Paris, France   Present Day        

“One of the most magnificent buildings in the world is the
Paris Opera located at La Place de L’Opéra.  It seats two thousand and has seventeen
stories, taking up three acres
of land. Seven of these are below ground, and two contained pieces of the
famous lake depicted in Gaston Leroux’s famous story The Phantom of the
Opera.
 
Unlike other buildings, the opera house has levels it
inhabited underground. There we find chorus rooms, green rooms, ballrooms, set
rooms, cellars for waste props, closets, dressing rooms, and many other kinds
of rooms.
 
The underground levels used to contain all sorts of gruesome
objects from various operas that have been produced. Their gruesome effect
became evident in Leroux’s novel.”
 
Kimee paused in reading and looked up from the
brochure.   Something flickered in and
around the shadows of the statues upon the roof.   She rubbed her eyes a moment and
did a double
take, but it vanished.
 
“Go on,” Tommy playfully yanked on the brochure.  Kimee continued, “The Phantom of the
Opera, based on the opera house, portrayed a young singer, Christine Daae,
and Erik, the disfigured genius known as the Phantom who inspired and trained
her voice, only to become obsessively in love with her.”
 
Mae and her four friends stared up at the exquisite statues
which adorned the roof of this 
majestic building, imagining they where up among all the
splendor of the Baroque architecture. 
 
Kimee squinted her blue eyes as she tried to shade them with
her hands.   The funny, floppy hat she
wore and her thin frame made her look younger her eighteen years. 
 
Twanda acted more mature then her eighteen years and donned
shades as she stepped a little farther back, with her camera, trying to capture
a shot of the figures upon the roof. 
 
For an instant, the shadow appeared again and flickered in
and among the statues.  It seemed to
remain on the dark side of the figures, but liked to pause now and again, as if
watching her.  Twanda looked up from the
camera. Her light brown complexion showed a bit of shine from the perspiration
caused from the sun’s heat.  
 
“Did anybody see that shadow moving up on the roof?” Twanda
squinted behind her dark glasses.
 
“I saw it.  Could be a
tour,” answered Mae, who looked up at the roof as well. 
 
“Mmm, maybe,” Twanda tried to focus her lens. Mae wore her
short brown hair in layers which met her shoulders and shone almost red in the
light of day.  At five feet tall,
everything about her voluptuous figure indicated she possessed more maturity
than most nineteen year olds.  She stood
with confidence in herself and her own decisions.
 
Tommy and Doone joked around and shoved each other
playfully.  Even though twenty-five year
old Doone had dropped out of high school, Tommy and the others treated him like
family.  Doone wore his dark hair long
and somewhat stringy.  His thin, lanky,
frame made him walk with stooped shoulders because of his taller than average
height.  The sun illuminated off his
tie-dyed shirt and faded jeans. 
 
Nineteen year old Tommy, who sometimes acted fourteen, also
wore his straight black hair long, but not as stringy.  He loved theatre and music
just as much as
Doone, but he would never give up an education or a job for them, as Doone had. 
 
The two guys paused for a moment in their macho playfulness,
as Doone eyed Mae lovingly.  He wondered
if she ever really saw him.  In his eyes,
no woman could ever look more beautiful than she.  For a long time he wanted to tell
her how he
felt, but he knew having no job, and living with his father, presented no
security for a woman.  Like most females,
she’d want a home and money in the bank, neither of which he had to offer.
 
 This trip to Paris became a dream come
true for all except Twanda, who had visited the
City of Lights on her sixteenth birthday.  Their parents
had agreed to allow them this little fling before college, only if they agreed
to chaperones.  Therefore, they hired
Mrs. Betty Carlyle and  Miss Linda Peters
to escort them through France. 
 
“Are we going up to the roof?” asked Mae, as she stepped
back with Twanda, who struggled to take a clear picture.
 
“We’d better.  This
whole “Phantom of the Opera” thing has us all in a tizzy.  I wanna know what it was
like for Christine
and Raoul on the roof,” Twanda finally snapped the picture. 
 
“I would love to meet the Phantom,” Mae sighed longingly and
grinned. 
 
“If you really met him, you’d faint,” Kimee brushed a blonde
strand of hair from her eyes. 
 
“I would not.  I would
just talk to him.”  
 
Kimee and Twanda laughed and started making kissing noises. 
 
“I didn’t say kiss him. I said talk to him,” Mae smiled,
shyly, as she playfully defended herself.  “Well, maybe a little kiss.”  
 
