A Phantom Enchantment (4 page)

“He went to this school?” I asked.

“Sort of,” Georges said. “His parents were the caretakers, so he was allowed to take courses here. When his parents died, he took over for them a few years later.”

“How did his parents die?” I asked.

“He killed them,” Yseult said in a deadpan voice.

Louis broke into maniacal laughter.

“Don't listen to them,” Jean-Claude said to me. “They are trying to scare the new girl with their stories.”

“I know,” I said, forcing a smile. But stories had to emerge from somewhere. And there was the unpleasant business of the mirror . . .

 

Later that afternoon, I sat in French literature class, listening to Madame Boulanger lecture about
Candide
. I tried not to think about Yseult's tale. Clearly, Elise and I were the American interlopers infringing on her territory, and Yseult was going to have a little fun at our expense. But I was no stranger to supernatural occurrences, and something about her story carried the ring of truth.

My final class of the day was Opera I. The teacher was originally from Kenya but had been adopted by a French family when he was six years old. His name was Lucas Odumbe, and he insisted we call him Luke. Unlike the other teachers, who were fairly strict and serious, Luke wore dreadlocks and layers of brightly colored shirts over faded jeans with high-top sneakers, and he never stopped moving as he lectured. He had that magnetism of people who truly love what they do. And he spoke French so differently from Madame Boulanger, slowly and deliberately, like he was making love to each word.

“My wife is jealous,” he said in French. “She says opera is my mistress, and she is partly right. I sing my favorite arias in the shower, and when I finish sometimes I am weeping. Where else can you get catharsis like that? The first time my parents took me to the opera, I was nine years old. We saw
La Bohème
. Since then, I have seen it fourteen times. And each time it is different. And each time I am transported. Love, loss, magic, madness. It is all there on the stage. And it doesn't matter what language the opera is written in. A good opera needs no translation.”

Those first weeks of class were all about storytelling, with Luke trying to get us as excited about opera as he was. He played us his favorite arias: “Dido's Lament” from
Dido and Aeneas
, which Dido sings before throwing herself on her own funeral pyre; the final arias from
La Bohème
and
La Traviata,
in which both heroines succumb to tuberculosis; and finally, the Liebestod or “Love-Death” aria from Wagner's
Tristan und Isolde,
which ends with a suicide pact between lovers.

“Why do so many operas end in death, you might ask?” he said. “What could be more romantic than a love so immortal it transcends every obstacle, including death?”

He informed us that as members of this class, we were going to have the opportunity to participate in a Young Artists' libretto competition hosted by L'Opéra Bastille. We would work in teams, and our finished librettos would be due before the end of term. The top two librettos chosen by a panel of judges would advance to round two, in which the teams would develop their librettos into one-hour operas to be performed in L'Opéra Bastille's Studio space. The winner of round two would have their opera performed by a professional opera company next year!

Elise glanced at me, her eyes flickering with excitement. She thrived on any kind of competition. Maybe for once we would work together on something rather than being pitted against each other as rivals.

After class I walked back to the dorm, wishing I could talk to Gray but knowing he wouldn't be available. This weekend, he only had a short training session. He was supposed to call me Saturday around two o'clock his time, eight o'clock mine, so we could Skype. I couldn't wait to see his beautiful face on my screen.

My phone buzzed as I was about to enter the dorm, and I allowed myself to get excited thinking it might be a text from Gray. But it was from Michelle. I sat on the dorm steps and texted a long overdue message back to her. She'd been sending me a barrage of texts all week, making sure I was eating enough, that I was getting out and enjoying myself, that I wasn't homesick. Things had been so crazy I hadn't had time to respond with anything other than a quick yes or no.

I looked at my watch and figured it was ten o'clock in the morning in Massachusetts. Michelle would be sitting in third period right now.
Texting in class? Bad student!
I typed, then waited for her response.

Yep,
she texted back.
Senior seminar. :- (*).
I laughed at Michelle's
about-to-vomit
emoticon.

Poor you. I'm in Paris,
I typed.

