The Phantom Diaries (15 page)

I nodded, but Aaron seemed unwilling to let it go. “I can bring him home with me. I have plenty of space, you could come by to see him whenever you want and I would tend to him when I’m home.”

“When are you ever home, Aaron?” Brenda asked.

“And you live too far from me,” I interjected. “I can’t take the time to go to your place very often.”

“Then why don’t you just move in with me?”

Brenda threw up her hands and backed away. “I think that’s my cue to go in and get some nice hot tea.”

I tried to laugh off Aaron’s suggestion, but he wasn’t smiling at all. “It would only be temporary; until you found yourself a larger apartment.”

“That could take quite a while.”

“I’m in no hurry.”

“Aaron.”
 
The puppy wiggled in my arms and I set him down. “Whether the puppy is at your place or mine, I have no time right now to take care of anything other than what I already have going on.”

His jaw tightened and I could see he was unhappy with my answer. But moving in with him was out of the question.

December 21
^st
, 2009

Dear Diary

I’ve still not heard a word from Eric. Although his note made his feelings clear, I still don’t understand why he’s doing this. How could he have spent so much time with me during my training for the part only to now leave me with no support at all?

It’s too much to think about, yet I can’t stop thinking.
 
Kristine.
 
Aaron.
 
Rupert. I know they all have a connection with Eric, but I can’t fathom what that connection could be. With Eric only a few years older than I am, what possible connection could he have with the Kristine from a hundred years earlier?

I must speak to Aaron. Not to discuss this, I doubt he could give me the answers I’m looking for, but to ask to be excused from the show for a few nights.

“Annette, the show is off and running, and you’re the reason behind that. How can you possibly consider taking a few days off?”

“I know the timing is bad, but I’m greatly needed back home.”

“But how will we…?”

“Caroline can take over. She does a wonderful job of…”

“People didn’t pay to see your understudy, Annette. They want to see you. They paid hundreds of dollars to see you.”

“You were ready to whisk me off to Paris,” I accused.

He had no argument for that one.

“Look,” I said with a softer tone. “It would only be for a few nights, Aaron, I promise.” We were seated in his office at the Met and I was suddenly feeling suffocated by the dark walls. Why was he being so difficult? “I could take a late flight Saturday night after the show. There’s no show on Sunday, so if I come back for Tuesday afternoon, I’ll have only missed one performance.”

He nodded but was plainly unhappy with the situation.

“One night,” I pleaded.

“Fine. I’ll advise Tom to prepare Caroline.

***

“
Maman
,” I cried when I opened the door and rushed into the home I’d grown up in.

“
Chéri
,” I heard
 
her call out from the kitchen. She rushed out and I was soon smothered in kisses. “
Ah, ma petite coquette
.
 
Let me see how New York has changed my little girl.” She grasped by shoulders and held me at arms length for an inspection.

“
Maman
,” I lamented. It was the same inspection I’d often received after being sick or coming home from a date.

“You’re pale and thin.” She pinched my cheeks.
 
“And look at those circles beneath your eyes. What are they doing to you up there,
ma belle
?”

“I’m just working a bit too hard,
Maman
.”

“Hmmm,” she groaned in disbelief. “Wait ‘til your father sees you. He’s likely to not let you leave New Orleans again.”

I smiled and sat at the kitchen table. Hot tea was already steaming from an old family teapot and I poured myself a soothing cup.

“Is your fatigue the only reason for making your way home?”

She always knew how to get to the heart of the matter. No matter how hard I tried to hide what was going on in my life or in my head, she always knew.

“You know, when I was younger people used to call me Michelle
La Savante
?”

“I know,
Maman
.” It was almost like a sixth sense. She could pick up on the most minute detail and read a host of emotions in it.

“Then stop stalling and come right out with it.”

“I guess meeting new friends in New York has led me to question a lot about where we’re from. I mean, they asked me about my heritage and I wasn’t really sure what to say. And I guess the opera I’m singing has me intrigued about Paris as well.”

“So you’d like to find out more about your lineage.”

“I was really too young to remember my parents when I was sent to the orphanage, but I do remember the nuns talking about me when they thought I wasn’t listening.
 
I’d always wondered why they looked at me strangely, almost as though they feared me. Well, it turned out they thought my parents were gypsies.”

“You never told me that before.”

She sipped her tea and gazed heavily into her cup. “I’d never really given it much importance. Just the babbling of some old fools who had nothing else to talk about. I was tiny, with long dark hair and I was able to do what many girls twice my age couldn’t do. I knew things; things that a young child shouldn’t know. I thought all this might have spooked them and led them to fabricate some explanation for my strange ways.”

“Do you think they were gypsies who…?”
 
I didn’t even know how to finish the question.

“Performed magic?” she finished for me. “As I got older, I heard more and more rumors. Sometimes even from the girls I boarded with. Some claimed an ancestor of mine had played so much with the black magic that she’d gone crazy. Had completely lost her mind to the potions and spells. Her heart filled with hatred and a need to avenge everything that had ever gone wrong in her life and that of her family.

