Page 83 of Our Strange Duet

My mouth dried.

I knew with absolute certainty that such footfalls could not have come from Raoul.

“You’re in a dream.” I rubbed harder, even slapping my cheeks, desperate to startle awake and put an end to whatever fit of fancy I’d fallen into.

“A dream.” Erik’s voice hung in the air, surrounding me and making it impossible to tell where it had come from. I whipped around, expecting him to be behind me, as menacing as he’d been on the night I’d last seen him, perched on the railing of Box Five like a dragon ready to descend upon its prey.

“Where are you?” I called out, turning left, then right.

“Here,” his voice said, whispering in the curve of my ear. “There.” It flung to the far end of the house, as if he were responding from within one of the curtained boxes. “I’m everywhere. Everywhere and nowhere.” He chuckled with dark effacement. “Perhaps I truly have become a ghost.”

“Are you?” I asked. “Dead?” I clarified. “They say you are.”

“What do you think, Christine?”

The space around me began to lighten, allowing me to see more of the front of house. I glanced at the ghost light, certain its little bulb was not responsible for the shift, then caught sight of what was.

High above me, in the auditorium, the chandelier had begun to glow.

It was horrific.

The structure was mangled and warped, as if the construction crew had simply rehung it after the crash. Blood still flecked the faceted crystals, and as the lights grew brighter, I saw that remains from its victims hung among the gold spiked lyres surrounding the ruined fixture.

A length of arm, now bruised and mottled and missing the rest of its body, dangled from one of the illuminated globes. Strings of innards were draped alongside sparkling beads, festooning the chandelier like macabre streamers. A head, separated and squashed and barely recognizable as human, was impaled upon filigreed ironwork, its mouth forever open in a silent scream.

Standing atop the monstrous structure was a dark figure, cloaked and masked and unmistakably Erik. He began to shift his weight from side to side, making the chandelier rock and sway.

A terrible sense of déjà vu overtook me.

The chandelier was going to fall.

The chandelier was going to crash.

And I had no doubt that, this time, it would strike me.

“What do you think, Christine?” Erik called out again, and the chandelier lowered closer and closer to where I was rooted onstage, unable to run, unable to flee.

I could make out the curve of his mask as he swung past me, near enough to touch.

“Do I look like a ghost to you?” he shouted, swooping by again. His laughter rang throughout the auditorium with electrified mania.

I heard the telltale crack as one of the links split and the chandelier lurched to the side. It careened back my way, wholly out of control.

“Do I?”

I could feel the heat of the lights as it approached. Hear the trembling crystal beads. I could smell the blood and offal, but I could not move, could not do anything but—

“Could a ghost do this?” he screamed, and leapt from the structure, plunging toward me like a diving bird of prey. He fell on me, arms wrapping around my body as I twisted and fought, screaming for release.

“Christine! Christine!”

“Get away from me! Let me go!” I lashed out, striking him wherever I could. I wanted to cheer as I felt my hand smack soft flesh and heard his grunt of surprised pain.

“Christine! For God’s sake, stop! You need to wake up. You need to—”

Even in my mindless terror, I registered the change in voice. This was not the Opera Ghost. This was not Erik. It was—

“Raoul!” I exclaimed, nearly falling over myself as a light flared, revealing the tall canopy of his bed and the sodden sheets I’d tangled myself with. “I’m so sorry! Did I…did I hurt you?”