“How ignorant of you to make assumptions!” I acted offended and sneered in my arrogant persona. “You who have been a part of this company barely a week seek to define my soul and its supposed faults! You know nothing of me, and yet you’ve chosen to judge. You cannot even reason if I am man or myth, ghost or angel, and yet you’ve named me murderer and found me guilty with no hope of reprieve. How is that just?”
Again that longing to believe like a pinprick of light in the center of her regret glowed vibrant. She wanted my soul to be as clean as hers, and for the first time in my existence, I wanted the same thing. “I…I’m sorry. All the talk in the ballet revolves about the ghost…and you are the Opera Ghost, aren’t you?”
I gave an idle shrug. “To some. To others, I’m just a man. You may deem how you see me. Most choose horror without proper reasoning. They see the mask and make it their focal point, and I am not allowed to be anything more. But you…you saw me in the cellar and weren’t afraid.”
Blue eyes peeked up at me again with the slightest tug of a smile on her lips. It was subtle, but I took it as the greatest achievement of my days. Now if I could only make it bloom!
“You are not a real ghost,” she concluded as explanation enough. “You’ve given me no valid need to fear you.”
True, but I was accustomed to the reactions of the others, and to see Christine look at me, straight at my masked face, and give nothing but her sweetly innocent curiosity and intrigue, I was addicted. She was my drug, and I needed her forever.
“And,” I continued, “I suppose that is why you chose to linger in an empty opera house alone. You weren’t afraid a ghost would catch you.”
“I have more to fear from Madame Giry’s wrath than a ghost’s haunting. I’ll take my chances with ghosts if I can have extra practice time in between.”
I forced my gaze to stay on hers even as it craved and pulled with a desire to wander. I’d grown used to perusing her body with boldness from the shadows and had to remind myself that I could not give such desire away while face to face. That would bring her unwanted fright.
So I held her eye as I haughtily decided, “You are as much a ballerina as I am a ghost. It is a veneer, a role to play. I watch you dance, and although you move beautifully, it is empty. You do not possess the passion that the other girls have for pirouettes and reveilles. …No, no, don’t blush and duck your eyes for being found out, Christine. In truth, I share your mentality. I believe the only redeeming part of the ballet is the music, but the rest…” I rolled my eyes and shook a doubtful head, pleased to see it earn an arc that was even closer to a smile. “I could do without the dance interludes and save ballet for the ballet, but some composers believe it an extra treat to fuse ballet into opera. Not everyone loves both, but try arguing that with an established composer or my management for that matter. They believe it draws a bigger audience; I’m unconvinced.”
“So…the ghost does have a say on how things are run? That was no exaggeration of the ballerinas?”
I accepted that part with pride and my own hinted grin in return. “If I were an imbecile in the medium of music, then it would be a sin, but as it is, I have more knowledge than every buffoon in this theatre combined. My ‘suggestions’ are only meant to improve. I’ve considered pushing my clout and doing away with the ballet. One note, and I could have my way, but…since you arrived, I’ve developed a greater appreciation for it. Not a full-fledged passion or love, but…enough to want it to continue so that I may watch you dance.”
How forward, and I grew anxious what her reaction would be and hurriedly went on before she could give one. “But in watching you, I have glimpsed that lack of passion I spoke of. Is it merely because you do not have the training the other girls do? …No, I think this is something you’ve settled for when your heart lives elsewhere.”
She was surprised I’d read her so well, but with hours of study on my side, I was doubtless in making such an assertion. And perhaps it was only because I was right that she deemed it fit to grace me with an answer. “My father’s dream was to see me involved in the opera, but…to sing, not to dance.”
My ear was intoxicated with the very word in her voice, and I eagerly pushed, “Then why not sing? Why settle for the ballet if there is something you could do with heart and passion? That is a life half-lived.”
She shook her dark head, making curls bob and draw my stare as she distantly admitted, “I haven’t sung a note since my father…since he died. Music was his, and to sing…it was for him, always for him.”
