"Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing."
Khalil Gibran
Sunny, Jax, and I step into the main dining area's dimly lit expanse. Thankfully, the pictures on the TVs have faded to a blank screen, and the music's no longer piping through the speakers. This leaves the candles popping in the background, students chatting quietly, and silverware scraping plates as the only sounds.
The three of us make our way to a seven-seater table wedged into the farthest corner. Two students wait there, faces flashing in the soft candlelight. I take a place on the empty side, positioning myself so I can wave Mom over if she decides to come out of the buffet area and join us.
"Rune, this is Audrey Mirlo," Sunny says, motioning to the girl with the ponytail who Jax was flirting with earlier.
"Also known as our little blackbird." Grinning, Jax flips around a chair at the head of the table to sit on it backward, arms wrapped around the frame. Now it's crystal clear why he wanted to help me carry my food over. How can she not see it, with the way he looks at her?
Audrey gives him a scolding side glare. Then she nods hello. I nod back, sensing tension. I concentrate on the hearty flavor of the pumpernickel and wash it down with a hot sip of nutty cappuccino, trying not to wonder whether she considers me a lucky charm or a rival.
"Howdy there, Sunspot," teases the boy on the other side of Audrey, his sloped, almond eyes locked on Sunny. "Saved a seat for ya, ma'am." The fake Texas accent coaxes my pensive lips to smile.
"Thanks but no thanks, Moonpie." Sunny takes the place beside me instead, across from him, making a show of avoiding the chair next to him that he's pushed out with his foot.
He snorts. "Still mad at me, huh?"
"She's not the only one, big-mouthed guppy." Jax reaches behind Audrey to smack who I now realize must be the aforementioned Quan in the back of the head.
"Hey!" Quan rubs his fuzzy scalp while sporting a mischievous grin. I'm guessing he always looks mischievous. His thick black hair sprouts up in every direction on top. It looks like an unkempt front lawn when compared to the buzzed sides and back. One eye's slightly higher than the other and his boyish lips are at a constant upward tilt on the left side—asymmetrical quirks that make him uniquely adorable. Sunny must agree, considering she's now playing footsy with him under the table.
As the others crack jokes and tease, Audrey watches in silence, smiling shyly in intervals. Her irises—the color of shimmery mahogany—are deep seated within a fringe of mascaraed lashes so long they reach to her dark eyebrows. This girl has perfected the smoky-eye makeup trick.
The flickering candlelight brings out streaks of auburn in her hair. There's a burgundy tattoo of a flying bird—the size of one of the caraway seeds on my muffin—just below her left eye that draws attention to her shapely mouth, painted almost the same shade.
Chewing ripe, sweet cherries and crisp apples, I listen as my peers carry the conversation. I learn that Sunny and Quan have been a couple since last year, when they sat next to each other in orchestra during the showcase of Faust and connected over their appreciation for spaghetti Westerns and any movie featuring Clint Eastwood. I also find out that Quan's last name is Moon-soo, which is how the nickname Moonpie came to be, much like Audrey's nickname was inspired by her surname, Mirlo, which in Spanish means blackbird.
I make the mistake of asking Audrey if that's why she got the bird tattoo, and the whole table goes quiet. There's a story there, but she's obviously too uncomfortable with me to share it.
If only I could assure her that I'm not here to steal her limelight; but I can't keep that promise. I have zero control over whether or not I'll interrupt when it's her turn to audition. And since all the students are expected to be present as part of their grade, I can't just not show up.
I'm about to drop my muffin on the floor so I can crawl under the table and escape the awkwardness when Sunny saves the day with a reference to the outing Headmistress Fabre mentioned earlier. Every Saturday, the teachers and students make a day trip to Paris.
This weekend, the students will be going to the Eiffel Tower, and afterward the seniors plan to take a water bus to a riverfront shopping mall that has a ten-screen cinema and a huge selection of restaurants.
"Since Halloween's a little over a month away," Sunny explains, "we're gonna see if we can snag some decorations to spruce up this place for October. Last year all we had were old props from the storerooms. And after shopping, we might catch a movie. They'll be showing Casablanca in French subtitles. You're in, right?"
