This girl moved as if she knew the Opera almost as well as I did.  I was amazed, because from her staring about like an ogling fish, it was obvious that she had never been inside the building before in her life.  She was making her way almost unerringly towards the auditorium, taking only a few detours.  Occasionally, I wondered why she deviated and myself took the route I had predicted she would.  Each time I nearly wound up in the lap of Mimi and her tour.  There was obviously more to this child than could be seen on the surface.

A few times she looked up and around at her surroundings as if she knew she were being watched and once she grinned right into the shadow that I was hiding in.  There was no way she could know I was there, but it seemed that subconsciously at least, she sensed me.  I felt a bit like those who are watched by me must feel, and it wasn’t exactly pleasant.  But if she knew I was there, she would have done something, so I ignored my instincts and followed her further.

Seeing that she was on her way to the first tier boxes I left off her trail and wound my way ahead of her, taking up my usual space in Box five.  All the old tales about it were just that, tales, but when I came to the Opera, my face so well suited for the part of the Phantom, I made those tales my new reality.  I wonder if Leroux knew he was predicting the future, not telling the past when he wrote his famous novel.  For there had never been an Opera Ghost before me.  I was the first, and thus far I had played out the part the fates had written for me, transcribed by Monsieur Leroux.

Except, I had gone past it.  When Madeline (who was my Christine) had left me, I did not conveniently die of a broken heart, nor did the merciless mob find me.  For some days I had lain there hoping to die, but on the fourth day I grew weary of my own self-pity, rose, dressed and ate something.  I simply lived my dull life day to day since then with the great and constant pain of a gaping blackness in what constituted my heart.  I had been living it day to day for nearly five years, although I tried not to count.  Most days, I wished to die and each act I did was tinged with a deep bitterness.  

But today, the wonder of this impossible girl was overshadowing my usual pain and my face was not twisted in bitterness under my mask.  Rather, I was curious.

Instead of cursing, this time I nearly laughed aloud when she burst into my hiding place and took it over as her own.  I was glad I had decided not to move out of the hollow pillar and had leisure and safety to examine her as she crouched directly in front of me.

Some of her hair had worked itself free from her scarf again, and floated in feathery tendrils in front of her face.  Despite being almost found out, she had a pleased expression on her face, quite happy at the fun she was having exploring my realm.  I could see now that her eyes were actually very pale and seemed to shift colors before my vision.  They had seemed dark before only because her pupils were very large.  Her vision in the dark might rival mine I thought.  Even crouched behind a piece of furniture, her bearing was proud and upright, almost like a dancer’s stance, although there was no sense of haughtiness in the set of her shoulders.  Her face seemed remarkably open and her expression was fearless.

I was tempted to reach out to her again, and bring her into the dark parts of my realm.  Perhaps she could appreciate the beauty of the darkness, listen to my music, know me and be unafraid.  My hand was drifting towards the catch of the secret door before I caught myself.  No matter how much I may hope, she cannot be any different from any other woman.  My mother, Madeline, they both knew my voice and my spirit but turned away from my face, rejecting the rest of me along with it.  How would this girl take being whisked away from a strange place to a stranger one by an unknown masked man?  She’d flee from me in terror just like all the others.

I slumped against the wall, fighting off one of the terrible waves of loneliness that frequently overcame me since Madeline had left.  I clutched my cloak tightly around me and slid to the floor holding back a sob.  These uncontrollable, desperate, black moods hadn’t been this bad in a few years.  I must do something about it.  I resolved to at least attempt to talk to the girl, perhaps allieve some of my loneliness, and feeling better for making such a decision swung open the door in the column.  I stepped slowly forward, my hand extended in the least threatening manner I could contrive.  

She was not there!  She had slipped out while I was wallowing in self-pity and I had lost her!  I pounded an angry fist against the seat in front of me and gazed out into the auditorium, listening to the senseless babble of the tour group in the Mezzanine above me.

Mimi and I spotted her at the same time, walking down the left aisle in the house, gazing up wonderingly at the chandelier.  At Mimi’s yell (discordant woman!) the gypsy child started out of her reverie and looked up at the group.  Instead of fear and hurry, she radiated confidence and a bit of insolence as she shot Mimi a rude gesture and ran for the stage.  I could hear the little boy cheering the gypsy on, and above that Mimi’s running footsteps to intercept her.  I knew I must get there first if I was to have any chance to speak with her.

I ran fast as I ever had down the corridors behind the walls and was below the stage before Mimi managed to achieve the surface of it stage.  She thought she was racing the girl, but in truth, she was racing me.  If she had known, I’m sure she would not have run so fast.

I listened closely to the footsteps above and when the lighter pair began to run across the stage, searching for escape, I provided it to her.  I was beginning to develop a plan on how to see if the girl was even worthy of my attention without risking hurt myself.  I had to see just how deep that outrageous courage ran.  So, step one was to get her below the stage.  I opened a trap right in front of her as she ran, and true to my expectations, she dove right down it.  Actually, she was rather more enthusiastic than I had thought and did actually dive, breaking into a dangerous looking somersault as he shoulder clipped the stairs.

    My breath caught in my throat when she landed in a motionless heap at the bottom of the stairs.  I never wanted to hurt her!  I was just about to move forward and check for a pulse when she moaned and rose, if unsteadily.  She did not stop and lick her wounds, or even take the excuse to hide further in the shadows.     

“I’m right here, you great twit, come get me!” she yelled back up the stairs, goading Mimi into coming down after her, which she obviously did not want to do.  Then she tried to run again, to resume the chase, but I had prevented that occurrence with a loose loop of rope about the wild girl’s ankle.  I almost regretted doing it when she fell again, but she got pulled right back up by Mimi.  Even though she had needed assistance to get to her feet that time, the girl was ready to fight Mimi by the look of it.  However she still looked very unsteady.  But, she was smart as well as daring and I could see her decision to bide her time until she felt in better shape.  She stalled Mimi and I realized the time for my grand entrance was coming.

“Before I move one inch I will know why under the stage is so dangerous, so why?!?”

The girl could not have given me a better cue if it had been scripted into an Opera by a master.  In my softest and most threatening voice, I made the walls speak.  "“Because it is my realm, and those who trespass into it die!”

Mimi stiffened and blanched a terrible white, her open mouth muttering words, but the only sound that came out was a low, terrified moan.  The girl also straightened, but not out of terror.  She stood up straight just as if she were being introduced to a new acquaintance, looked around into the darkness and smiled slightly, curiously.