Page 91 of Our Strange Duet

She glanced behind me, her dark eyes darting around the room, assessing, deciding. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll tell you what I know. But not here.”

“Where, then?” I demanded. I didn’t want to squander this opportunity to learn more.

With a deep sigh of resignation, she pointed to one of the plain doors hidden under the staircases. “Come with me.”

Chapter 31

She pulled me into a small room and, after giving the hall a long, sweeping look, shut the door behind us.

“Madame Giry,” I began, but she waved her hand and brought one finger up to her lips, warning me to silence.

I glanced uneasily around the small space. It was filled with stacks of unlabeled boxes and a series of velvet-covered rope stanchions. There were dozens of rolled posters from past productions propped in a corner and a few wrinkled programs littering the floor.

With a flick of her hand, one of the walls swung inward to reveal a narrow brick-lined passage.

“Come” was all she said before disappearing into its darkness.

I glanced back to the door we’d come through, knowing Raoul was somewhere out there, looking for me, searching and shouting. Did part of him wonder if I’d slipped away with Erik? Did he fear I was being held captive, a prisoner of a madman’s whims?

Part of me knew I should leave this room, leave it and all the answers it contained, and go after Raoul. I’d find him, and then we could leave the opera—leave it forever and never return. No one would blame me. No one would think me a coward.

I just needed to go to him.

But Madame Giry knew more about the Opera Ghost and Erik than she’d ever let on. I couldn’t give up the chance to learn, to uncover her part in all of this strange plot.

Decision made, I followed after her, allowing the darkness to swallow me whole.

She led me down a series of unlit hallways and up spiral staircases. I held tight to her shoulder so that I would know where to go, but more than once, I tripped on uneven stones in the floor.

Another door creaked open, and suddenly, there was light.

“This way,” she said, gesturing me into the space.

It was large, with lofty ceilings and an enormous slanted window, showing off a section of the Populaire’s roof. Pale shafts of moonlight lit the room, changing angles as clouds passed by.

It was an attic, but one I’d never had cause to be in. Thick gray dust coated the surface of everything I saw, ruining racks of old costumes and obscuring the titles of scores and stacks of sheet music.

“What is this place?”

Madame Giry stepped closer to the window, her silhouette a black smear against the snow-covered roof. “An old storage room, mostly forgotten. It’s too far from the stage to make it very useful. Not many today even know it’s here.”

“But you do,” I observed.

She nodded. “Back when I was a dancer, just starting out, I came across it. My ballet mistress needed some old props that had been stored here and sent me after them. It was out of the way and quiet. I took to using it as my own practice space. The afternoon light looks quite lovely, streaming through the windows.”

I took a step toward her. “Why did you bring me here now?”

Madame Giry sighed and looked away. “What you’re asking for is not easy. I’ve spent so many years much like this room: keeping quiet, letting all be forgotten.”

“But you know things,” I pressed. “You know him. Erik,” I added, and the sharp line of her back stiffened.

“I wasn’t aware you two were so well acquainted.” A careful edge crept into her voice, testing, prodding.

I stared at her, taking the moment to really study her face, noting all the ways it had changed. She’d been like a second mother to me, a mentor, a taskmaster. She’d watched me grow, both as an artist and as a person. She’d opened her home to me, given me chance after chance. Yet now, I felt as though I didn’t know her at all.

“I could say the same of you,” I pointed out, not unkindly.

She let out a rush of breath and turned from me, fixing her gaze out the window. “I know no more than anyone else.”