I hesitate, tapping my cappuccino's mug with a fingernail. So far, everyone in the group seems genuinely nice. But will that change after a full week of classes and uncountable impromptu serenades?
"Come on," Sunny presses. "You have to go."
Before I can answer, Kat and Roxie step up to our table.
"Aw, not sure that's in the cards, Sunny." Roxie horns in, reaching across Sunny's shoulder to grab the last bite of her muffin. "You have to earn outing passes by finishing your tasks for a full week. Remember how that works?"
"But maybe not in Rune's case." Kat practically purrs as she leans between me and Jax, her thick, caramel waves draping his left bicep. He shifts his chair closer to Audrey, leaving Kat's hair hanging. Her jasmine-laced perfume settles over me. "Seems like our new soprano is exempt from all the rules. Considering how she got into the school without being evaluated … and how she penciled in her own job instead of getting her hands dirty with the ones we've always had to do … oh, and how she gets to audition for roles without ever having gone to rehearsals. She has an unfair advantage really, seeing as she was trained by the phantom himself. She brought him with her. Did you guys know that?"
My tongue dries. Looks like Kat was one of the students following us down the stairs yesterday when Mom mentioned my sighting. Great.
Sunny glares at Kat, but before she can say a word, Kat's up and running again. "What do you think, Audrey? Looks like I finally have some real competition. Did you hear how Rune nailed that final note? It's still ringing in the halls, pristine and clear as a bell."
Audrey looks down at her plate, turning almost green. Without a word, she pushes her chair back and leaves.
Sunny's cheeks puff as if she's a blowfish about to pop, but Quan grabs her hand and gestures to Jax, who stands up to face his sister.
"What is your problem?" Jax snarls.
Roxanne pats some imaginary dust from his jacket lapel. "Come on, Jackio. Why should anyone get special treatment just because of who their aunt is?"
He squints. "Are you kidding me? Kat's always getting breaks because she's distantly related to Christina Nilsson. Did any of the other first-year students receive a formal invitation from that anonymous benefactor to enroll here last year?"
Both Kat and Roxie look at each other blankly, as if struck mute by his truth.
"Yeah, that's right. Kat's the queen of nepotism. Audrey's the only one who's ever actually had to work for this. Working two jobs. Fundraisers. Babysitting. No inheritance to throw away like the rest of us. So why don't you just lay off her for once? Both of you."
With that he turns and follows the trail Audrey took into the corridor, leaving me to stumble over his words as I stare openmouthed at Katarina.
Christina Nilsson. I ran across the name during my Phantom research online. That was the stage name for the real-life Swedish soprano—Kristina Jonasdotter—rumored to have inspired Gaston Leroux's heroine. So that means Kat is practically related to Christina's fictionalized counterpart, Christine Daaé. And she was invited here because of that relation, by a mysterious benefactor who no one has ever seen, but who redesigned this opera house. A reclusive architect, just like the phantom from the books.
Paired with all I've seen since I've been here, this can't be a coincidence, and there's no longer any doubt in my mind.
I am in a horror story.
Thorn adjusted his half-mask, hidden behind the mirrored wall that led to the grand foyer. The furred silhouette of gray at his feet rubbed his ankles—collar jingling softly—impatient to get the task underway.
The subtle droning of lectures drifted down from the third floor, where the juniors attended classes, and the scent of coffee, cinnamon, and buttery croissants indicated the seniors were still breakfasting in the atrium. All the teachers were preoccupied, as was Rune's mother, which should've left the first floor abandoned and ripe for the plucking. But two students had just wandered down.
Audrey and Jackson. She was crying next to her dorm room door, and the boy was comforting her. Thorn had watched their dance long enough over the past year to know how deep their feelings ran. Long enough to know he envied them …
What would it have been like, to have such typical problems growing up? To have people your age to learn with, argue with, talk with?
Thorn sighed and bent down to pet Diable. The cat was a good friend, no question, but it wasn't the same. It also wasn't only Erik's lifestyle to blame for Thorn's isolation. Honestly, in the beginning, Thorn had been too fragile to be around anyone but the clandestine man who'd saved him.