A wave of nostalgia hit me. I wanted so badly to be somewhere familiar with people who knew me and accepted me even when I was a total dork and wanted to stay in and veg in my pajamas all weekend.

Tell Jess I love her,
I texted.

I do every day. Miss you, Em
.

I had told Michelle I wasn't homesick, but as I headed up to my room, my loneliness lingered there like a depressed roommate. I missed my family. My dad would be out on the boat right now, but maybe Grandma would be home. I dialed her number, but it rang and rang, making me even sadder.

I decided to write her a letter about my first week in Paris, then walked it to the post office, stopping on my way home to pick up a baguette and a hunk of cheese. I didn't feel like going to the cafeteria with Jean-Claude and his friends, being the outsider again. As nice as they might have been once I got to know them, they were still strangers to me. And I didn't have the energy to sit and be sociable with strangers for two hours. I needed to lie in bed, read a book, and get a good night's sleep.

As I walked back from the corner market, the streets were teeming with people just off from work, outdoor café tables already filling with businessmen smoking and talking animatedly, the buzz of Friday night plans in the air. I felt like a spirit floating through other people's lives, able to observe but not participate. In a few months, I might feel like I actually belonged here. But for now, I felt apart.

When I got back to Saint-Antoine, Mademoiselle Veilleux was coming out of the bright blue main doors of the school. She was dressed in a body-skimming fuchsia wrap dress, and her dark hair, which I'd only seen pinned up, hung loose around her face in sexy waves.

“Bon soir,” I said.

“Bon soir, Emma,” she purred, descending the stairs gracefully in another pair of five-inch heels.

“Vous avez l'air très bien!” I said, marveling at how pretty she looked.

“Merci. I'm going out with a new beau. He owns a trendy brasserie on the Left Bank. Very handsome. Very young. And very rich. Wish me luck.”

“Bon chance,” I said as she darted into the crowds.

When I walked into the main lobby, Monsieur Crespeau was leaning against the far wall with a push broom in his hand. But he wasn't sweeping. He was standing there with an odd expression on his face.

“Bon soir!” I said, trying to quell the tremor of nervousness in my voice.

He muttered something unintelligible, then waved me off, disappearing behind a door. Despite his gruff demeanor, I couldn't see him as the psycho Yseult had made him out to be. There was a sadness in his eyes, something vulnerable that made a violent nature seem unlikely.

As I crossed the quad to the dorm, students were congregating in little clusters on the lawn, digesting their evening meal with cigarettes and coffee. Thankfully, I got back to my room unnoticed. The purple drape over the mirror was like a garish neon sign announcing: S
OMETHING
S
CARY
U
NDERNEATH
! I half wondered whether the actual mirror would be less distracting, but I couldn't stomach the thought of dodging my own reflection every time I passed it.

I changed into my pajamas and ate my baguettes with Camembert and read a little more of
The Phantom of the Opera
until my eyes were grainy and sore. I knew I should stop reading and go to sleep, but as tired as I was, Yseult's rumors about my room still haunted me.

I snuck another glance at the covered mirror. It was only a piece of glass, for God's sake. That first night when I'd heard those whispers and seen the phantom reflection, I had been severely jet-lagged, had drunk two glasses of wine with lunch, and had walked three miles around the city before returning to an empty room. Most likely, what I'd experienced had been the product of fatigue, dehydration, and my overactive imagination.

I didn't want to give in to my fears. In fact, last year when I was having those nightmares, the only thing that really helped was acknowledging and confronting them. Once I had realized they were just a product of my subconscious, the nightmares had subsided and I'd regained control over my life.

If I was going to survive living on my own in a foreign city, I had to take control. I crept toward the mirror and stood in front of it, issuing a challenge to some unseen foe. Before I could reconsider, I tore the drape from the mirror so I was staring at my own reflection. I didn't blink. And I didn't look away.

My reflection was normal—no distortions, no otherworldly voices, no ghosts. But the prickles of fear along my neck lingered until I thought of a more permanent solution. Why didn't I just take the mirror down?

