Pandora, No More

By: Ariel Reid
It was strange to think back to that final night in the Opera Populaire. I’d never stayed anywhere for very long, what with Poppa’s trading company, so the two years I’d lived in Paris had felt like an eternity. Especially with how much I loved being part of the company. I guess Erik felt the same way about his alias of the Phantom of the Opera. Something about it clicked for us, it just worked. These two different professions had brought out the best in two different people, in a not-so-different way. And as I sat at Madame Giry’s small kitchen table, very much alone, a slowly cooling mug of tea between my icy hands, I reflected back on that fateful night at the Opera. The night a few back that changed everything.
I was very content to just sit in Erik’s embrace. My hand on his deformed face seemed to both calm and frighten him, and his breathing was going from slow and quiet to frantic, and back again, in the span of a moment. However, the tender moment wasn’t to last; a chorus of voices drifted into the room through the portcullis and wrapped around us. Erik stopped breathing altogether so as to hear better. I knew what was coming for us; I’d pushed past the mob minutes before to get to Madame Giry and Raoul, and Erik seemed to understand as well. Oh, why couldn’t they just leave him alone!
“Stay here.” He said. I tried to protest, thinking he was trying to leave me behind; but he returned seconds later. He picked me up swiftly but with the greatest of care. I told him I could walk on my own, but he hushed me as we stepped through the shattered remains of a mirror, a velvet curtain falling to conceal our escape route. I whimpered into the sudden and complete darkness, but Erik held me closer to quiet me.
The fact that he could navigate the pitch black tunnels without feeling along the walls astounded me, and to wonder how he did it served as a distraction. I was scared the mob would find Erik’s lair, and then the concealed mirror, and then us. I doubt I would be harmed; if anything I would look like a victim, another girl kidnapped by the so-called monster. I was afraid for Erik. He could probably handle himself, he was a genius; but what is he couldn’t? What if they hurt him..?
My heart couldn’t bear it.
I clutched his shirt so tightly and pressed my face to the base of his neck. He must have thought I was in pain from my ankle, because he doubled his pace. We were soon ascending a numbers of staircases, the air becoming clearer and fresher with every step. We exited the tunnel and into what appeared to be a basement. Before I could even hazard a guess how far we were from the opera house, a dark figure swept over to us from a distant corner. The way in which the person came to us made me believe they had known we would be entering through this particular trapdoor. I made a strangled sound, so sure my fears were about to be realized, until a slender hand closed over my mouth.
“Hush, dear.” The owner of the hand said to me. It was Madame Giry!
“Can she stand?” She was asking Erik, who looked at me. I nodded, and he set me down as carefully as he could. Madame Giry immediately led me up and out of the basement and into what I assumed to be her house. We entered a room decorated with lace and dolls and other trinkets; I figured this had been Meg’s room before she moved into the ballerina dorms.
She stopped me in the center of the room and went towards a wardrobe. She held up a simple day dress to my slightly damp frame (I was still wearing my gypsy costume from Don Juan Triumphant, which had been soaked by the water trap). She did the same to check my size against a few more dresses and a nightgown.
“My Meg leaves some of her clothes here.” Madame Giry was explaining as she did this, “You have a ballerina’s build.” She observed. Once she laid a few selections on the bed, she led me back out into the dark hall and to a bathroom, instructing me to get properly clean. I was barely in the nightgown after my shower before she was moving me again. This time she took me to the kitchen and into a chair to fix my splint. The work was slow, so I got my first chance to speak.
“Where is Erik?” I asked hoarsely.
“Downstairs.” Madame Giry replied without even looking away from my ankle, “He has to stay hidden in case they search my house.”
“Can I see him?”
“That would defeat the purpose, would it not?” She said tersely, but with a glance to my worried face she added, “He’ll come find you as soon as it’s possible.”
“You really think so?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“If he cared enough to bring you here with him,” She said while finishing the splint and turning to leave, “I have no doubt he is ready to accept your company wherever he goes next.”
This made me feel safe and less afraid, and I think I fell asleep right at the kitchen table.
I haven’t been that peaceful for several nights now. Despite Madame Giry’s insistence that I would see Erik in due time, he had not yet appeared. I was starting to think I’d have to go to him.
I took a sip of the freezing cold tea in my hands and gagged. Walking to the sink to pour it out and wash the mug, the full moon caught my eye. I placed the mug down and opened the small window above the sink; a warm spring breeze tugged gently at my long hair. Sighing into the silence of the night, my tired mind drifted to my Poppa, of all places.
It was still strange for me to see the moon and feel warm air on my now pale face; I had been in Erik’s home for months. So since I’d surfaced I’d been positively flooded with memories of my life previous to my Poppa’s death. Especially the moon reminded me of him; it had been a source of familiarity in faraway places. And tonight, the breeze reminded me of the few months we’d spent in London when I was fifteen.
It might have even been in London that I gained my appreciation for opera. I often grew bored while Poppa was doing business on the docks. Maybe if I were a child, the expansive river and crates full of mysterious wares would have occupied me, but no longer. A fifteen-year-old girl had certain interests, and I eventually found a way to satisfy them after exploring the blocks closest to the river.
The Century Opera House was almost river-side, which was largely its appeal to its numerous patrons. It was of the Grecian style; and the massive marble pillars, gleaming bright-white in the light reflecting off the Thames River, were something to behold. But I never much saw it from the front; I usually found myself sneaking around the alley behind the backstage, meeting the younger stagehands. One of these stagehands probably claimed my first kiss; but once my Poppa learned of my unladylike behavior, we quickly moved to Paris. It was with my insistence that we permanently settled there and joined the opera company.
It was going to be hard for me to leave the opera for good; I had grown accustomed to not being a stagehand, even though it was hard, but actually leaving the Opera Populaire forever… It was an unpleasant thought. However, as hard as it was for me, I could only fathom what Erik was feeling.
The Phantom of the Opera was more than an alias to him, it was his life (or at least his adult life). How could he just walk away from that? And why should he..?
Then, like an electric shock, I remembered something from London. With all the time I spent at the Century Opera House, the abandoned church beside it (and the rumors of the age-old passages between the two structures) should have immediately come to mind.
What if Erik didn’t have to stop being the Opera Ghost?
And, as if I had called him, there Erik was. I turned and looked straight into his eyes, an ecstatic smile on my lips.
“Erik, I have an idea!”