Page 48 of Our Strange Duet

But the wall had already spun around again, hiding both its secret and my Angel.

I’d had to duck behind a stack of leaning flats and listen to every horrible word the flyman had uttered, bemoaning the new managers, his empty wallet, and his even emptier bed.

“Perhaps that’s something we might help you with,” the blond woman had said, giggling, before letting out a great hiccup. “The bed part, at least. We can’t do anything about management.”

“I need my job as much as you need yours,” the redhead had agreed. “Perhaps you ought to more closely tend your post.”

“That drop wasn’t my fault!” Joseph had roared, snatching the bottle from her hand. “I’ve been saying it for days! It was—”

“The Opera Ghost,” the two women had intoned together, bored by the story’s frequent retelling.

“You believe me, don’t you?”

“I don’t believe in things I’ve not seen,” the red-headed woman had said with a dismissive tsk. “And no one—no one,” she’d repeated loudly with drunken emphasis, “has ever seen the Phantom of the Opera.”

“I have,” Joseph had growled. “You see all sorts of things up in the flies. Why don’t you come up there with me now, and I’ll show you a beast of truly incredible size.”

The redhead fell into a burst of titters as the stagehand slapped at his thigh, guffawing loudly. But the blonde had looked up warily, as if she could see all the way up to the loft in question.

“Did you really? See him, I mean?”

Joseph had nodded seriously. “He’s a monster. Truly.”

The women had scoffed, dismissing the tale as another of the flyman’s lurid jokes.

“I’m telling the truth! His skin is like yellow parchment, cracked and crinkled. He keeps on him a magical lasso that he’ll catch you with, like so.” Pulling out a length of fly rope from his pocket, Joseph had demonstrated throwing it into the air before yanking it back. “Then there’s the great black hole of his nose. It—”

Just then, a giant rat had run over my foot—the backstage area was overrun with the horrid rodents—and I had to put my hands over my mouth to keep from crying out in terror.

Joseph had heard me anyway and signaled for silence. “It’s him!” he’d declared, using the opportunity to grab both of the women, holding them close as he unabashedly ran his hands over their breasts. “The Phantom of the Opera! You’d better come with me, somewhere dark where we can hide away, and I might…protect you.”

Flushed with knowing giggles, the intoxicated trio had stumbled off, leaving me alone to find my way out of the trap room and through the maze of corridors beneath the stage.

Now back at my apartment, I crossed to my window seat and flopped down on the worn cushions, completely exhausted.

Outside, the sun was rising over gray stone buildings with a shade of citron that felt garish to behold. My time with the Angel had left my senses spinning. They felt frayed and overtaxed, and I longed for the dark shadows of his world.

My eyes swept over my apartment and the threadbare possessions it contained. It was such a stark contrast to the opulent world Erik had created that I felt a strange wave of embarrassment, though he was not here to see it.

He’d built a shrine to his passions, filling the space with music and art. I’d not bothered to hang curtains. My furniture was all secondhand, a collection of necessity, hodgepodged together from generous, if pitying, friends. It seemed impossible to believe that anything inspired could come from such humble origins.

But last night had happened. I had taken the stage, sung to the highest society Paris could offer, and I’d delighted each and every one of them. They’d applauded for me: little unknown, orphaned Christine Daaé. All because of him. All because of my Angel.

Such a miracle should have been all the proof I required to confirm his divinity. Such a triumph could only be Heaven-sent. Yet that one small seedling continued to prick at me, catching my thoughts and irritating them so much it was impossible to ignore.

Joseph Buquet’s wretched words would not leave me be.

His description of the Opera Ghost—and his alarming lack of a nose—played over and over, filling my thoughts until I could think of nothing else.

Erik also had no nose.

Was it terrible coincidence or perhaps something more? Were my Angel of Music and the Phantom of the Opera somehow one and the same?

I couldn’t completely rule out the chance of it. The only theatre the Opera Ghost was said to haunt was the Populaire, and Erik lived within the deepest levels of its very walls. He knew everything about the theatre’s comings and goings, when I was in rehearsals, and what productions were coming next. It even felt as if he’d known, somehow, that Carlotta would storm out of rehearsal just before opening night of Hannibal.

But was such prophecy divine omniscience or…

My blood went cold as I remembered what had caused Carlotta to abruptly quit the performance.