Tentatively, I approached the mirror from the side and grabbed it with both hands, pulling gently at first to try to unhook it from the wall. But the mirror didn't budge. I tried again, tugging harder this time, but it remained fixed in place. If I ever succeeded in removing it, I'd probably take half of the wall with it. I drew back, out of breath from my exertions.

That's when I saw a flicker of light inside the mirror. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but then the light began to recede slowly into the darkness until it disappeared completely.

I grabbed the drape and threw it back over the mirror, then jumped into bed. Every hair on my body stood on end. That light I'd seen had looked like a candle being carried down a darkened hallway and being snuffed out. But that was impossible.

Either I was going crazy . . . or Yseult's rumors were true. I wasn't sure which was worse.

C
HAPTER
4

S
aturday seemed interminable. I had a ton of homework to do, but I was finding it difficult to concentrate with a purple enshrouded mirror in the room. So I went to the library to study. Saint-Antoine's library was much smaller than the huge Gothic affair at Lockwood, but its intimacy suited me. It was on the second level of the administrative building so the windows overlooked Rue Saint-Antoine. I had to finish reading
Candide,
study for my Gothic Architecture quiz, write a three-page essay on the economic effects of the Black Death, analyze mythical allusions in Dante's
Inferno,
and write a proposal for the libretto contest for Opera class. I was pretty sure I wanted to do some kind of modern retelling of
The Phantom of the Opera,
but I wasn't sure how to adapt the story. Elise and I would have to get together and brainstorm some ideas.

After a few hours, I was so immersed in my work that I looked up and saw that the sun had passed over the school, casting Rue Saint-Antoine in shadow. I was starving. I gathered my books and took the stairs down to the cafeteria, but it turned out I was too late for lunch and too early for dinner.

On my way back to the dorm, I ran into Sylvie and Georges hanging out on the stairs. They both stood and air-kissed me, and I think I kissed them back without embarrassing myself.

“Are you going to Fool On Fair tonight?” Sylvie asked me. At least that's what I thought she said.

“Where?”

“The new nightclub. You must come!”

“Oui,” Georges agreed. “Elise told us you are a . . . what did she say, Sylvie? A
homebody?
”

Sylvie laughed charmingly.

“I do stay in too much,” I said. “The thing is, my boyfriend is calling tonight, and I haven't talked to him in a long time.”

“Ah,
l'amour,
” Sylvie said. “Je comprends.”

“We will . . . abduct you if you don't come,” Georges said.

“Abduct me?” I said.

“Before your ghost does,” Sylvie trilled. Georges flashed his beautiful white smile.

I forced a laugh, but my stomach clenched at the recollection of the moving flame in the mirror. I left them with a noncommittal
maybe,
then raced up the stairs to my room.

 

A little before eight o'clock that night, I flipped open my laptop, checked that the camera and speaker were working, ran a brush through my hair, reapplied my makeup, and put on a white eyelet tank with a deep neck that showed the Scorpio necklace I wore for Gray. It almost felt like I was getting ready for a date.

I propped the laptop on a pillow in front of me and waited for Gray's incoming call. When the computer pinged, I clicked on the Skype icon and a big screen popped open.

“Hi,” I said, feeling myself blush as Gray's face appeared on the monitor. My palms were sweating, and my insides fluttered with nerves.

“You're a sight for sore eyes,” he said with a sigh. His deep voice made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

Although the camera quality wasn't great, I could see how tan he'd gotten over the summer and could make out a smattering of new freckles across the bridge of his nose. He looked older and a little tired but no less handsome.

“God, Emma, I've missed you,” he said. “It's so hard to be away from you.”

“I know,” I said. “It's awful.”

“Tell me everything,” he said.

I told him all about my opera class and the libretto competition and about meeting Jean-Claude and making some real French friends.

“You look really happy,” he said.

“Do I?”

“Yeah. You look like you're having a good time.”