So that was it. My little songbird had broken wings because of a father in the grave. She was alone, and I understood that so well. It inspired a deeper root in my heart because now I not only longed to adore her, but to protect her, to keep her untouchable by the true cruelty of the world. My Christine had no one and nothing as hers; I wanted to fill that void and draw myself into the holes in her being.
“Sing for me,” I decided and savored the arch of her curious dark brows. “Let the music be mine instead. You wanted an angel; you were waiting for heavenly intervention. Well, …perhaps that is what I am. Let me be the answer to your prayer, your angel, …your angel of music.”
I must have spoken it well because I saw no suspicion in my command. Or perhaps it was just that she wanted something so much. A means to heal, someone to prove she was not alone. I gave her all of that and more. I offered her the dreams she possessed and asked nothing in return. Not yet. How could I fathom being selfish when merely having her speak to me without fear was a gift?
But a flicker of uncertainty remained as she accused, “But you are no angel.”
“I could be…for you. I could teach you, train your voice and give you the music. Music is my passion, my heart and soul, and I’ve never shared such things with anyone.”
She seemed humbled by my admission and softly bid, “But you’d share such things with me?”
“You are alone in the world; I am as well. I have nothing but music to sustain me, and only music to offer you. I may not be a traditional angel, but music gives me wings and blessings. It makes me fly. Do you wish to fly as well, Christine? To let your heart and soul soar?”
I saw my words resonate with her, and she sighed as if I’d spoken her greatest desire. “Yes,” she breathed, and in that instant, she started us on our fated path with one gentle command, “Be my angel of music.”
I smiled. This was mine.
Chapter Four
Christine~
God works in mysterious ways… I’d heard that statement over and over again in my life, but I’d never fully believed it. I was given its letters when my mother died, again when my father joined her. As if God’s supposed ‘mysterious ways’ explained why I was doomed to be abandoned by everyone I loved.
When my father had promised an angel, perhaps that would have been the ‘mysterious’ way, but I’d never fully believed him. Maybe because I was so young when I’d lost my mother and was given no replacement in the form of heavenly spirits. One would think a child without a mother deserved an angel to stand in her place, but all I’d had was a father, and for as much as he loved me, he was no mother. I should have had my mother at least in spirit, and since God had denied me as a little girl, I highly doubted He’d listen to my dead father and send an angel now. It was too sugarcoated of a wish, and during his illness and passing, I’d grown up too much to believe it.
…Or so I’d thought. Now…I had an angel, but he was not designed in the traditional vein, not white-winged or heaven sent, and yet an angel just the same. God works in mysterious ways…
My angel was a mortal man in hiding. To the rest of the world, he was their ghost, a creature worthy of fear and fabrication. To me, he was the blessing I’d longed for without ever making the wish. He was slowly growing to be my everything. Merely his existence healed my wounded heart, mending every sore spot with music as its sewing needle and giving it a new beat. I was…changed, and I could only credit him with my transformat
ion.
Every day I suffered in the ballet, improving steadily, but only due to resolve and my newly constructed hopes. It was tolerable because I knew something better awaited me at rehearsal’s end. Then once the other girls left and the theatre emptied, I met an angel and let music inside to make my heart and soul soar as promised.
The first time I sang for him, I was a mess. It was nerves and apprehension. What if he heard me and changed his mind? Saw my unproven talent as hopeless and another of my father’s overdone exaggerations? For in truth, my father was the only one who’d ever heard me sing. I had no opinion but his in my inner ears. What if my angel was disappointed and took his music away already?
But I sang, and I watched his masked face with a critical eye as he loomed rows away in the theatre audience. And I saw something like that same surprise I’d been given in the cellars at our first meeting. I felt his pleasure, and even when he spoke with minimal praises and insisted we had much work to do, I took it as encouragement to know he would indeed teach me. I considered it a wonderful accomplishment and carried his existence like a brilliant secret in my soul.