During their first two years together, Erik taught him how music could heal a broken soul. He taught Thorn to play through his pain on an Andrea Amati violin. He showed him how the instrument could speak to the heart, like Thorn's own voice once had, before his vocal cords were damaged. How it could replace what was taken from him, and make him whole again.
So grateful and eager to find a new outlet for his songs, Thorn had practiced twelve hours each day. Then, on his ninth birthday, Erik rewarded him with two gifts. It had been a surprise, to have the event remembered at all. Erik wasn't fond of birthdays, having never had anyone celebrate his. Erik's own mother despised the date he was born because of his deformity, and her disdain grew with each passing year.
So when Erik had Thorn take a seat in the underground parlor and offered the gift-wrapped boxes, Thorn knew it was a special occasion. And special it was, for it was the only birthday he and his guardian would ever celebrate.
Thorn had started to open the bigger present first, small fingers eagerly plucking at the paper and ribbons, but his guardian took it back and handed over the littler gift. "Open this one first."
Thorn did, and was struck mute at the shiny medical instruments that rested on a sheet of cotton inside the box.
"They're scalpels." The lower half of Erik's face brightened on a smile. "You're always bringing home wounded animals. You've shown great compassion. It's time I taught you how to be a proper doctor to them. Would you like that?"
Thorn's chest swelled with pride. "Yes! Oh, Father, I will make you proud!"
"Of that I have no doubt." Erik tilted his head, offering the bigger gift once more. He held it between them when Thorn reached for it. "I've given you back your songs, just as I promised. Have I not?" The eyes behind his mask glittered with emotion.
Thorn nodded. "Yes, Father Erik."
"Then one day soon, you will return my generosity, and help me acquire the songs I need, just as you promised."
"I will."
Erik's gaze drifted to the cellar lab, then back to Thorn. "All right then. Open the gift."
Inside the box was a violin wrapped in red velvet: a black Stradivarius, as elegant as any lady, and formed of wood as glossy and fathomless as ink. Thorn's heart soared at the beauty of it, and he itched to play. "Thank you," he said, trying to sound as grateful as he felt. "But, there's no bow …"
Erik stepped back until he was on the far side of the room, his fingers burrowed into the folds of the dressing jacket he had draped over his thin shoulders. "Ah, but there is. Just hold out your hand."
Setting down the instrument, Thorn did as he was told, palm turned upward. A light flashed inside Erik's jacket, then illuminated Thorn's fingertips—a transfer of warm energy that seeped through his veins and lit them up in response. As the heat and glow diminished, the coolness of a long, graceful bow replaced them, balanced atop Thorn's palm as if put there by Erik himself, although he was still across the parlor.
Thorn's mouth gaped. "Show me, please. Show me how to do the magic trick!"
Erik laughed—a beautiful resonance that echoed through their home, wrapping Thorn in happiness until he laughed, too.
"In time, child, I will show you." Erik crossed the room and took a seat beside Thorn on the chaise lounge. "You're very special. We all are. We have the ability to manipulate matter via energy. However, this specific trick can work only among others of our kind. It's a symbiotic exchange. I have many magical things to show you. But right now, I'd like to tell you a story."
Then Erik closed his eyes behind his mask, and let down his barriers, opening up about the role the Stradivarius had played in his history.
He had stolen the instrument when he was ten years old. There was even a picture of him holding it, dated 1840, taken shortly after he'd escaped the gypsy carnival that served as his home after leaving his mother. With only the violin to his name, Erik found solace with a kind architect, and mastered the instrument while he learned about crafting blueprints and building structures. He was forced to leave six years later when the old architect died. Erik left there a young man, still honing his musical talent, while he discovered the cruelty within the wide world and himself: first running with circuses as an attraction, then becoming a masterful assassin. When at last he found his way back to Paris at age twenty-six, the Strad was as much a part of Erik as an arm or a leg. It was the violin he used to seduce Christina Nilsson—the girl who would become his beloved Christine—and to unleash her otherworldly voice.
