Sweet Phantom by Elizabeth McCoy
Sweet Phantom
by Elizabeth McCoy
Copyright 2011 Elizabeth McCoy
Cover art by Elizabeth McCoy.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Sweet Phantom
About the Author
Foreword
The story has been adapted more than once: the mysterious, somewhat murderous, Phantom of the Opera – the "Angel of Music," a disembodied voice who tutors Christine, a poor chorus girl, until she can take the stage and sing solo. But when she does, and is recognized by an old friend who is now a suitor, the Phantom reveals himself as a hideously deformed man, kidnapping Christine in a fit of jealousy – and the suitor must seek and rescue the girl in the hidden tunnels beneath the opera house. There are stories, books, movies (silent and otherwise), and a musical for the stage.
But what if the Opera-house Ghost really was dead?
Sweet Phantom
It isn't so bad, being a ghost. He watches the people come and go, watches the buildings be built over his hidden grave. (Hidden prison, really; it would be less of a curse if he were only a ghost, with no hope of ever returning to the living.) He gravitates to the place of music, of course. Not only is song the key to his hope, but he likes the music.
He doesn't like those who prey on the young girls who come with dreams of being prima donnas, or at least dreams of being fed. As a ghost, he can't do much, but he can scare the predators from their lurking, or frighten the girls away from the predators' hiding places. And sometimes, when the moon is right, he can force himself solid enough to hold a bit of rope . . .
Their ghosts are not cursed, and do not stay around to keep him company. He's glad of that, at least.
*
It's one of the little dance "rats" in the chorus this evening, who's been caught by a stage-hand. It's the dark of the moon, and he has the power to pick up the cord and loop it around the man's neck before he can do more than tear her clothes and paw her breasts.
She doesn't scream after that. She doesn't flee, as the man chokes. She doesn't cry out for him to stop, and the stage-hand finally drums his heels upon the floor and lies still.
"You're the ghost," she whispers. "The ghost of the opera house."
He sweeps her a bow. "I prefer to think of myself as a protector," he says, and at least his voice is unchanged, even if he has no body left to focus a spell.
"An angel?" Her dark eyes shine.
He smiles. "If you like. What . . . what's your name?"
She holds out her hand, and he touches his fingers to hers, knowing his ghostly form must feel like cool moths' wings. She says, "My name is Camille."
*
Camille is as agile as an exotic monkey, and finds so many places where they can talk, up in the stage rigging or on the roof among the gargoyles and cherubs. He likes her, and how fearless she is, so he comes to her and tells her stories of the times when he was alive, before his people knew to worship in church, and sang to the god and goddess instead.
In time, he tells her of the curse upon him.
And of how it might be lifted.
"I will do it," she says, firmly.
For a moment, hope surges in him – and then he pushes it away. "Camille . . . I'm sorry. You can't. Your voice . . . You're a dancer, and a song in motion, but that won't unlock the spell."
"I can learn!" she declares.
He shakes his head. "No, Camille. It's too dangerous for you, and you haven't the range the unlocking spell requires. If a narrow contralto could reach the notes, I could force my voice and sing myself free."
"It's not fair, my phantom. The spell to unlock your tomb . . . The breath of life from a maiden . . . Why can't it be me?"
"Because you were born a dancer, Camille. I love watching you practice."
"You should see us on the stage."
"I think I would affright the audience and performers, and then there would be no performance to watch."
"True." She thinks. "Ah! I have it. One of the boxes. You will start asking for things!"
He laughs. "Camille! I can hardly go speak to the owners!"
"You can write, can you not? Or I could write for you, and list your demands. You know there are so many things we could do, little things that go wrong, so they'd believe. What harm in giving you the draftiest, shabbiest box to watch performances from?"
It does tempt, and by the lights of the people who live, he's damned anyway . . . He smiles. "All right."
*
Two years later, her voice deeper and rougher with time – but beautiful to him, even if she can't reach the notes a singer of spells would need – she says, "There is no hope that I could sing your tomb open?"
He shakes his head. "I'm sorry, dear heart. I would delight to accept life by your lips and warmth, so that we could share breath for the rest of our lives. But I won't lose you to a spell mis-sung."
"It's all right, my phantom love. I just . . . needed to hear it one more time." She smiles and hurries to practice.
It is only a few days later that he hears the girls whispering of the announcement of Camille's marriage, to Jules Giry, one of the best tenors in the company.
*
It has been months since he has seen Camille. When she visits, it is with a veil and in secret.
"I hope it's a girl," she whispers to him, fierce and determined, her hand over her stomach protectively.
He realizes her plan immediately. "Oh, Camille . . . Dear heart. You didn't have to . . ."
"To marry someone I don't love? Maybe not. But whatever I can do to free you, I will. I don't care how much . . ."
"I care. Please . . . What if it's a boy?"
"Then I'll have another. And another. It doesn't matter that Jules . . . It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me!"
"That, monsieur, is your problem."
As she turns to go, he tries to stop her, but he only brushes her veil enough to see the bruises on her cheek.
