"Men hate the things they fear, and they fear those things they do not understand."
Susan Kay, Phantom
I hold my eyes closed as I'm carried downstairs. The guy's muscles strain with each step of our descent. His warm skin radiates a familiar spice: cinnamon and sage infused with male pheromones and body heat. My stomach contracts, an abnormal reaction that makes me nauseous. I fight the sensation along with the terrifying memory of the last time I let a guy get too close.
"Mer?i, Monsieur Reynolds," Aunt Charlotte mumbles to him. "Take her to chambre de cinq." She moves somewhere behind us. "You told me of her stage fright. But this? Is extrême, no?" There's a worried edge to her voice.
"She always goes weak in the knees, but she's never passed out before." Mom rubs my shin, comforting. "I think she was just too worked up over everything. She's been researching the place … heard that it was tied to The Phantom of the Opera book. Then she thought she saw some masked guy outside. She doesn't just have Leo's hair, she has his superstitious nature. You know what it's like to try to reason with someone in that state of mind." Her voice is accusatory, and I wince inwardly. Not just because of the reference to Grandma's crazed fingerprint on our lives, but because I hear a lot of footsteps behind us on the stairs. All I need is for the other students to know about my recent literary obsession.
But Mom's not thinking about that. She's at her wit's end with my "superstitions." She made financial sacrifices the past two years, pouring every spare dime into voice lessons for me. Even though she sought out teachers who played the violin, none of their instruments spoke to me like Dad's. I couldn't perform without becoming ill. Instead of helping, the weekly sessions of operatic techniques and daily three-hour practices seemed to have the adverse effect—pushing my urge to sing to a compulsion.
Mom squeezes my hand, asking me to wake up. Guilt butts against my conscience at the concern in her voice, but the guy's tantalizing heartbeat next to my ear keeps me cocooned in my fake unconsciousness, for his good as much as my own.
I stay limp as I'm laid in a bed. In time, the guy's dangerous warmth and spiced scent fades, replaced by a whiff of chicken soup that ignites a normal hunger.
There's a scatter of movement all around: bags rustling, footsteps shuffling, concerned whispers too soft to decipher. Only when the sounds fade do I dare peek through the strands of hair curtaining my eyes.
A lavender glow illuminates the windowless room. The ceiling stretches high, with dark wooden beams meeting at the epicenter. There's a small closet in the corner, diagonal from where my bed is tucked inside an arched antechamber. On the outer wall overhead, wrought-iron drapery hooks wait to hold the beaded, ginger-colored curtains we bought earlier, to offer added privacy when I sleep. I wish they were already in place so I could hide.
Across the room are a full-length cheval mirror and another antechamber. A dark wooden staircase winds above to a platform with a matching rail, forming a mini-loft. There, a vanity desk and chair are arranged for homework or for making up my face and hair. Beneath the loft, in the snug space where the wall and platform meet, a baroque chaise lounge with a walnut frame and velvet upholstery curves to a sitting area. I shove my hair aside and try to make out the blurred silhouette reclining there.
"Mom?" I ask, my vocal cords stretched and tired.
"She went to the kitchen to fetch you some chamomile tea. Said it helps when you're feeling poorly."
I sit up under my covers, caught off guard by the thick Southern accent. "Who are you?"
"I'm Sunflower Summers. But you can call me Sunny. I was assigned as your peer advisor. To help get you oriented."
"So, you're a student?"
She makes a puffing sound. "Let me guess. You're wondering why a hick like me is in a classy place like this."
I stare at her shadowy form, searching for a way to assure her that wasn't what I meant at all, but my tongue lies as stiff, dry, and hot in my mouth as the devil sunbathing in the desert.
"Look, I may be a country girl," she continues, "but I can play a cello like I was born in the orchestra pit of the London Symphony. Ma says I have the mind of a progeny, and the tongue of a heck-o-billy. My uncle's a oil tycoon. He made sure I was taught proper grammar before he'd pay for my tuition, but I sometimes slip off the wagon a smidge."
Great. I've offended her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything …"
"Don't give it no nevermind. I'm still your number one fan."
"Huh?"
She pushes off the lounge and steps outside of the antechamber. Her hair is red, but the weird lighting shimmers violet along the shoulder-length ends.
"I never heard anyone sing like that," she says, leaning against the stair rail. "It's like you were trained by Christine Daaé herself."