“She’d been set to marry a rich aristocrat and when her plans failed, she vowed to see the family ruined. Instead she just ended up ruining herself.”

Stunned, I stared at my mother, reluctant to ask the question to which I already knew the answer. “What was her name?”

“Kristine.”

I felt as though someone had punched me in the chest. I choked on my tea and felt the world slip out from under me.

“You okay,
ma belle
?”

“Hot,” I said, fanning my mouth. “What ended up happening to this Kristine?”

“Her career ended not long after that.” She stopped cold and stared at me. “Do you know that they say she was a world renowned opera singer for the Paris Opera House? And here you are following in her footsteps. I guess you were destined to be famous,
ma chérie
.”

I guess, I thought wryly.

“Although I certainly do hope you don’t meet the same fate. For all her talent, no one knew her name a year later. She threw it all away in her need to get back at the family of her betrothed.” She tapped the edge of her teacup and glanced at the ceiling. “Now what was his name?”

A wave of nausea swept through me. “Aragon.”

Her eyes were on mine in an instant. “Yes, Rupert Aragon” she whispered in awe. “How did you know?”

“First tell me more about Kristine, Maman. What relation is she to you; to me?”

“I’m not quite certain, but I believe she was a cousin of my grandmother.”

“And what did she do after her career ended.”

“She delved deeper and deeper into the potions and spells. Her life revolved around casting a spell to put an end to the Aragon name. From what I’ve been told, she died, young and alone in the countryside east of Paris.”

“Do you know what she looked like?”

“She was beautiful; captivatingly so. No man could resist her. Some claimed it was the magic, others simply say she was that magnificent a creature. Alluring, seductive and with a way with men few women in her day had. Other than that, I can't really say what she looked like. But if you’re really that interested, I’m sure you could find some old posters from the operas she took part in. Look up the Paris Opera House. I believe she would have played there in the late 1800s.”

“I’m going to take an hour or so to go to the library to use their computer,” I said as I stood and reached for my bag. “I’ll be back for supper.”

As I entered the library, I felt shadowed. Perhaps I should have asked my mother to come with me; offer moral support. The very thought sounded silly. I was grown up.
 
I lived in New York City for heaven’s sake. I could do a little research on my own without… without what?
 
Freaking out? My fear of what I might find was almost paralyzing.
 

I rushed to the wall of computers before my legs could give out on me. My fingers clumsily tapped over the keys and I was easily able to find something on the Paris Opera House. Finding a poster of a show Kristine had taken part in was a little more complicated, but I finally came upon a poster and without even seeing her name I knew it was her.

She was elegantly dressed in a gown from the 1700s and her dark hair was pulled up with ringlets framing her face. Despite the outdated allure, there was no mistaking the resemblance.

Her cheeks, her lips, her nose and most startlingly her eyes were the same as mine. The poster even had her looking quite charming and demure, words I’d never heard mentioned in the same sentence as Kristine’s name.

I thought of Eric and his reluctance to get closer to me because of my resemblance to Kristine. “My God, Eric,” I murmured as I stared at the screen.
 
“How can this be? How can you have loved her, been betrayed by her?”

Chapter 17

December 22
^nd
, 2009

Dear Diary,

Though I was home with my mom and dad where I’ve always felt secure, I had a restless night as thoughts of Kristine swirled in my mind repeatedly. Nothing makes sense.
 
The connection between Kristine and Eric is absurd. And my part in it all only adds to the absurdity.

Adding to my confusion is a call I received from Judy. Apparently my absence from the opera house isn’t going well.

“What do you mean the Phantom’s back?” I asked. I noticed the odd look on my mother’s face and took the phone out to the terrace.

“Caroline went the way of Marie; freaking out when strange sounds started to interrupted her rehearsals. She tried a few times, but the roar became deafening.”

I remembered hearing the strange sounds that had resulted in Marie leaving the role.

“I mean, I don’t scare easily, but man, I was running out of there shaking.”

“What are they going to do?”

“They’re trying another girl now. She usually plays the role of Vivian and says she knows all the songs. Of course she doesn’t sing like you, but she might be able to pull it off.”

My brain reviewed the cast and tried to find who played Vivian; Midge, an older woman with raging red hair and a portly figure. How in the world was she going to fit in any of the costumes?

I started and almost dropped the phone when a loud crash rang in my ears accompanied by a screech from Judy.

“Judy?
 
Judy? What happened?” I screamed into the phone. “Judy, are you there?”

“Annette, oh my God.” Her voice was shaky and frightened.

“What happened?”
 
I felt on the verge of panic.

“The huge chandelier, the one that hangs in the ballroom for the big dancing scene. It fell. It just fell. Hang on a minute.”

I could hear Judy’s footsteps and with every step I could hear the chaos in the background increase in volume.

“Jesus,” she whispered.

“What?” I said, also in a whisper.

“The damn thing almost decapitated the poor woman. It must have missed her by barely an inch.”