Beneath the Porcelain Mask

2. The Music of the Night

"Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation.
Darkness stirs, and wakes imagination.
Silently the senses abandon their defences.
Helpless to resist the notes I write.
For I compose the Music of the Night."
~ The Phantom.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Phantom of the Opera

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The lantern broke apart shadows like the wind blew away dust as I walked down the endless flights of stairs to the fifth cellar. Just as I reached one of the final flights, an unearthly sound met my ears.

I paused to listen for a moment, smiling at the sound, and continued to the edge of the lake.

The boat wasn't in the water as I stepped down towards the little dock, which meant he could only be at home. At the sight of the murky water, I grimaced and I retraced my steps to the old passageways, praying he hadn't closed them off entirely.

To my good fortune, I pressed the usual stone in the wall and it moved back, opening to reveal another labyrinthine corridor. I crept it and shut it behind me, following the torches to the other end, a two-minute walk. Eventually, it opened out, and the swell of music almost knocked me flat.

I had been right: the Lair was still practically the same. The front was a wide space I always referred to as the parlour, with a path by the lake edge leading to a furnished corner that housed a vanity table, a cluttered desk, a pipe organ and a door through to the hallway. Beyond the organ, a set of stone stairs led up to a room, the door left slightly ajar. Candles adorned the entire space, lighting it in blazing yellows and oranges. The parlour itself, thanks to those candles and the lake, was warm and humid, the air thick with lukewarm moisture. I stood just by that lake, and shutting the world out of the house stood a great iron gate. The portcullis passageway never failed.

It hadn't changed one bit, I smiled.

The one thing that had changed was the music and its creator. The organ, old and probably about to splinter, stood where it always had, and the figure in black at the seat moved his head to the swelling music, side-on to me.

I smiled even more and leaned against the wall to listen. The man at the organ continued to play, too lost in his work to notice my presence. He began to hum with it, his fingers dancing over the ivory keys like the ballerinas on the stage. I had waited long enough to come back, to see those ballerinas. And to see the Opera Ghost.

And here he was! Good heavens, how he had changed! The seventeen-year-old child I had known was no more, it seemed. He had been replaced by a man that age and ten years, a man who still possessed that childish feverence for opera music.

"All of those defences and you still refuse to safeguard the portcullis passage after all these years?" He jolted and spun to face me, glinting eyes eide and horrified. "Anyone can walk in here, and you know it!"

He blinked, rising from his seat to stare at me with a hanging jaw.

"Kitty," he breathed. "Is that you?"

"Your ability to recognise a friend bowls me over. Truly." I strode towards him. "Why is my bedroom passage cut off? Insolence, child, insolence!"

"I didn't expect your arrival so soon," he muttered as I paused to look at the boat moored on the banks of the parlour.

"Oh, that's nice of you! I told you to leave some form of transport for when I would be back! Had you forgotten me that quickly?"

"Nikki, stop touching the boat."

"How is this even sea-worthy?" I asked, rocking it back and forth and listening to the creaks it gave. "Or should that be lake-worthy? Well? Oh, now what are you doing?"