During his time with her, Erik engraved the initials O.G. on the lower bout, close to the waist of the instrument. The letters stood for Opera Ghost, the faceless and ominous identity he embraced so he might haunt the catwalks and basements of the Théatre Lyrique during Christina's odyssey from a chorus girl to a diva. Erik only had to hear her sing one time to know she was his twin flame. He took her under his wing, convincing the young and na?ve chorus girl that he was an angel, sent to train her voice. He watched his prima donna rise for three years, all the way to a London tour, then lost her to another: a Parisian financier with a flawless face, who she'd known from her childhood.
What a cruel dice destiny had rolled, to present him with his twin flame only to snuff out all of his hope. But that wasn't the end of their journey … they met up again later, as mirror souls will do. Many more tragic layers were added to their star-crossed history, before it ended with Erik serenading his beloved Christine on her deathbed, playing the same violin that had first tied them together.
Upon hearing the close to Erik's story, Thorn's heart ached with sadness. "Father, I can't. I can't take this from you."
He held out the instrument, but Erik shook his head.
"Remember what I taught you about pity, child. That violin was crafted by an artisan witch. It holds its own special magic. A magic I want to share with you, my son. If you wish to honor me, you will play it often, and with your whole heart."
Thorn's entire body lit up, not with pulsing energy this time, but with the splendor of a father's love, for Erik had called him his son. From that day on, Thorn did just as his father asked. He honored him by playing the violin every chance he had. Ironically, the first time he played it, he experienced his first dream-vision with his own flamme jumelle, Rune—and saved her from drowning. Thereafter he decided that must be the magic the instrument held: the ability to bring two souls together when they needed each other the most.
Diable mewled quietly, shaking Thorn out of his thoughts. Audrey and Jackson were climbing the stairs, headed back to the atrium. Thorn waited until they were out of sight, then opened the mirrored doorway, stepping across the marble floor. He and Diable took the route beneath the stairs, avoiding strands of sunlight and staying close to the walls. The cat was here to offer distraction, in case Thorn needed to make a quick escape into one of the many secret passages. It would be safer were there trapdoors in each of the dorm rooms so he wouldn't have to risk a trek in the open. But since the school's investors had overseen the domestic renovations for safety standards—both the living quarters and bathrooms—Father Erik left anything suspicious out of the designs. No two-way mirrored walls, no hidden entrances. But he did arrange for vents in each dorm room, which allowed for eavesdropping. A fact they took advantage of last night.
Thorn had turned away when they'd stepped into the hidden passage to spy on Rune through the slats in the wall above her bed. He couldn't cite nobility for the act. It wasn't as if he'd never infiltrated a lady's room in the past—claimed his drowsing prey.
The point was he and his father didn't follow that practice anymore. Most of their kind didn't. Both males and females had found other means to appease their appetites. Which meant Rune wasn't their prey. How could she be, since she was one of them herself ?
Which was why Erik needed so much more from her than to feed. As did Thorn, although he could never admit what he needed.
Arriving on the girls' side, Thorn slipped the keys from his pocket and paused at Rune's closed door. Diable looked up at him with lime-green eyes and slitted pupils, glaring with annoyance at the detour.
"Just give me one second," Thorn whispered, amused by the cat's assuming air. "You go on … get the other girl's door open for me."
With a haughty sneeze, Diable sauntered ahead, rubbing along the line of doors as he went. Thorn had seen the cat unlock countless rooms in the opera house while hanging from the knob with one foreleg like a monkey and using the other paw—claws extended—to dig into the keyhole and release the mechanism. The trick would keep him occupied for the next few minutes.
Thorn turned to Rune's room, his gloved palm cradling the door's handle. The imprint of her energy lingered there, electrifying him through the leather. She had seen him in the mirror twice now. By her reaction, there was no question … yesterday when she first arrived, and this morning as she met her peers for breakfast. He suspected she could hear him, too.
He'd haunted this school since it first opened; haunted it for ten years before that, when it was abandoned and nothing but the occasional transient or tourist dared to venture inside. All that time he'd slipped silently through the mirror passages, no one detecting him. Yet she was tuned into him without even trying. A sense of fulfillment warmed him on that thought. Twin flames could find one another from across the universe. He and Rune had already proven that, sharing duets and escaping into their own world ever since they were children. So it was no surprise she could sense him on the other side of a thin pane of glass.