I try to manage a sarcastic snort, but it comes out as more of a sob. For her to mention the heroine from Gaston Leroux's book, she must have been one of the students following us on the stairway.
"I'm betting Kat's never heard anything like it, neither," Sunny continues before I can come up with an excuse for my mom's claim of a phantom sighting.
"Who … ?"
"Katarina. The soloist you threw under the tractor when you came plowing into tryouts."
I cringe. Although I was wrapped within the music, I vaguely remember the gorgeous girl's shocked expression when I stopped to sing beside the stage—her crystal-blue eyes widening, cheeks flushed from peaches-and-cream to a deep plum that almost matched the streak in her long, caramel-blond waves. She appeared simultaneously awed and furious.
I can't believe this is how I made my first impression. Horning in on someone's audition and pretending to be a fainting idiot. A sick shudder rolls through my stomach. Maybe I should take a sip of that chicken soup, after all.
The mug waits on the nightstand along with the lava lamp Mom and I bought. She's already plugged it in, which explains the weird lighting. My bags are piled in a corner beside the closet, and I have the urge again to retrieve my bed curtains and shut myself in.
Instead, I change the subject to something safe. "Are all of the dorms this small?" An attempt to reach for the soup mug reminds me my limbs are still in shock mode. I'm aching all over, as if I were the one thrown under a tractor. I prop my shoulders against the wall behind me and stay burrowed in my cave.
"Yep. They used to be dressing rooms. They tucked the wardrobes and costume trunks in the nooks in the walls to take up less floor space. And that …" She points to the second-story demi-balcony. "Since the ceilings were so high, they came up with those teensy lofts. It's a kooky layout. But you get used to it."
I nod, though I'm battling a sense of gloom without the sunset streaming in. I always feel better when I'm basking in outdoor light. Another reason I love to garden.
"The boys and male teachers are on the second flight, and the girls are on the ground level. All except for Headmaster Fabre and his wife. They share a room down here. The third floor is where our classes and rehearsals take place."
In light of this information, and considering the expansiveness of the opera house, the waiting list for the school seems unnecessary. "Why don't they renovate and open up the fourth through sixth floors for more students?"
"Partly 'cause we don't need them as yet. We have seven live-in instructors to the fifty students. Well, fifty-one, counting you. They want to keep the school small till they can hire more teachers."
She moves closer, her barefoot steps silent across the marble tiles. She's about my height but more toned and muscular. Where I look almost too thin, she looks hardy and fit. Faded jeans and a cap-sleeved T hug her frame.
So the students aren't required to be in uniform on the weekends. Good to know.
"But the biggest reason no one's been on the top three flights is 'cause the stairs are boarded up from the fourth level on. There's a mystery benefactor. A rich architect or something. No one's ever seen him, but he drew up the plans for renovation. Every new room was redesigned by him. He owns the land and the castle. So the investors need his permission and keys to open the sealed floors and renovate. And he's refused to give either so far … says he wants to keep the rooms for storage."
"But the brochure said there were once over three hundred keys. Do you honestly think all the top rooms are for storage?"
She shrugs. "The extra rooms I've seen down here are. Last year, some gals thought they heard noises. Chains jingling and a baby crying. So I lifted the keys off one of the teachers, and after lights-out at nine thirty, looked in all the empty rooms. I thought I'd never pick through that mess of old props and clothes. It was like I'd stepped into another time. Ya know?"
Her words make me think of the vanishing gardener and his outdated clothes. "You've heard the rumors, right? About the secret lair … the bones they found floating in the underground river?"
A snicker bursts from Sunny's lips. "Nothing more than a drowned dog. Our room keys are the only bones still floating around. You haven't seen yours yet … here." She holds up an aged brass key. The shaft is long and ornate, with two jagged teeth on the end. The head looks like a skull.
Although the design is eerie and unsettling, I force a smile. "Gives new meaning to the term 'skeleton key.'"
Sunny grins back. "Right? But the teeth are all different, and the room numbers are engraved on the back. They each open a different door in the academy. So no need to worry about anyone breaking into your dorm."
"Other than someone with a penchant for stealing keys," I tease.
She lifts her palm as if swearing an oath. "I vow to only use my powers for good. So see? Nothing weird going on here. Other than the author basing a few characters on real people, those phantom stories on that forum are all nut-buck. Yeah, there's an underground river, but no one's ever found an entrance to any subterranean house. Not even at that other opera place in the city … the one that this building inspired." She's over by my shopping bags now, digging through them. She pulls out my French fairy tale book and stares at it as if mesmerized.
