Opera Ghost
Chapter Thirty One
Famous Chandelier Crashes, Again.
Perhaps the phantom is not a ghost story after all
Lucas Delauney set the paper down in his lap not too thrilled about the headlines. The crash had been making the front page for almost a week now, and the only surviving general manager had refused to comment. Lucas had given specific instructions to the building manger to inform any members of the press about the investigation, and work exclusively with the police. Only Lucas and the rest of the four in the hospital would know what really happened.
Reports indicated that the chandelier rigging was safe and up to code and that only direct tampering with the system caused it to fall. This is the direct respond our paper got from M. Poole, the building manager for the Garnier.
The tabloids had not been so polite. On one occasion they somehow wandered through the hospital, found his room and were relentless in finding out how he'd been injured and who the other people checked in with him were. Despite his protest, it finally took some swearing on his part and a call to security to get the reporter to leave and to have the photographer's film confiscated. He vowed not to let any of the others be dragged into this. It would all be kept secret, even if it cost him his job and his sanity.
All but Daniel had been listed in stable condition and could now sit up in chairs, or in his case, a wheelchair. But Jessalyn's spirit was still very weak and she refused to get up or walk around most of the time. Today the doctor had ordered her to get up and at least sit up in a chair for a few hours. But she was now at the far end of the room they were all sharing, and staring blankly out the window.
The police are continuing forensic investigation to discover who was responsible for this terrible accident.
Lucas sighed. "It's probably a good thing Erik was really a ghost this time around. They can't find his fingerprints if he cannot leave any."
Again we are happy to report that no one was killed, but at least 25 people were injured, possibly more.
"Please, don't talk about it." Jessalyn spoke up, forcefully. Lucas hadn't heard her speak so strongly in a long while. "I don't want to hear that name ever again." She hadn't even turned to face them.
"Sorry Jess," Daniel offered.
"So you think it never happened?" Lucas asked her boldly. Daniel looked at him in shock. So did Claudine and Tony as they looked up from their card games.
There was silence for a long moment and he was about to challenge her again but she beat him to it. "Well it would have been better if none of it had happened. So why don't we all just pretend just that? Nothing happened."
"You must be joking," Lucas scoffed.
"I want to get on with my god damn life!" she shouted, finally looking at him. He eyes were full of tears and she had probably been crying since the nurses had brought her in. "Don't you? Haven't you had enough? People will forget all this happened, so why can't we?"
"What makes you think this will all go away?" Lucas continued despite Dan shaking his head at him as a warning.
"People forgot about it back then. This story will just become fiction, just like it did before," she stated coldly.
"I'm in the mood for some lunch. Aren't you Tony?" Claudine interrupted. Delauney smiled inwardly. Claudine knew her employer. He was usually a quiet man but when something upset him, most of the time ignorance, it was best to get out of his way. Tony seemed to agree and wheeled Claudine out of the room and down to the cafeteria, shutting the door behind them.
Now they were alone.
"M. Delauney, please don't. She's already in enough pain," Daniel asked.
"She is causing her own pain by denying it. Jess, you can't seriously think all of this was imagined. And no one is blaming you for what happened…. But you can't make all the pain go away by trying to forget."
"And why can't I?"
"Because if you had chosen that path, you would have already left Paris. You were cleared to leave two days ago," he pointed out.
"I wanted to stay for my friends, they need me," Jess protested.
Daniel sighed. "Jess, if you need to leave, you can. I want you to get away from this. It will…" he stopped, gulping. "Help you heal."
"I'm not crazy," Jess hissed bitterly.
"Neither I am. But Jess I saw him, as plainly as I see you now. I felt the heat of the torture chamber, and I have the scars."
"Stop it." She cut him off. Then she turned her attention back to Delauney. She was completely focused and she was confident. She would not be proven wrong. "Don't you see? I have to stay. He needs me."
Both of them were thrown by her comment. Jess had been so cool-headed before. Even in the middle of a crisis she had managed to outwit her captor and had all of her friends escape with their lives. But now she seemed bizarre and irrational.
But Delauney knew how to stop that. "Who needs you? Daniel or Erik?"
Her face became frozen in anger. "Shut up!" she screamed. "A man—no--two men are dead because of me! I have to live with that. I'd rather not. And if acting crazy and pretending nothing happened is the only way to do it, then so be it!" She stood up and walked out the door, slamming it shut behind her.
Jessalyn swore under her breath and she walked fast through the streets. First the hospital staff had taken all her personal belonging, and still had them locked up, lost somewhere. So she was forced to sneak into Delauney's room that night. She had banged her head on the metal bars under the bed, and wondered if it was worth it. But when her fingers touched the treasure in her pocket, she knew it was. The staff might have her master key locked away but Delauney's master key was just sitting in his pant pocket in a bin underneath his bed.
She had managed to get a pair of scrubs, and had "borrowed" Tony's jacket as she carefully made her way through the corridors. She had waited by one of the entrances for her perfect moment. An ambulance rolled in and in the midst of the chaos, Jessalyn slipped out unnoticed. It had started to rain again, just like it had on the night of the chandelier crash.
She didn't have any socks on and after a few blocks, her feet were soaked. But she didn't care as she kept on her frantic pace. She knew the way back, even in the dark, even in when the streets signs made no sense. It was as if something was calling to her, urging her forward.
Erik.
She knew what it was.
I'm coming, Erik.
Before she knew it, she was in front of the opera house again. She leaned on the Metro entrance. The opera was usually lit up at night for any tourists taking a late night romantic walk, but not tonight. Even the street lamps in front of the great structure were dark. She turned down the Rue Scribe, and found a door that Delauney's master key opened easily. She found her way trough the service hallways and passages into the cellars. She knew she could find Erik's home again if she were blindfolded.
