Page 66 of Our Strange Duet

“Raoul, I’ve been there. To…to where he lives. I’ve been with him. Spoken with him. I’ve seen his face. The Opera Ghost is as every bit as real as you or I. You must believe me!”

“You’ve seen him? The man who’s been doing all this?”

I nodded, breaking into a fresh set of sobs. “He…he came to me as the Angel of Music and I thought…I truly thought that Father had sent him. Like he’d said, like he’d promised. But…he’s no angel, Raoul. He’s not an angel or a ghost or a phantom. He’s a man. He’s just a man.”

Raoul made an impatient gesture, demanding an answer to a question he’d not seen fit to ask. “He’s a man. Yes. We’ve known that. But who is he, Christine?”

I bit my lip. “His name is Erik.”

“And who is he? A former stagehand? A sacked musician? A…a…what do you call them? Chorus…person?” he guessed, tripping over unfamiliar terminology.

I shook my head. “No. I don’t…I don’t think so. I don’t know what he did before all this. Only that…he’s a musical genius. He taught me how to sing, and—”

Raoul gave a loud, dismissive tsk. “You’ve always known how to sing. I remember you singing with your father on the pier.”

“Not like this. Not like now. Can’t you tell the difference between that and the night of the gala?”

It stung that he could not.

“Your voice…it’s certainly grown, matured, but—”

“Erik has been giving me lessons for months,” I confessed. “Coaching and teaching and—I can’t explain it, Raoul, but he knows how to draw the music from me. It’s like he can reach in and pull out pieces of my soul.”

He froze, and when he next spoke, his voice was cold and clipped. “He reaches into you?”

I flushed. I wasn’t explaining it correctly. I wasn’t explaining it at all. “Not…not like that. Just…” I sighed. “I truly believed him to be an angel. But tonight, with Carlotta…I don’t think an angel would do that.”

Raoul’s expression was dark and unreadable. “Tonight was the least of his offenses. He’s been threatening the managers since their arrival. He’s even sent me letters, saying I must forget you, saying I must never see you again.”

My eyebrows rose in horror. It was one thing for him to tell me I had to devote myself wholly to music—and, by extension, to him. But it was an entirely different matter for him to command it of others, keeping me isolated and alone. “He did?”

Raoul nodded.

“But…you didn’t,” I observed.

He hadn’t. He’d sent tokens of his affection for weeks. He’d taken me out to dinner and sent me notes with hearts drawn around my name. He’d said I was his forever favorite. And he’d come tonight, to the opera, to the very place he knew dangers awaited, just for me.

He’d stood up to Erik, daring to defy him, for me.

Raoul crossed to a stone parapet and leaned upon it, looking pensive and grim. “I’d never let anyone tell me how to live my life,” he said, staring at the lights of Paris glowing in the distance. “I’d never let anyone—angel or madman—keep me from seeing you.”

It was as if his words unlocked a secret cache of emotion within me. “Oh, Raoul,” I said, and rushed over. Without hesitation, I threw my arms around him, and I wanted to cry as I felt him embrace me in return. I couldn’t explain the peace his presence filled me with. I felt comforted and cared for. There was not a single doubt in my mind that Raoul de Chagny would do anything in his power to keep me safe. He was here now, proving that he would.

I wanted to stay in his arms forever.

I could have too, if not for a clatter which sounded along the roof, a muffled scrape, a scuffing against stone.

I broke away from Raoul, abandoning the sanctuary he offered, and felt my panic immediately return. My heart raced high in my throat. Uneasy dread stretched through my limbs as I turned from my source of comfort to search the shadows. “What was that?”

Had Erik made his way to the roof? Was he here now, watching us, watching my complete and utter betrayal?

I didn’t want to believe it.

The roof of the Opéra Populaire had always been a place of joy for me.

There was a door in the ballet’s rehearsal room which led directly out onto it. Ostensibly, the architects had included it for easy access or to create airflow during the hottest Parisian summers, but Meg and I would often sneak through it after rehearsals and perform silly versions of the choreography we’d just learned, pirouetting and grand-jeté-ing before the whole of the city.

Massive statues dotted its perimeter. Some were carved of stone, others cast of bronze. After years of exposure to the elements, many of the works had softened to a pale mint green.