Chapter 3 #3
I closed my eyes, picturing myself onstage. I wore Marguerite’s costume from Act IV, Scene ii, a sweeping brocaded gown, complete with veil and rosary beads. I was a penitent, heartbroken woman, pleading with God for forgiveness and mercy.
“Seigneur, daignez permettre à votre humble servante de s’agenouiller devant vous!” I began.
A mouse could have sounded more convincing.
“Seigneur—”
My voice cracked; I was sharp. I played the phrase on the piano, making sure to correct my intonation. I hummed the melody again. Then again.
“Seigneur, daignez permettre à votre humble servante…” I shook my head, determined to get it right. “Seigneur, daignez permettre à votre humble servante…Seigneur…”
I let out a shriek of frustration, and even that sounded small and insignificant.
I sank onto the piano bench, picking out the next part, but any desire to sing it had died. I buried my head in my hands, clunking out a jumble of discord as my elbows slammed into the keys.
“Try again,” a voice said, low-pitched and masculine.
I looked up, horrified someone had borne witness to my dismal attempts. But the dressing room door was still shut, the latch twisted left from when I’d locked myself in before starting this futile endeavor.
“Is—is someone there?” I asked, peering into the shadowed corners.
“Try again,” the voice repeated. It sounded warm and encouraging, but my blood ran cold.
I stood and stalked over to a stack of crates, searching for the intruder. No one.
I whipped back the Onegin drapes, certain the stranger was hiding behind them. But no.
I whirled round to the door, wondering if he was out in the hall, if he had heard every note I’d tried.
I pictured Joseph Buquet with his sneering face, ear pressed to the door.
Or Lisette, Meg, and the entire cast, stifling back mean-spirited snickers as they judged.
Or Carlotta, dark and thunderous and ready to throttle me.
But the hall was empty.
My room was empty.
There was no one here but me.
I shut the door, then pressed myself against it, slowly collapsing to the floor as I tried to parse through what this meant.
I’d been told tales of madwomen who heard things—who heard voices—that were not there. They were sent to institutions like Clermont, in Oise, declared insane and locked away for years.
I pictured myself wandering down such halls, dressed in a sad gray sack of a nightgown, hair loose and feral, as I snarled at instructions that only I could hear. I had no family who would visit me. I had no money to pay for treatments. How long would they keep me there, forgotten and unloved?
“You can’t possibly have enough stamina to support your voice from such a position. Try again, standing this time, if you please.”
“Where are you?” I asked, stubbornly remaining in my puddle of skirts. If I’d gone mad, then let me be mad.
“I’m here.”
“Where?” I demanded.
“With you,” the voice said. “That’s all that matters, isn’t it? I’m here. With you. To help.”
“Help me what?”
“To sing, of course. Isn’t that what you wanted? Isn’t this what you’ve waited for?”
There was no possible way I was having this conversation. My mind had broken. Monsieur Lefèvre would have to send the men in white coveralls to come and collect me.
Only…I didn’t feel sick. I wasn’t hysterical. I wasn’t seeing things. I had the foresight to ponder my sanity, and surely that was a sign it was wholly intact.
So I wasn’t mad.
I brightened. Perhaps I’d fallen asleep at the piano and was dreaming. It was a reasonable explanation, a logical one, one that wouldn’t land me in an asylum, and it was simple enough to prove.
I pinched my wrist, twisting a bit of flesh, and the pain seemed real enough.
I glanced at the mirror—wasn’t there some adage about seeing your reflection in dreams?—but my face looked exactly as it always had.
I blew out a breath of frustration, only to suck it back in as a dark thought occurred to me.
What if I’d actually been struck by that falling arch in rehearsal or had been murdered by Carlotta shortly after, in her incandescent rage?
What if I was dead?
My stomach roiled with painful worry.
This couldn’t possibly be what heaven was like. Was it hell?
“Christine,” the voice said, my name a comforting caress I could almost feel against the shell of my ear. “You’re not mad. You’re not asleep.” He—and I was certain now it was a he—let out a soft chuckle. “And you’re not dead.”
“How did you know that’s what I was thinking?”
“I know everything, Christine. I know you. I know that when you were a small girl, your father made a promise to you—one you always wished would come true.”
I froze.
Father had made many promises, some that had come true and others—so very many others—which had not. But the one I’d hoped for most, the one I’d comforted myself with so many nights as I’d tried to fall asleep, was—
“Don’t you remember?” the voice asked. “It’s a wonder you’ve not guessed it already. Not sensed it. But here I am. I’ve come for you at last.”
“Who?” I persisted, needing to hear him say it out loud. “Who are you?”
I could hear the voice’s smile. “Your Angel of Music.”