“I guess I am,” I said. “I'm keeping busy. But I'm lonely without you.”

“I know, me too,” he said. “Is Elise keeping you company?”

“As much as that's possible,” I said. Gray laughed. He and Elise had dated for six months during my sophomore year. We'd both witnessed her limitations in the friendship department. “How about you?” I asked. “You're almost finished. How does it feel?”

“Scary,” he said. “But good. I got my first assignment. I'm going to be the rescue swimmer for the cutter
Dolphin
in Miami.”

“Miami!” I said. “I'm so relieved. I was worried you were going to say Alaska.”

“I know,” he said, chuckling. “I'll only be three hours away. Well, once you're back in the States.”

We talked for almost an hour, catching up and laughing. I didn't ever want to hang up. But we were interrupted by a knock at my door.

“Can you hold on a sec?” I balanced the laptop on the bed and opened the door to see Jean-Claude, Georges, Sylvie, and Elise.

“Hey,” Elise said, “we're leaving for the club soon and wanted to know if you were coming.”

I looked back at my computer and thought about saying good-bye to Gray, having to put on dressy clothes, and maneuver through the fashionable crowds of some trendy nightclub.

“I'm still Skyping with Gray,” I said.

“Well, how much longer do you think you'll be?”

“Maybe a half hour?”

“We can wait,” Georges said.

“No, don't do that. I probably won't go.”

“She probably won't,” Elise confirmed.

“Come on,” Jean-Claude said, a seductive lilt in his voice.

“The club's called Feu L'Enfer,” Sylvie said, writing the name on a piece of paper. “It's in Le Marais. You can take a taxi.”

“Yeah, text me if you decide to meet us,” Elise said. “We'll look out for you.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said.

I watched them walk down the hallway in a haze of perfume and cologne, then hopped back up on the bed with my laptop.

“Who was that?” Gray asked.

“Just those friends I told you about.”

“It sounded like they were going out for the night. Did you want to go with them?”

“Not really,” I said. “They're going to a nightclub. You know I'm not into that scene.”

“You should go,” he said, his voice flat and unconvincing.

“I don't want to. I want to talk to you.”

“But you're in Paris,” he said. “You should be making new friends, not staying in to talk to your boyfriend. Besides, we can talk later.”

“But I want you now,” I said.

A groan escaped his lips. “I want you, too, Em. I hate this.”

“Hate what?”

“That I'm not there with you. That I'm already feeling jealous. You're in Paris going to a club with a bunch of French guys, and I'm stuck here giving CPR to plastic dummies. I want to touch your face and smell your shampoo and kiss you. Really kiss you.” The memory of Gray's kisses set my heart racing. I leaned into the screen and kissed the 2-D version of his lips. “It's not the same,” he said.

“No,” I agreed. “Not even close.”

“Go out with your friends,” he said with finality.

“But—”

“I mean it. I want you to have fun, Em. Even if it's not with me.” But his jaw was rigid, like his conscience was fighting with his desires.

“You know, you don't have to be strong all the time,” I said, joking.

“Emma, I'm not strong.” His voice caught at the end. He pulled out his dog tags and flipped around the one with my Virgo angel. “This keeps me going.
You
keep me going.”

A lump formed in my throat. I grasped at my neck for my own dog tag. “If you need me, I'm always here.”

I could tell he was trying hard not to break down. “Me too. I love you, Em.”

“I know.”

He gave a sad laugh.

Gray and I had decided that we never wanted to say “I love you” as an automatic response. So we had adopted Han Solo's brilliant reply to Princess Leia right before he gets encased in carbonite in
The Empire Strikes Back
. It made certain that no matter how much we missed each other, the last thing we said to each other would make us both smile.

“Emma, I know this is hard, but—” He seemed about to say something important, but the picture suddenly went wonky and the speaker lost sound. Then the screen went black. I tried to call him back, but the line just rang and rang. There was something wrong with our connection.

I knew I'd talk to him again soon but I felt inexplicably sad. I hated that I hadn't said good-bye, that we hadn't finished our conversation. It made me feel unsettled somehow.