Even though Leroux’s novel depicted the Phantom as this
hideous, mad genius, stalking the young diva, Christine Daae, Mae had always
pictured him as a mysterious, handsome 19th Century gentleman, with
a dark past, and a slightly deformed face.  But then, so did most of the girls her
age and younger, since the stage
version and the musical film made their appearance.
 
“I just wanna be the Phantom. Knowing all that magic and
ventriloquism and with all that lurking in shadows and trapdoors. Way
cool!”  Doone barked in his Valley-boy
accent, as he tried to imitate the way he thought the Phantom would twirl his
cape.  
 
“Doone, you are so lame.  Do you want to live under the Opera House?” Twanda snapped. 
 
“Why not?  No rent, no
neighbors, way cool! Then my dad wouldn’t be complaining that I’m
good-for-nothing,” he half laughed, though deep inside, he screamed in pain.
 
Twanda and Kimee rolled their eyes.  Mae motioned for them to follow her. 
 
“Come on, I see Mrs. Carlyle and Miss Peters.  They want us to go in,” Mae took off
towards
the entrance, and the others followed.
 
The Opera House had an amazing lobby and grand foyer.  Exquisite sculptures and
elaborate carvings
decorated the handrail of the grand staircase ascending into the upper
levels.   Sconces reminiscent of the late
1800’s illuminated the ascension. 
 
The huge columns and high ornate ceiling appeared like
nothing they could have ever possibly imagined.  A magnificent chandelier hung high
in all its glory in the grand foyer
with various scenes painted on the ceiling above it.  Such scenes even included angels.
 
Unfortunately, they only conducted tours of the lobby and
only during performances in the auditorium or theatre.  With no performances at this
hour, the five
had to mill around in the lobby with their chaperones.
 
 Just before leaving
the gift shop, Twanda had to ask about the roof, since that seemed off limits
as well.
 
“Excuse me,” began Twanda to the cashier.  “We were told that there are only tours of
the lobby and only during performances.  But what about the roof?  We saw
someone on the roof a few minutes ago.”
 
The cashier, a mature woman, with her silver hair drawn up
into a bun at the back of head, frowned a bit and replied with a French accent,
“You are mistaken, mademoiselle.  There
would be no one on the roof today.  Occasionally, we have special requests, but not
today.” 
 
Mae and Twanda exchanged puzzled looks.  “But we saw someone moving up there and then
looked down on us,” Mae added.
 
“You are mistaken.  There was no one on the roof,” came the sharp reply as if to
dismiss
them.  Seeing their questions went
nowhere, the girls turned to join their group.
 
“I don’t get it,” mumbled Twanda, checking her digital
camera.  “I bet I got a picture of
whoever was up there.”  She flipped out
the viewer.
 
“Do you think it was the Opera Ghost?” Mae teased, peering
into the viewer with her.
 
“Shoot!  Nothing!”
cried Twanda in disgust as she slapped the viewer closed.
 
All of the dressing rooms and seats seemed to be off limits
to tourists, especially Box Five the Phantom’s favorite balcony seat.  The five
friends just had to get inside.  After all, what does off limits mean to a
couple of guys like Tommy and Doone? 
 
Someone had to keep the chaperones busy while the young men
attempted to unlock Box Five. Twanda, and Kimee kept firing questions at Miss
Peters and Mrs. Carlyle about the paintings some distance away, while Mae and
Tommy watched Doone put his skills to use picking the lock.  They had to be quick
and quiet.  They didn’t want the embarrassment of getting
caught.
 
 Finally, after
fumbling for a few minutes, the lock clicked and the door opened.   Rich crimson
velvet walls caught their eyes
first and then clothes hooks, which hung in a line on the wall to their right
as they entered the tiny entry room.  A
small lamp mounted on the wall lit the way.  Four seats lay before them just passed
the red velvet curtain that could
be closed to separate the seats from the tiny entry room.
 
They only spoke in whispers, but mainly gestured to keep
from being discovered.  Doone immediately
went to the column behind the seat to his left.  He felt a strange feeling like he’d
been there before, déjà vu?  When his hands touched the pillar, he seemed
to remember a counterweight existing on the other side, and when engaged it
would open the pillar, allowing entrance into the box through the hollow column.
 
Mae and Tommy tried out the seats and pretended to be
Christine Daae and Raoul de Chagny, the two sweethearts from Leroux’s
novel.  Doone acted like the Phantom,
using comical scary hand gestures.
 
