

  “Genevieve…” the man repeated, in a hushed, silvery tone. It was, surprisingly, a beautiful name, and he let the syllables play slowly upon his lips.

  “Yes, Genevieve Wilson,” she repeated, feeling slightly self-conscious. “But I usually go by Jenna. Who are you?”

  “I am Erik,” he said, a tight smile spreading across his lips in the face of this girl's impudence. Despite her lovely name, suddenly, getting her home sounded like a very good idea. Surely the asylum would capture her again, but at least she would have a chance. “Where do you live?”

  Jenna looked down, remembering the scene that had transpired before she went out for her ill-fated drive. “I don't even know anymore,” she said, sadly, covering her head in her hands. Erik watched her silently. For all of her irritating tendencies, she seemed so very troubled about something.

  He raked his hand through his hair and sighed. How had he gotten himself into this? Was he not the dreaded Angel of Death, who had tortured and executed so many poor souls in Persia? Was he not the mighty Phantom of the Opera, who could strike fear into incompetent managers with a simple note or cause a stir among superstitious ballerinas with a quiet “boo”? How did he manage to find himself in the role of nursemaid to an ill mannered mental patient who babbled mindlessly about such non-sensible things like cellphones, or Tylenol, and who thought she had driven into a river which didn't exist and walked through a door that wasn't there? Her head and her ankle were obviously damaged, and needed time to heal, not to mention the questionable state of her mental faculties, but that was not his problem.

  Of course, none of this was his problem. In fact, the few unfortunate fools who had entered his lair uninvited were usually met with a very unpleasant welcome in one of the many traps he had set to defend his home. Ultimately, this girl was nothing more than an interloper—a trespasser on his property. He had every right to treat her as such. And yet, he found that he couldn't. He knew it went back to his inability to abide innocence suffering needlessly. But up until this point, that had meant he would occasionally set a bird's broken wing, share a scrap of food with a hungry cat…put a final end to the torment of a prisoner begging him for mercy with tortured eyes. As he looked at the girl once again, he remembered that though he was far from innocent, he himself knew how it felt to be damaged.

  After a moment, he reached out a hand to her, which she grudgingly took. He helped her up and settled her back onto the settee.

  “Thank you,” she said, grateful to be off the cold floor. She looked up at him and continued, “I live in Midtown Manhattan. If you could just tell me how to get there from here, I can be on my way.”

  “Mademoiselle Wilson,” Erik began, trying hard to keep his voice calm and his tone patient. “The only Manhattan I know is in New York.”

  “Yes, that's right,” she nodded

  “In America,” he said the second word very slowly, as if hoping some type of grand revelation about that fact would sink in to her addled brain.

  “Yes, of course,” she answered in exasperation. For the first time since high school, she was tempted to add a well-placed “duuuuh!” to the end of her phrase.

  “Mademoiselle,” he informed her, sounding exhausted, “that is an ocean away.”

  “Miss Wilson,” the doctor said in a cheerful voice, as he entered her room. Since his last shift, Jenna had been moved out of the ER and into her own room. Based on the scan results from last night, he had hoped for at least some improvement in her condition. There was no reaction, however, when he called her name, and with a concerned look crossing his brow, he took a glance at her chart. The tox screen had come back clean, showing no evidence of any drugs or alcohol in her system. The nurses had noted no change in her condition over the last shift.

  He approached her bed and once again examined her pupils with a penlight. There was no tracking, no reaction whatsoever. He sighed, “Miss Wilson,” he began, sitting down at the corner of her bed. “Are you still resting?” he asked, taking her hand once again in his and squeezing. “Can you feel that, Miss Wilson?” Once again, there was no response, but he continued anyway. “It's a beautiful day outside. The rain has stopped, and the sun is shining in through your window. Can you hear the birds singing?” He looked toward the window and smiled. “In fact, there are two little birds hopping around out there, right on your windowsill. They're quite funny.” He chuckled a little and looked at her once more. “You should really wake up to see them yourself.” She lay there, still not moving, still not reacting.

  He could not believe that he had never spoken with her before her accident happened. Yes, they had had brief exchanges when they shared a common patient, but nothing more riveting than medication levels and lab results. He wished he knew what kind of music she liked, or the title of her favorite book. These details might help to draw her out of her coma and speed her recovery. He had a sudden memory of her aqua colored eyes, and the way they flashed when she smiled. He wished he could see them again right now, as her lids lifted from their heavy slumber. Would he ever again get to hear her bell like peals of laughter ringing out from the break room as she quickly grabbed lunch with her co-workers? She had always seemed so confident and vibrant, and so full of life. He had been meaning to introduce himself. Would he still have the chance?

  He sighed in exasperation at himself and squeezed her hand once more, promising to see her again later. Rising, he replaced the chart in its holder at the foot of the bed, and made his way to the nurse's station. “Mrs. Richards?” he called out to the nurse in charge of Jenna's case.

  “Yes, Doctor?”

  “Has Miss Wilson had any visitors today?” he asked hopefully.

  “Well, a number of her co-workers from the 5th floor came by earlier,” she chuckled kindly to herself, adding, “They all love her up there.”

  The Doctor smiled, and nodded. “That's great. What about her boyfriend?” he asked. “Has he been in to see her yet?”

  A look of disgust washed over the kind nurse's face. “Oh, yeah, he was here this morning—for all of five minutes. Came in, asked us how she was doing, went into the room, like I said, for about five minutes, and then left again, to start his shift. Said he'd be back later, but I haven't seen him since.” She rolled her eyes and gave an indignant huff.

  “Hmmmm.” The doctor considered that information. “And he works h
ere, right, Mrs. Richards?”

  “Oh yeah. He's in physical therapy. That's how they met,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I see. Would you happen to know his name?”

  “It's Jake. Jake Trudeau.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Richards.” He smiled at her warmly before he walked toward the elevators. “Take good care of her. I'll be back later.”

  “I know you will!” the nurse answered, before continuing on her rounds.

  5 CELESTIAL ASPIRATIONS

  Erik silently crept through the passage behind the costumery. This was an area of the opera house he had never thought he would need to traverse, but his resident mental patient had now made it a necessity. She had expressed an inclination to wash herself, and while he greatly approved of her desire for cleanliness, the clothes she was now wearing were fit only for a fire. Re-dressing in such grimy attire would simply defeat any purpose of bathing in the first place. And so, after hopefully convincing his guest that she would simply not be able to swim all the way back “home” to Manhattan, and getting her settled back on the settee with a book and a bite to eat, Erik departed to find some clothing that would be suitable for her to wear for the remainder of her convalescence.

  He slipped into the room through a small opening behind the clothing racks. There he found rows and rows of dresses, some of them duplicates, from which he could choose. It occurred to him that he had no idea as to what Mademoiselle Wilson's size was. He knew she was taller than most of the ballerinas who graced the stage—though still shorter than him by about a head—and she did not seem to be quite so rail thin as the ballet rats either. That was fine, he thought, as he was not looking to dress her in a tutu. Perhaps though, he reasoned, he should choose slightly larger sizes, as she could simply cinch the dress if it was too big on her. Erik was quietly going through the dresses, holding a few up to himself, to gauge the length against his own height, when he heard the door open and then slam shut. He crouched low, and peered through the racks of dresses, not breathing, to determine who had entered the room.