As sorry for myself as I was feeling, I knew it was no good to stay in moping all night, so I decided to meet Elise at the club after all. Gray had given me his blessing, and if I stayed here by myself, I'd drive myself crazy staring at the mirror.

I took a quick shower and threw on a slim black dress, accessorized with Michelle's red scarf and my knee-high boots. When I came out of my room, the dorm was eerily quiet, emptied of students who'd fled in search of adventure or romance.

I texted Elise to let her know I was coming, then walked to the taxi stand on Place de la Bastille, waiting only a few minutes before one stopped for me. Paris was different at night, even more magical and fairy-tale surreal with its shimmering lights and golden reflections, all set against an epic blue sky. Flocks of people, young and old alike, thronged the narrow streets, making the city hum and throb to a jangling rhythm.

The taxi was turning onto Rue Beaubourg by the Pompidou Center when I got a text from Elise that said:
OMG, Emma, this place! It's owned by David Guetta! Dress to impress. Models and celebs everywhere. 30 min wait at the door and 20 euro cover, but so worth it!

Inwardly I groaned. I hadn't even thought about a cover charge, let alone a long wait to get in. In fact, when we neared the club, the street was so crowded the driver had to drop me off a block away. The queue of young people waiting to get in snaked around four columns of velvet rope. The line was barely moving, but no one seemed to mind, as they'd started the party outside. The girls were dancing to the thumping bass line emanating from the club, and the guys were only too happy to watch.

For about two seconds, I considered getting in line. Then I looked down at my dress and my scuffed boots and knew I would feel hopelessly out of place. I looked up at the club's doors, immense faux-stone slabs painted with writhing figures that reminded me of Rodin's
Gates of Hell
. The club's name was emblazoned overhead in red Gothic lettering:
Feu L'Enfer
. Hellfire.

I remembered my dad's advice about using common sense. And right now, it made no sense to wait in line for almost an hour and spend thirty dollars just to stand around feeling lonely. I could do that for free in my room.

I texted Elise and told her I couldn't make it after all. I didn't tell her the reason, just that I wasn't feeling up to it. She'd give me grief about it later, but her lecture would be a lot easier to handle than this club.

The only problem was, I'd lost my taxi and had no idea how to find another one in this neighborhood. I put the school's address into my phone's GPS and followed the street away from the club, feeling the throb of dubstep slowly dissipate. Relieved, I turned onto Rue Rambuteau, a benign-looking street brimming with cafés and restaurants. I almost considered stopping in one for a drink, but I wanted to get back to school before it got too dark and deserted.

After walking a few blocks, I turned onto Rue Malher, hoping to find it well lit and occupied. But the roads were darker and narrower here, taking me through an old Jewish neighborhood of cobbled streets, bereft of people now. I shivered and quickened my pace.

Finally, I reached Rue Saint-Antoine and speed-walked the last few blocks to school. But once I turned onto the alley where the back gates were, a panic welled up inside me as I realized I wasn't alone. Someone had turned onto the alley, and I could see his shadow getting longer and closer behind me. I rummaged around in my purse for my keys but couldn't find them, and my hands were shaking. Helplessly, I knocked on the gate, hoping some students might be hanging out in the courtyard.

Okay,
I told myself.
Calm down and walk the rest of the way down the alley until you come to a cross street
.

But then my fight-or-flight instinct suddenly fired, and I abandoned any pretense of remaining calm, lurching into a run down the alley. An intersection lay just fifty feet away, and my adrenaline drove me to the corner where I veered left and screamed as someone slammed into me from the opposite direction.

Actually, it was two people. One had gotten knocked to the ground by our impact, and the other stood over him, looking startled. There was a brief melee as I tried to rein in my momentum, and the guy still standing struggled to help the fallen guy, who was cursing loudly at me. In English.

I apologized for my clumsiness as the two of them brushed themselves off and moved under the light of a streetlamp. I nearly fainted with shock and relief.

“Owen?”