Page 7 of Angel’s Flight (The Phantom Saga #4)

Meg lingered as long as she could in the rehearsal salon in case anyone else wanted to talk to her.

Maybe Rochelle would have something to say about it all.

She had been sour all morning because no one was interested in her old story.

A smug smile was about to form on Meg’s face as she looked over at her sometimes friend, but it fled when she saw the patron arrive.

She didn’t know the man’s name, but Meg knew his sort. He had a cruelty about his smile as he accosted Rochelle and took her by the elbow.

“Sorry to be late,” he muttered. Rochelle didn’t seem disappointed that he had not come to watch rehearsals.

“Patrons aren’t allowed here for these sorts of practices,” Rochelle said, looking sidelong at Meg, as if for help. How could Meg help her? And why?

“I shall have to talk to – ah, here is the man himself,” the patron said cheerfully as none other than Armand Moncharmin entered the room. The manager looked as unhappy to see the patron as Rochelle.

“What is the problem?” Moncharmin asked the young dancer and the man who had to be twenty years older than her.

“I was informing Monsieur Tremblay that rehearsals such as these are closed to patrons,” Rochelle said.

“Indeed, they are,” Moncharmin replied before Tremblay could argue. Meg noted how incensed the older man looked, but his ire was focused on Rochelle, not the manager.

“Well, we shall see,” Tremblay muttered. Meg wasn’t able to see how he left with Rochelle – she was too distracted by Moncharmin turning his attention entirely to her. In a heartbeat, he was a foot from her, looking discerningly over his half-moon spectacles.

“Monsieur Moncharmin, how can I help you?” Meg stammered. Why did she feel like she was about to be in awful trouble?

“It has come to my attention that you had some sort of encounter this morning in the cellars?” His question was pointed. Meg found herself gulping and shrinking into the floor.

“I saw the ghost,” Meg replied, her voice small. “In the cellars, out of the shadows. I saw him.”

“No, you did not,” Moncharmin countered smoothly. “There is no Opera Ghost. Not anymore.”

“I’m not lying! I know what I saw.”

Moncharmin frowned at her, clicking his tongue. “I have no doubt you saw something, but it was most likely a fireman. Maybe a rat catcher. They lurk down there sometimes and have a habit of frightening people.”

“Rochelle saw something too!” Meg tried, looking at the empty corner where her fellow ballerina had just been. “I’m sure others have.”

“They have,” Moncharmin replied, much to Meg’s shock.

“What?”

“I make it my business as the now-sole manager to keep abreast of all the rumors that circulate, especially given the colorful reputation this opera has gained in recent years,” Moncharmin explained, sounding exhausted.

“There are always people telling stories about seeing things in the dark or their costumes mysteriously disappearing or someone sabotaging their music.”

“Because the Opéra is haunted!” Meg was perhaps surprised that in one day, she had gone from believing the Opéra was once haunted to knowing in her very soul that it always would be.

“Because artists in all theaters have vivid imaginations and love a good story. It’s more amusing to believe a ghost stole your tutu than to accept the truth that you left it in the dressing room,” Moncharmin smiled, the gaslight reflecting off his spectacles and brown hair.

“Just as it’s more exciting to have an encounter with a phantom in the cellars than to see a shadow from an old set piece. ”

“It wasn’t a—” Meg began to doubt herself. What had she seen?

“I came here to assure you, as I do all employees who have such encounters and stories, that you are safe here,” Moncharmin went on, sincere and kind now.

Meg didn’t feel safe, though. She felt ignored and dismissed. “The ghost never threatened me. Or anyone good,” Meg added. The ghost had gone after cruel people like Carlotta or Joseph Buquet... The man he had killed. How had Meg forgotten that?

“Who is good or bad is a hard thing to judge, so we will leave that to God, not ghosts.” Moncharmin looked at the other door to the studio. “Ah, your chaperone is here. Good evening, Madame Giry.”

Meg’s mother looked thunderous. She held her shawl about her shoulders with white knuckles, and her chignon was mussed, as if she’d rushed here. Meg wanted to become a wood panel on the floor.

“Meg, what is going on?” her mother demanded. “We need to get home.”

“Nothing untoward, Madame. I was just assuring Meg of the Opéra’s continued safety after the incidents this spring.”

“Wonderful. Come along, Meg.” Meg scurried after her mother, casting one last look at the manager. He appeared pleased with himself, as if he’d successfully doused another fire of rumor and everything would be alright now.

“I know what I saw. The ghost is still here,” Meg declared, as much for herself as for her mother (who clearly had heard the tale at this point).

“The ghost is not for us to meddle with or understand.” The response surprised Meg. She had been expecting Mother to act like Moncharmin and tell her she was a silly child, seeing things. “If you want to stay safe here, don’t spread stories. True or false.”

“But—” Her mother silenced Meg with a glare, and the conversation was over.

They said no more as they left the Opera through the back entrance. It was significantly less grand to go out this way than through the grand foyer with its mosaics and marble and statues. Yet, even here, as they passed offices and empty halls, Meg felt a chill. A familiar chill.

There was something in the Opéra. She knew it not merely because she had seen it, but because she could feel it now that she tried. The sense of the place breathing, of the building holding in pain like a bandaged wound. It was still there. Maybe it had left before, but something had returned.

Meg shivered at the thought as they crossed the threshold.

She looked to her mother for comfort, only to find her distracted, hand thrust into her pocket.

What was she reaching for? Meg couldn’t entirely see, but when her mother withdrew her hand Meg caught the slightest glimpse of something white. Like paper.

Like a note.