He leaned the bared side of his face against the door's cool wooden surface. What good did it do to celebrate their singularity? To take pleasure in the knowledge that he'd found her at last? He couldn't tell her. He couldn't act on it—or break out of this solitude.
Unlike the two students standing here moments earlier, fighting their feelings while having all the time in the world to find their way, he and Rune would never have that luxury. Clenching his jaw, Thorn wrestled the urge to open her door, just to step inside for a moment. But he had to stay away so he could follow through with all he'd promised to do.
He cursed Erik for being blind to what was already in front of him … for always regressing to the past. Thorn was alive and devoted, yet his father clung to sad and empty hopes that were only half-living, subsisting on borrowed time and unsung songs.
Five doors down, Diable had managed to unlock and open Katerina's room. The tip of his wiry gray tail disappeared inside. Thorn followed, resolved to complete today's mission. It was time the diva earned her place here. Time she contributed to the plan.
My first three days at RoseBlood fly by.
I don't have time to chase a phantom's ghost, imagined or otherwise. Daylight hours are devoted to classes and attending rehearsals, afternoons to my chosen daily task, and my evenings to homework. Although I haven't had a chance to get out to the garden once yet, due to afternoon storms. The downside to this is I won't be eligible for the outing on Saturday. That was the penalty of writing in my own job; I chose something dependent on the weather but am still held to the same standards of completing them daily, as is everyone else.
It wouldn't be so bad if I weren't going stir-crazy. Behind every wall and every mirror and every vent, I hear sounds: breathing, rustling, footsteps, and murmurs. I try to tell myself it's just mice making their nests behind the barriers, but since when do rodents whisper?
Still, there is one bright side to the dark and eerie setting: Sunny and my new group of friends. They save my spot at our cafeteria table in the atrium's far corner at every meal except for dinners—which I eat with Mom and Aunt Charlotte—and I'm lucky enough to have at least one of them in each class, sometimes three. Each day, they're more funny, open, and friendly than the day before, even when I screw up and burst into song.
I have, however, learned how to outsmart the arias piped in via the TV screens during meals. I've found, if I concentrate hard enough on my friends' comical banter, I'm able to suppress the itch until I get back to my room, where I can sing within the safety of my walls.
Any windows of spare time during the afternoon are spent helping Madame Fabre take measurements for costumes and cinching in the seams of my borrowed uniforms, since my new ones still haven't turned up. Wednesday, when we finally get some quiet moments to sew without students coming in for measurements, she tells me she and her husband are taphophiles—aficionados of all things graveyard. Their favorite pastime is reading epitaphs, gravestone rubbing, taking pictures of tombs, and learning the history of people's deaths. I haven't been a fan of cemeteries ever since my dad's funeral. Seeing his full name, Leopold Saint Germain, engraved upon a stone left an indelible and morbid impression. But since Madame Fabre and her husband have been here for almost two years with their own personal boneyard to explore, I feign interest in the hobby, hoping maybe the guy I've been seeing might have ties to an unmarked grave. The phantom didn't have loved ones, so it makes sense; if he had a headstone at all it might be isolated and devoid of sentiments.
My teacher assures me that the cemetery was reserved for the royal family who owned the opera house, and the only unmarked grave belonged to a baby. However tragic that is, it doesn't explain sightings of a guy who wears outdated fashions and hides half his face.
Later that night, while I'm on the chaise lounge watching Mom sleep with the bed curtains open, I wonder if she's heard any rustling inside the vent this week. I try to stifle my phantom superstitions by looking at things from her cynical perspective. Maybe it was the elderly caretaker in the garden that first day, after all. I haven't met him yet, so I don't know what he looks like. Maybe the mist, along with my nerves, made me imagine him as someone younger. And maybe that supposed sighting fueled my imagination to feverish heights, until I thought I was seeing him in the mirrors. It's possible this whole time I'd been catching people's reflections behind me and blew it out of proportion.
Of course my superstitions conjured him. I want with all my heart for my fantasy maestro to be real—even if by some impossible twist he's the phantom—because if anyone could help me defeat my song sickness, it's him. On that thought, I close my eyes and find my dreams. He's already there with the violin, waiting to take away my pain.