Jessalyn stopped at the 3rd cellar, where she had first found the portrait of Christine. She wanted to use the staircase that led directly to the dock by the fifth cellar. But it wasn't there, a wall stood in its place. There was very little light in the room and Jess strained her eyes as she examined the wall. To her, it seemed new.
They just built this wall…it's all a cover up.
Still determined she worked her way back to the path she and the others had first used to get down to the cellar. The memories flooded back: the scent of the caverns, and the sting of the water against her skin. But something was different. The path that had required the use of flashlights before, was now brightly lit with work lamps hanging neatly above her head. The path that had been cluttered with discarded props and furniture, had now been swept and repaved. The entire cellar had been cleaned and polished. Her mind had been deceiving her. She hadn't smelt the musk and mold of the cellar but now her nostril were full of the smells of cleaning solution and fresh cut wood. Jessalyn quicken her pace and bolted down the stairs, which now shone from the new white concrete.
She heard noise of the clanking of pipes as well as voices. She finally reached the lake to discover another perfectly clean space. The water was almost drained and several workers in gray waders stood where the dock had been. The dock now lay in pieces of broken dark wood off towards a corner and the men looked up at her, muttering confusion in French. Jess was stunned. Her body was stiff and she felt like her feet had been nailed to the ground. A worker came towards her and asked her something. Unfortunately she couldn't understand him.
"Please, my French isn't very good."
"Miss, you shouldn't be here," he said, switching to English. He looked her up and down, wondering why an American in hospital scrubs and jacket was doing in the cellars of the opera.
"But what is going on down here?"
"Mademoiselle, we have orders to clean up this place. We've been working on it for weeks, right after the accident."
Jess finally realized she had been the hospital for at least three weeks, if she counted correctly. "But what about all the water? Where will it go? I thought it was key to the architecture of this…"
The man chuckled. "Nothing technology can't repair. Don't worry about it, miss."
Jess slumped down to her feet, letting her bottom rest on the now clean cold stone. She put her fingers over her ear and into her wet hair. Gone? It was all gone? It's was a cover up.
Another man chimed in. "Yeah I suppose it takes the whole spook effect away from the place, but these are government orders. Straight from the top."
Jess continued to stare in disbelief at the almost empty lake. A place she had almost met her Maker in twice and now was sealing her fate.
Maybe I just imagined the whole damn thing, she thought.
"Hey look what's over here!" A voice shouted from future back in the caverns. Everyone snapped their head up to see a worker pull something black out of the water. She didn't know why, but Jess jumped down into the ankle deep water and trudged over with the rest of them. Maybe it was something, anything!
The man laughed as he finally pulled it out of the water, a large sopping wet piece of fabric. "It's a gentleman's cloak. That's what been clogging the drain!" He joked. Jessalyn slowly reached out to touch it, much to the dismay of the others. They went to stop her, but one of them, the first who had seen her, held them back with a firm shake of his head. They mumbled under their breath in French, probably remarking about the state of her sanity. She unfolded the cape, instantly recognizing the familiar brown lining and the gold fasteners. It was Erik's cape. She wanted to smell it, she if it had any hint of his scent. She wished she could wrap herself in it, hoping that it would magically transformed back into the warm garment, fresh off his shoulder.
"Looks pretty old fashioned to me," one of them commented.
Jess could feel tears starting to leak over her lower lids, and she couldn't stop them. She didn't want all these strangers to see, but she couldn't stop them. She looked down at her soaked sneakers and legs, watching the first drop fall and strike the water below.
Then she noticed something, glistening in the water. No, under the water. She bundled up Erik's wet cloak, and tucked it under her arm, ignoring its icy dampness against her thin shirt. She deftly reached under the water and picked up the object. She held it above the water, rubbing away the dirt and grime to see what it was. She glanced up for only a brief moment, to notice all eyes starring at her.
"It's nothing." She said quickly, turning away "Good evening gentlemen" She trudged back through the lake, as the level of water shrank from her knees to below her ankles, but her eyes were focused on the palm of her hand. It was a ring, a plain gold ring.
She stepped out of the water almost afraid to look, but she had to. Making her way up the steps she slowly rotated her left hand to see that there was nothing on her ring finger. She must have lost Erik's ring that night. She had tried to take it off before, it had infuriated him. She must have lost it, but he had found it. Just like he had done before and he returned it to her, returned it to his Christine. But she couldn't return the favor.
There was no skeleton by the lake to return the ring to. All she had left of Erik was this ring, his cloak and the frighteningly…wonderful memories.
There was nothing left of the Opera Ghost.
Jess made absolutely sure she was far away, in a dark hiding place, one of the many that had belonged to Erik. She fell to the ground and wailed with the knowledge that all their compassion, hers and Christine's, had been in vain.
The End?
(A corn ball till the last)
Sorry that my muses was failing me in getting this last chapter out. I had to satisfactory wrap up the ending. I had about a dozen ideas, but I couldn't end it without saying some sort of final goodbye to Erik. Also sorry if anyone was expecting some miracle ending were Erik truly comes back to life and they all live happily ever after in the land of fluff. As you can tell from some of my other phics, I am the queen of unhappy endings...(well at least a duchess)
However I have been kicking around the idea of a sequel. Not totally devoted to an E/C shipping but more of the murder/suspense mystery, in which Jessalyn and Delauney return to tthe opera to stop some paranormal detectives trying to uproot more ghosts legends at the opera. If anyone is interested in a sequel, give me some feed back and let me know.
Thanks again to all who read and reviewed. I didn't expect for this story to get even 25 reviews much least over 300. Aldo thanks to my Beta, Mel who stepped in to help me get my words flowing. Thank you all again, and I hope you enjoyed my story.