I try to suppress the image in my mind: the gardener with those familiar glimmering eyes, creeping along the halls at night and clanging hundreds of skeleton keys, searching for his stolen bones … because I'm not at all convinced they belonged to a dog. "What about the sounds the students heard?"
Sunny diverts her gaze from the book and lays it back in the bag. "Oh, it was just ol' Diable prowling around. He's the resident tomcat. Bug ugly and feral as a fox. He looks like a walking SOS pad. The bells on his collar caused the jingles. And he likes to yowl. It can sound like a baby's tantrum when he really gets going. Don't even know why he stays since he won't let no one touch him. He must've belonged to somebody once … his name's written in jewels on his collar. The boys say he's a ghost cat, due to how he sneaks into our rooms even when they're locked."
My eyes widen.
"Sorry," she says, snorting again. "Being so far out in the country, this place can be creepy as a field of devil's tongues. The graveyard out back don't help. Some of us have even seen strange lights coming out of the abandoned chapel at night, but the school has bailiffs who stand guard outside the front and back entrances to enforce the eight o'clock in-house curfew. So there's no sneaking out. But honestly, if anything is haunted, it's the forest." She says it as if it's an afterthought, although her voice is ominous.
"Why do you say that?" I ask, not sure I want to hear anymore.
"Well, I don't get out there much myself, so this is all hearsay." She frowns. "I'm bad allergic to bee stings so the woods are off limits. My ma wouldn't even let me come here without a year's supply of EpiPens." She shrugs. "Anyways, the boys roam out there sometimes. They've gone so far as the cottage. And they've seen things. Or I should say heard things … things that ain't right." A chagrined expression crosses her face. "I mean, aren't right."
"Like … ?"
"A field mouse that croaks like a toad, a lizard that squeals like a wild pig, a fox hooting like an owl. The guys get real inventive when they're trying to scare us girls."
My tongue feels dry again as I remember the mewling crow that I assumed I imagined.
Sunny seems to read the discomfort on my face, because she adjusts her tone. "Aw, just listen to me yammer on. Forget everything I said. They're all made-up stories anyways. And I'm only one door over. Come pounding anytime you get scared."
I mutter, "Thanks," but I won't be getting close to anyone while I'm here. There's no way to pretend I'm even a little normal. Within a few weeks, I'll have a reputation for stealing the limelight that will be impossible to live down, and no one will want to be my friend.
"About Katarina." I wind my hair into a side braid, tying the ends in a knot. "Is she the kind to hold grudges?"
Draped in shadows again, Sunny digs around in her pocket then lifts out what looks like a cigarette. She touches it to her lips, sucks in a breath, and blows out. The end lights up in response, like an LED glow. "You bet she is. And not only did you show her up, you managed a ride in Jackson Reynolds's arms. That's more action than she's seen in the year and a half she's been prowling after him."
Great. Could things get any worse? If only I could tell Katarina she has nothing to worry about. I'm not going to pursue something physical or romantic with anyone. Not after what happened back home with Ben. Just being carried down the stairs by this Jackson guy triggered enough of a reminder to stay true to that promise to myself. But there's no way to bring up something that weird. "Okay … so, you're saying I'll be Kat's new scratching post."
"And unlike Diable, her claws are way worse than her hiss."
I groan and scoot down, sliding into the pillows with a palm over my eyes. "How to make enemies in less than sixty seconds flat. I wrote the freaking book."
Sunny chuckles. "Don't worry. It wasn't like you were auditioning for Renata's role. Audrey is her only real competition. But no one's ever been able to beat Kat out. I'd sure like to see that change."
A caramel scent hovers over me, reminding me of my aunt when she stepped into my personal space earlier. I move my hand to find Sunny standing beside the bed with the cigarette perched on her lower lip. Her face is oval with dark freckles spattered across her nose and cheeks in the shape of a harlequin mask. In the low light, her eyes are a striking shade of bluish purple, and her features are elfin. She resembles some wild wood creature, dressed for a masquerade.
