"Come on Christine, it's been like ten years, we're sixteen, you can't tell me that you don't know who you soulmate is again." Meg wined. We had just finished practice and Meg was going on about her tangent that I know who my soulmate is. She does this on a weekly bases, trying to pry something out of me that I don't know.
"First of all, it's been like seven years, and second of all, don't you think that if I knew who my soulmate was, you'd be the first person I'd tell?" I sassed back.
"Well I don't know what to trust about your soulmate status anymore considering you've lied to me about it since the first time we've met."
"We were six and I did as I was told, plus how was I supposed to know that you would react kindly to knowing your best friend has a soulmate who's fifteen years older than them or that you wouldn't go around blabbering your mouth, Meg you can't keep a secret to save your life."
"Come on, I'm not that bad"
"If I really did know who my soulmate was and not tell you, I would sneak around, disappearing for hours in the night before returning, and I don't do that."
"Well you have disappeared every night for an hour or longer, especially if it is Sunday ever since you were seven." Meg said with a wink
"You know that's for my voice lessons, and there's no way that he could be my soulmate, and I was seven, you really think I was getting it on when I was seven?"
"I don't know what to think anymore, I don't even know you." Meg said with fake emotion added into her voice.
"Let us go Megs, for I am absolutely starved" I said with a fake posh accent. I held my elbow out to her and she grabbed it. We skipped down the hallway with our heads high, acting like we were that of the upper class. When we reached the dining room, we made a B line for the food, starved from practice.
"Speaking of lessons, how's it going? You don't tell me much about them, only that he's you Angel of Music." She said, exaggerating the last three words.
"It's weird, he's having me work on the aria from the Opera were working on. He seems to absolutely despise La Carlotta. Ever since she got here, he's been teaching me the lead female roles for the operas were are preforming." We sat down at the table, ready to eat our slosh, as something caught my attention. Though Meg, completely oblivious of my distraction, kept talking about how nobody liked La Carlotta's scratching.
"Meg," I said interrupting her, "Meg look, there's never been anything written on my hands, only smudges."
"Wow, he's left handed, or somebody else drew on him" Meg said in amazement.
"No, he's defiantly left handed, there's always smudges on my left hand."
"What do you think it says" Meg said, grabbing my hand a pulling it towards her face.
"I don't know looks like gibberish to me. It seems to be something in a different language."
"We should translate it." Meg had a gleam in her eye, one that only shows up when she wants to be mischievous.
"And how do you intend to do that?" I truly didn't see how it could happen, not in the amount of time that I know he'll erase it in. If something is unlike him, it goes away quick.
"Well, let's start with the obvious, it looks like it's an address, just written in a different language. Let's write it down in case he erases it and go searching for it. I'm sure with all of the music we have here, we can find on in a different language to give us some sort of hint." Meg reasoned, "What if it's his address?"
My heart skipped, what if it was? No, there is no way, he never, gives any hint about himself at all. The only things I have are what tattooed permanently onto my body. "Why would he write his own address on his skin?" I asked.
"Ok, maybe it's not his, maybe," she contemplated, "Maybe it's a friend of his. They just moved, and they didn't have any paper to write it down, so he used his hand."
"Yeah, a 'friend'" I said. It never really occurred to me that this man doesn't actually know he has a soulmate. I know that if after almost fifteen years, nobody wrote back to me, I'd probably give up hope. I shook the thoughts from my head. It doesn't matter because in pretty much one year, I'll be eighteen and then I can start writing back.
There was an unspoken agreement between us that we would do it after dinner. We dived into our slush, rushing so that there was time in-between now and my lessons. Though, the time of them were pushed back two years ago since I was getting older and I was able to be in the real ballet dance crew, this gave us a slight bit more time.
After we finished dinner, we made our way to the music room, where all the operas from the past fifty or so years were stored. We started searching through with the little piece of paper, comparing text, yet none turned out successful. We gave up after an hour, a little because there was so much dust in our eyes and we could barely see, and because I needed to go to my lessons.
We giggled while walking down the hallway, talking about some of the stupid pieces we came across in there when a strange man approached us.
"Hello there pretty ladies, how's everyone doing tonight." His breath reeked of alcohol, and almost instinctually, me and Mag gathered closer, ready to protect each other.