As I said, I was not naïve enough to dub him a real angel, but…there were certain points that made me undoubting he was sent by God and His mysterious ways. From our very first lesson, I became aware that my angel teacher was some sort of prodigy.
As if desperate to keep propriety intact, he never came closer to me than with three rows of seats in between, occasionally strolling from one end of the theatre to the other as he listened, ever attentive but careful. He didn’t even dare approach the instruments at the end of the stage, which left me wary how we would ever have pitches or accompaniment. But as we began to work with basic scales, he pulled the pitches he was after out of the air and his musician’s ear. He hummed the exact scale he wanted me to repeat, and I stared agape at his moving masked shape, overcome by the sound of his voice. It was exquisite, and all I’d been granted of it thus far was a hum.
For that voice, I would have done anything. As my lessons progressed, I fought for every beautiful pitch he could make, often asking him to demonstrate what he was after simply for the sound. He never fully sang, as if shy by his talent, or perhaps as unaware as I had once been, but I was overcome and obsessed with the fantasy of what his full voice would sound like. Oh God, maybe he was an angel after all, for what human being could ever make such divine beauty with a voice alone!
I felt so close to him in the throes of music. He taught with gentle care and an intelligence that I felt privileged to know. And from his genius teachings, I felt my voice blossom in tones I’d never realized I could make.
He’d known from the beginning that ballet was not my passion; well, here was my passion, blatant and straightforward. It came through every pitch I sang for him and bubbled out from my soul. It was music, but it was also him. He was my inspiration and my guiding star. Music would have been a hollow shell without his essence to flesh it out.
A week of daily lessons, then two, and I counted minutes until I was in his presence again. When we were together and music our shared goal, I did not consider his alternate persona. I did not associate him with the same ghost the ballerinas still went on about. The girls liked to frighten each other, and the greatest threat was to tease that the ghost would take them away. I never once connected their ghost with mine because I perceived the girls as overdramatic and creating evil where none existed.
My angel teacher was not evil. I knew he wouldn’t hurt anyone because I trusted the man I was with every night, alone in an empty theatre. He would never commit the crimes the girls pinned upon him. It made me angry merely to bear the suggestion.
But…some points had merit. I was no fool. I knew he wore the mask for a reason, and Meg’s explanation of a mangled face kept coming back to the surface. I wondered if the stories held any weight of truth, but I couldn’t reason asking. It seemed too much like rude prying. Perhaps he’d tell me in time, but for now, I let it go and made the mask just another part of him.
“Oh, they’re at it again!”
Meg’s exclamation dragged me out of my thoughts and back to ballet and a rehearsal I fervently wished was over.
“Who?” I asked, but she cocked her chin, and I followed its direction with my gaze.
In the far wing stood a group of male stagehands, leering at us with lustful eyes. Since rehearsals were moving forward for the new production, more and more of the cast and crew were on-hand and about daily. The stagehands were a vile sort when it came to ogling girls in form-fitting rehearsal attire. Most of the ballerinas considered it a point of flattery, for there existed a ‘look but don’t touch’ rule unspoken through the corridors. They flaunted extra with the attention, but I felt violated with every stare and shrank behind some of the bolder ones.
Meg giggled at my unease. “Oh, Christine! You must get over these modesty issues now! Wait until the show! The patrons are just as bad, even with their wives sitting beside them!”
I cringed with the idea and cast anxious glances at our continued gawkers. One in particular made nervous goose bumps crawl along every inch of my exposed skin. Joseph Buquet was an old and overweight deviant who rarely came into the theatre without reeking of alcohol. The other ballerinas called him harmless and even humored his ill attempts at garnering female attention. Lately, I found his beady eyes always locked on my body, and it made my stomach turn to be his victim of choice. His gaze swept over my length, and I shuddered with disgust and recoiled further away as he licked his lips and sought to seem provocative. Teasing or not, I refused to condone his behavior.