She takes another drag on her glowing stick. Her exhalation curls like condensation from a person's mouth in freezing weather. It's not a traditional cigarette. It's an e-cig. She has it clamped in an elegant holder—a smaller version of the slender black one that Audrey Hepburn used in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
"Do they know you smoke?" At Mom's insistence, I read the student handbook on the way here. Tobacco is a one-way ticket to expulsion and home. I've kept that little tidbit tucked away on the chance I want to get kicked out of this place. Now I know where I could get a supply. Although that would hurt Mom's budding relationship with Aunt Charlotte, so it would have to be a very last resort.
"Nah. They're oblivious. There's no fire or smoke to give me away. It's vaping. I'm practically exhaling water." She hands the cylinder to me.
I run it under my nose, sniffing the sweet aroma, then hand it back.
"I've got an extra atomizer in my room," Sunny says. "If you want one. I lifted the e-juice refills off your aunt. She orders them in bulk from some place online, so she never misses one or two. I kinda like the clove ones, but the chocolates are best. There weren't any of those in her latest stash, though. Unless they're hid behind the boxes of disposable contacts in her armoire. Speaking of, I hope those aren't just for upcoming costume accessories. She needs to incorporate them into her style. Her glasses look like they're from Ben Franklin's special collection."
I can hardly register Sunny's babbles about my aunt's questionable fashion choices; it's too insignificant compared to her other confession. "Wait. You sneak into her room and steal from her?"
"I told you, I use my powers for good. She's been trying to quit smoking since I've been here. I decided to help her along." She wrinkles her freckled nose. "You aren't a snitch, are you? Gonna go running to her because she's your aunt? If she finds out I've been rattling around the teachers' rooms—"
"No. We're not that close." I motion for Sunny to join me inside my bed-cave. Before she sits, she picks up my soup and hands it to me. I nod a thank-you. "To be honest, this is the first time I've met Mademoiselle Fran?ais de fantaisie in my life."
Sunny barks a laugh that comes from her belly—a cheery and round sound that warms me almost as much as the steaming mug in my hand. "So you caught that, did ya? Your aunt even takes us on field trips sometimes, so we can have a real expérience Paris. Still not sure if she's a French diplomat or our dance teacher."
I sip my chicken broth and grin. Maybe I'll make at least one new friend. Sunny's quirky enough to overlook my own eccentricities—like Trig and Janine always did. And her knack for "lifting" things could be useful.
"How about this?" I ask as the soup coats my throat with comfort. "I'll keep quiet about your extraordinary 'talents,' if you can do me a favor in return."
Sunny cocks her head. "A gal who sings like an angel and knows how to blur the line between flattery and blackmail." Taking a puff of her e-cig, she smiles. "A kindred spirit. Okay. What's the favor?"
I swallow more soup to soothe my spinning stomach and attempt to appear mildly interested—as opposed to how I really feel inside: desperate for information. "Tell me anything you know about the estate's gardener. You mentioned there's a cottage somewhere in the forest. Is that where he lives?"
My companion chokes on her caramel-flavored vapor. "Haven't you seen the garden? There hadn't been a keeper … well, since the whole time I've been here. We have a caretaker—Mister Jippetto—who lives in the cottage in the woods, but he mainly tends the cemetery … keeps it tidy. He does a few odds and ends around the school. Pruning the bushes that hang too close to the parking lot, sweeping leaves off the steps, helping us make sets for the stage. Simple maintenance. But he's too old to wrangle all those plants and weeds."
"Too old? I thought he looked like he was our age." I rub my forehead. "Maybe it was one of the students in costume. He was in Victorian clothes, hanging around the garden with a set of pruning shears."
Sunny's eyes meet mine; both honesty and intelligence shine bright inside of them. "I don't know what you think you saw when you got here, but all of us were at auditions. They take roll. Attendance is mandatory. There was a time when the garden was beautiful. I've seen black-and-white pictures in the school library upstairs. But that was back in 1925, when a journalist did a spread on the abandoned opera house to celebrate the Palais Garnier's fiftieth anniversary. The anonymous keeper of that garden would be long dead by now."
My hand spasms and I drop my mug, soaking my jeans and the bed with hot soup.
He arrived at the apartment's secret entrance and found the swan quivering at the bank's edge.
Something was wrong.
"What happened? Why aren't you inside?" he asked, climbing out of the boat and onto the dock that opened into his underground home.