"Joseph Buquet" He turned as Madame Giry said his name, "If you wish to see the day tomorrow, then I suggest you step away from my ballet girls." She was scary, and she wasn't even yelling at us.
"I'm not afraid of you, Giry, you're all talk, but no play. I could have these two in a heartbeat if I wanted." He was cocky, hopefully a side effect of the alcohol and not something that would be a constant, especially if he works here.
"Your heart would beat no more if you tried" Meg said, making him turn and me laugh. The look in his eye told me to stop, that he was quite serious.
"You think this is funny do you little missy," He said look over at Meg.
"Buquet, do you wish to keep your job. I'm sure you do, nobody else would pay you handsomely enough to supply you with a constant flow of money to where you could by alcohol any more. Nobody hires an alcoholic, they only keep the ones they make. Now if you would like to keep your house and money, then you better not approach any of my girls again." With every word, it seemed she got louder, and with every sentence, she got closer. It had me shrinking in the corner, although, that could also be because Buquets only direction to get away from Madame Giry was towards us two. Eventually after falling victim to her cold, hard stare, the stage hand walked away with a grunt.
"What are you two doing back here, what if I wasn't here then what would you have done, you could have been in a big mess." Though she was playing tough, I could tell she was really worried about us.
"We were just trying to translate what's on Christine's hand is all mom, nothing more." Meg handed Madame Giry the napkin and she looked at it in confusion.
"It looks like it's an address written in Persian."
"Nadir I told not to come looking for me." I was angry, I've spent my whole time in this Opera House trying to get away from the past, and his presence brought it all back to me.
"Technically, my dear friend" He said with fake composure, "I didn't come looking for you if I already knew where you were." I knew I looked stupid with the surprise written on half my face, the other covered by a mask but I didn't care. I'd been so tedious as to not leave any tracks behind after I got rid of this man in the first place, and yet he still followed me, without me knowing it too. "Now if it would please you so, could you let me down?"
"I wouldn't need to let you down if you hadn't come here in the first place. I set up the traps for a reason." I looked at his face, it slowly turning red from being hung upside down for so long.
"Fine I'll get myself down then," he said. I watched as his old self tried to fold himself so he could reach the rope holding his foot in the air and cut himself down.
"Wow Nadir, you really are getting old, aren't you. The younger you would have cut yourself down from there the second you got caught up, yet here you are. I'm pretty sure I heard your hip pop. Is your back feeling fine?" I couldn't help myself but tease him as I reached around his struggling form and cut the rope, catching him on his way down.
"Laugh all you want now, Monsieur Phantom, but I give it five years until you're the same as me." He said sternly, straitening his clothes.
"Why are you even here old friend." I said, looking down on him. "I thought I gave you strict instructions to leave me alone, forever, if I recall."
"Yes, I know but remember I told you that if you need anything, you can come to me," I nodded my head in acknowledgement, noting that I still have that little piece of paper with his address written on it in the back of one of my drawers. "Well I've moved and wanted to update that address."
"Really Nadir, I'm fine, I don't need your help anymore." I sounded like a teenager throwing a tantrum, but I didn't care.
"I know you don't, but you will." He said smugly.
"If I take the address, then will you leave" I blew out a puff of air as I said that, showing my annoyance with him, though it was easy to pick up without it.
"Yes, though, because of your trap, I seem to have lost the paper I've wrote it on."
"Pity" I turned away, no longer caring about the conversation.
"Erik, get back here," I froze at the use of my name, not having heard it in years. "Give me your hand, no doubt that you have paper in your 'house', I'll write it on your hand, you write it on paper." He said.
I sighed, knowing there was no way out of this one, and pulled off my glove, giving him my hand. I felt the press of the writing, then coldness as Nadirs hand pulled away. I looked at it, my brain taking a second to register what it says.
"Why in the world would you write it in Persian?" I questioned
"You know, I never was quite good at French." At that, he turned and walked away from the conversation, careful of where he stepped as to not get trapped again.
I made my way back to my house, finding a small scrap of paper, copying the address down in French, before erasing it from my hand.
I had to be quick for it was almost Christine's lesson time, only about an hour and a half before it starts, and it's a long walk there.