But a solemn moment occurred during their pretense when
something strange possessed them.  Mae
rose from the seat, as if in a trance and locked eyes with Doone.  Suddenly, he
became very serious, drawing
himself up to his full height.  Upon
extending his hand, she walked to him and accepted it, the way Christine
responded to the Phantom when his song summoned her through the looking glass.
 
When their hands touched, he drew her to him and leaned down
to taste her lips.  She, in turn,
stretched upward to meet his.  The sweet
scent of sandalwood swirled in the air.
Tommy, puzzled at his friends’ weird behavior, as he jumped
up and separated the two before their lips met.  The spell broke. The scent of
sandalwood vanished.  They couldn’t imagine what had come over
them. 
 
The three decided they had found nothing even remotely
different about the box, but it thrilled them to see the Phantom’s favorite
seats. They tried to dismiss the kiss that nearly happened, by leaving quickly,
and heading for the exit.
 
As the door closed behind them, a flickering shape with
blazing orbs hovered in the shadows.  In
a moment, a quiet rustle stirred near the hollow column, behind the same seat
that attracted Doone.
 
As Mae, Tommy and Doone emerged from the box; they quietly
closed the door and hurried so Twanda and Kimee could take their turn.
 
Mae took up the chore of dishing out twenty questions about
everything to the chaperones.  Tommy and
Doone swayed back and forth constantly to block their view, as Twanda and Kimee
crept upstairs and entered Box Five.
 
Pretty soon the girls returned to the group.
 
“Now that was lame!” exclaimed Kimee as they followed the
chaperones around the lobby.
 
“It was the Phantom’s seat.  I liked it.”  Everybody turned and
glared at Tommy.
 
“It was cool!”
 
“It was an empty box, Tommy.  What’s cool about an empty box?” Twanda retorted.
 
Once again, curiosity got the better of the five, and
someone had to keep Peters and Carlyle busy while the others sought out the
dressing room of Christine Daae, where her Angel of Music allegedly led her
through the mirror. 
 
This time, Doone and Tommy stayed with Kimee to occupy the
chaperones, while Mae and Twanda sneaked up the gorgeous, spacious stairs.  
 
On the first level, they found all the dressing rooms and
storage rooms sealed.  Not skilled in
picking locks like Doone, the girls had no way of getting inside or even
guessing which one had belonged to Christine.
 
They wandered aimlessly in the corridor for a few minutes,
but afraid of being gone too long, they decided to return to the lobby.  Mae stopped
short when she heard singing.
 
“Do you hear that?” she asked.  Twanda froze in her tracks to listen.  The singing
stopped.
 
 “Don’t hear
anything.  Let’s go,” Twanda started for
the lobby, but Mae couldn’t move.  She
heard it again; the beautiful golden tones of a male tenor wrapped themselves
around her and pulled her on.  
 
As if in a trance, Mae moved to the door a little ways
down.  Twanda called to her in whispers,
but Mae didn’t respond and proceeded to turn the door handle.
 
Surprisingly enough, the door, now unlocked, swung
open.  A dim wall lamp in the back of the
room provided the only light.  A few,
scattered stuffed chairs filled the room, as well as a table near the door.  Before
her, deep inside the chamber, stood a
beautiful full-length mirror, with a gilded frame and gold leafing, beckoning.
Twanda moved inside with her.  
 
“Was this the same room Christine used when the Phantom came
for her?” Twanda wondered aloud.
 
Mae didn’t answer.  The mirror beckoned. Carefully she examined it, running her
fingertips
along the sides and bottom, but her height prevented her from reaching the top.
 
“We’d better go.  We’ve been gone too long,” and with that Twanda disappeared out
the door
and into the corridor.
 
Mae didn’t seem to hear her or notice she had gone.  The singing began again.  It
filled her soul and engulfed the mortal
body.  When she closed her eyes, her
world vanished while her mind and soul soared to the ethereal realm of the
gods.  
 
As the voice continued, Mae opened her eyes and for an
instant, she stared at her own reflection.  But in doing so, she thought she’d seen
the reflection of a mask behind
her.  
 
The soft sweet voice floated up through the vents and again
filled the air with strains of a song that thrilled her to the very bone.
Though she tried to resist, it compelled her to take hold of the gloved hand
reaching out to her from the mirror.  The
scent of sandalwood waltzed all around her as the hand pulled her through the
glass.