Ange flapped her crimson wings, urging him to hurry. He peeled away his gloves, boots, and cape to prevent trailing mud along the lavishly patterned tiles inside the apartment. The swan warbled low in her throat—a fretful, worried sound. Her webbed feet clacked behind his silent tread in thick woolen socks.
The lanterns along the walls had waned, and being so deep underground meant no windows to invite the last streams of twilight inside. He would've been all but blind had it not been for the glow of his eyes lighting his footsteps. He wove his way through the parlor, past the heavily upholstered furniture, wall tapestries, and garish ornamentation.
He wrestled a familiar niggle of frustration that they still honored the Victorian epoch of antiquity, regardless of how many times he'd tried to bring them into the twenty-first century. The only parts of the house that merited gas lamps or electricity from a generator were the old-fashioned elevator with a gated, cage-style door, the cellar laboratory it led to, and the four-hundred-gallon aquarium that stood on a platform in his bedroom.
The hair on his neck lifted as he passed the birds, animals, and reptiles in shadowy cages and terrariums lining the parlor walls on either side of the pipe organ: a blue jay with a busted wing, a rabbit with a gnawed-off hind leg, a lizard missing one eye—and many other creatures. Some were hurt or orphaned and needed his help; others were patients from procedures he'd done his best to block from his mind, although there was no chance of ever forgetting.
All of them relied on him to stitch them back together with new pieces and parts, and nurse them to health before being returned to the wild. Tonight, they seemed to glare from inside their temporary prisons, judging … accusing. It was as if they could see his own brokenness, how he ached to commit a betrayal so self-serving, he should be caged himself.
He swallowed a groan. All this time he'd waited, hoping he might one day connect with the mirror piece of his soul. His flamme jumelle.
For the academy's new arrival to be that mirror was a twist of the scalpel. He despised the confusion and conflict she inspired in him, and he despised himself for being drawn to her.
"Rune," he muttered in hushed tones. In ancient times, runes were mystical, divine liturgies, powerful enough to cast spells. That explained why he was bewitched by her.
All he could do today was make mistakes. It would have been enough proof to see her eyes from the other side of the mirror, the way they glistened with unspent energy. If he'd only left then, instead of following her through the narrow secret passageways inside the wall to the third floor; instead of watching through the mirrors and hearing her sing …
He knew her the moment he saw her soul bared, the instant she released the first note. He'd heard her in visions for years. She had inspired countless compositions upon his violin.
Today, after hearing her in reality, the music rang in his head and burned an imprint behind his eyes. So many colors and emotions, a spectrum of auras—vivid and alive. An abundance of energy so pure, every sensory receptor in his body had reacted. He tasted the music, more luxurious than fresh honeycomb melting on the tongue; he felt the notes on his skin, soothing like raindrops on a hot day.
He'd never experienced anything so healing and sweet.
Yet it nearly broke her to sing.
He tried to be calculating, tried to remind himself that that was as it should be; that it would work to his advantage—the way it pained her to use her gift. She must despise music by now.
Instead, he couldn't stop thinking that if this were another time, another place, nothing would stop him from reaching out. When she fell to her knees, her aura faded to a dark gray too close to black, drained of vitality; it was all he could do to stay hidden. She was so small in stature, so fine-boned and fragile—like the other songbirds he'd healed throughout his life. He understood her pain. Her energies were unbalanced. He had the ability to help her. Her song never broke her in his visions. Instead, her song was her power, because he played for her.
He cut a glance to his Stradivarius, shut within a case in the corner, sugar-coated in dust and fringed with spider webs. He hadn't touched the violin for two years, ever since the academy first opened. He wondered if she'd missed their duets as much as he had.
But today, the melodic energy he'd absorbed from her song shook the silent wail of the violin's strings and rattled the cage of his ribs. A plea so visceral it sucked the core of his heart dry, making it wither and curl like the dead roses he'd left for her to fret over earlier.
How was he going to do what was expected of him now? To have the girl anywhere close to him would only open his veins and bleed him dry.
He would avoid her as much as possible. He had six weeks until Halloween, when they would meet. Until then, the groundwork for bringing her down could be played out behind the scenes … all his clues placed without ever having to be face-to-face. During that time, he'd find another outlet to stifle his yearnings—a way to push her voice from his conscious mind. Although there was little he could do for the subconscious.
No matter what, he would not lose sight of his goal. He would lure Rune down, then that would be the end of it for him … and the end of life as she knew it for her.
