The Treasure *Phantom of the Opera* (sequel to The Quest)

VIII

A/N: Keep in mind, this is a fantasy spin on the tale ...  ;-) And, as always, pictures attached are of E/C manips I made to go with story... Happy holidays!

Messenger in the Night

Chapter VIII

Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite. (Thomas Carlyle)

xXx

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Dominique Giry donned her cloak and left the tenement, pulling the hood over her head to conceal herself. The advent of dusk swirled in shadows of murky violet and gray. Silence filled the streets. She looked about, but no one lingered in the darkness that clung between buildings and alleyways.

"Jean-Claude, are you there?"

The skittering of a small rodent's claws on the pavestones answered her stage whisper. Since Meg now slept, she moved further to search. Only fools and the refuse of the city walked through Paris with the curfew near and at such a time of civil unrest, but she must find the boy. The doctor's assistant who earlier visited Meg mentioned upon leaving that he'd seen a child matching Jean-Claude's description lurking outside upon his arrival to the tenement. Dominique stifled her annoyance that Monsieur Durand failed to share such news with her forthwith, and had anticipated his departure that needlessly lingered, so as to investigate.

By this time Jean-Claude should have had sufficient occasion to reach Le Manoir de Clair de Lune five times and back. When she'd undertaken the journey in a slow-moving carriage almost three decades before, it took the better part of a day to reach Paris. Fear that he'd been captured, that her letter had fallen into enemy hands made Dominique approach each dawn with dread, her panic escalating with the passage of each new sunrise. Her inner communiqué with whatever spiritual entities she'd been in contact with seemed to have reached an unexpected end. Once she'd been an ally to the evil ruling the opera house, an association she ended before her final days there, and recently she turned to the light. Had it turned from her? In the solitude of her candlelit parlour, she nightly sought answers for direction but received only silence. If not for her hesitation to reveal the truth and curtail the dark spirit's conquest, the opera kingdom might still exist. But too long she'd shut her eyes in feigned ignorance to what she didn't wish to see. Was she now being punished for bad choices made and her failure to act wisely to help her Maestro?

Dominique could no longer wait for the voice that may never again speak, and could see no recourse but to set out on her own. Time's swift passage had become her adversary.

Despite that her senses teetered on a razor's edge, or perhaps because of it, Dominique had observed Meg's peculiar silence this past week, except when she questioned her mother with regard to her activities. Each time Meg looked at her with dissatisfaction or doubt when she redirected Meg's questions to suit her own purpose. Dominique reassured herself that Meg's behavior was to be expected given the circumstances, that her daughter merely worried over the ongoing rebellion. Her physical infirmity removed her from the world outside, and as such, she heard only snippets of news concerning the revolt from Dominique, or the doctor's assistant, who'd become a regular visitor. If not for Meg's odd behavior, Dominique could almost find relief in his optimism of Meg's progress.

Her daughter had become adept with the crutches – once she released her stubbornness to use them – and swung herself through the cramped rooms of their living quarters with a contained nervous energy, reminding Dominique of a wild swan with a broken wing confined to its cage. Since Meg left her bed, Dominque locked away in her desk missives from the past that threatened whatever measure of freedom she'd thought to obtain ... buried secrets into which she again probed for the sake of her daughter, forcing her to walk the perilous streets of The Commune at such a reckless hour.