The tragic death of Jules Giry is easy enough to arrange, as he waits for an assignation while his wife and baby daughter are talking to the opera house owners.
Phantoms can write notes on their own, after all, if they are determined enough.
He already has his box. Whether Jules left his family any funds or not, he's sure that he can provide money for his sweet dancer and her little Meg. They'll give her a job. They'll give him extra. Or he'll ruin them.
*
Little Meg Giry grows, wiry and determined, a dancer like her mother.
A dancer, not a singer. Her voice is pleasing, but her range is too limited to be a spell-singer.
"She will claim the stage with her dancing, dear heart," he tells Camille. More sternly, he says, "And you're not to go off with more tenors!"
She smiles, a bit wanly. "Jealous, dear phantom?"
He's more worried for her, but he answers, "Yes. And if you don't truly love one, then I'll strangle any who dare approach you."
For whatever unknown woman's reason, her smile reaches her eyes.
*
He follows the new owners around, and learns troubling news. Reluctantly, he shares them with his beloved friend.
"Would an exorcism touch you, my phantom?"
"I don't know. I fear it might destroy me utterly, or damn me if what you say is true of the One God. At the least . . . it would drive me from you, dear heart."
"We must find a way," Camille whispers, as if her fierce determination alone could weave the spells that her voice cannot.
*
He loves his dancer. She's brave, to let him kiss her cheek with the chill of underground streams in his form. "Sweet ghost," she says instead. "I must tell you . . ."
"Yes, dear heart?"<
"There is a girl, an orphan, in the chorus. My Meg is friends with her. Her voice . . . Ah, it's enough to make angels cry." Camille's eyes shine a moment, before she becomes more serious. "But Christine's untrained, and far too poor to find an instructor."
If he had breath, it would catch in his chest. He finds his voice and says, "I'll wait for her, every night, on the stage."
*
His tall, sturdy dancer is outraged, hissing, "She's back, but you're still a ghost! I thought you were going to appear to her, 'Angel of Music,' and take her to your tomb!"
"I did," he murmurs back, warming his insubstantial hands at her shoulders. "She opened the tomb, dear heart. But . . . time has not left a pretty bag of bones. She balked, and I don't blame her. I hadn't told her the why of it. I led her back."
"There must be a way. Meg could wake you, were the tomb open . . . She's yet a maid, yes?"
"Yes, but the only way to hold the tomb open long enough for that would be . . ." He frowned. "It would take the right notes sung, the right notes played in the orchestra . . . I'm not sure I could even teach a male singer for that one, and I don't think there are any who'd give their lives to let me use their voices."
"There are enough singing vermin that give doesn't have to be what happens. Carlotta's pet was trying to attract one of the ballerinas to his room, last he was here."
He narrows his eyes. "Meg?"
Camille looks away, and whether it was Meg this time, or whether she merely fears for her daughter in the future . . .
"I have a plan," he says. "You'll have to help me write it."
*
Christine's suitor follows them, as planned. Wet from the underground rivers, he lunges for the opened tomb – and is caught, his fingers not quite touching the skull.
He gasps, and realizes he could take Raoul's body for his own if he allows the touch . . . If he allows the spell to suck the man's soul from him. "Choose," he whispers to Christine, sorry that he is hurting her and too desperate to care. "Will you let him die? Or will you finish the ceremony?"
"It's your doing!" she cries at him in her spell-weaving voice. "False angel of music!"
"Choose," he says, with his own spell-singer's voice cold. "Do you want his life on your hands? Even if you're not the one damned for it, it's your breath that can save him."
"Damned . . ." she whispers, and something lights in her eyes like a revelation.
Then Christine turns, with a firmness of step that's more like her friend, little Meg. She walks past Raoul. She places her fingertips to the skull.
She could try to tear the remnants of his body to bits now, and he doesn't know what would happen.
Christine tenses . . . and bends her head to breathe life into a long-cursed corpse.
With his last moments, as he feels himself pulled back to his body, he whispers, "Go . . . Go now. Take the boat. Go!"
*
He wakes in darkness. His hands find stone, and he realizes that the tomb has closed – not magic, but simple weight. He will catch his breath a while longer, with limbs weak from the death-magic, and then try to push it aside . . .
But in the fatigue-addled haze, it is not his hand that moves the old stone, but two wedges of metal, two crowbars.
He blinks in torchlight.
"Ah, mama! He's . . . his clothes!"
But his sweet Camille does not care if he is naked beneath rotted robes, and if her face has more wrinkles than when they first met . . . Her body is still as lithe and strong as he had thought it would be, and her kiss as fierce.
###
About the Author
Elizabeth McCoy's fiction has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress #7, in the Best In Show anthology by Sofawolf, and in the fanzine "Pawprints" (published by Conrad Wong & T. Jordan Peacock). Her tabletop RPG writing is published by Steve Jackson Games. As her author bios in SJ Games' material continually state, she lives in the Frozen Wastelands of New England, with a spouse, child, and assorted cats.
Connect with me online:
https://elizabethmccoy.dreamwidth.org/