Page 3 of Angel's Flight

The words made a chill go up Meg’s spine.

“Do you really think he’s gone?”Marie asked, voice small and sad.She had grown pale beneath her ginger hair and freckles.

“Mother says they’ve been selling his box.Monsieur Moncharmin assured her it would be fine,” Meg answered, both proud and dismayed.Her mother had taken immense pride in being the Ghost’s box keeper, and the Phantom himself had seen to it that they were protected.Now that he was gone, Meg felt more helpless than she had before.And she had been quite helpless.

“No voices?No disturbances?”Blanche asked.

Meg shook her head.“Nothing.No notes either.”

“Damn, I was hoping he’d have me promoted too,” Blanche sighed.

“I saw something.”

They all turned to Rochelle, who had spoken in a blasé, matter-of-fact tone.She looked satisfied by their curiosity and attention, raising her chin defiantly.

“When?”Marie demanded.

“Two days ago.I was walking alone backstage, and I saw someone in a mask,” Rochelle replied.“And a cape.”

“This is a theater.There are always people in costume,” Blanche scoffed, but her voice was shaking.“It could have been anyone.”

“It felt like him,” Rochelle countered.“For the first time in months, it didn’t feel like the Opéra was empty.”

Something a little like hope surged inside Meg, but she tamped it down.It was too fantastical.“I heard Jammes telling someone that Christine Daaé carried the ghost away with her when she ran off and jilted the Vicomte de Chagny,” Meg stated.She’d been holding onto that one.

“How does one carry a ghost off?”Rochelle asked with a sneer.

“She was a witch, that one.Maybe she trapped him in a crystal ball or something,” Marie suggested.The little dancer had always been vocal in her disdain of Christine, maybe because she had taken some of the spotlight from others.Marie herself had enjoyed a brush with fame when she had posed for a scandalous sculpture by Monsieur Degas.

“So she put him in her pocket and ran away, so he could torture and enchant people for her?”Blanche said.“I doubt that.”

“It isn’t a coincidence that everything happened around her, and the chandelier fell while she was singing,” Meg offered.“My mother says—”

“Do you have any thoughts of your own?”Rochelle snapped.“Your mother says this.Your mother knows that.All because she claims she waited on the ghost for years.”

“She did!”Meg protested.

“Well, I saw something that looked like him and I believe my own eyes, not some doddering concierge,” Rochelle hissed, and Meg’s cheeks burned.

“But everyone—” Marie began, and Rochelle shot her a glare.

“If you’re so certain the ghost is gone, go down to the fifth cellar and see.”Rochelle issued the challenge with a crooked, cruel smile.

“I will then.”Meg turned on her heel and strode to the closest staircase.She didn’t look back at her aghast friends (though she had no idea if they were aghast, or even if they were really friends or just cruel girls she worked with and knew).Meg’s bravery was like the flare of a match, and she knew it would burn out quickly.

All she had to do was go down to the lowest cellars, look about and see that there was no ghost there and come back up.That was all.There was no reason for her heart to thunder so.There was no need to be afraid.Her mother assured her that the ghost had departed and Meg herself had felt the emptiness in the building for weeks.

She could feel it now, couldn’t she?

She found herself in a dark corridor with walls of cold, gray stone, like a castle or a prison.It was incredibly quiet, like all the noise of the world was shut out here, and the dim light of the gas lamps left so much in shadow.Perfect places for a specter to hide.For something to watch.

Meg shivered, despite herself.

The Phantom was gone, and she knew that.So why did she feel like the dark was alive once again?Why did she feel the air vibrating as if a predator were waiting in the dark, preparing to strike?Meg moved further into the dark, crossing herself as she did.

This was stupid.She was letting her imagination get away with her.Mother would tell her to laugh at the dark.It wasn’t shadows that could hurt you, but people.

Had it been a shadow that killed Philippe de Chagny when he drowned that night?The question made Meg shudder again.The tulle of her skirt rustled in the dark and then seemed to echo right behind her...

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