“Oh, Christine,” Meg gushed with a giggle as she hurried forward, never one to shy from such attentions.
As I shivered unconsciously, I turned away, preferring the empty theatre to the over-laden wings, but what I saw chilled me to my bones. My angel was visible in one of the boxes. Never before had I seen him freely out with others around, but he glared toward the wings, obviously having observed the scene of lewd conduct. And the look on his masked face…it frightened me. It was full of fire and fury, a seething rage that seemed to be boiling over in his mismatched eyes.
The breath fled my lungs and collapsed my posture as I contemplated that I never wanted to be on the opposite end of such wrath. But it shifted to me with his intent stare, and I buckled beneath the power. This was not a man to be toyed with or teased, tempted to sin, and for the first time, I was acutely aware of it.
His gaze lost its fire the longer it held mine, anger dwindling, but transforming into an adamant sense of possession. In one look, he made it vividly clear that I was his, and I wasn’t sure I was allowed to argue.
At that night’s lesson, all was forgotten, it seemed. Never was his appearance brought up, and without hesitation, we submerged ourselves into music and forgot the rest of the world existed. Reservations that I might have harbored drifted to nothing, and even when intuition wanted to keep skepticism alive, I didn’t listen. Why would I? It was a more pleasant thought to consider his anger at the stagehands had been because he wanted to keep me safe and believed them disrespectful. That made him a protector and not sinister. I let that be my conclusion.
The next morning as I joined the other ballerinas, I could tell something was amiss from the first moment. Everything was too…quiet. None of the usual vivacity and exuberance, and wary for reasons I could not explain, I hurried to Meg and her wide green eyes and demanded, “Is something wrong?”
“You haven’t heard?” she insisted as if my ignorance was a drastic mistake. “There was an accident first thing this morning. Joseph Buquet was working up in the rafters, and…he fell.”
“Is he all right?” I urgently asked. In truth, I couldn’t have cared less about the vile stagehand, but…I had other worries underneath.
“A broken leg, nothing too serious. He was lucky. But…” Meg lowered her voice to a cryptic whisper, “he’s telling everyone that he was pushed…by the ghost.”
My
stomach knotted, heart pausing mid-beat, and while part of me immediately defended my angel ghost and disputed Buquet’s accusation, another part just knew.
This should have been the moment intuition won out and took over. In a mission of self-preservation, it should have had me following the other girls out of the theatre at rehearsal’s end and certainly not staying behind alone. But…wasn’t it unjust to condemn without giving my angel a chance to explain? I’d done that before when I’d accused him the first night of the ballerinas’ gossip. I owed him the opportunity to dub Buquet a liar. Even a lie would be better than no words at all. …Or maybe I just wanted to hear his voice so much.
From the instant he arrived, I could not keep my thoughts to myself or take the doubt from my expression. I wanted denials without ever having to cast blame, but he was stoic and seemingly apathetic as he stalked the back rows of the theatre, saying not a single word. If I wanted words, it was clear I’d have to give them first.
Pausing as I regarded his dark silhouette and that telling mask, I acted less apprehensive than I was. Following our usual routine, I sat upon the hard wood of the stage and deftly unlaced my toe shoes without much thought, moving by rote instead of concentration. One and then the other, and I gazed at his moving shape all the while. He paused only once as I tossed the shoes aside, and lifting his mismatched eyes to me, he let them wander from my set features down my stocking-clad calves and up again. This was not the leer the stagehands gave. There were too many whispers of sadness and guilt intermixed in the longing, and as he found my stare again, he abruptly broke it and began to stalk aisles.
I shivered in spite of better judgment, but as always, those eyes bore an element of touch. I felt them as one would fingertips, and to have them graze my legs in such an intimate manner inspired tremors that racked my entire body.
Scripted in Love's Scars Page 4